TR: Memorial Day Trip to HW and KI

[Jodon]

A little bit about myself. I have always loved roller coasters but for an extended period of time I was unable to fit on most coasters at the parks I visited due to my size. In the past 13 months, I have lost over 125 lbs. and can now ride anything I want to ride, so I am making up for lost time and visiting parks to ride all the rides I was previously unable to experience. With that said, I decided to take a trip down to Holiday World and Kings Island by myself over Memorial Day weekend and had a superb time.

 

I decided to go to Holiday World on Saturday and Kings Island on Sunday and it appears as if I made the correct decision (more on that later). I was under the assumption that it was going to be packed that day, so I woke up early to get to the park before opening, gearing up to head over to The Voyage for my first ride. I knew that HW has free parking, but it is still quite shocking to just pull into a park and proceed to a spot and not have to open up your wallet. It is also well known that HW has free soft drinks and sunscreen. As I do not drink pop, I made significant use of the free Gatorade which was awesome.

 

Regardless, the rope drops, and I head to Thanksgiving for my first ride on The Voyage. I proceed to the back seat of the train and I get on the second train of the day. I then proceeded to take two more laps, one in the front, and the other in the middle of the train, before riding anything else. Impressions of The Voyage: Fantastic ride. It is my second favorite wooden coaster (behind Outlaw Run), and was my favorite coaster of the weekend. It is an unrelenting ride from beginning to end with a little room in the MCBR. I much preferred riding in the front of the train. I felt that I got a smoother ride with more ejector air time in the front. You get popped out of your seat in all of those quick changes in the spaghetti bowl. It is not the smoothest wooden coaster I've been on, but it was the smoothest out of the 3 at HW and very re-ride-able, but I've heard that it gets much worse later in the season. Overall, it is such a great ride and took 6 total laps over the day.

 

After The Voyage, I took a spin on Gobbler Getaway and Mayflower. Mayflower is what you would expect it to be. It does look sort of odd with the Pilgrim's Plunge/Girrafica "ruins" overwhelming that area of the park. Gobbler Getaway was my first Sally Corp. shooting dark ride of the trip (Boo Blasters at KI was the other). I must say that I am not a fan. I am a pretty good shot and found it frustrating that I could never quite figure out where to aim. With that said, it was a well themed ride, just wish I could have figured out the guns.

 

I had received advice on the HW board to hit up the two water coasters as soon as the water park opens because the lines can get over 1 1/2 hours, so I headed to the water park when it opened. I put my stuff in a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo and headed over to Mammoth and Wildebeest. These two rides were my first experiences on water coasters and had a blast on both of them. Each one gives you some nice pops of zero g. I also liked that Wildebeest uses more of a toboggan raft and Mammoth uses a circular raft. Both give different experiences that make riding each one multiple times very enjoyable. In total I got 3 laps on each of them and loved every ride. I spent a good amount of time in the water park hitting most of their larger rides. Other highlights of the water park were the Laughs slide in Hyena Falls, Jungle Racers (I love those racing slides), and Zinga. The weather was right around 80 degrees and there were no clouds in sight. It was a truly great day to go to the park. One more note about the water park, Hyena Falls is so out of the way, that there was no one in that part of the park. In some ways it was nice as Laughs was a really fun slide and there was no wait for it, but they really need something else back there to get more people over there.

 

Halfway through my time in the water park, I realized that there were not very many people in the park, and if they were not there by now, the park would probably stay fairly empty for the remainder of the day, which it did. I am not exactly sure why it was not very busy at all on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, but I have a feeling that Kentucky Kingdom's grand re-opening might have had something to do with it, but I did not mind one bit.

 

After I was done in the water park, I decided to ride Frightful Falls, their log flume, before i changed into my dry clothes. It may have been one of my least favorite log flumes I have been on. The path to the drop is fairly uninteresting. The drop is small and has a weird hitch in the track that was kind of uncomfortable. Once I got changed, I ate at Plymouth Rock Cafe, and it was quite tasty. I had the Pulled Pork, Corn on the Cob, and the Sweet Potato casserole. All of it was really good and not too over priced. Once I had satiated my hunger, I decided to get the rest of the credits in the park and hit up The Legend. One lap was more than enough for me. It was pretty rough and not very enjoyable. It could be a good ride because it uses the terrain well and interacts with the water park, but it just didn't do it for me. Next up was The Raven. My first ride was sort of meh, but I ended up riding 2 more times and liked it much better the last two times. It is a bit rough as well, but has some great moments. I loved the diving hill into the woods after the helix over the lake.

 

After The Raven I went to get the last credit at The Howler. That ride might have the cutest lead car I have seen on a coaster. Holidog for the win...I ended up taking 3 laps on my single ride because 2 kids kept yelling "AGAIN" when we got back to the station. The ride op allowed the extra laps, but checked on me each time to make sure I was ok with taking another lap. It was kinda funny.

 

I spent the rest of my day riding some of the flats that the park has to offer. I had a couple Flat Ride Firsts: I rode my first S&S double shot and enjoyed that very much. I rode my first Flying Scooters and it is fun to be in control of your vehicle and your speed. I also rode my first Zamperla Vertical Swings, also quite enjoyable.

 

I finished my day with a viewing of the Dive show. It was cheesy fun. I also enjoyed some deserts (cake ball, giant buckeye, and fried Oreo's) before leaving the park. I ended up leaving the park at 6, well before close, because there was nothing I needed to ride again and I had a 3 hour drive to Cincinnati to go to Kings Island on Sunday. All in all I thoroughly enjoyed my day at Holiday World. It is a intimate park with some great rides. A full day would have been necessary had the park been busier. I do think that they are missing one more quality coaster. A steel one would be preferable as it would give a break from the choppiness of the wooden coasters. Splashing Safari is a great water park and the two water coasters help fill in the void of one more coaster.

 

Also, if you have twitter, I had a blast interacting with the Twitter team at Holiday World. It is a fun way to engage the park while you are visiting. I hope you enjoyed reading. It is a bit longer than I was planning on, but it is what it is. I will post my Kings Island experience later, but I will leave you with a picture from my day at Holiday World.

The main man at Holiday World...and Santa Claus

[Diamondbacker27]

I'm glad you had a great experience! Congrats on all that weight loss, I know it couldn't have been easy.

[Midgetman82]

Congrats on shedding so many pounds and being able to ride more coasters, and glad to hear you enjoyed Holiday World! It's definitely a great park. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Kings Island.

[Jodon]

Sunday:

 

I drove the 3 hours from Holiday World and stayed at the Howard Johnson in Springdale. It was the cheapest hotel I could find and there was a reason it was cheap. The room itself was fine, but the bed was really hard and the springs jabbed me in the side all night...not a pleasurable experience. I was also displeased that I found out that shower curtain had significant amounts of mildew on the inside of the curtain, and I did not realize it until I was in the shower. So the day was not off to a great start. I would definitely not stay there again.

 

I got to the park and had prepaid for my ticket, parking and Fast Lane+ and was able to download the parking and park ticket on my iPhone through Passbook which was convenient. Oddly the Fast Lane + was not eligible to use on Passbook, so I had to print that out and take it into the park. I headed over to the Action Zone area of the park to ride the new hotness first with all of my belongings in my backpack ready for the day. Right before the park opened, they had some guy sing the National Anthem over the PA system. It was a neat touch. 10 am rolled on and I immediately booked it over to Banshee. The entrance was a bit chaotic as there were already people in the queue because of the Gold Season Passes I believe. For whatever reason, they had portable barricades that extended the queue past the permanent entrance and made the non fast lane GP enter through the portable barricades although the queue was never full. It created a lot of confusion with the gp as they tried to enter by the sign and were told to go back to the other entrance.

 

I entered through the FL+ entrance and walked straight up to the station. This is where I got a bit frustrated with Kings Island for the first time. The ride op at the merge informed me that I was unable to take my backpack into the station and needed to put my bag in a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo. She also informed me that I should have been told this information when I entered the line. Me being the snarky person I am informed the ride op that I was in fact not informed of this information and should not have to pay the penalty for someone else not doing their job (I think my grimy shower in the morning set me off in a bad mood, plus I really wanted to ride Banshee). The ride op rightly did not budge from her stance and I had to traipse back out the queue to put my bag in a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo. I get to the kiosk to rent said fluffy, fluffy bunnies filled with medicine and goo and found out that you had to rent a minimum of 2 hours and a maximum of 10 hours at one time. Being that the park was open over 12 hours and this is the beginning of the day, I was quite frustrated that I was unable to rent the locker for the whole day at one time. In my opinion, this is a pretty large oversight on the parks end and continued my frustrations. I hadn't been in the park more than 20 minutes and I was displeased and hadn't been on a ride. One more thing about this fluffy, fluffy bunny situation. I would have loved for the park to be more open about what rides you can or cannot take bags into the station. My understanding is that every ride has bins in the station except for Banshee and Firehawk. I understand that they do not want bins to slow down the dispatch times on those rides, I just wish that the rides would be more consistent or that they would put it on the map and publicize which rides are bag friendly. Rant over.

 

I finally got back into the queue for Banshee and again was able to walk right up to the station thanks to FL+. I was also lucky enough that I was grouped into the front row for my first ride on the record breaking coaster. Banshee was a great ride. I ended up taking 8 laps total throughout the day, mostly in the front two rows or back two rows and always on the outside seats, as I was a single rider that was grouped with 3 other people, and I couldn't bring myself to ask to sit in between members of their group...that would be weird. The ride itself is fantastic. It has a bit of rattle, but nothing painful, or really all that distracting about it. The first drop is the best I have been on for an invert. The rest of the first half is decent, but like most people, I think that the ride really picks up right after the zero g roll. I didn't notice much of the trim on the dive out of the zero g roll and the back half is really well paced and very forcefull. I even liked the flat roll at the end of the ride. I have experienced that kind of roll on X-Flight at SFGAm, but Banshee has more speed and makes that element more enjoyable. All in all, I didn't care much where I sat, I enjoyed the ride thoroughly and thanks to FL+ I was able to ride all day long with no more than a 2 train wait.

 

After I had enough Banshee for a while, I hit up the rest of Action Zone. Invertigo was kind of fun. I didn't experience much head bashing at all, probably because I pushed my head through the restraints so that if my head did go side to side, it wouldn't hit the enormous cushions on the sides of the restraint. Next up was the newly repainted The Bat. I love orange, so this paint scheme really spoke to me. The ride itself was a lot of fun. I love the swinging motion from the Arrow suspended coasters, but this had a weird push/pull herky jerky effect that felt a little odd. I also rode Delirium before I went on to finish my lap around the park. Delirium was probably my longest wait of the day and had to sit through 4 or 5 cycles to ride. This was my first experience on a Huss Giant Frisbee and I was sort of underwhelmed on my first ride, but I went on it again later in the day when I was in better spirits and enjoyed it much more the second time around.

 

After leaving Action Zone, I hit up Adventure Express and really liked the ride. It is my second favorite mine train (ThuNderaTion at SDC is my favorite) and really liked the themed lift at the end, but still don't understand why it's there. I then went to The Racer and hit up both sides to fulfill the credits. Racer is a quality old school woodie. I was surprised by the layout and was anticipating the turnaround to be one hill sooner, so I wasn't expecting a sudden drop which aided in my enjoyment. I continued on to Flight of Fear and Firehawk. Flight of fear was a little rougher than I was expecting, but it was still ok. I sat in the front car on my first ride and did not particularly like the ridiculously slow exit out of the MCBR. I felt like I was just hanging there and not in a good way. Firehawk was my first Vekoma flying coaster. I have been on S:UF at SFGAm and after riding Firehawk, I much prefer the restraints and the ride style of the B&M flyers over the Vekoma's. It was a decent ride and went on it twice, but give me the pretzel loop over the Vekoma loop any day.

 

Up next was Backlot Stunt Coaster. I really enjoyed this ride. The launch wasn't as quick as I was expecting, but the triple helix up the "garage" was really nice. I also really liked the quick swerving motion and the tunnel at the end. I was happy that I had FL because I don't think I would want to wait an hour for this ride, but with minimal wait, I think it is a fun coaster that is very manageable family style coaster.

 

Almost half way through my lap around the park I stopped for food. I got a pretty tasty bacon cheeseburger and fries from the diner in the back of the park by Windseeker. Speaking of Windseeker, that was my next ride after lunch. For whatever reason, I kind of get freaked out about swing rides. I enjoy them, but can't help thinking what would happen if the chain, or in Windseeker's case, the bar just gave out. It's the one ride where I can't help but think of the worst case scenario. It also doesn't matter what kind of swings, tall or small, I immediately go to the most horrific possibilities in my head... I have issues sometimes. The exit of Windseeker is right next to the entrance to Vortex's FL entrance. I have a nostaligic love/hate relationship for Arrow Loopers. I love how they introduced so many people, including myself to thrilling multi inverted coasters, but man are they rough and painful to ride. I got my credit and that was enough for me. I can appreciate the layout of the ride as the corkscrews are well off the ground and the second corkscrew threads the needle between the two loops. Neat layout. Painful ride. That's all I have to say about that

 

Next up on my first lap was the much anticipated The Beast. I had read a bunch on these boards about the ride being smooth (it was) and heavily trimmed (it was). I must admit that I was fairly underwhelmed by The Beast. I would have loved to ride it when it wasn't so heavily trimmed and you could really get the feeling of speed that everyone raves about. For me, it really isn't just the fact that it is trimmed, but it is where the trims are placed. Each one feels like it kills the momentum of the ride. I mean, the first break is on the very first drop. You go up the lift hill with all this anticipation, you crest the top and start plummeting toward the bottom...only to slow down again. It just feels weird. With that said, the double helix at the end is awesome. I was quite surprised by how much cooler the temperature felt in the back part of the ride. I rode early afternoon and it felt 20 degrees cooler back in the woods. My last ride of the evening was on The Beast so I could ride it in the dark. I was fortunate enough to be on the last train before they closed it down for the fireworks. While night time Beast is way way way better than day time Beast, it still wasn't the religious experience that others have had on that ride.

 

Continuing on my lap around the park, I hit Diamondback next. I had high expectations going into this ride. I have been on Raging Bull a bunch and I was excited to ride another B&M hyper. I must say that my first ride was somewhat underwhelming. I enjoyed it, but thought that it had way too much rattle for a newer ride. I also didn't get the zero g that I was expecting even though I was in the back row. I will say that my opinion of the ride changed the more I rode it. I ended getting 6 laps total on the ride and ended up really liking the coaster and settling in on riding in row 15 (last car, front seats). I'm still not sure why the park/B&M went with the new style of train and found it to be a little odd with 16 little rows than 8 big rows, they also make the trains too longs to include a 9th car which hurts capacity.

 

After Diamondback, I only had 2 coaster credits left (I wasn't going to try the Great Pumpkin as I was over 60" and did not have a small child to accompany me), and I rode Flying Ace Aerial Chase. I did not like it. There was a lot of rattle and it was just not an enjoyable ride. After that I headed over to Woodstock Express, but it had a decent wait and was not available for FL, so I decided to skip it for the time being and rode Boo Blasters. Like I mentioned before, I am not a fan of the Sally Corp. shooters. I just can not seem to be able to aim the guns and make consistent connection with the targets.

 

My first lap around the park was complete and it wasn't quite 3 pm yet, so I decided to take in the brand new Cirque Imagine show. I'm really glad I did. It's not the most thrilling show I have ever seen, but it is a good mix of gymnastics style circus acts. I thought that the bike rider was really neat, but his act is kind of slow, so I wonder if the smaller kids would lose some interest. My favorite part of the show were the dual trampolines. I had never seen the trampolines done that way with a wall in between the two trampolines. It was really well done. I was impressed at the versatility of the main 4 performers who are on stage for the majority of the show. They are asked to do a lot and they do it well for the most part.

 

After getting a few more laps on Banshee and hitting Delirium and Viking Fury, I decided to go back to Woodstock Express. Woodstock Express is a very sentimental ride for me. I have only been to Kings Island one other time in my life and I was 5 or 6 at the time. I was not big enough to ride most of the coasters, except for one...Beastie. And ride it I did. I was so excited to see this ride still at the park. I had a ton of fun on the ride. I'm 6'3" so the seats were a little uncomfortable with my knees constantly touching the seat back in front of me, but I loved this coaster. It is a great starter coaster. It has everything a good wooden coaster should have, but in miniature. It is very similar to the Little Dipper at SFGAm (formerly at Kiddieland), but I think WE is better than the LD. I wish more parks had these smaller wooden coasters as anyone can enjoy them.

 

When I was done with that, I took a spin on Surf Dog and found it blase. It just didn't do enough to make it re-ride-able. I also think that the Disk'o Coaster is a terrible layout. The ride hardly uses the back spike which makes it feel not very worthwhile. I enjoyed the regular Disk'o much better, though it is not a particularly thrilling experience either.

 

A couple notes of about the park:

 

I was generally impressed with the ride ops. The Banshee ops were flying around helping people in and out of their seats. The ops would get excited when the next train was ready by the time the previous train was at the zero g roll. Near the end of the day the control booth announced to the ops in the station that they had 1488 riders that hour. I feel that this is pretty good. It could be better, but they were working hard. The ride ops at Diamondback were also really concerned about capacity as I heard the controller say that they were 5 minutes and a train behind. I appreciated their desire to be as efficient as possible.

 

The park is massive. Be prepared to walk a lot when you visit Kings Island. I believe I walked over 27,000 steps in my day at KI which roughly translates to 13 miles.

 

Last observation: The $85 I spent on a FL+ was well worth the money I spent. I went on a total of 41 rides on a day when most coasters had a wait of 60+ minutes. Diamondback had a bit of a wait to it (though less than 15 min.) with FL but most of the other rides were virtually walkons throughout the day. I would consider getting a FL+ a necessity if you are only going to be at the park for one day and you will not be visiting again for a while. My empty day at Holiday World and my FL+ day at Kings Island have spoiled me for the rest of the summer, as lines will seem tedious.

 

I am really happy that I went to Kings Island. I do not feel that I have to come back there any time soon as a lot of their rides are fun, but not memorable enough to think that I have to go back as soon as possible. I honestly think that I would make it more of a priority to go back to Holiday World before I come back to Kings Island. I'm still visualizing my rides on The Voyage and their two water coasters at HW and I didn't get that feeling from any of the rides at KI. That's not to say that KI has bad rides, but to me it seems that they have a lot of average rides that make up a nice collection of coasters, but not good enough to be a destination like Cedar Point.

Me with the ubiquitous coaster enthusiast picture in front of Banshee