Park: Kings Island
Date of visit: April 25, 2009
Park rating: 3/5 – Good
Recently I had the opportunity to visit Kings Island in Ohio, and what can I say? I can start off by saying I had an amazing day in the park, and if I had the chance to go back, I’d dive in head first. By far, this is one of my favorite Cedar Fair parks. Now, I’m not going to sit here and give you a detailed drawn out trip report, but I will mention the highlights of my day.
I visited the park on April 25, 2009, and arrived in the parking lot around 10am. The parking lot was already getting pretty full, which meant the park was probably going to be pretty busy. The parking lot was extemely difficult to navigate. Having never been to the park before, naturally I followed the cars infront of me. Clearly, they were all going to preferred parking. Okay, so I had to back track a little and park in the middle of no where. We arrived at the front entrance in search of Guest Relations where we were to pick up our complimentary tickets, but locating it was a different story. After looking around like idiots for a few minutes, it was time to ask an employee for help. We picked up the tickets and headed into the park.
We (Erik Yates – my fiance, and myself) managed to ride Diamondback with less than a ten minute wait, but we were unable to ride together because we got in the Single Riders line. We were perfectly okay with that. Diamondback is an amazing coaster, I tell you. It’s smooth, and there’s a lot of airtime. I don’t think I spent much time in my seat, honestly. The lift is steep, as well as the drop. Did I mention that right as soon as you leave the lift hill, you’re straight into the drop? Although Diamondback has no inversions, I’d call it something like a ‘steel thrill machine’. The splash down right before the very end of the ride scoops water into the air, at least a good thirty feet, soaking the riders in the back row. I didn’t ride the back row, but heard complaints from those who did ride in the back.
The Beast was my 100th coaster. I was dying to ride front row, but it seemed the line for the front end of the train was moving slower, so we headed to the back. If I couldn’t do front row, I wanted to ride in the very back. Needless to say, that was an honest mistake. It was long, painful, rough, and I thought I was going to lose my head. The train travels through tunnels that gave me the allusion my head was less than inches from the wall. Most of the ride, I sat hunched down in my seat, begging to the Coaster Gods to let me live. I do thank them for allowing me to step out of the train alive. Son of Beast was no better. I overheard others in the park remarking about how great of a ride it was, but I beg to differ. It hurt, and my head hurt so bad when I got off the right I could not look left, or bear to walk left. Going right seemed to ease the pain, and going left was just a nightmare. I will never ride this ride again, even if my life depends on it.
Overall, the park was great and I had a lot of fun. The restrooms were fairly clean, which was a plus. I hate going to an amusement park or a theme park and using a dirty restroom. For a busy day, lines moved pretty quickly, but there was little to no shade on the pathways. As I walked about the park, I felt my skin baking over the black top. I left the park with a painful sunburn on my face and a peeling nose the next week. The Employees seemed to love their jobs, espicially the rides employees. There was always someone on the mircophone and they seemed to be having fun while working, making our wait times seem shorter than they really were. The park was fairly difficult to navigate without a map as there were no signs pointing you in any direction. Each major attraction also had a wait time sign at the entrance of the ride, however many of them were not accurate. For example, the sign at Son of Beast stated the line was 90 minutes, but we only waited about 30. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but other rides stated the line was much shorter than it really was. Drinks are fairly expensive. We bought two bottles of water and it cost us about $7.50, therefore because of food prices, we did not eat anything in the park.
Would I visit this park again? Yes, I would!
I give this park a 3/5.
