First Visit of the Season 6-22-15!

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(restored post)

Voicetek:

So this summer, so far, has been pretty busy. Last year, my wife decided to go back and get her MBA. Unfortunately, this past semester has been extremely busy for her and she has spent many nights in class and doing homework. She's also had a few business trips she's had to go on, so we haven't really had too much time to spend together and even less chances to get out to the park. Well, she's finally on a 3 week summer break, so today we decided that we'd both take a vacation day from work and spend the day doing some fun stuff. Part of the day we decided to spend at Kings Island!

So we didn't get out there til around 2 (we decided to sleep in a bit), and first thing we noticed was that the parking lot was pretty empty. Yay! We quickly found a place to park and headed through the gates. First thing we wanted to do was catch a ride on Banshee, so we hung a left and headed towards Action Zone. As we neared the queue, we noticed that the line didn't start until the stairs leading up to the station. This was awesome! Pretty much a walk on. I think we waited just a few minutes before we were being seated. Again, another amazing ride on Banshee and a great way to begin the 2015 season!

After Banshee we left Action Zone and headed around towards Coney Mall (is it still Coney Mall? Where is the sign?), but first, a ride on Adventure Express. What is there to say about this ride? It's a classic and only around a 5 minute wait! Great ride - however, it needs a little love - I'll talk more about this issue later on.

After Adventure Express we walked the entire length of Coney Mall (yes I'm still going to call it that anyway) and eventually made our way to Stunt Track. This is one we usually pass up on weekends because of the long waits, however, the line was pretty short today so we decided to ride. This was probably our longest wait of the day which was only about a 15 minute wait. Not too bad for this ride really. It's fun and all the effects seemed to be working today - even the fire, which wasn't needed on this 90 degree day!

After Stunt Track, we decided to head towards The Beast. On our way there, my wife mentioned she was hungry so we decided to peak in LaRosa's and see how much just a single slice of pizza would be. Now for the next little bit, I want to talk about something I noticed here today. First, we were shocked by how much the prices are now. We noticed that the combos were $14.29 for 1 slice of pizza, 2 breadsticks, and a drink. $14.29!!! Well, the combo was definitely not happening. So we asked how much just one slice of pizza would be, we were told it was $3.99. We stopped and thought for second, if one piece of pizza is $3.99, then how does a combo get to be $14.29? I decided to do the math. 1 slice of pizza = $3.99, an order of breadsticks, which includes 3 = $3.99, a large drink (30oz) = $4.59. So if you bought all the items separately, It would only total $12.59 AND you'd get an extra breadstick. Come on Kings Island, what are you trying to pull here??? An extra 2 bucks for the same items bundled in a combo minus one breadstick? Crazy! Needless to say at those prices, we kept on walking.

Our next stop was The Beast! It's been a whole year since we've been on, so we were looking forward to it. We got in line and it was only about a 10 minute wait. Amazing ride as usual and well worth any wait really! After The Beast it was on around to Diamondback which had about a 10-15 minute wait. The line moved rather quickly and we were up to the loading station in no time. We had an awesome ride with great airtime! It amazes me how smooth this coaster is. Always a nice ride!

Well, it was nearing 4 by this time, and we were pretty hot and hungry. We decided to hit up one more ride then head out and great some lunch someplace outside of the park. We decided to take a ride on Boo Blasters since it was indoors and it would at least be cool and we could sit down and rest for a bit. So my wife and I entered the queue and immediately noticed the horribly placed "Fun TVs." Now, I knew they were in here because I've read about it on here, however, my wife was unaware and was immediately taken back by them. She couldn't believe that they could care so little about the theming that they would put Fun TVs in this queue. Even though we don't care that much for the ride, we were both upset with how little KI seems to care about the whole "theming" thing. It was here that we had a short conversation. My wife mentioned that KI should take one off season and invest a little bit of money on updating some of the rides they already have that need a little bit of love, such as Adventure Express and Boo Blasters. Why just let these rides fall to pieces like they have? I agree and I know some of us have mentioned it on here before. I'd love to see some love put into Adventure Express and of course I'd love to see an entire re-theme done to Boo Blasters, if not a whole new ride altogether. And I'd definitely ditch the Fun TVs inside that queue. Come on Kings Island, that's just lame. Act like you care a little bit about the theming!

After Boo Blasters we decided to go ahead and leave the park for the day and move on someplace else. It was a nice couple of hours and we got to ride quite a bit in that short amount of time, but it was way too hot to spend time in the dry park today! We have passes, so we don't feel like we have to stay all day to get our money's worth. We always make multiple trips out there throughout the season.

Now, just some things I noticed today: First, I like the new Coke building near Adventure Express. It's very nice! Next, why on God's Green Earth did they remove the Coney Mall sign/arch? I know they've pretty much de-themed the park, but now they're just messing with local history and that ticks me off! Also, we noticed quite a few people with Fastlane passes today, on a Monday, when the longest wait was about 15 minutes. Gosh, I'd hate to be the person who spent 60 bucks and really only saved myself a few minutes per ride. All in all though, the park looked great and we had a great time!