McSalsa's Coaster Adventures: Beware of Big Snake (KI April 26th, 2024)

[McSalsa]

Hello everyone! I am still alive! I was at Kings Island yesterday, Friday, April 26th, 2024! Here is my trip report. I am gonna run through the rides I rode first, then food I ate, and finally any other notes I wanted to cover. Here we go...

THE RIDES

Flight of Fear (x1)
My first ride of the day, I waited around 10 minutes. The outside que area has gotten some upgrades since I lasted waited in the standard que (I rode FOF last year during Haunt but used Fast Lane). It was running fairly normally- very intense with a bit of roughness. It was a good ride to start the day with.

Orion (x3)
Orion was up next. I got 3 rides total on the day- Orion was running fast and smooth, with very good airtime. On my first ride, the entire way up the lift hill, a ride operator was speaking over the intercom to tell someone in Row 2 to put their phone away. I was worried we would get stopped on the lift, but they apparently put it away. My 2nd ride had a much better situation- I was riding with a old couple. Good to see this ride, while big and fast, can still appeal to older people thanks to its amazing smoothness.

The Racer (x1 Red, x1 Blue)
Kings Island has been putting work in on The Racer for the past few years now, especially with the Gravity Group's recent work, and wow, is it paying off. The big upgrade for 2024 IMO? The removal of the trim brakes on the turnaround, for BOTH sides! No more slowly crawling through the ride's 2nd half, it now whips around the turns and the second half has just as much airtime as the first! Combine this with the smoothness of the recent track work, and Racer is running better than I have ever ridden it since I began visiting KI semi regularly in 2009. It's great to see a iconic classic running this well. One complaint, it took them forever to finally open up Blue Racer, so at one point the line for Red Racer was out of the building with numerous ques open.

The Beast (x2)
I got a daytime ride and a 90% (wasn't fully dark out) 'night' ride on The Beast as well. Beast was running a little rough, though I was sitting on wheel seats on both my rides, and nothing was too bad besides a pothole I noticed on the 'night' ride where the track switched from the gravity group retracked 1st turn into the old track ravine hill. The ride was running pretty fast, and of course the double helix was utter chaos on both rides. The ride crew was being slow in the morning, even going slow enough the 1st lift was running at normal speed (because the 2nd train had passed lift 2 before the 1st train reached lif 1- signs of a very slow dispatch) but by the evening things were going much better. I think this was a sign of a young ride crew that was still getting up to speed.

Diamondback (x3)
Diamondback was running very smoothly, no rattle whatsoever. The airtime was pretty good, on my first 2 rides, but for my 3rd ride, I requested and was granted back row. I have not ridden back row on Diamondback in a while, and HOLY COW I had forgotten how much better it was! The airtime went from good to INSANE, as I was forcefully getting yanked over every single hill, even the small camelbacks near the end! Even Orion's speed hill could not match this insane airtime. The back row ride on Diamondback was probably the best ride I got the entire day, and this was a day that had a almost-night-ride on Beast and multiple Orion rides! I did perfer my Orion rides to the other 2 rides on Diamondback though, so the ranking would go Diamondback Back Row>Orion>Diamondback other rows.

Mystic Timbers (x2)
I got 2 rides on Mystic Timbers, the 2nd one was a bit later in the day and felt a bit faster. The ride had pretty solid airtime and forces, especially on the 2nd ride. I got the "Turn Around" and Total Eclipse of the Heart songs, and Bats and Snakes in the shed. My 2nd ride had a very short wait because the ride re-opened after a breakdown. Not much more to say here, Mystic Timbers was just its usual fun self.

Drop Tower (x1)
I hadn't ridden this in a while (either it was down, too windy, or too busy), so I took another 264-foot drop on this day. I forgot how nerve-wracking going up can be! The view from the top was incredible, I ended up facing Great Wolf Lodge. The drop itself was intense and forceful.

Banshee (x2)
Probably the most intense coaster ride of the day, I got two rides in on Banshee. Both were fast and had great forces, the 2nd one did have the vest restraint dig into my shoulder a little bit though. Again, not too much new here- Banshee was running pretty normally too.

Adventure Express (x1)
I got in a ride on Adventure Express too. I love how much they have added to the que line and the surrounding area, with tons of cool small details. I love that since Mystic Timbers opened in 2017, more rides have gotten some love like this. All of the effects were working on the ride itself, and the ride wasn't being too jerky either. I have a few choice words for the station master however, HE KEEPS SENDING US DOWN THE WRONG TRACK! I WANT TO RIDE TRACK 1!

The Bat (x1)
I got one ride on The Bat, but I went down the path to go to it three times because it broke at least twice! Not a good day for it. I did finally get on, and had a fun, swoopy ride though I did bump my knee because I rode in the back of a car. Didn't hurt too much though. Still fun.

Grand Carousel (x1)
I rode this with a large group of friends and family we met up with at the park. It was a good, calm ride to relax on. The ride is showing some minor wear and tear but that is probably to be expected of a ride that is nearly 100 years old. The organ was working great though.

THE FOOD

I purchased a All-Day Dining Premium plan, and I think I got my money's worth from it. Here is everything I ate.

Tom+Chee
I activated my all day dining here, because most other places were slammed. I got the BBQ Grilled Cheese sandwich and it was delicious and flavorful. The chips that it came with were nice and crispy, too. A good start on the food for the day.

Planet Snoopy Ice Cream
I have a confession. In the past 15 years, I have had a decent number of visits to the park, and yet...I have never had the Blue Ice Cream. Until yesterday! It wasn't on the dining plan but I just ate the extra $8 to get a waffle cone. It was worth it, and delicious! The red cream soda I got with it was horribly flat though. I love red cream, but Kings Island just never seems to have good red cream in stock! Thankfully the Ice Cream made up for it. Service here was also very fast, there was a decently big line but I only had to wait a few minutes to get my ice cream.

Miami River Brewhouse
Around 6pm, there was a small rain threat, and there was no line for the Brewhouse as I walked past and I was kinda hungry so I stopped in and got a burger. It appeared a little overcooked, but I took a bite and it still tasted great. I couldn't stop chowing down on the potato kegs, either. I did have to wait a little bit to place my order because the family in front of me- they were literally the only ones in line though- had some sort of issue because their passes were from Cedar Point, not Kings Island. Once I ordered though and found a place to sit my burger was ready. I am a bit upset the chicken sandwich has been having issues, I was really looking forward to that one.

Coney BBQ
This was my first time ever getting food here, and...I got the side platter, because I was sharing my food with the 2 young kids (my nephew and his half-brother) who had come with us. I did take the hush puppy for myself becasue neither kid wanted it, it was a great hush puppy. The Mac N' Cheese also eventually got denied, which confused me because I thought it was delicious but, ehh, kids. The service here was also very fast, the line moved very quick. Gonna eat here again in the future, and actually get BBQ next time.

OTHER STUFF

Single Use Fast Lane
This was added last year, and we tried to look it up this year- it confused the heck out of us, and even staff had no idea how to get it until we finally found out it was on the Kings Island app! Once we found it though, we tried it out to get some extra rides in on the last hour. I got rides in on Orion, Diamondback, and The Beast within the final hour because of this. We had a small issue at Diamondback, I bought 2 Fast Lanes so a friend could ride with me, and the first one scanned fine, then the 2nd one refused to scan! The ride op saw everything though and let us go. The passes scanned up the 2 other times however.

Park Cleanliness/Atmosphere
The park was super clean yesterday! I also saw lots of staff going around doing cleaning work. The atmosphere was very nice. It felt great just to walk around because of this.

Tower Gardens
I finally got a chance to walk through this, and it's a fun little time waster. You get to learn about the history of the park and see special Mini Eiffel Towers themed to some of the top rides in the park. I had no idea Invertigo was a top ride, LOL. I also love how they planned ahead and had several blank stones, so this will get updates in the future!

Crowds & Operations
The park was not too crowded, especially early on. It never got to insane levels, and we only purchased a few single fast lanes later just to crunch in a few rides quickly (and because of the lower crowds these were not super expensive). Operations were slow at the start of the day for most rides save Orion and Diamondback, but seemed to speed up as it went on and by the end everything seemed to be going much better though it got more crowded. There were some breakdowns, BLSC was down for ages and probably valleyed during morning tests, Bat went down a few times, Delirium went down and had the floor stuck open for a bit, and the Eiffel Tower never opened. I chalk all this up to the fact it is only Week 2, and a lot of the staff is still getting the hang of things. It should improve by summertime.

Camp Snoopy
Didn't ride anything here, but Camp Snoopy looks great. The kids are gonna love this when it opens up! Soap Box Racers is a lot bigger in person than I was expecting. The new paint and theming looks very nice.

Merch
Kings Island has some very nice merch this year. I didn't buy too much, but I got a pack of the new trading cards, a Orion fridge magnet, and a Banshee I Rode It Pin. I got the 3 commons I really wanted from the trading card pack- Beast, Banshee and Diamondback- and I got King Cobra as my rare. Cool stuff, I hope this gets expanded and comes to more parks. (If the Six Flags merger goes through and this expands to every park in the huge super chain, there will be a LOT of cards to collect!)

And...that's everything I think! I hope you enjoyed reading this trip report. Questions and comments welcome as always. Oh, I didn't take many pictures as last time I had issues uploading them so they might come in another post.

 

[Hoeter]

Thanks McSalsa - enjoyed reading your trip report. I was there yesterday from 11-3 and waits weren't all that bad. There were numerous school groups in the park yesterday. 

I really regret not marathoning Orion yesterday, it was about a 5-10 minute wait after I took my first ride.

I did end up buying a pack of the trading cards as well and just checked them out - I hope they expand and add more cards to the lineup in the future. 

I also picked up an Orion shot glass. I have a collection of shot glasses for all of the gigas I've ridden (all four in the U.S.), several KI rides, and several CP rides.

 

[McSalsa]

I didn't mention it in the report, but yeah, it felt like 50%+ of the crowd yesterday was school groups. Remove them and it would have been walk-on city all day long. I was also tempted to marathon Orion at points as it didn't go past a 15 minute wait until much later in the day. Orion and Diamondback are both very re-rideable coasters, given their smoothness and high capacity, and if I had pushed harder or known about how single use Fast Lane worked sooner I probably could have gotten 2-3 more rides on each pretty easily.

[silver2005]

We're the school groups the ones that stay all day or the ones that leave early which empties the park like the parting of the Red Sea?

[McSalsa]

They stayed all day. If they had left, I probably wouldn't have needed to buy a few single use Fast Lanes at the end.

 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Great TR. We hope to see you around more without such a long hiatus. 

[Orion742]

While waiting in line for Diamondback, I’ve heard ride operators over the intercom telling people to put their phones away multiple times. They never stopped the train on the lift just told them to put it away.

[DJSkyFoxx]

On 4/28/2024 at 9:30 PM, Orion742 said:

While waiting in line for Diamondback, I’ve heard ride operators over the intercom telling people to put their phones away multiple times. They never stopped the train on the lift just told them to put it away.

I really wish they weren't so passive on this issue. I realize that its a double-edged sword with getting throughput on busy days and guest safety, but all day long I will say guest safety is paramount. Too many horror stories of folks getting injured and heck, even permanently blinded by other folk's negligence. No ride op wants to have to gear up to walk the lift hill to take a phone away, I get it. But take the phone away and then toss them out of the park once the ride is over. Period. Nothing will change until they start to lay down the gauntlet. Have to start making an example out of those who wish to break the rules.