CreditCrazy

Nope, that couldn't have been it. I didn't go on WWC. I think it was taken from the train. Wow, it seemed like you just had a horrible time at KI. I know were not famous for our coasters, but I still enjoy the one's we have. I wouldn't say I had a horrible time. There were rides that made me very sick, and I was disappointed in the coaster collection. I liked the park, and it rates 6th out of the 30 I've been to. Flight of Fear is my 2nd favorite ride there. The MCBR didn't use to be that slow. I'm not to sure why they made that sudden change. Maybe because there is 3 trains. (I could never tell how many it has.) Yeah, it really was the MCBR that ruined it. Even without theming during the ride, I think it'd still be a lot of fun without such a strong MCBR. Your really lucky though with your trip. Lately the lines have gotten a lot longer since it's the middle of summer. Rides where it would either be a walk-on now has become 20 minutes or greater. So you really should be thankful you didn't run into that, since KI is a popular park. That's why I took this trip in June.

Thanks for the comments and,

Well, it's the summer, and the park is crowded, so I would suggest getting a Q-Bot with the X2/Terminator add-ons. If not, I would go to either X2 or Terminator first (only one, because by the time you're done with one the other will be busy). Then do whichever one you didn't do at night, right before closing. Both are very good at night, but I prefer X2.

I've been to nearly every park in California, and I'd have to say: Best: X2 Worst: Invertigo, Boomerang (KBF's, SFDK's is okay), and Hurricane (SCBB). I really, really hate those three.

I'm not a fan of stand-ups and I think Riddler's is the only decent one that I've ridden because of the hang-time. The rest: 2 - Chang 3 - Mantis 4 - Vortex (CGA) All are badly rated by me.

Millennium Force is my favorite and also my favorite coaster overall. The order for the rest... 2 - Maverick 3 - Magnum XL-200 4 - Top Thrill Dragster 5 - Raptor 6 - Wicked Twister 7 - Gemini 8 - Blue Streak 9 - Mantis 10 - Corkscrew 11 - Disaster Transport 12 - Wildcat 13 - Iron Dragon 14 - Mean Streak 15 - Cedar Creek Mine Ride 16 - Woodstock Express 17 - Jr. Gemini

I was cracking up at a ton of the captions. Amazing pictures also!

At least it races. It is a Beast. Longest...lift hill...evah. Just pretend the fence isn't there, okay? Diamondback's splash is better. Ate here 4 times. You make me sick. Bad flat ride...bad! The tall flats. I did want to ride SOB. Too bad... My second ride named Flight Deck. Minus one for Cedar Fair... And Kings Island. Fun mine train. Didn't get any pictures of the ride. And lastly, Little Bill's Giga Coaster! I wish... Coney Island next.

It was pretty crowded. I could take pictures of it for hours. And, well, I sort of did. The rest of the layout (well some of it). Support mess. And that is all...oh wait, Kings Island has other rides too...right. Hello Vortex. If only it was a Shwarzkopf double loop... The bad batwing. Surrounded by trees. Hmm...what could that yellow support be?

Let's get to the B&M, shall we? It has to be one of the most photogenic coasters evah. And don't worry, I have plenty of pictures. You can see it from anywhere in the park. Where was this picture taken from? (Don't ask me, I can't remember!) Above a tree. Mmm...that drop... Force? Get out of the way, Bush! (heheh)

Pictures: Decent skyline. Impressive. Ahh, memories... Bad, bad memories... These pictures of Invertigo were taken before I rode it, of course. Because after I rode it I could have cared less about it. That, and because I was throwing up. I apologize if you were eating. Although I must say, Vekoma's coasters are pretty photogenic. See what I mean? I have about 10 pictures of this angle. Yeah... Uh...where's the track? I hate this coaster so...so much. I guess you could call this another beautiful Vekoma. And what a great Vekoma to start kids out on.

^Thanks! I wish Geauga Lake still had its coasters, I definitely would have gone. Kings Island, 3rd park of the trip. I was expecting a lot out of Kings Island, especially Diamondback. Once again, that did me no good. I think Kings Island is a very nice park. From looks, the kiddie area looks like it really is the best. I really liked the Coney Mall section of the park (very classic) and other random parts of the park were also nice. I must say that I-Street is right up there with Disney for best park entrance. Again, the park was very nice because it had a good balance of everything (kiddie rides, kiddie coasters, family rides, family coasters, thrilling coasters, wooden coasters, flat rides, water rides, etc.) I didn't think operations were too bad (except on some rides...coughcough), but they were far from good. I'll get to more of that later. The park had good food (LaRosa's is the best pizza I've ever had, and Graeter's Ice Cream is really good too). Sounds like a really good overall park, right? Just one thing... The coasters. IMO the coasters are not exactly the best, or even close to best. I know a park is not all about coasters, if it wasn't for the nice-ness of the park/balance of rides/food/classic-ness it'd be down there with SFKK (later in the trip report). Everyone must admit though, coasters do play a huge role in the park, especially for enthusiasts, and Kings Island's just didn't deliver. Here they are: 1 - Diamondback. 6 times (including a night-ride). 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 20 minutes, and 30 minutes. Alright, in the Cedar Point TR I mentioned that I expected MF to be my favorite coaster. If for some reason MF didn't get fixed in time, or if for some reason it wasn't my favorite coaster, I expected Diamondback to be my favorite. Kind of stupid for me to do this, because it left me disappointed with Diamondback. Very disappointed. I kept riding it, front, back, middle, everything. I didn't understand why I didn't like it that much...it just simply did not do much for me. In every seat (especially the back), the first drop was great. It's steep, and there's a lot of air. Then it just seemed like the rest of the ride...lost it. The hills surprisingly did not have noticeable air-time, and there was a lot of vibration at the bottom of each drop (besides the first). The trim after the hammerhead on the next hill took off any possible chance of air-time on that hill, and the helixes seemed kind of pointless (they weren't forceless but they didn't have a lot of force...they were just kind of there). I did really like the V-Style trains though, especially the outside seats (and they were very comfortable). Overall, Diamondback has a great first drop (I love it), but I don't find the rest of the ride to be anything special. You may notice that Diamondback is my 8th favorite coaster, but wait, don't I not care for it much? Maybe you didn't notice how I said the first drop is great and well, I love it. Also, I must say that the single rider line for this ride was horrible.There's a huge line for it, tons of people waiting, yet there were still empty seats being sent out. 2 - The Beast. 2 times. 10 minutes and 45 minutes. Okay, before the fanboy's start asking, YES I did get a night-ride. I sure am glad I did, because imo the ride did nothing during the day. The helixes and tunnels are insane both at night and during the day. The real difference between The Beast at night and The Beast during the day is that during the day, you feel like you're going through a ton of straight track with rough turns and bad trims and it just won't end. At night, you have no idea what is coming when, and everything is just thrown at you, especially the tunnels. You see that you're going into a tunnel, you notice that it's coming up, but it's still a surprise...somehow (I don't know how). Overall, The Beast is nothing during day. Rough and long. At night, yes it is rough and long, but it is also...uh...awesome. I still find it disappointing that the ride can only be good/worth riding at one time of the day though. 3 - Vortex. 2 times. 5 minutes and 15 minutes. I thought Vortex was a fun Arrow multi-looper, but I prefer Viper. Both are pretty rough but I think Viper has a better first drop and I like how you take on the batwing slowly, unlike on Vortex. I did like the high-up corkscrews and the EXTREME hang-time on Vortex, and the unique layout was another bonus, so it definitely was a fun ride. Right about now, after three decent coasters, you're probably wondering what KI coasters are bad. Here's what I have to say: The rest of them. 4 - Flight of Fear. 1 time. 30 minutes. Flight of Fear could be a lot better than it is. If this was at a Disney or Universal park,it'd be amazing. Instead, it's just in a big room with a few lights. The ride's excitement kind of dies after the launch, and completely after the MCBR. It's really cool launching into the darkness, but then you're just in a big room. The first three inversions are pretty fun, because you're still at a good speed, but then the whole ride basically gets killed by the MCBR. The MCBR brings you to a complete stop, and it takes more time than it should getting off. The rest of the ride is very slow and boring, although it would be a great coaster with some more darkness, more effects in the room, and not such a strong MCBR. Pretty disappointing ride. 5 - Backlot Stunt Coaster. 1 time. 10 minutes. I really did not like Backlot Stunt Coaster. The only reason it's #5 is because the rest of the coasters are even worse, and the tunnel is a lot of fun. I thought the rest was surprisingly rough and the small cars are very uncomfortable. The turns are very small and compact and I kept banging my arms around! Again, the tunnel was very fun (as you can see I love tunnels ) and you had no idea where you were going, but the rest was pretty bad. 6 - Adventure Express. 2 times. 2 minutes and 10 minutes. Pretty fun mine train but a little rough. I really liked the pre-lift and the ending, even though it was kind of disappointing. Better than I expected, but I wasn't expecting much. 7 - Fairly Odd Coaster. Very fun little ride, this is really a great ride to get little kids to like coasters. There was even some air-time! Even if you're not a credit wh*re, you have to give this ride a try. Best kiddie coaster evah. 8 - Flight Deck. 5 minutes. I think this coaster is just simply a bad ride. First of all, it's waaay out of the park in a very poorly kept up area, and the paint-job is terrible. I noticed that this ride had especially slow operations, and even though the ride is pretty short, you were sitting on the brake-run for a good few minutes. The ride itself is pretty un-enjoyable. It was actually a little rough and just not too much fun. Yeah, it's better than Iron Dragon, but Ninja kills it, steps on it, and then kills it again. 9 - Racer (Red and Blue). 2 times (1 on each side). Walk-on and 5 minutes. Back to the Gemini thing where I rode the red side and then the blue side the next day and lucked out because it was the only side open, same thing happened here. I rode the red side on Friday, planning to ride blue right after, but after not liking my ride too much I passed. On Saturday when I went to it, only the red side was running. Luckily the blue side opened up later in the day, and I will again say that I'll never do this again...but that obviously doesn't mean anything. Back to the ride, it just wasn't fun. I hate rides that are just hill after hill (basically out and back coasters) so Racer was not a favorite, or anything close to that. 10 - Firehawk. 1 time. 1 hour. I hate this ride...I hate this ride...I hate this ride. One of my least favorite coasters ever (not counting kiddie coasters). This ride pretty much ruined the day for me...with some help of Invertigo (see review). Firehawk had a long boring line of several switchbacks, and very little shade. What made this line even worse, is that I already knew I was going to hate Firehawk. Why did I ride it? To get the credit of course! Anyways, the operators on this ride were terrible. They were worse than SFKK, they were even worse than... *your least favorite park here*'s ride ops. It was just hard to watch. There were a ton of them just standing around in a circle talking, with the riders just laying down on the brake run in the heat and/or laying down in the station. All of the ops were hot, miserable, did not want to do anything, so they basically...didn't. I heard one of them yell "Hey, can I have my break now!?". Once in the station of Firehawk, there was still about 20 minutes of miserable waiting left to go. Once you were in your train, you still had to lay there for about 5 minutes! It was horrible! FINALLY, onto the ride, you begin going up the horrible lift staring directly into the sun, and then you finally get to fly...for a little bit. For those of you that do not know, I am not a fan of flying coasters, and I don't enjoy Tatsu, so Firehawk was not fun. The in-line twists at the end were torture, and then you had to slam on the brakes...on your back. Then you had to wait there for a while. My head was spinning and I wanted to puke. Finally about 5 minutes later I was finally able to get out of that death-trap and rest while eating LaRosa's pizza. I'll say this once again.I hate Firehawk. 11 - Rugrats Runaway Reptar. 1 time. 35 minutes. I've ridden Bat at Lagoon before...yeah these rides are not fun. 12 - Little Bill's Giggle Coaster. 1 time. 2 minutes. Woohoo! I got it, and I didn't even have to steal a kid. There was a little kid in front of me, and the op asked if I was with her. She quickly said "no!" but the ride op let me on anyway (by myself). I really liked that...so +1 for Kings Island. Now they're only at negative 69,063,573! 13 - Invertigo. 1 time. 15 minutes. Okay, this ride officially ruined the day for me. Story time! Once upon a time, I went to California's Great America and rode Invertigo. It sucked. A year later, I went to Kings Island and rode Invertigo. It sucked. Then, I puked. Yes, finally, it happened. With all of the terrible motion sickness that I have, I have never thrown up at an amusement park, until then. Firehawk brought the puke level up to about 90%, and Invertigo hit 100% before we went through the vertical loop. (No I did not throw up ON the ride.) Anyway, I went to the park first aid, fell asleep, ahhh...that was nice. By the time I woke up I felt a lot better, and they were really nice there. +1 for Kings Island. It probably would have been a good idea to go back to the hotel (er, motel) but no. I couldn't. I had to get my Beast night-ride because this would be the only day possible for me to be at the park night. After some more delicious LaRosa's Pizza, I was ready to keep riding! Other Rides: 1 - Drop Tower. 1 time. 5 minutes. I really liked it. It was a lot of fun. I love the dropping feeling, you're just floating out of your seat. I just wish it would last longer, and with Drop Tower's height it lasted the longest. I wanted to ride it again but it surprisingly got really long waits. 2 - Wild Thorn Berries Log Flume. 1 time. 10 minutes. A decent log ride. A pretty tame and short one with only one drop which was small, but it was relaxing. 3 - Eiffel Tower. 1 time. 2 minutes. Good views. 4 - Kings Island Railroad (or something like that). 1 time. 5 minutes. Gave some nice views of Diamondback, the rest was boring (but hey, what do you expect out of a train?) By the way, I did not get to ride Son of Beast...it was already closed. That's all for KI ride reviews/ratings.

Probably Gilroy Gardens next week.

^Thanks, I probably was too harsh, but while rating amusement parks a couple big things for me are two trains ops (or more if possible) and fast ride ops. I did not know that they added a second train to Phantom if the line got long, but if they can add that second train, why not do it anyway!? While the line never got longer than about 10 minutes while I was there, the station was very crowded and a mess...a second train really would have helped. Also, I forgot to mention this in the trip report, but is there a reason Kennywood doesn't have gates that open and close for the riders to get on the ride like all other amusement parks? It was pretty weird, if you were the next person to board you could have just hopped right onto the station track.

Magnum XL-200 in the back seat. My phone flew out of my pocket. Worth it.

Holiday World! One of my favorite amusement parks.

I voted for Raptor. I love the first drop and the great zero-g roll. And... 2 - Batman The Ride (SFMM) 3 - Silver Bullet 4 - Flight Deck I really enjoy all 4, B&M Inverts are one of my favorite types of coasters.

Great pictures. You're lucky to have Cedar Point in your backyard.

I've been waiting to hear that from someone else. I definitely agree. Beast is a decent ride.

This looked fun. If only Kennywood History was taught in school unlike other boring history. Just like Beast-Son of Beast, daddy is better. Although I have to admit, wicked ejector right there. How original. (This caption is very original too.) Sorry. Saving the best for last! That's all for Kennywood. King's Island is next!

Kennywood does have some great logos, though. 90 Degree vertical drop!...on a woodie!... Another example of a great Kennywood coaster logo. Now for the "tall stuff" in the park. (Just had to.) Some more Kennywood nice-ness. And the turtle! If only Racer\'s logo was better. You know that scared you. Like a horror film... OooOooO

Now we're onto Kennywood. Yep...still onto Kennywood. But is it Kennywood that people care about or just Phantom's Revenge? Maybe the nice-ness? Or the flats? (Including the Turtle!) Nah... Just Phantom. Don't look him in the eye. See how small that drop looks? And that hill? Surprise! And now, I present to you, one train op. stacking! (Fortunately that's not true, but it sure would help my Kennywood bad-staff statement...hmm...) Best view of Exterminator...well...evah! (It really did look like a decently themed ride...too bad .) Pit Fall in the stormy night sky...(I think it was about 5 PM when I took this, btw). No, no...the Carousel is on the other side of the park. Right.

Kennywood, the 2nd park of the trip. Kennywood was a decent park, but not really what I was expecting. What was I expecting? Well, I was expecting a really nice and traditional park with friendly staff and nice atmosphere. Unfortunately, I was wrong. While the park did have really nice trees, flowers, etc. in some areas, the rest seemed very old (but not in a good way) and run down. Every coaster ran one train except Jack Rabbit and I'm guessing Exterminator (which I did not ride because of my motion sickness) ran more than one car too (I sure hope it did). Some of the staff did not seem to care about their jobs, including one operator that was SLEEPING at Log Jammer. It didn't really seem like anyone had uniforms or much to tell that they actually worked there either. I saw a lot of people with random colored shirts on that said "Kennywood" and some others had nothing on. The people that DID have the random colored Kennywood shirts on blended in with the crowd, and the only way you could tell that they were staff would be if they were facing you and you saw "Kennywood" on their shirts. There wasn't anything I needed to go up and tell/ask staff about, but I can see this being a problem with other people. It just seemed very unprofessional. I don't expect to see big bright yellow shirts that say "PLEASE KEEP THE PARK CLEAN BECAUSE MY FAMILY COMES HERE TOO" or other uniforms at larger parks, especially since Kennywood is in a small chain and is "smaller" but maybe something so you can tell the difference between staff and general public? I did think the rides were good. Phantom's Revenge was awesome, and Thunderbolt and Jack Rabbit were also a ton of fun. The park had what looked like some great/old/rare flats (the Kangaroo looked like a ton of fun, but I didn't ride because of spinning), water rides, and dark rides, but overall the park was pretty small (not that that's a bad thing, I just expected it to be bigger). I don't know the exact size of the park or anything, but it seemed smaller than KBF (another small park in terms of size). Also, I'll probably regret saying this, but I rate Kennywood just behind Knott's Berry Farm (so that means it comes in 7th). It was better than parks like CGA and SFKK, but parks like KBF, SFMM and KI still beat it. Basically, I think because everyone likes this park so much, I was expecting too much out of it, and it let me down. I bet that if people thought of this park like SFA or SFKK, I would have thought it was better. It is a good park. There. Like I did with CP and what I will do with the rest of the parks, I'll post the rides that I rode in order from my favorite to least favorite, how many times I rode each ride, and how long I waited for it each time. The coasters: 1 - Phantom's Revenge. 4 times. 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 minutes, and 10 minutes. Phantom's Revenge is a pretty insane ride. The first drop is pretty tame but the second drop is awesome, definitely one of my favorite drops. I love how you just go right into it, and you're not going slow because you just got off a lift hill. There are two things that make this first drop amazing. One, because it has one of the best head choppers evah under Thunderbolt and two, because on top of the second hill there is a very rough jolt turning into the drop. That jolt catches you off guard and then while dropping you get even more air-time than you would normally because of that "surprising" jolt. The ride is very unique with that bigger second drop andas you can see I can't get over it. Watching the ride you see a "small-ish" first drop and a "small-ish" hill. What you don't see is how far down that "small-ish" second hill goes! Unfortunately, I knew how big that second drop would be, so it wasn't as exciting as it would be for the general public. Man, doesn't being a coaster enthusiast suck? Anyway, the rest of the ride consists of extreme air-time. This air-time just wants to launch you out of your seat. Just picture taking small little bunny-hops at very high speeds. Sitting towards the front of the train your head gets flung back over and over again! I love it! 2 - Thunderbolt. 2 times. 2 minutes and 0 minutes. Thunderbolt is kind of an odd ride. They have to fill up each train, meaning you have to ride with a partner; no single riders. Yet there's no single riders line which would really help fill each train up faster if there's a party with an odd number. It is a very fun ride though. It's not very rough at all, and has an extreme ejector air spot going up the hill to the lift hill (don't hear that every day about a coaster, do ya?) Also, just like how Phantom's Revenge has a great head-chopper diving under Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt has great head-choppers diving under Phantom's Revenge. Thunderbolt gets my vote for one of the best pre-lifts evah...if only it had a tunnel at the bottom of one of those drops. 3 - Jack Rabbit. 2 times. 5 minutes and 5 minutes. Jack Rabbit is a pretty fun ride, but I was definitely expecting more air-time. The first time I rode it I was assigned a seat towards the front (yeah, assigned seating...) and got pretty much zero air-time. The second time I rode it I got somewhere towards the middle and still didn't get an extreme amount, but a good amount. I wish I could have tried it towards the back. 4 - Racer. 3 times. Walk-on everytime. Pretty boring little ride. It was racing, but it still wasn't very exciting. 5 - Lil' Phantom. Nothing special kiddie coaster. Other rides: 1 - Pit Fall. 4 times. 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 5 minutes, and 2 minutes. Alright, so just a couple months ago I was scared of Drop Towers. I finally got over my fear and rode Supreme Scream, hoping to ride Demon Drop and Drop Tower at KI. I rode Demon Drop the day before (a bit scared), and then of course knew I had to ride Pit Fall if I was ever going to ride Drop Tower. I liked it. The drops are a lot of fun and the view is always good. Everyone is always scared of the drop towers so it's always fun to listen to everyone screaming on the way down. The best part is (or the worst), they don't even scare me anymore. Yet another ride that doesn't give me much of a thrilling rush. #2 reason being a coaster enthusiast sucks. One more thing about Pit Fall/Kennywood though, the ride already can't hold the biggest amount of people, but to make it even worse they only had 2 cars running for part of the day. 1 car = 4 people, 2 cars = 8 people, 8 people MAX. (you always have groups of 3...) meaning a slow moving line. Luckily it never got too long, but still, c'mon Kennywood. 2 - Ghostwood Estate. Decent shooting dark ride but nothing special. 3 Log Jammer. Lame log ride. There's two drops but no scenary except a sleeping ride op at one of the lift hills at the top of a drop. 4 Garfield's Nightmare. Really-really-really dumb. 5 Olde Kennywood Railroad. It's pretty short but kind of nice because it tells you about the park's history during the whole ride and there are posters in the middle of the ride showing pictures/facts. That's all for the Kennywood TR/Ride Ratings.

I would go with Friday. It's the summer, and I wouldn't expect crowds to be much different between Thursday and Friday (but Saturday would probably be extra crowded). On Friday, you can get sleep, there will be good weather, and you get to skip a day of baseball. I went on Friday and a Saturday a month ago, and it was crowded but not packed. Now Saturday...that was packed.

I think it'd be much more interesting to see this show at SFMM. More interesting rides, more levels, etc. Right now, I think the show is pretty stupid. The same 3 rides at the same park...everytime. I also think it's pretty dumb how they say it gets 'dangerous' when it gets to Xcelerator, but hey, scaring away riders and emptying lines is fine with me. Btw, how are all this people (who are kids, especially the scared ones) at the parks by themselves? Yeah. Staged.