Unexpected trip to KI 07/28/18

[KIBeast]

So, my brother's fiance works for an insurance company, gave me tickets to go to KI. Their company's outreach I believe. My son and I went while my wife decided to sit this one out. 

We arrived at 9:40am, I purchased the preferred parking and was literally 8 cars over in the front row. Excellent place to be. 

We started our day having him measured. Seeing how we were at Cedar Point last month, I assumed he would miss the 54" mark. However, the bar literally skimmed his hair and I was surprised that he was even closer than just a month ago. He was excited at the prospect of being able to ride Banshee, considering the height requirement is 54" for Raptor. Not really sure why it's different, but it is. I am figuring it may have something to do with the forces on each coaster. It was actually my first time on Banshee as well and we were both really impressed. This one by far is the best between the two. Trey loved it so much that we got right back in line. We probably waited 10 minutes each time. I am not sure I can pick a favorite element, but that slow inline twist at the end is really freaky.

Next, we headed over to Delirium. He wanted to ride it even though maXair is a clone, but with a longer ride cycle. He enjoyed that as well and was surprised it was so close to that rooftop. We went to Adventure Express after that, which is a favorite of ours. After riding Cedar Cree Mine Ride last year, clearly AE is the superior mine train coaster. CCMR is slow and boring, comparatively. Next, we went to The Racer, followed by The Vortex and The Beast. We were meeting with my brother and his fiance Michelle at 12 at the Eiffel Tower, so we did not have enough time to get to Mystic Timbers before then. I felt like getting in 7 rides was pretty good to be noon. 

After meeting with them, we headed off to Mystic Timbers. Couldn't afford Fast Lane, so we waited about 30-45 minutes. We both felt that it was a reasonable wait. I had been on MT last season, so not new, but boy, that coaster does not let up for a single second. However, my brother had not been on MT and he said he liked it even better than Thunderhead. Next, we went back around to catch another lap on The Vortex, Delirium and Banshee. At that point, it was time to meet up for lunch with our group. Trey had wanted to try to win us some Fast Lane passes, so we stopped there before heading over. This kid of mine not only hit Mystic Timbers once, but hit it a second time, which I thought was fairly lucky. 

I can't recall exactly what we did in what order (old age catching up with me), but we did manage to get a lap on The Bat. We wanted to save one of our FL for a night ride, so we found other things to get into. The only thing we found disappointing was that Shake, Rattle, & Roll was closed the entire day. We love that ride, but nothing was going to ruin our day. We eventually made our way around to Mystic Timbers so we could use one of the two passes. We showed our ticket to the attendant at the entrance and were sent through. We got to the station where I showed that attendant our pass. He looked at me and said, "shhhh, don't tell anyone, but put that back in your pocket, come back later and use it again." I thanked him and told Trey when we boarded about what had taken place. Very nice of him to do that for us. 

Around 8:00pm, we bought a drink and headed to the car for some much needed rest and A/C. Came back in at 8:30 and ate dinner at LaRosa's on International Street. I actually think the pizza was better this year than previously. Not that it was bad last year, but it had too much sauce. As we were in line, we were held up by an angry younger lady who wanted to purchase and all day drink cup, but picked up an all season cup. He informed her of the price and she asked why it was so high. The cashier told her that it was because it was an all season cup. She was very belligerent and couldn't understand why he couldn't just adjust the price of the cup. I knew it was because of the color of the cup and subsequent bar coding of said cup. Finally, a manager came out with more all day cups and problem solved. When I proceeded to pay for our meal, I commended him on holding it together while being screamed at. He said that he had just started working in there after being pulled from working as a sweep. What a way to begin that shift. 

We decided to finish our night with rides on Banshee, Mystic Timbers, and The Beast. As we waited on Banshee, the queues emptied out with four people in front of us. They headed towards the back. The ride attended asked how many in our party. I replied two and then asked if we could go to row 1. She said, "sure". What luck! Yet another great ride and we purchased an on-ride photo to commemorate the event. Afterwards, we rented a locker near MT and went through the FL with our final ride. We previously had a night-ish ride, but it was not quite as dark as this time. MT is a fantastic ride in the dark and at one point, I couldn't see anything and was quite thrilled with the sudden changes in the pitch black. Afterwards, we traveled over to The Beast, watched the fireworks since it was not running, and then waited for the announcement that it was all clear to ride. As per usual, it delivered the best ride of the night. We promptly went back to our locker to pick up our on-ride photo, bought some cotton candy at a nearby cart and headed out. My son says that I am a cotton-holic Lol. We headed for the front gate and went to the Super 8 Mason where we shared a room with my brother and Michelle. All in all, a great day where we managed to get in 17 rides. Considering my brother bought a FL and only managed 20, I'd say we did pretty well for ourselves.