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Guess I do too. It's my favorite coaster there. Lol

Especially when you're getting told tales in the dark 500ft underground in a cave with lanterns turned off!

I haven't been since the latest round of clear-cutting but when we went last year when I walked into "Wildwood Grove" for the first time all I could think was "Wow, this looks like absolute shit". I honestly don't like most of what this park has done lately and find myself going there much less often.

We were also at the park on Saturday. I've never been to any park that crowded, before. This is a long disorganized TR. The whole day was kind of a blur. We got to the park at 1230. Which were about consistent with a nice weather summer Saturday. -We hit Diamondback first, after about a 15-20 minute somewhat crowded FL queue. Middle of the train/outer car. Phenomenal. I don't think I've ever had that much floater before, to the point where I prefer the middle row, now. There's no shaking there, either. -Row 2 on Mystic Timbers was next. FL was bottom of the stairs. 10 minute wait. MT is consistently great. The radio in the station is working again. -We were the only people in Beast FL line. We were assigned the middle row of the back car. The Beast rode pretty rough for us in the summer, but this time we had one of the smoothest rides we'd ever had on it. -We walked around for about an hour looking for some hot cider Emily got on our last Haunt visit, to no avail. We went to Orion, and had a about a 15 minute wait. The ride host accommodated our front-row request, and it hauled ass from start to finish. 10/10 for the front row. -We were actually on the winning train for Racer, which never happens. The retracked portions were smoother than I ever remember any wooden coaster being. I felt like we were gliding over the repaired areas. Did I hear this is a pre-fab track? Here's where things went to shit: We left the park and got our re-entry ticket, with re-entry after 7pm not allowed. It was only about 3:30, so we checked into our hotel. I took my 30 minutes necessary mid-park day powernap, and we left for BC Roosters. It's a tradition for us, but despite getting there before 5, there was a 45 minute wait. WTF staffing. We were really bummed, but we went to Frickers nearby. ehhh... It was kind of acceptable, but Roosters is seriously always one of the highlights of the trip. To put it in terms we can all understand; it's the Thirsty-Pony of KI. When we got back to Kings Island, I was one of those cars 240 was talking about. We entered the parking booth line at 6pm, and it was backed out onto the roadway. By the time we got in, parked, and got to the front gates, it was after our 7pm re-entry time by a few minutes. But, despite the tension, we had no issues getting in. We claimed our Fright Lane passes, hit the walkways, and realized the place was FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFking packed. Like... Mardi Gras crowd level packed. It took us a half hour to get two beers at the Bier Garden. Emily forgot her ID, or we would have gotten two each, and sipped them slowly, to avoid another wait. Everything was a wait. Wait to get beer. Wait to go to the bathroom. Wait to get a beer again. Walk around elbow-elbow. Smell peoples' vapes and cigarettes. Have kids, patrons, and even an unapologetic scare actor bump into you and spill your beer here, there, everywhere, all throughout the night. It was hard to enjoy the atmosphere when you can't see anything past the crowd. Eventually, we realized the beer venders near the back of the park had no waits. However, the problem was we'd had several beers and no additional food. We circled the park, only to find that every food line looked 45 minutes to an hour, with many places closed. There were only 3-4 food trucks this time around, to help with the chaos. However, after waiting in line for one that had a noticeably short line, I saw a small sign that said "cash only" in a cashless park............... So much for that. By the grace of God, after lapping the park, La Rosa's had zero line. The haunted houses were OK. It was kind of a blur by that point. But, seeing how every haunted house probably had at least over an hour wait, the Fright Lane paid off huge. I was surprised to see there was no line to even redeem ours, so I guess it must not be very popular. The passes allowed us zero wait for the houses. We used our extra pass on Slaughterhouse. We usually love Kill Mart, but for some reason it seemed really underwhelming this year. Did they change anything up, or get rid of props? Anyway... the actors consistently scared the shit out of my 34-year-old wife, who is a mother, and and an administrator in her company... It pleases me to finally see some vulnerability in something so trivial... We took advantage of night rides, but we didn't have a chance to do that much, since despite the FL lanes not being terrible, you had to wait for everything else and walk at a snail's pace moving around the park. Walking the pathways was like moving through jello. -We got another ride on Diamondback, magic row 2. It was another great lap, but not as good as our first. I swear, this is now a middle-train ride for me. I didn't even know there was such a thing. -We got another row 2 ride on Mystic Timbers, which is an excellent night ride. -We managed to get our obligatory lameness antique car ride in. It's harder to appreciate it at night, when you can't see anything. -Our Orion experience was kind of frustrating, after a 20-30 minute FL wait. The grouper really sucked at her job. The two people in front of us, and Emily and I, asked for the front. She said that would be OK, but we would have to hold up for a few minutes. No big deal. However, apparently this threw a huge wrench in her thought process, combined with some priority riders boarding at the exit. The grouper was trying to scramble to fill the rows and left several rows empty on two trains, despite an hour plus standby queue line, and probably 30 minute FL queue. After waiting for several minutes, she told us we'd have to go in row two... Why not just tell us this from the start? The people in front of us were pretty butt hurt. I was only mildly irritated she told us we could have it, then after waiting awkwardly through several cycles and watching her fall apart, she told us no... It's hard to put the awkwardness into text, but more or less, just tell us no right away, next time. I'm always fine with that. She made it weird... Regardless, I can't understand how vastly different the ride feels in row 2 than it does row 1. It goes from being the absolute clear winner, and probably top 10 material (If I had one), to maybe top 3 or 4 at the park. I don't get it. For us, it's equivalent to the difference between a front row ride vs a row 2 ride on Banshee. Oddly enough, I didn't feel that way last time. -It was about 11:40 when we went to get our night ride on The Beast to close out our kinda fun day. We were the only people in the FL queue and we were directed to the only available row, which happened to be a wheel seat in one of the last cars. It beat the absolute ever living shit out of us, start to finish, and was the most miserable ride on any coaster I can remember having since T3. All of the day's frustrations culminated with that ride to completely demoralize us. As a non-enthusiast, Emily was done..... BUT, as much as I wanted to walk all the way to the car bitching about how f***ed everything had been, and how it all came to a head on the ride that just tried to kill us, I couldn't do it. We entered an empty FL queue, and got assigned row 1 on Emily's favorite coaster at the park: Mystic Timbers. We had a dynamite ride to help us not let the dumpster fire ride on The Beast completely shit on our day. MT definitely ended up being the favorite throughout the day. I'm really not kidding when I say our ride on The Beast was so bad, Emily feels sore today. I think I covered most everything, as far as what we did/rode. The night kind of all blended together, because of the insanity of the crowds, having a few beers, and not being able to find food. Because of time, we missed our obligatory rides on Adventure Express, Bumper Cars, Backlot Stunt Coaster (noooo!), Boo Blasters, the train, and even Banshee (WTF!!). Other fun, but lesser valued rides like Delirium, The Bat, Drop Zone, and Boo Blasters weren't even a consideration. That's quite a void from what we're used to, Haunt or no Haunt. (honorable mention: Race for Your Life Charlie Brown: closed for the season) Other notes: It's important for newcomers to know consistent thing about the Haunt is your FL+ is garbage from about 4-7pm. However, once it gets dark, The Haunt kicks in full swing and the lines die down, because people go to the haunted houses. One thing I noticed this trip was for most of our rides, there was at least one delay for ride operators having to try to force the restraints down on overweight riders, sometimes resulting in walks-of-shame. This would cause stacking every time. It gets worse every year, and I could hear other people getting frustrated with it, as well. The weather was great for a Haunt. At night it was in the mid-low 40's. Despite seeing people in sweaters and shorts, I was rocking a North Face jacket, three thermal tops, a thermal bottom, tennis shoes with thick wool boot socks, gloves, and a winter skull cap... I like heat. I don't like cold. I came to play. All-in-all, I honestly can't say for certain I wouldn't have done something else this weekend. I don't dig those kinds of crowds, anymore. What we experienced is exactly what I interpreted as hearing in the CP thread for years, which is why I never considered a CP halloween event. I overheard groups of guests talking on the way out about how crowded the park was, how they weren't able to get food, how they were only able to do a couple things, etc. There were a lot of conversations like this throughout the night. I really hope this isn't the permanent standard, or we'll likely dip out on park Halloween events indefinitely.

^Holy crap! Am I seeing what I think I am seeing? Is that building on the right the former pizza place pictured below? If so, it looks like the entire area circled in red is gone! Picture would have been taken from the yellow star. This area is going to look A LOT different, and that is not a bad thing. .......... Actually, scratch that. Corporate hates us. Welcome to "Dirt: A Monument to Land." The new area to accompany Mudslinger, the new ride re-themed from Catwoman which will have a queue line made from paint lines on the fresh land. Boots required.

I feel like we had identical experiences one week apart but you touched on a few things I meant to but didn't remember to while writing my report. It can't be stated enough how much of a difference it is between a wheel seat and middle seat. The total difference in tone for these two reports is spot on. This was the biggest eye opener for me. I expected lines to be 2+ hours and FP+ to have some lines built up, but I truly could not believe just how many people in general were walking around at any given time. I'm a fast walker (which annoys the shit out of my 5'0" wife lol) and it drove me nuts how many groups have to walk 10 wide down a path, but it almost became moot when there were so many people that it was just one big mass of people on any given midway. The worst spots were the stretch from Hank's pretty much all the way down to the Diner (especially when they had a giant maze line set up right in the middle of the midway where the games are) and then that hanging pumpkin section between Troika and Beast. I hate to say it and it's too late now obviously, but maybe the parks shouldn't have given up on reservations this year. Not for Covid reasons, but just for guest experience reasons. When you have all these food places closed (as well as drink stations closed, and the few that were open had mile long lines) it creates a really negative experience for people. I kind of expected it going in, but I feel like a lot of people would never go back because they think they'll have to wait over an hour for food and 30 minutes just to get a drink on a hot day. I know many of these people were just hired recently and are probably doing their best with how little I'm sure they were trained, but it was pretty ridiculous a few times. I actually asked for the back row on Orion on one of my rides, but the grouper insisted I join a group of 3 in row 5. When it became clear that she was never going to get the last two rows filled before the gates opened, I tried walking back there and she actually came over and told me to go sit in row 5 to keep the train as full as possible. I figured maybe there were exit passes going to the back two rows, but nope they went empty. I don't understand why some groupers are so against letting people request rows, especially the front/back on coasters that have giant extra spaces to accommodate longer lines for those rows. Since the groupers suck so bad at actually filling a train, just let people pick their rows and when all the rows fill up, stop letting people in. If a row is empty, call two people forward that want to ride the next train. It's such a simple concept. The worst is the grouper that had a Cedar Fair Supervisor jacket on that was working Diamondback...I asked to wait for the front and she was like "Do you really need to go to the front that bad?" I had to try really hard to not just say f*ck off, but was just like "I mean...I would prefer to, yes.". There were literally two pairs of people in a line with the space to hold 15 pairs of people. Ehh...I kind of disagree with that. They kind of level off at 7:00 but so many people are flooding into the park at that time that they don't really get any shorter either. Orion, Diamondback, Beast, and Flight of Fear were all full for FL+ at 9:30 last Saturday (and all had 2-3+ hr standby lines). Maybe by 10:30-11:00 you'll start catching some short lines but it takes a while. Whether for walks of shame of general slowness, the stacking got kind of insane. Orion, Mystic Timbers, and Banshee shouldn't be running 3 trains anyway, but there wasn't a single time where the third train didn't sit for almost a minute, just to pull forward and sit again for 3 more minutes. Even Diamondback with its longer ride time was stacking quite a bit. If the Nitro ops at Great Adventure ever let the third train stack that much, they'd be relegated to Bugs Bunny Land. I will say the Beast crew was hauling ass each time I rode it, usually they were waiting for the train to clear the lift to send the next one. The same grouper was there both nights I was there (tall, younger, and quite the booming voice) and did an excellent job both honoring requests and getting every train out full.

Yes of course, thank you for the helpful reminder Going with a passholder and we are getting their early with a game plan and use the express passes on the big waits. Then after we survive universal its time for Hollywood Studios on Sunday to try out Genie.

Do you like haunt mazes? If yes, then yes. If no, then no.

It's sad and frustrating because I know they can do better. Sure, some of it's not really their fault, but some of it is. The more we talked about it after our trip, the more the food situation was bugging us. It really did suck to have to wait so long for subpar service. This! This is frankly inexcusable. I can put up with a lot, I can be understanding of staffing issues or what have you, but respect my time please.

So wait… Lighting Rod is still closed?

@prozach626Yeah, definitely glad I left when I did and was able to get my night ride on Beast on Friday. I'm surprised you didn't ask for Row 1 on that; the grouper was very good at honoring my front-row requests on both days. Anyway, guess it's my fault for not advertising that I'd be there, but I totally would have stuck around to grab a drink with you and the wifey.

A quick update before I do a report later: We heard yesterday/Saturday was one of the busiest days in recent history so that explains things. Almost 30k people at SDC! Sunday today was much more manageable. Even still food sells out and they don't tell you until you've waited 30 minutes to get to the cashier. The cinnamon bread house only uses one cashier and they combined it with a Starbucks. We waited 30-40 minutes for cinnamon bread, because there's 1 person getting coffee, cashing you out, so you're just standing there holding your bread as it goes from warm to lukewarm to room temp. Please separate those who want coffee from those who just want to swiftly pick up a loaf and move on. Time Traveler's line wasn't that bad yet they closed it off at 815, when the park closed at 9pm. That was a major bummer but Outlaw Run kept open until 9pm so the trip ended with 4x rides in 30 minutes. As beautiful as the park is, the rides are awesome, I have to say the park is slipping. The pumpkin coconut chicken curry had barely any flavor, the tater patch skillet was gross mush, the artist selling bird paintings upon further look was selling printed off framed photos not hand drawn art... SDC is still an elite American park but when I started to look at the details of things it's just not as amazing as it once was. Oh and yeah one train ops on everything. Even Giant Barn Swing was only running one side! You really need Trailblazer if you are going on weekends. So I hope it's just a flukey 2021 visit but SDC really needs to focus on the details to contend for best park in America.

^I believe you, and it's not just Dollywood. The parks have to get it together again by next summer. I think everyone gave them a pass this year cause we were all just so happy to have things open and get back to a little normalcy but people aren't going to keep putting up with these operations everywhere.

Scott’s kitchen is great, I’m not a fan of the sauce, it’s heavy on vinegar, but the meat is smoked great. I agree with Peter Pumpkin eater. It’s a very cool scare zone that uses the old dinosaurs alive path and is heavily wooded. I think I saw the same skunk or maybe a family of skunks. The irony of the them running around in scare zones. I was in line for cornstalkers, and that little shit ran down a drain 10 feet from me. I told everyone to get quiet, I didn’t really want to be sprayed point blank. The haunts have improved a lot since my last haunt visit in 2018, with the exception being Zombie High, that haunt is still bad.

^Thanks for the report! Ouch about Time Traveler only being able to run one train, hope they're able to get it back up to two later in the year. We just booked flights to SGF yesterday to go during An Old Time Christmas. I agree about Outlaw Run. We went last year for the first time in several years and it was running sooo well. We got there after dark on our first day and I forgot how big OR's drop was, it was terrifying falling through seemingly endless darkness. OR is better than like 90% of the steel RMCs in my opinion.

^And they lost me at Virtual Reality Snorkeling!

Of course it's spam. Good job falling for it, @u4icmusic LOL.

Sorry if I offended in anyway.