thrillrider

So this past weekend we decided to pop into Kentucky kingdom and kings island for a quick visit. Overall, we had a great time at both parks. Being that admission to Kentucky kingdom was only $30 for out of staters, it was the perfect time to visit the park. The crowds were not bad at all, and the weather was great. I'm excited to see the new coaster next year, but did not see a single shred of evidence yet. Here are the pros and cons of our visit to Kentucky kingdom. Pros... 1. This park is not a mega park, so its possible to just take your time and enjoy the day. 2. The park does not offer fast lane of any kind. 3. The park looked great, and was nicely landscaped. 4. Storm chaser and lightning run are 2 great coasters, and I could spend all day riding them over and over again. 5. The rides were all in great condition. The cons... 1. I really hate to knock a parks staff, but the ride and food employees just didn't seem to care much. Not all, but most ride crews just seemed tired. The food service crews were slow and could care less. 2. Food....The food prices were crazy high at this park. It cost me nearly $20 for a bbq pork sandwich and a side of fries. 3. The parking lot. Could they make it anymore confusing? 4. I found that the placement of the waterpark to be very odd. 5. Why is this park not open in October? It seems like the perfect park to have a Halloween event at. Here are some pictures of our visit to the park. I'll put up the kings island shots soon. Our first stop was this thing. I have to admit, this ride was great. Not sure why more parks don't have one. This is a great replacement for the enterprise. The roller skater coaster is a lot of fun. The park has a beautiful carousel. Old school The crown jewel of the park. My boys were not quite tall enough, but had fun with the test seat. A few shots of the ride. I wish people would use common sense. This sign is promitley displayed at every coasters entrance, yet I still almost got clocked in the head by a cell phone. Its idiots like this that ruin it for everyone else. At least I heard the phone hit the structure and break into pieces. Still a decent coaster, just wish they had another train. Station shot. Chocolate and blue ice cream swirl? Interesting. The motion theater The days offerings. Pre show area. We found penis rock! Our next encounter. T3 I think of the movie when I see this. The restraints are a huge improvement from the otsr's. Too bad the ride shuffles violently. Giant wheel. Our final coaster of the park. Love this coaster! Very underrated. I failed to get many good shots of this coaster. This park has an amazing drop tower. Interesting ride. It did not play music though. We left the park at around 7pm, and headed to kings island for some night rides. On our way there, we were flown over by a paraglider. Kings island pictures coming up...

Just a couple of random shots from last night... R.I.P Yuck... Love the lighting on this ride. About time that they add these. They need to advertise it a little better though. We didn't even notice till we got off the ride.

Good riddance! I think we may have been on this coaster twice since it opened at the park. Uncomfortable, and painful.

Anybody hear about an accident on magnum this past weekend? News story.... http://www.wtol.com/story/6573881/cedar-point-coaster-reopened-after-crash-injuries?clienttype=printable A friend sent this to me. Not sure if this is old or new, but she said it was on the news this morning.

Just because a ride was just rehabbed, doesn't mean anything. There are several examples out there. Witches wheel is one of them.

A man just got knocked out on a tagada ride. Can't find direct link on YouTube, but here is the Facebook video...

I'm putting my money on an air race ride.

I'm hearing reports of a knife fight in the park. More info.. https://www.swnewsmedia.com/shakopee_valley_news/news/public_safety/valleyscare-evacuated-after-fights-break-out/article_da31496d-81ca-5d31-9d10-a9a9529a7b6c.html

Sick, demented people.

See Bill, that's an issue I have. Just because I'm an enthusiast and pass holder, does that justify the bad operations and filth just because I'm aware that the park will be buisy? At the end of the day, I am a paying customer. This year is far worse than past halloweekends. I get that there are going to be a lot of people at the park during the event. But to say that it's to be expected, is just giving the park a free pass on this. If they dont have the staff to operate at the needed levels, perhaps it's time to look at certain things not being open during halloweekends. I would have no problem with them getting rid of a fright zone or 2. They were pretty lame, and require a lot of man power. What's weird, is that we have been to another park chains Halloween event, and there was no staffing issues like cedarpoint has. And the effort that they put into the haunts this year was weak at best. The food truck idea is "ok", but when you sell a dinning plan that is only good at certain locations well... Besides that, I looked at a menu for a food truck and they wanted $17 for chicken and waffles. Two of the cheapest items to sell. We waited in line at the smokehouse restaurant for 45 min. They had 3 people working from what we seen. And to top it off, they had an abbreviated menu. I really hate the current state of operations at the park. Its never been this bad. Like someone else said, with the current state of things I would be happy if the entire park was open and maybe some scary music and decorations. Use the scare actors to staff the park.

Nothing genaric about mine...

So we deserve crappy service? Me and you may know the other options for food(all lines were horrible), but to an average person that visits the park maybe once or twice a year...what do you think there impression of the park is? Besides that, not everyone wants to go to a sit down restaurant just to get decent service. I basically ran into all the same issues as mentioned above. This is a failure by the park. They are aware of how busy the park is during halloweekends. They have had all year to plan for staffing ect... The haunts were a joke, and they should be embarrassed. My kids built a haunted house in there bedroom that was better than anything the park offered. The frontier trail was probably the worst of it all. I'm not sure who got the idea that bales of hay and a few actors was better than what was there before. The shows were basically all recycled shows from the past few years. The ride lines crawled at a painful pace, the food lines were a joke, and the park was filthy. I'm hoping that this was just first weekend jitters, but I'm not holding my breath.

For all you cedarpoint history buffs.... Who knew that cedarpoint played a roll in the civil war. This sign is located near the lighthouse in the campground. Photo is from Matt Dempsey.

Yea, but would you really classify the halloweekends at cedarpoint as "scary"? Cedarpoint probably has the most family friendly Halloween event in the entire chain. I get that the staffing is an issue, but as a parent of kids that are too short to ride the bigger rides(at cedarfair parks, you need to be a giant to ride most rides) it sucks. Another item of interest, is that they were using the waterpark staff to work on rides. They were even wearing the waterpark shirts opposed to the standard cp ride operator swag. If I were in charge , I would distribute staff a little differently. For 1, close down a few of the games that nobody is playing and staff a food stand, cleaning bathrooms or rides. Seriously...we stopped in frontier land by the basketball game to grab a drink and a seat for a half hour, and not 1 person stopped to play that game. Meanwhile, right next door at the food stand the line was 45 min long. There are probably a few rides I would close down after dark to help with staffing in more critical areas as well. A few examples... The antique car ride in frontier town. The ride was basically a walk on once the haunts started. You have 3-5 employees right there. Not to mention that the entrance is pretty much in a fright zone. A few of the flat rides as well. Cedar downs. Himalaya, lake Erie eagles, and troika were all walk ons and 3/4 empty. That's another 8-12workers.

So we made the voyage to the park yesterday for halloweekends. Steel vengeance is still a great coaster! Due to a recent surgery, I did not have to deal with the locker mess as we had a special access pass. My wife and me just took turns holding loose articles. The standby line was at 2 hours, and the fast lane line was at 50 minutes. A few observations about the park since I was there last(about 2 months ago due to surgery). 1. The food lines and service has not gotten any better...it was actually worse in a lot of casses. 2. A lot of closed food stands, even with long lines at all the open food stands. 3. The Halloween attractions seemed to take a step back this year. One that really stood out as being worse, was the frontier trail. Its basically nothing but some bales of hay and a handful of actors. The haunted house we went in(zombie high) was a snooze fest. They were letting groups in way to close together, and the actors just seemed to not really care much. I did like the giant skeletons and greenhouse on the main midway. The only show we were able to check out was the red garter show, and it was the exact same show as last year. The giant pumpkin was missing from the main midway as well. I found that odd, as we did see it on the webcam a week ago. The new projections onto the Coliseum were a nice touch. 4. Not sure why, but all the kids rides were closed at night. I seem to remember the kiddy area by maxair was open last year during halloweekends. As a matter of fact, I have pictures of my kids riding the umbrella rides at night last oct. 5. The bathrooms and coke freestyle areas were nasty. They really need to do something about the floors in the freestyle areas. People keep spilling pop on the floor, making them a nasty skating rink. 6. The kids really enjoyed the family friendly haunted houses. The zombie high had a bunch of kid friendly puzzles and challenges. 7. Witches wheel was disassembled, except for the main boon of the ride was raised in the air. The sweeps of the ride we on the ground. And several trees have been cut down. Not sure why they couldn't just run the ride till the end of October, as there is not much to removing the ride. Seems like it fits on perfectly with the Halloween season. You can get a great view of witches wheels remains from Gemini. The dinosaurs have also vanished totally...including the one out by the main entrance. 8. They renamed blue streak into boo streak, and ocean motion into ocean potion. Beyond that, there was no other theaming on those rides. I didn't take too many pictures from this trip, but here are a few. Beautiful day at the park. Great coaster! Even better at night. Witches wheel looming over the fence. An "o-k: coaster all lit up while waiting almost an hour in line at panda express. The monster rock show at the red garter saloon. It's the same show as last year, but still good.

There are several options for hotels in the area of fun spot that you can do on the cheap side. Here are a few, plus the motel 6 options. Motel 6 is not the Ritz, , but if you are looking for a cheap spot to lay your head for under $40 a night. As far as SeaWorld goes, we bought the passes. I cant remember the exact price, but it came out to be slightly cheaper for the pass than it was to go for 2 days. Hope this helps. Motel 6 has several well priced options in the area. Hotels.com has some deals as well

I was pretty careful in saying amusement park as opposed to theme park (although 99% of the time it's semantics). But let's be honest. Every theme park is either in FL or Cali. Dolly Parton is on the phone, and would like to talk to you. A few others off the top of my head... Busch gardens Williamsburg Sesame place SeaWorld San Antonio Sdc Wild adventure Frontier city Six flags fiesta TX Holiday world Santas village Hershey park Idlewild park Those are just a few off the top of my head. You could probably throw in six flags great adventure in the mix as well. Now name the ones in FL. Remember - Each park in the Disney family is a different park. ...See? I can be snide too...

Class act by the park.

The new coaster looks fun, but I'm more intrigued by this...

Looks like this park will be affected by the hurricane. Hope everyone that lives in the path of the storm is safe.

I was pretty careful in saying amusement park as opposed to theme park (although 99% of the time it's semantics). But let's be honest. Every theme park is either in FL or Cali. Dolly Parton is on the phone, and would like to talk to you. A few others off the top of my head... Busch gardens Williamsburg Sesame place SeaWorld San Antonio Sdc Wild adventure Frontier city Six flags fiesta TX Holiday world Santas village Hershey park Idlewild park Those are just a few off the top of my head. You could probably throw in six flags great adventure in the mix as well.

Yes unfotunately. However they're allowing anyone who came today to come back another day for free. Nice of them to do that! That's a nice touch! C.P. is good for doing thoughtful things like that. I'll give them credit... Six flags did this as well. I guess it's a smart move on the parks behalf. I mean...if the weather is crappy and the park is dead, it probably costs them less to hand out return tickets than to continue to operate. Sure it's a bummer for the guests, but from a business standpoint its smart. This seems to be more common in the past few summers. Pennsylvania has been hit exceptionally hard with rainfall this summer. It seems like at least once a week that a few of the parks in that state have been closed due to weather. The exception is when parks use this excuse to close due to "just" low attendance...not weather. We went to a park this summer, and they used the weather excuse to close early, when there was a 30 minute passing storm. So they closed the park 8 hours early. It was sunny and in the 80's for the remainder of the day. Not good or fair to guests that travel from long distances.

I just got notice that the park has closed early due to weather.

The only notable gta to me, is that Phoenix at knobles won "best wooden coaster". And it's been around since 1985. It just goes to show that a coaster does not have to be the biggest or fastest to be the best.