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Photo TR:First Big Coaster Trip, 5/14-21


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I just finished my junior year of college and to celebrate three of my friends and I ventured over a state to tour the parks. My friends all enjoy coasters but are not really enthusiasts, but they were great to hang out with and all humored my early risings and staying til closing. The weather looked very iffy the week before the trip, but luckily we were never rained out of any park! We attend school in central PA so we started with a 8 hour drive to Mason OH for King's Island. Along the way we stopped at a cool rest stop called Goasis, which had the first Vault Icee machine I've seen in years! The drive went smoothly, and after going to the wrong hotel (my fault), we arrived at the Baymont Suites.

 

We were up for the morning ERT on Diamondback the next morning, Friday May 14. King's Island has metal detectors that weren't used at all and there were tons of Physics students at opening, but we got past them and on to Diamondback. This was my first time on the new style B&M trains and they were cool, but I didn't feel like it had a huge impact on the ride. Diamondback was enjoyable, but didn't really amaze me. I think my favorite aspects of the ride were the snake train casing and watching the water splash (which actually got my shirt wet in the last row).

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The Snake Train coming down the first drop

For opening we went to Beast, which also was open early. It was enjoyable to fly through the dense forest, but the true Beast comes out at night....

 

The park had opened at this point and we continued to work our way around the park, hitting Backlot Stunt coaster for the credit, followed by Vortex. Vortex wound up being the surprise of the day for me, as I overlooked it when examining the park's coasters, but upon walking up to it saw delicious loopy goodness. I was especially intrigued by the corkscrew between the two loops, which looked so squeezed in. I rode in the second to last row and loved it, though two of my friends got beat up by it and did not want to ride again.

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Vortex swoops under the Amazingly Placed Corkscrew

We continued along to Flight of Fear with about a 20 minute wait, which I enjoyed, though I wish I understood the storyline better. There was a video playing from which I gathered something about looking out for aliens, but the volume was very low so I couldn't really tell. We then looked over to Firehawk, which was broken (this will become a major theme of the day). I found it amusing that the two rides I would pick to break down the most at the park were next to each other and far removed from everything else. Unfortunately, this also meant that FoF usually had a long line, since everyone would come to it whenever Firehawk broke. We skipped Racer for the moment and went on Adventure Express, which I loved! It was nice to ride a Minetrain with tunnels and theming around it. We loved the second lift hill, and imitated the statues' arm moments whenever going up a second lift hill the rest of the trip.

 

After overpaying for lunch we went on Drop Zone and Invertigo, both about 20 minute waits. I think Drop Zone is my favorite drop tower ride, due to the rotation and long freefall.

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Guy on the right must have just realized his shoes are gone...

We then started the long walk to Flight Deck, which is conveniently located out in the middle of nowhere. Of course, this meant no line so we rode three times. None of my friends had ridden a suspended coaster before and all enjoyed it a lot. It definitely blows Iron Dragon out of the water.

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My fellow CivE and I just finished a course on Steel, and enjoyed examining the structures of the rides. Here are more L angles than I'd ever seen in one place diligently holding up Flight Deck.

Delirium came next, with about a 30 minute wait. Frisbees used to be my favorite flat, so I was thrilled to ride the giant version. It could use a bit more spinnning, but the height and airtime are amazing!

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Delirium shows the Eiffel Tower who's boss

We then worked our way back over to the Racer, where only the blue side was running. Fun, but probably better when racing. We then went back to Firehawk, which broke immediately after we purchased a poofy poofy hamster stuffed with candy and slime. We left to get dinner outside the park and returned later that evening, going over to the kiddie section. Boo Blasters was fun, though the queue line was extremely dark. I think my favorite part was when some skeletons were chasing a guy who was "not-Shaggy" around in a circle. We continues to Woodstock Express, which won the "cutest ride" award from everyone.

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Never before have so many people said "Awww how cute" about a wood coaster.

The Flying Ace Aerial Chase may have been credit 100, but I'm not certain.

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The kite eating tree also amused us greatly as was also in prime position to eat the Flying Ace riders

We ended our return to childhood with the log flume, which was fun and had a great example of a hydraulic jump(Thank you Water Resources Engineering)! I was blown away by the size and quality of rides in Planet Snoopy. I wish I could have had these rides when I was a little kid. Between the three coasters, log flume, and tons of other kiddy rides, I can see why it has been so highly praised in the past.

We went up the Eiffel Tower next, which never had any wait and allowed for some great pictures. I liked the lack of glass and the ability to stay up as long as you wanted. Ironically, many other guests would step out of the elevator, say "oh dear..." and immediately jump back in to go down.

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View from the top looking towards Vortex.

We once again ran back to Firehawk, which broke upon our arrival. We decided to ignore it the rest of the night and focus on getting other twilight and night rides, as they would be the only ones of the trip. My fellow CivE had a hurt shoulder and was playing it safe, so he sat out Beast in the morning, but we told him it was fine and to come on. Instead of a tour of the forest though, the ride had started to play rough. We could still see, but the ride was hauling it compared to earlier in the day, and we knew we had to get back for a night ride. I apologized profusely to my friend, who was alright in the end.

 

Those of us who liked it rode Vortex again, which looked very pretty in the sunset. We then rode Shake, Rattle, and Roll, which was a lot of fun and looked great all lit up! We then went back to the Beast around 9:20 to find that it had actually grown a wait. We anxiously waited for the back row as the crew announced that it would be temporarily be shutting down for fireworks soon. We made it on just in time for the ride of our lives. In complete darkness we couldn't anticipate the curves and really felt like we were at the mercy of some creature. The ride was not filled with airtime, but is still one of my best rides on a coaster. We ended the night by viewing the fireworks, and I spent lots of money in a gift shop.

 

After making so many solo trips to parks, I was a bit nervous about making the trip with friends, that after a time there might be arguments, that the weather would ruin the trip or whatnot. Instead I had one of the best days of my life, thanks to my friends being there to share the experience with me. I did not ride as many coasters as I would have alone, or get as many pictures, but never have I ever left a park so utterly filled with joy.

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The fountains looked beautiful on the way out!

 

Continued when I have a chance, but I've got more traveling to do today... Thanks!

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Good TR. The Beast is one of my absolute favorite night rides. I've been over at The Beast several times standing in line waiting for the fireworks to end so I finish the night with my last ride. I was over there a couple of weeks ago and put several laps in after sundown and then swung over to Diamondback for the last ride of the night and managed to time it perfectly so I was riding during the fireworks. Great stuff.

 

Fireworks + Roller Coasters = Happy Me!

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Thanks for the replies, and sorry it took so long to get back. I've been without Internet running around the past few days.

 

After one of the best days I've ever had at a park Friday, we returned for a few final rides on Saturday. We were not yet experts at getting up, packing, and checking out early so we arrived only a half hour before the park opened, but that was still enough time for two more rides on Diamondback before the park opened. In order to make sure I got all the big credits, we then went to wait for a rope drop to get to Firehawk before it broke. We made it there and after about five minutes they let everyone in. We got the last row of the first train of the day. The ride was fun, though probably not worth so many trips making the long walk to get to it. While we never returned to the area, it seemed to be running better on Saturday.

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Firehawk's loop does not resemble a pretzel, but provided a great visual as we saw the front coming out as we went up.

 

We went on Flight of Fear again with about a 10 minute wait, and then proceeded to Adventure Express again, also with a 10 minute wait. We tried Invertigo again, but the wait was already filling the queue house, which didn't seem worth it after yesterday's 20 minute wait. Instead, we went to Drop Zone once more for a 20 minute wait. We sat in about the same seats so the view didn't change much, but I looked down during the drop which was pretty cool. I also found the delay between the ride's drop and the blast of wind felt in the queue to be strange. After Drop Zone, pretty much everything seemed to have long waits, so we went up the Eiffel Tower to get some more pictures, which had no wait.

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The back of the park from the tower. Unfortunately, Racer had only the blue side open again.

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The orange strip are fish being fed by the three people. My new camera's ability to see details from so far away slightly frightens me.

 

I found out that the $10 all you can eat BBQ was only at night, so we left the park to get lunch at Perkin's where I had a delicious Chicken Finger Scrambler and a Strawberry Muffin! Returning to the park, we could not find a -parking space. We wound up in the last row of parking, so we knew it would be completely mobbed now. The Crypt was the last thing I wanted to try, and it's line was coming out of the building. None of my friends were up for it, and the line barely moved after 15 minutes, so I bailed to join my friends on the park's train ride. If it's timed right this gives some nice shots of Diamondback.

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The snake eyes the choo-choo as it soars over it.

 

From the train we saw the rapids ride, which looked awesome. Two of my friends went to ride it, but I stayed off with my anti-water friend since I had church later. We went back to Vortex, which had a line coming out of the overflow railing. Thanks to 3 trains and Vortex not actually having a queue area, it was only 20 minutes for another great ride.

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Still one of my favorite inversions ever.

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I couldn't stop taking pictures of Vortex. This is one of my favorites, despite the lack of train.

 

After getting off we found our friends waiting for us, since the rapids line was extremely long (makes sense as the day was pretty hot). I remembered that Diamondback had a single rider line, but upon arrival it was full and not taking anyone else. Since the lines were so long and we had done so much the day before we left the park for the day. We stopped to get gas at a convenience store called United Dairy Farmers. Upon entering and seeing an entire aisle of ice cream, along with an ice cream counter with 99 cent cups it immediately catapulted past both Wawa and Sheetz to become the ultimate convenience store. I enjoyed some Paintball Blast ice cream, which was cake flavored with frosting.

 

We then set out for Louisville, where we'd be staying en route to Holiday World. Upon arriving at the Microtel Inn, we were informed that no one under 21 is allowed to stay there, as a sign at the front desk says. I reserved through the Microtel site specifically because Priceline requires you to be 21, but the Microtel site had no such rule. We were allowed to stay because we had one person over 21, but all of our licenses were scanned and we were warned that any trouble would have the police there in minutes. While the entire experience really shook us up, the room was extremely nice and we were able to call our other hotels to inquire about age rules.

 

This leads to Nozzy's travel lesson number 1: If under 25, call the hotel to make the reservation to check age requirements.

 

We settled in for the night for some quick sleep before continuing to Santa Claus, Indiana.

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Holiday World

 

After a quick night's sleep, I had everyone up and in the car at 7:00 to make the hour and a half ride to Holiday World so we'd arrive at the park for opening at 9:30 central time. Behold the result of my awesome planning!

 

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First car in the lot. Time: 7:30 Central Time (aka 2 hours before opening X_X)

 

Nozzy's travel lesson number 2: Traveling west=sun rises later=back in time= leave LATER, not EARLIER!

 

Fortunately, my friends were understanding, and we occupied ourselves by playing Apples to Apples travel edition. A little later a -parking attendant showed up and the first other car came after an hour. After talking to a former parking employee later in the day, this is a common occurrence, but can be bad when it happens to an entire family reunion. We walked to the entrance at quarter to nine and were there for the opening of the gates at 9. The weather was fairly cold and wet, and I was again nervous about getting on Voyage, which was the ride of the trip I was most looking forward to. We occupied the half hour until the rope drop by poking around the glass shop.

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El Toro would not be welcome here.

The pieces here were beautiful and people were very friendly, just like everyone we talked to in Santa Claus. I wound up purchasing Christmas ornaments and Barometer Swans as souvenirs for my family, and they were packed very well for the car ride home. At around 9:25 we went back out and were in the front of the pack to arrive at Voyage. However, it wasn't quite ready for us, and hadn't started testing yet. Since I didn't feel like waiting if testing didn't even start yet, and the park wasn't that crowded, we proceeded to Gobbler Getaway and were the first riders of the day. It was cute, and I achieved the rank of Master Turkey Caller due to my finesse at shooting the same three target repeatedly when stopped one of the final rooms. Also, a most excellent animatronic:

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Grandma's got a Gun!

Coming out, a train was ascending Voyage's lift, and my group was second in line. The one kid in front of us went for the back, so we got the front rows of the first train. WOW

The ride that had such rave reviews delivered on every account, giving great air and a wild ride from the first drop all the way to the brake run. The PTCs were a bit rough, but I didn't let that stop me from enjoying such an awesome ride. The first ride we had no idea where we were going as we dived through tunnels, swerving through the forest. Even when making banked turns there are pops of airtime! And of course who doesn't love going NINETY DEGREES! I wish I could have gotten better photos, but since the ride takes place mainly in the forest it wasn't possible. After riding we went on again immediately, this time going towards the back. So much more rough, but SOOOO much better than the front! My friends started bowing out, since the ride does take an extreme toll on your body, but I probably rode about 10 times that day, with 4 or 5 rides in the last row. There were rides where I felt like I was in complete freefall on the first drop, and I did hurt my back on one ride, but in my opinion it was well worth it!

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Voyage on its way over the top.

 

After Voyage, we decided to not care about the drizzle since Pilgrim's Plunge looked so amazing. The elevator ride up is really exciting, especially when the platform starts to tilt. I got about half wet on it, well worth it. After a quick ride on the Turkey Whirl, we decided to continue the madness and ride the rapids ride. It was fun, and we didn't get too much more wet. Next up were the Halloswings as we worked back towards the other coasters.

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It was nice to see everything so well themed!

Next up was Legend, which provided a LOT of lateral G's. Riding in the back gave some pretty good airtime on a few hills, but the ride definitely focuses on the laterals and tunnels. The first drop is twisted in a way that makes it amazing to travel down as well, and a cool wolf howl plays when cresting the lift, warning you to not look back.

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A few riders running from the Headless Horseman. More CivE nerd talk was had about the numerous vertical supports at the center of the curve at the top of the lift.

 

We finished the trifecta by riding the Raven twice, first in the front, then in the back. Again, back completely changed the ride, going from a nice ride through the woods into a massive airtime machine. I still am not sure how mu thighs were not bruised from all the airtime that threw me into the lapbars, but I loved it.

 

We then walked over to Kringle Kafe, which was one of the only places open to eat, and shared a pizza. The pizza was incredibly hard to cut since the cheese was so hot and gooey, but the first bite was one of the most glorious food moments of my life. I then watched my friends expressions as they sampled it, all showing amazement at the cheesy goodness. Best Pizza Ever (Sorry Knoebel's).

 

We followed up by making the long walk to Wildebeest. We were in street clothes but really wanted to ride, so we left our valubles with the water hater and hopped into a raft after about a 10 minute wait. The ride up the lift takes a little bit, and cresting it water poured into the boat, letting me know that there was no way I was getting off anywhere near dry. The ride had a decent amount of air, but going on a waterslide for so long was tons of fun. We rode again in the single rider line, and I got paired into a much lighter boat, which gave me a lot more air in the back. Definitely a great ride, my 2 friends' favorite ride of the trip.

 

After getting so soaked we went over to check into Santa's Lodge where two of my friends remained for the day while I returned with my girlfriend. We went around the park and rode pretty much everything, including Howler which was empty. As Knoebel's regulars, the FLyers and Bumper Cars weren't exciting ride-wise, but their theming was great, especially the Rough Riders. We left about an hour before opening when I couldn't take anymore Voyage abuse.

 

We ate at St. Nick's restaurant at Santa's Lodge, which was good and had lots more Santa pictures for us to view.

 

After checking out the next morning we once again got to Holiday World before the rope drop, planning to spend more time in Splashin Safari since it looked so fun when walking to Wildebeest the previous day. I told everyone to leave anything not coming on slides in the car, and that we'd return after finishing with water for the day. Monday actually wound up being a bit more crowded than Sunday thanks to the better weather and school trips, but this just meant that Voyage had about a 15 minute wait along with Wildebeest. We were on the first train of Raven of the day and my head was already pounding (though that didn't stop me from reriding). We visited the Scrambler and then Frightful Falls, which was a fun flume ride. The music from Halloween was playing as we boarded, which really made it creepier.

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I'm sure the flume used to look big...

 

We then went over to SPlashin Safari to wait fro it to open, applying our free sunscreen while waiting. We were among the first on Wildebeest, this time with all four of us. It was a great ride, followed by two more before any line formed. The ride programmers were still set up with their laptops connected to the control panel, which really showed the ride's newness. Holiday World definitely has a(nother) gem with this ride, though I hope its extremeness coupled with freeness doesn't cause any accidents (if you don't hang on in the back, you're toast).

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Wildebeest was unaware that waterslides don't have hills. Best waterslide ever!

While the girls enjoyed the wavepool, me and my work partner went to the other slides. It was my first time on a giant bowl slide, which was not as exciting as I had hoped, but still fun. The racing speed slides were awesome, though it was hard to push off of them. The funnel was our favorite waterslide not named Wildebeest. We then went on the small black slide "Go" which I thought looked like might have a good double down (not really). At this point we start going back to the wavepool when I realize my bathing suit is a lot lighter, and see the snap my keys were on had opened! We split up to tell the girls and ask the guards at every ride we went on about the keys, but turned up empty. I filed a report with Lost and Found. Summing up the situation, we were 4 people with minimal clothing, no cash, no credit cards, no cell phones and pretty wet- everything was in the car!

Nozzy's Travel Rule #3: Make sure keys are secure on waterslides (i.e. in a locker or with a non-rider)

We decided to stop water rides in case a thunderstorm came, but told everyone to keep riding things in the park since the only thing to do was wait. After watching the girls on Paul Revere's Ride, I returned back to Lost and Found while the others continued in 4th of July. Nothing yet, but when I went to Go's pool the guard said he had just turned keys over to the head guard.

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Almost a watery grave for my keys

After waiting at lost and found for 20 minutes I had my keys back! We returned to the car to re-equip ourselves and then went back to Kringle's Kafe for more pizza. On the way out I saw a very personal Santa's Storytime.

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Seeing Santa with the kids was one of the greatest aspects of the park.

We continued to reride various things and peruse the gift shops. I got two more rides on Voyage, and during a final round on the coasters met a fellow Club TPR member at Legend, Brandon. It was nice to finally talk to someone, and looking through pictures later I think I found one of him on Voyage.

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I found Brandon (saginawhxc) in this picture after meeting him on Monday.

While there was about an hour until closing, we decided to set out for the next park. I had plenty of rides on all the coasters, which took a greater toll on my body than rides have ever placed before. It was well worth it in the end, and I would love to return for the Timberliners.

 

Leaving the park it was 2 and a half hours too the Microtel Dry Ridge, which had none of the rules found at the Louisville location. Tomorrow would have a drive up to the final park, Cedar Point.

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And Finally, Cedar Point:

 

We left Dry Ridge around 9 or 10 for a 4 and a half hour drive to Sandusky. It had some nasty weather when going through a city, and the last hour was on backroads but we still made pretty good time. We stayed at the Super 8 Milan, which is about 20 minutes from CP but less expensive. We went over around 3:30 on Tuesday May 18, driving along a back access road thanks to my GPS. The weather was very stormy so Lake Erie was pretty agitated looking as we drove along a long residential road to the park. Upon arrival I saw that the rides were running, but someone forgot their Platinum Pass so I accompanied them back to the hotel and back. This at least let me figure out that our hotel was on the road to get to the main causeway, so I knew how to drive the rest of our time there. The roadways around Cedar Point greatly amuse me, with lanes that change direction depending on the time of day.

 

Once in to the windy park we found the girls, who were on line for Raptor, which had broken down. We waited another 10 minutes after a train went before bailing over to Wicked Twister, which was walk on. We sat near the back of the train, and while it was fun I still prefer Possessed for the holding brake. Since we were cold we went to Disaster Transport for about a 20 minute warm wait. Not too much to say about it....

 

Going further into the park we went on Wildcat, which was the last "big" credit I needed. We couldn't fit into one car so we went around in two. Fun, but nothing special. Mantis was next, which was running 2 trains with no wait. I thought it was fun, with my ankles feeling the forces, but my friends all had ill-adjusted seats that made for painful rides.

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Mantis against a dark sky

Next up was Millennium Force, with two trains and about a 10 minute wait for your choice of row (though the line for the front was MUCH longer than anything else). Going up the lift there were portions of a sunset orange peeking through clouds, and the ride delivered a ride better than I remembered from my last trip.

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A trainful of happy riders in sweatshirts to combat the windy conditions.

We continued walking down the park to get to Maverick, which had a line just down the stairs, much nicer than the 90 minutes I waited at opening last time. We all really liked it's many twists and turns, although we got smacked into the restraints a bit during some rides. It was most of our's favorite coaster at the park.

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The sun fighting to overtake the clouds. It would come out for the rest of the trip.

We thought it would be a good idea to get Dragster out of the way early, so we headed in its direction, but not seeing any trains launching up. Since it wouldn't make sense to wait when everything else was walkon we just stayed in the area, hitting Magnum first. We grabbed the front row and almost had a Fabio incident when a Seagull hanging out on the pretzel track waited until we were about a foot away before flying off. Magnum is still a great ride, with some nice airtime and a location along the coast that beats any other coaster I've been on. We followed up with the front row on Corkscrew, the Red Side of Power Tower, and front and back on Iron Dragon, all walk ons. Corkscrew was alright, Power Tower was boring, and Iron Dragon was completely overshadowed by Flight Deck at King's Island. We grabbed Sonic on the way back to the hotel and got some rest for the full day to come.

 

We started out the second day by arriving around 9:30 to get some early rides. We had two rounds on Raptor and two on Millennium Force before opening. We then worked our way over to Dragster to try to get on at opening, stopping along the way to ride Skyhawk. I had done the normal Screamin' Swing at Dorney and enjoyed it, but I LOVE the giant model. I love even more that it was free!

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Bright blue skies to make the Skyhawk ride excellent!

We arrived at Dragster just as an employee tested it and joined the line, which was back to the station from the entrance. I figured it wouldn't be that bad once we were in the queue area, but I didn't realize that the ride has to be warmed up row-by-row. We wound up in the second set of switchbacks, but a combination of loading a fraction of the train each time, rollbacks whenever a row was added, and only 3 trains running meant the wait was about an hour. When we got on they still were only running 7 of 9 rows. I can understand from seeing the rollbacks that they need to do this, but it still was annoying. As someone used to Ka's opening with full trains and rare rollbacks, watching the opening of Dragster was interesting, but took too long.

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Oh no more than half the train fell out!!!

We came off of Dragster pretty hungry, so we went to the all-you-can-eat buffet near Raptor, which had a variety of food for $15. This wasn't that bad and beat getting off of the causeway to get cheaper food. We followed up with walk on rides to the Observation Tower, MaxAir, and Ferris Wheel.

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Twister along the coast. Great view for the line, but not enjoyed onride like Magnum.

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Magnum trucks on, determined to kill the seagulls that mock it

We rode Troika (not as good as Shake, Rattle & Roll) and the Viking Ship before moseying over to Blue Streak. It was fun, but in my still weakened state from Holiday World it was slightly painful.

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Fun rides all around

We continued to tour the flats with Calypso, which was a new experience. It was alright, but nothing that great. I was excited to ride the Matterhorn, one of my favorite flats. This one featured restraints that don't lock and a 30-second cycle time.... I think I'll pass next time.

Continuing with the coasters was another go-round on Magnum, followed by Gemini, where only Blue was running. We were amazed by it's ability to silently meander. It actually was a pretty fun ride as well, and we were able to stay in our seats to reride. We continued along the path towards the Minetrain, but the rest of the group was stopped in their tracks by the cuteness....

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Roller coasters are no match for goslings

The Mine Ride was broken so we enjoyed Skyhawk again, followed by a round of Skee-Ball, fish-feeding, and then the Minetrain opened. We then waited about 30 minutes for Maverick, front row. Front row had no bumping against restraints and was awesome.

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Short hill before the brakes. I like the pony-tails flying up in Maverick Pics.

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While we got plenty of "painful" credits, and more than a few "meandering" credits, no one wanted to ride the ultimate "painful meandering" credit.

Even though we had all you could eat for lunch, people got hungry so we all split a delicious Elephant Ear with free tap water! It was amazingly good, and not that overpriced at 5$ for a huge piece of fried dough covered in 5 lbs of cinnamon sugar (not actually 5 lbs, but I think that's what the worker was trying to get on it). We stopped at Gemini again, followed by Woodstock Express (my final new credit), and then settled on another Dragster ride since we didn't want to go through the opening nonsense again. After about 45 minutes we were in the station when back to back trains rollbacked, so the ride shut down for technical difficulties and only about 15 minutes til closing. Rather than wait for nothing we beelined for Millennium Force.

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The Mechanics got up to spank the Intamin Launch Cable, even though the REAL difficulties causing rollbacks were temporary increases in gravity localized around Dragster.

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Probably a better way to end anyway. At least some Intamin cables know how to behave...

The sunset ride was an AMAZING way to end the day with all the sights. We left the park very happy, and (after narrowly avoiding everyone passing out on beds) had a late dinner at our hotel's restaurant.

 

For our final day we were packed up and at the park for around 9:20 again, planning to marathon Maverick with a stop at Millie. Of course, it didn't think it was fair that Dragster got two nights off in a row so it took the yellow train up and let it sit there all morning. This meant we got to take the Maverick Fitness Challenge! Everyone made it to Maverick straight from the front gate without collapsing to find the line down the stairs. It gradually decreased as we approached opening and people went to other rides, and we got 4 rides in before the majority of people came around 10:15.Maverick3.jpg.9e617654376db311efe7fc9d7ccdb1e6.jpg

Coming out of the launch

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A trainful of happy riders

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Due to a strict law limiting outlaw horses to 2-inversions, Maverick can only legally tilt riders that far.

We followed with another Skyhawk trip, the Red side of Gemini, and Magnum (which actually had other people in the station this time!) with minimal waits. We could tell it was getting more crowded though, and we looked over to Mille to see it still hadn't opened, but got on Mantis again after 30 minutes. Millie had opened by that point but looked to have a lengthy line, so after a final ride on Maxair and my friends being denied Sir Rub-a-Dub's Tubs, we hit the road to get back to PA.

 

Before this trip I posted in another thread that I was used to being solo or with only one other person, and that I was a bit nervous going with more friends on this one. I have to say that I had a great time, including one of the best days I ever spent at a park at King's Island. There were lines, I didn't reride things like crazy, and we even left the park for a stretch, but being with close friends really made things better. By having 4 there usually was at least one other person willing to ride anything, and we weren't insulted when 3 did something but 1 wanted to sit out. This dynamic isn't always true I know, but if you have people you trust and who make a good time outside of the parks, try going with them. I know it definitely made my trip great, and I look forward to King's Dominion later this summer with them!

 

This draws my trip to a close for now, but I'll be making trips to Dorney and KD with my platinum pass. Any comments or questions are welcome.

Thanks!

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