Kings Island opening day 2015

So yesterday we decided to make the 4.5 hour down to check out Kings Islands opening day. The park is looking good, and the new rides really freshen up that area. We decided to skip riding the new rides due to the long lines for them and the fact that we have been on these types of rides before. Operations were o-k. The worst ride crew was by far the diamondback crew. It took nearly 5 min to dispatch a train. My wife was in line for over an hour, and was still in the first section of the line. The rest of the ride crews seemed to be doing good and will get even better.

I was able to check out all the new stores and restaurants and they were all winners in my book. The candy shop is on par with the candy shop on mainstreet at Disney. They had some new flavors of fudge was were killer. My favorite was the dark chocolate caramel seasalt fudge. They also had lots of other candy selections and buckeyes. We were going to get some buckeyes, but they wanted nearly $2 just for 1. The new funnel cake place was a hit and had a constant line all day, and the new yogurt and starbucks seemed to be doing good as well. The 80's store was moved to theo ther side of main street as well.

A few other new things we noticed.....

1.They now have digital live wait time boards and interactive park maps all over the park.

2. They replaced the folded park maps with full sheet maps(I was told all the cedarfair parks are doing this now).

3. The shake rattle and roll ride looks great, but the lighting is still not ready. This ride is going to look great when they do.

4. The eternal flame for sob was out.

5. The beast was running great.

6. Invertigo was closed and there was an air hose hanging down from it.

Enjoy....

The kings island inn is still mostly standing.

Season pass line when we arrived at 1:30

New park maps.

The new wait time boards were all over the park.

My son really enjoyed the new rock show in the festhouse.

The new yogurt place.

Lots of differant flavors

And toppings as well...

Took a ride on the train

You can get some great shots of diamondback from the train....the trick is to time it just right though.

The new glider ride

Sexy new board

The new space buggies ride looked like a lot of fun.

We ate lunch at reds cafe....the burger was cold, and the service has bad.

See you in october.

The park seemed to get a lot buisier as the day went on.

Vortex doing it's thing.

The ride is looking good.

New lights were not quite ready yet, but will look great when they are.

2 coasters....1 picture

Springtime in the park.

Killmart is now just a random building with some games in front of it.

I thought this area was being redone?

It's still a cancer ingestion area.

Not much has really changed here.

The new boards were a hit!

The new funnel cake shop.

This was new as well.

I will let the pictures do the talking for this place.

Fun ride, stupid name

Yes.... they were stacking 3 trains on diamondback.

I think they need to bump it up to 120

The new coke marketplace looked nice.

All thing coke inside.

The $10 and below store was now this...

The new starbucks looked nice if you like coffee

Lots of seating. I thought I heard that it was the largest starbucks in the area.

Of coarse no trip to kings island is complete without a night ride on the beast.

Anybody remember the little Baverian people pointing under the restroom sign?

That's it for this day in the park. I was tired, and the kids were tired as well.

Great TR! I can agree on Diamondback being really slow, they were stacking all 3 trains the entire time I was in line. Also, I'm the guy that met your wife in The Beast line last night! The Beast was running really well!

Thanks for the great trip report. Kings Island is a place I need to get to eventually because it has a good coaster lineup and the park looks good aesthetically.

The new digital wait time boards look very nice. I wonder if they plan on installing those at other Cedar Fair parks.

I couldn't help but laugh at this pic from your report!

Great TR! I can agree on Diamondback being really slow, they were stacking all 3 trains the entire time I was in line. Also, I'm the guy that met your wife in The Beast line last night! The Beast was running really well!

I sure hope that operations improve on diamondback.

Yea, she told me that she ran into you. Wish I had the chance to meet you.

Thanks for the great trip report. Kings Island is a place I need to get to eventually because it has a good coaster lineup and the park looks good aesthetically.

 

The new digital wait time boards look very nice. I wonder if they plan on installing those at other Cedar Fair parks.

Yes....I like the boards as well. They should also incorporate a phone app as well that would tell you the wait times by just looking at your phone.

Great TR! I can agree on Diamondback being really slow, they were stacking all 3 trains the entire time I was in line. Also, I'm the guy that met your wife in The Beast line last night! The Beast was running really well!

 

I sure hope that operations improve on diamondback.

Yea, she told me that she ran into you. Wish I had the chance to meet you.

The operations on Diamondback was dismal every visit last season. Lethargic crew, not excited on the mic, and stacking. If they would tell people to keep their shoes/sandals on and give their bags to the ops, they would improve. The main problem is guests go over and put their bags away in the wrong bins, pull down the restraint, kick their shoes off... Then they have to upbar to get the shoes back on, etc. It's just a wreck.

^ Yeah, the difference between Diamondback from my 2011 visit and my 2014 visit was stark. Those seatbelts are a stupid timesink, but the crew definitely didn't seem to care very much making a badly designed load time process much worse.

Glad to see shots of Vortex though! I know most people on here are Arrow haters, but I just love the old school loopers, and Vortex is one of the best still standing!

Just a random question I have: When did they change Invertigo's color scheme? Didn't it used to be red and yellow?

^It was painted its current scheme in the 2011-2012 off season.

^ Oh thanks. I liked the old color scheme more. The new one looks identical to Invertigo at Dorney Park and looks kind of bland.

Thank You for sharing your experience.

I understand Diamondback's crew might not have been meeting expectations, but I would consider the context of being Opening Day before going too far criticizing them. Ride crews are trained several days or weeks in advance of opening, but the training leaves out one huge factor; adding guests to the equation. You can cycle empty trains as lightning fast as possible and even open and close every lap bar and seat belt, but that will never account for the variances caused by guests. As someone who trains people on rides, I can teach all the scenarios I want to make a new operator aware of what might happen with guests, but it takes time for the operator to master the efficiency in handling different situations. Being efficient is hard to train immediately, but instead it is developed mostly over time. In other words, you learn to anticipate and address holdups before they hinder efficiency, or you learn tricks to fix things fast. One other factor is the fact that many of those crew members probably never worked a ride before or have a true understanding of efficiency coming into their job. I can also say from personal experience, after an off-season of not operating rides, it takes a little bit of time to get back into the rhythm of grueling operations. Once the crew gets used to working together and the returning employees are able to offer more help to newcomers, efficiency should improve.

Give the Diamondback crew some time. If reports are still coming back a few weeks into daily operations, then their criticism is fully justified.

Nice opening day report

The new kids rides look pretty nice and I really like the new map displays that look like a touchscreen. However, I dont like how the maps are not folded.

Thank You for sharing your experience.

 

I understand Diamondback's crew might not have been meeting expectations, but I would consider the context of being Opening Day before going too far criticizing them. Ride crews are trained several days or weeks in advance of opening, but the training leaves out one huge factor; adding guests to the equation. You can cycle empty trains as lightning fast as possible and even open and close every lap bar and seat belt, but that will never account for the variances caused by guests. As someone who trains people on rides, I can teach all the scenarios I want to make a new operator aware of what might happen with guests, but it takes time for the operator to master the efficiency in handling different situations. Being efficient is hard to train immediately, but instead it is developed mostly over time. In other words, you learn to anticipate and address holdups before they hinder efficiency, or you learn tricks to fix things fast. One other factor is the fact that many of those crew members probably never worked a ride before or have a true understanding of efficiency coming into their job. I can also say from personal experience, after an off-season of not operating rides, it takes a little bit of time to get back into the rhythm of grueling operations. Once the crew gets used to working together and the returning employees are able to offer more help to newcomers, efficiency should improve.

 

Give the Diamondback crew some time. If reports are still coming back a few weeks into daily operations, then their criticism is fully justified.

I would normally agree with you as I used to work as a supervisor on a coaster as well, but there was no hustle what so ever. It should not take 5 min to dispatch a train. We did not run into this situation on any other ride in the park. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt because it was opening day, but it's not looking good.

How are they running Woodstock Gliders?

your diamondback experience is crazy. last year, the day before banshee bash, and day of, they were getting trains out in 45 seconds. i was so impressed! i mean, they come get your stuff you're holding and take it to the bins for you. i rode so many times too. hope it's just some newbs working and it improves to what i got to experience.

Nice trip report... but no Banshee porn???

I couldn't help but laugh at this pic from your report!

THANK YOU! I'm glad someone else saw it, too.

How are they running Woodstock Gliders?

Good question--crazy like at Carowinds?

Thanks for the opening day report. I had a great time with TPR at Kings Island last year.

How are they running Woodstock Gliders?

They were running fine, but due to the capacity of the ride and the kiddy seat belts that require a key to unlock, it was a slow go.

I did not notice any cable snapping eather (an art that I can't figure out ).

^The Flyers at Kings Dominion have the "kiddie" seat belts, too. I think they added them this season.

I'm not sure that I understand why they need this type of belt on the larger rides. I can totally understand kiddy rides, but not a ride that you need an adult to ride with.

Thanks for the nice trip report. Doesn't surprise me that your burger was cold. King's Island has some of the worst food quality in the industry, only topped by Cedar Point.

The name for "Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown" came from one of the movies that were made in the 1970's.

Movie poster.

^I think the original title was "See You in Hell, Charlie Brown," but it didn't test well.

I can honestly say that I have never heard of that movie. I asked a few people at work, and nobody has heard of it either.