DILinator

So, my son and I made our first ever trip to this park yesterday, and we had a great time! It was hot as hades, and especially for us Northerners, so we cut out early, at 5:00, but we still got to do everything we wanted to, multiple times! We started the day off with a front row ride, first train of the day, on Steel Eel. We enjoyed the ride, especially the first half, as the air time was great. However, we found the airtime a bit lackluster on the return trip to the station, which was surprising. That was soon changed, however, as our second ride, in the back row, blew us out of our seats (literally), and committed acts of violence against us on that return trip! What a difference the back row was, from the front, in intensity! Feeling thrilled, but a little bit like abused lovers, we moved on, returning at the end of our day for our last ride of the day in the 3rd row from the back for a similar ride. Steel Eel is a smallish "hyper", but man, it definitely packs a punch! Next up we rode Wave Breaker: Rescue Coaster, and the best way I can describe it is "fun!" Not super intense, and not the best coaster at the park, but definitely fun, and very re-rideable! We ended up getting 5 rides on it throughout the day, both front row, back row, and a few other locations, and it was always an enjoyable experience wherever we sat. Great White came next, and it was what it was. A Batman clone with a better paint job, and a one and done for us. Definitely not a bad coaster, but the Batman clones are near the bottom of my favorite Inverts, and this ended up being the least favorite of our coasters at the park. Here's where we rode what ended up being the highlight of the day: Texas Stingray! it blew us both away with how great it was! It immediately became our 2nd favorite GCI coaster, and with enough re-rides, could overtake Mystic Timbers, though that'd be a tough task. It was relentless in its speed, and intensity, peppered with pops of airtime throughout its duration! An amazing, awesome wooden coaster experience, and a fantastic addition to the park, clearly! We rode in the front multiple times, in the back multiple times, and a few other places as well, en route to 7 rides on this masterpiece! Well done GCI and SWSA, well done! In addition to the coasters, we enjoyed a couple rides on Sea Swinger, and Rip Tide, which was fantastic! We rode both times facing the water as we swung, which added to the experience greatly over Thunderhawk. I love Screamin' Swings to begin with, and this one takes the cake as my favorite so far! We also took in the Orca Experience show, which is always a must-do for me whenever I go to a Sea World park. It was great, as usual! I don't know if every day is like this, but we had almost no waits the entire day. We pretty much walked up and were next in line on EVERY SINGLE RIDE we had! The one time it wasn't like that, at Texas Stingray, after the Orca Experience let out nearby, we used our free Quick Queue passes that we had from our Platinum Passes, and we made it like that again. When we re-rode after that ride, it was walk on again! So that was an awesome element of the day as well! As for the food and drink experience, we had great food everywhere we went, with brisket from the Smokehouse Grill, and Pretzel Wrapped Sausage on a Stick from the Pretzel Kitchen! I must also speak highly of the Chill Out Bar, as it provided a great, cool environment, with a chill vibe, and yummy adult beverages, as well as a live DJ, to take a break from the blistering heat for a bit. All in all, it was a great day at this new to us park, and another great SEAS park, from what is arguably my favorite Amusement Park chain! I know a lot of people give them crap, and sure, they've had a bit of drama in recent years. But I love what SEAS is doing with their parks, and I ALWAYS have a great time when I visit one of them!

Michigan's Adventure is "ok" is literally the best praise it can hope for, really. It is what it is. Very few "enthusiasts" have actual local experience (grsupercity excluded I'm sure) of what it was like to go to the park back in the 90's when it was actually a fun, and up and coming park better than places like Holiday World at the same time, and had a ton of potential. Heck, I remember as a kid having a perfectly fine time there before ST even when it was Deer Park Funland. But I digress... It is what it is now, and we Michiganders accept it as such. It says something when even as an avid Coaster Enthusiast family of 5 (myself and 4 coaster loving kids), we rarely go, even though it's only a couple hours away. Yet we go to other parks farther away, including Indiana Beach more. Like grsupercity said, the water park is the big draw, and it's legitimately a nice one! ST is one of the best coasters in existence, and I do feel blessed for that. And Camp Snoopy is admittedly an nice little addition, which even as an adult I appreciate. But at the end of the day, MiA, is just "ok."

Steel Eel at Sea World San Antonio, for my third lap, yesterday.

Heading to the park for my second time ever, and my son's first time ever, in about an hour! Can't wait to check out Iron Rattler, and WWGLC for the first time, and enjoy one of my favorite Floorless coasters again, and also arguably my favorite Six Flags park, in addition to this fun sounding RCR event! I'm bummed Dr. Diabolical isn't open, and have a whole train of thought (is it a coaster train of thought?) about that situation, but I know it wasn't the park's fault, and Jeffrey Siebert certainly is always trying his best to provide the best experience possible for enthusiasts, so it's not a deal breaker for us. Now, 104 degree temps for us Michiganders, on the other hand, may be our biggest obstacle! Seriously though, I'm looking forward to today and tomorrow, and if anybody from here is there as well, maybe I'll see you, and we'll be able to say hi! I'll be the guy with the bright red sunburned face from our day at Sea World yesterday! lol

I went on August 19th last year, and it was fantastic. Not "dead", per se, but aside from SV, nothing with even a half hour wait. Pretty walked on everything, and the people who bought FL+ that day might as well have burned their money on most everything all day. I also typically go during mid-week at the end of May, and have had a lot of similar success. So yes, there are definitely days you can still go to CP with a large family (like I have), without FL+, and without breaking the bank.

Awesome to hear! My kids and I love this park, and it's been creeping up to the the top of our favorite park rankings (yes, even over our beloved "home park" Cedar Point), and we've going every year for years now! We're making our first trip out to the park a week from today, and are very excited to see and experience all of the additions, and changes ourselves!

I'm definitely excited about my second ever trip down to SFFT, and my son's first ever trip there (and Texas, period) in June for the Roller Coaster Rodeo! I've always loved this park since my first visit back in 2003 (probably the "best" SF park overall, IMO), and it's only gotten better since then from what I've seen and heard! I'm somebody who doesn't hate on Dive Coasters to begin with (or the vest restraints), so Dr. Diabolical's definitely looks amazing to me, and I can't wait to help christen it in a few months!

I'll gladly go first! I have zero reason to be afraid of this coaster whenever it goes through proper protocols and reopens, and I love Indiana Beach, so I'll be there ready and rarin' to ride as soon as it opens! I'm just not one to live in fear... About anything!

I know I'm a little late to respond to this, but last Friday really wasn't bad at all. We rode Orion, Diamondback, and Mystic Timbers twice, and Banshee and Beast once. The longest wait was 45 minutes for Beast, and that was waiting extra for the front. Our second ride on MT, at night was around 40 minutes, and the night's final ride, our second on Orion, was around 35. All the other waits were around 15 minutes, or less, and we rode front on Orion, Diamondback, and Banshee. We also basically walked into the Kill Mart Haunt Maze without a wait. Sure, it was busier than our previous Friday night Haunt experiences, but nothing like what I've been hearing about other nights, and it was certainly not bad to do without a Fast Lane. In fact, my kids said afterward it was their favorite night of going to Haunt yet! We also stopped in for an hour Saturday when the park opened, and got three more rides in, one each on Orion, Diamondback, and Mystic Timbers. So we really had a great visit of minimal waits, and maximum fun! I was going to do a more fully fleshed out TR, but as usual, I never got around to it, so I guess this is kind of it! lol I will say, aside from the rides, just how much we love the Brewhouse to eat there at KI! The food was excellent that we ate, and I didn't even have any of their delicious looking drinks this time around! Love that place, and I'm pretty sure it'll be a stop every time we go at this point! After our experience at KI last year was the worst Amusement Park experience of my life, this was a very refreshing, and welcome return to the excellence I'm used to, at what is fast threatening to become my favorite park! I can't wait to return in the Spring of next year, and bring my youngest child, who hasn't been yet, as he is already a little enthusiast at 7, and he will love it! Hopefully he has a growth spurt, and can get on all the B&M's! Here are some pictures of our foggy, and fantastic trip!

I'm here at KI tonight with my two oldest kids, and 50 minutes in, we had already walked onto a front row ride on Orion, and ridden both Diamondback and Mystic Timbers with virtually no wait on DB, and maybe 10 minutes on MT. This is with no Fastlane, to be clear. We've also done Killmart with only about a 5 minute wait. Now we're in line for Banshee for what appears to be about a 15 minute line. It's a damp and foggy night, and crowds have started to pick up now, but still, it's been a great night at the park so far, and as always, KI Haunt is one of my highlights of the year!

We bailed on going down due to the weather forecast. It's way too far to risk having extended shutdowns due to rain and thunderstorms. Those line times are disheartening, all things considered, but it's just the way it is right now, and I'm old enough to remember when waiting in line was just a part of the amusement park experience, and people didn't freak out over it. We're going to try again next Friday, and hope for better weather! Can't miss Haunt at Kings Island, no matter what!

I'm heading down this Friday night, so I'm hoping things are more reasonable on a Friday night, as they've been in years past. Everything is a bit different now though, so who knows. I guess we'll see! It's my girlfriend's first ever time at KI, let alone Haunt, so I hope it's a great experience for her, as it's always been for me!

As somebody who has three kids who are now teens, and one who is 7, I've apparently addressed this conundrum, but didn't put a lot of thought into it as far as age is concerned. Basically, my thoughts are to take it on a case by case basis with each child, and where their maturity level is, and how comfortable you are with them going off alone. I would let all my older kids go off in the park alone now, and the youngest is 13. But a year or so ago, I probably wouldn't have felt as comfortable letting the then 12 year old go off alone, as I would have my 14 year old daughter when she was 12 (with a friend, not alone.) So I really think it's about knowing your kids, and knowing where they are in their growth, and maturity, as well as knowing the park that you're in. As for when I started going off by myself at a park, that was so long ago now, I don't even remember! lol But I'm guessing it was early 90's, so 13-14 range.

Funny, how I have the ability to ALWAYS go on "random, low-crowd weekdays"... Perhaps they aren't so random after all...

I highly doubt that is true, and if it is... Well, my comment still stands! You people really going to die on this idiotic hill?

I love Mystic Timbers, but calling it "smooth" is intellectually dishonest. Sure, it's one of the smoothest wooden coasters out there. But wooden coasters are not smooth. Mystic Timbers is also a new coaster. Give it 20, 40 years, and see how it rides.

If somebody gets on ANY wooden roller coaster expecting it to be smooth, they're an ignorant idiot. No such coaster exists. As such, every wooden coaster has a certain level of "roughness", and it's all up to the individual rider's personal tolerance for said roughness that determines what constitutes "reasonable" roughness, and "unreasonable" roughness. As somebody who is not particularly tolerant of rough wooden coasters myself, if I say a coaster is not "unreasonably rough", then you can bet it's not on the rougher side of the wooden coaster spectrum.

In my opinion, you are absolutely incorrect! Cornball Express is awesome, loaded with airtime, and definitely not "unreasonably rough." I am a person who doesn't like rough coasters (which Hoosier Hurricane certainly qualifies as), and I love Cornball Express. IB is a treasure!

The very first time I rode Jersey Devil earlier this year (also the first time I rode a Raptor), as soon as I sat down, my left thigh immediately got a charlie horse, which was pretty painful, and didn't let off the whole ride through the station, until after putting pressure on my foot for a while, it ebbed away just before we climbed the lift hill. The subsequent two times we rode at the end of the day, I didn't experience this. So, I don't know if it was because it was first thing in the day, and my legs weren't stretched out yet, or what. But that was my experience.

You say that like it's a bad thing! My kids and I hit up both parks last year for our first time at each park, and we loved (yes, you read that word right), both of them! We can't wait to return to both parks in the future!

Yay! Let's make this meetup happen!

I'm glad I didn't put up any of my pictures of my trip to CP! I'd hate to offend anybody's delicate sensibilities of how they should look!

Well, to each their own opinions, but they share a great many similarities to me.

I don't think there's any parks that I would say are a "never again" for me. Ostensibly, I'd visit any park again if they gave me a reason to. However, for the sake of this thread, I'd say the #1 park I currently have zero desire to ever visit again, even to show my kids, is Elitch Gardens. As somebody born in Denver, that kills me to say, but man, that is a terrible excuse for an Amusement Park! That's pretty much it. Even parks I have low regard for from my first (and so far only) visits, like Valleyfair, have added things that make me want to return at some point since I was there last. One park that kills me to see listed in this thread (other than the obvious ones like Holiday World, or BGW), is Indiana Beach. I LOVE that park, and in fact, got season passes to it for my entire family this year, and have even considered it a co-"home park" with CP (in spite of MiA being close than both), since my family all loves it so much! I don't know what those that hate it need to have a good time at a park, but it's clearly different than what I do, and what my kids do, because we've never had a bad day there under the current management! It's interesting to me that somebody who I know LOVES Knoebels, would hate Holiday World... Having now been to both after this year, I totally get the love for Knobels, and look forward to future visits to experience it even more. However, both parks are very similar in nature to me, and I still prefer Holiday World over Knoebels. Sorry. Maybe that's a controversial opinion, but I think The Voyage is better than Phoenix, and while Twister is underrated, and probably better than either The Raven or The Legend in my opinion, I prefer Thunderbird quite a bit to Impulse. The food is definitely better at Knoebels than HW, but I don't think the food there is terrible (like CF or SF food tends to be), and the free drinks make up for it. Again, no hate for Knoebels from me here, or intended. I just find it interesting people who love that place, would hate HW. I'll gladly drive to the middle of nowhere for that park, especially having kids like I do! Oh, one last controversial opinion: Mount Olympus gets WAY too much hate! My kids and I went last year and LOVED it! We'd absolutely go again in a heartbeat, and have nothing bad to say about our experience that day (which is WAY more than could be said about my experience at Kings Island - typically one of my favorite parks - last year!)

The other frustrating thing for my youngest (who is 7), is that he's least fearful of all my kids about rides! He's actually the one who caused my older two sons to ride Zumanjaro earlier this year, as they were too scared to ride, but after my youngest was going to with me and my daughter, they felt they had to not to look shown up! lol He wanted to ride Kingda Ka, and rode Millennium Force, and wants to ride everything he can, but is held back by random height policies. For instance, he can ride Goliath at SF, but not Steel Vengeance at CP. I get that SV is a lot bigger and more intense than Goliath, but when almost every other RMC (including Twisted Timbers) is 48", it's strange to think 4" will make a difference on SV.