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TR: SFKK 4/15/06

Let us know how your day at the park was.
Postby FParker185 on April 18th, 2006, 3:30 am
Havent written a trip report in a several years, and I dont think I've done any here, so bear with me if it gets somewhat random.

Weather: Upper 80's with high humidity, and sunny for most of the day, with clouds late.


Well, after purchasing a $44.99 season pass online back in Jan, the time had come to get it processed before SFGAm opens for the season. So around 4:30am, I pick up a friend(Jim) and hit the road. 3 hours after leaving we hit Indy, which means we are in Waffle House territory (or in IN, Waffle&Steak), of couse a stop there is obligitory and after a quick and, as usual, spectacular meal we are back on the road for the remainder of the trip and we roll into SFKK's parking lot at about 11:15 local time, and after paying a moderate $5 parking fee I procede to find a spot right next to the main gate.

I had my voucher in hand but Jim needed his Season Pass still, and a warning here, online the price said $54.99 with no indication that the price would be any different at the gate, however at the gate the price is $64.99, but at that point there was not much that could be done, so he goes up to a ticket booth and clearly states he wants a Season Pass and is promptly sold a one day ticket, immediately afterwards an extremely apologetic lady pops out of the ticket booth and guides him to Guest Relations where the problem is quickly solved with more apologies. So with admittance in had we head for the main gate and quickly get into the park, and with a quick pass though the me_al detectors, my waist pack must be searched, and they were very cool about it, making small talk while searching the bag, asking how my day is going so far and what not. So far so good from a Customer Relations standpoint, already asking myself if I'm really in a Six Flags park, Kentucky Kingdom no less.

After that we go straight to season pass processing where there is a moderate yet very fast moving line due to efficient operations inside. Impressed with the speed I got my pass, we head out into the park and I realize I left my phone in the car, after a quick trip out to the car and another polite convo with another security guard checking my back I'm ready to start my day.

Off we head into the park though the front half, where we encounter the usual early day long lines in that section of the park, so we head directly to the Damn Bridge, cross said bridge and get in line for the Ferris Wheel, being a fan of ferris wheels, got that out of the way and took plenty of pics(will be online sooner or later), after our Wheel ride we headed towards Chang and it's awesome paint job (or lack thereof as it was peeling badly and was more bare metal than paint), as we get closer we notice the back half of the ride from the incline loop to the final brakes was in the process of being repainted, blue supports and a vibrant yellow track, but it is running, so we get in line which is to the bottom of the steps. It's running one train as train #2 is still in winter maintenance, but it's going somewhat efficiently and we are on in 10-15 mins or so, board the back row and take our ride. It was running a bit faster and more intense than I remember, but it was running with 100% nylon road wheels instead of the usual back 3 cars having a poly blend(in the summer they put the poly plend wheels on to reduce the speed and forces some to keep it tolerable).

After that we head over to the next coaster in line being Terror to the Second Power, a New Dimention in Fear, also known as T2. It is running 2 trains with walk on conditions. So we choose front row with a one train wait. After about 90 seconds of needless brutality we head on to the next coaster being Thunder Run. Thunder Run was running one train as that's all it has, we queue up for the front row and about 15 mins later we are riding, and it was running really smooth and fast, with a heaping helping of Ejector Airtime over the first 3 hills, and the ocasional pop here and there during the rest of the ride. Also worth noting is they now play the soundtrack for the ride in the station consisting of Banjo music with a narrator telling of running moonshine though the hills of kentucky. After all it is Kentucky.

After that we decide to head back to Twisted Twins, which we find walk on conditions with only the Teal side running (Stella I believe), but as we are about to board, one of the ride op procedes to vomit and fall over, which delayed our ride by about 25 mins, as the had to call the EMT, and after a checkup they eventually walk him off and clean up his protein spill. One amusing thing, as the EMT was walking up the exit steps (where the sick op was) he asks "So, how are you feeling?", afterall it is Kentucky.

Anyways, he seemed fine, I'll assume it was likely heat exhaustion or similar, but with that out of the way, we ride front seat and are provided a pretty smooth and decently running ride. Impressed and not wanting to press our luck or our thighs, we decide one ride is enough and move on.

After this we have basically completed that half of the park and we procede to the Damn Bridge and cross back to the other side where crowds have subsided and dispursed around the park.

So we cross said bridge and we ride the Rainbow, which runs OK, but it is a Huss Rainbow and they are becoming few and far between, so riding any Rainbow is a good thing. After that I notice the Enterprise is making disturbing noises and we pass on riding it, though I did notice they shortened the cycle greatly, it used to stay vertical for a good minute, now it runs just like Orbit gets vertical then immediately starts heading downward. After passing on that we hit the Simulator which was the Funtastic world of Hanna Barbara, which was pretty fun, dont think I'd ever ridden it before, and it is rather dated, but still a decent story line and whatnot.

After that we browse the exit store see nothing of interest, exept for a $9.99 SFKK T-Shirt, if it was just Six Flags I would have bought one, but with the words Kentucky Kingdom on the front, I passed. Hopefully SFGAm has a similar, less embarassing to wear shirt. After that we rode the Himilaya which is a relatively standard Reverchon or Eddy Meyer Himilaya with freshly repainted scenery. The ride op was doing quite alot of spieling, mostly scream if you want to go faster, but it was running as it's usual self that it's sort of known for, a good 5-7 min cycle, though it didnt go backwards, not sure if it ever did or not, memory is hazy, but it definately didnt this day.

After that it was on to the Freshly repainted Hellevator which was running at 4/5 capacity and sported a <5 min line. From there we headed to the Huss Pirat which resides at the end of a long dead end path right next to the park's former front gate, which is nothing more than concrete blocks and razor wire now. After that it was Mouse Time, and we rode Roadrunner Express, one ride was enough, though I noticed on the sign for the ride Wile E Coyte was strapped to a rocket chasing after the roadrunner, however it was not an ACME made rocket, and as we all know no matter how many times he falls off that huge cliff, Wile E Coyte is fiercely loyal to the ACME brand. Someone should probably let SFKK know that. (Roadrunner express at SFFT sports a similar sign exept the rocket clearly has the ACME moniker on it, so it's all good)

After that we rode Tidal Waves a few times (as we all know PGA's Tidal Wave loop and random other track was put on Greezed Lightning to replace some parts that needed replacing, making it officially Tidal Waves instead of Tidal Wave for the Old School SFGAm'ers). Rode it thrice and moved on.

Not exactly sure what we did after that, as the heat was getting to me, I know we ended up eating Ice Cream, riding the wheel again, along with second rides on Chang, T2 and Thunder Run).

At this point now it was 6pm, aka closing time, and around 6:30 we hit the road, and got home around 11:30pm due to multiple stops for lunch, a money making ciggerette scheme of mine, many bathroom stops (ice cream at SFKK must have gone south), but it was definately a fun trip.

Other random Notes:

-All employees we came across were exceedingly polite which was a refreshing change.
-All the bothrooms had a full time dedicated attendant, so now I can use a bathroom there without feeling dirty, though I do feel kind of bad for the bathroom attendants as you can only do so much cleaning in a bathroom before you have to stand outside and do nothing at all til something needs attention again, also it's gotta be demoralizing to wake up every morning and know the only thing you will do all day is clean the shitter, so Kudos to them, as it is a job that needs to be done, even if SF went overkill on that idea.
-Park was exceedingly clean with lots of sweepers around the park.
-There was definately a character presense in the park, but not like I had heard, they seemed to be in the front half of the park the most, but I saw many stopping for photo ops (both Park photos and people taking personal photos)
-Every single ride in the park was open exept the pink side of Twisted Twins(Lola I believe), they even went to the extreme of having maintaince tear apart the breakdance all day to get it going and they opened it with about an hour left in the day, if that isnt some sort of dedication I dont know what is.
-Though I didnt get one, and didnt know where to obtain one, I saw thrown in some bushes a poster sized park map, seemed to be Citigraph produced (SFGAm poster maps up til and including 1993)
, if SFKK has those, I can only assume SFGAm will do the same.


I guess that's it, I will rate this SFKK visit as Relatively Inoffensive (the highest mark SFKK can possibly get). And I hope I see what I saw there happening at SFGAm, and I hope it lasts all season long. And I hope you all have enjoyed reading this.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder
Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping
Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
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Postby Trailblazer Tony on April 18th, 2006, 11:52 am
Boy, your trip reports are very easy to read, i flew through that. :)

Sounds like a nice day!
RIP: Trailblazer and Deja Vu...heck, even Alien Encounter :(

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Postby Ilovthevu' on April 19th, 2006, 8:43 am
The all important question is Chaos gone or not? :cry: If not, was it open? I didn't realize that Thunder Run only has one train. I really enjoy that mouse. I think that the Chaos (probably gone) :cry: , Roadrunner Express, and Penguin's Blizzard River are the gems of the park.
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
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Postby CoasterDude12-2 on April 19th, 2006, 11:23 am
Nice TR. Almost makes me want to go to SFKK, (almost)
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Postby FParker185 on April 19th, 2006, 8:38 pm
forgot to mention that, Chaos is now a smoking area, basically all they did was take out the ride, and some fence that was in front of the ride, and left it as is with some benches and quick landscaping.

Pretty sure after the chaos events of last year, Six Flags has removed all Chaos rides from their parks, same for most other parks.

Though IB will still have a Chaos in 06.

One nifty thing, and technically it isnt against any written rules, I think Chance figured it was agasint the rules of physics, but there is a Chaos flaw that I actually first discovered at IB, and has been repeated on several chaos' since. Now I dont reccomend anyone tries this as it really is a pain in the ass for the park and you can get stuck upsidedown for 15+ mins, but as the end of the ride, there is a mechanism that levels the car and locks it in place so it doesnt rock during loading/unloading, only problem is it doesnt know what side is up, so if you get two people in the car and co-ordinate your rocking efforts as the ride is coming to an end, and you can rock the car to approx 120 degrees at the exact right time when the locking mechanism kicks in, instead of leveling the car right side up, it will level you perfectly upsidedown and keep you there, until Maintenaince arrives and releases the lock (the first time I accomplished that, maint. did have to disassemble the whole end of the arm to get to the lock and manually release it, now I think they have added an easier way to unlock it as last time as soon as maint. arrived it was less than 2-3 mins til we were upright).

And for the record I do not do that anymore, I just did it several times to see if it was a fluke in one Chaos or all of them, and that first time I did not expect that, me and my riding partner were sort of expecting to perform a loop, in hero fashion, performing something that basically had never been done before on a Chaos (loop the car). And i heard though the grapevine that we were and probably still are referred by Tom Spackman and most people at the park as the 2 idiots that managed to get themselves stuck upsidedown on the Chaos. Of course the person he told that to replied with "I know those 2 idiots"
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder
Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping
Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
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Postby Trailblazer Tony on April 20th, 2006, 12:50 pm
^That's interesting! Don't know if you should have told everyone that, it makes me tempted to try it at Indiana Beach next year. :)
RIP: Trailblazer and Deja Vu...heck, even Alien Encounter :(

Fangs Up Cobra Style!!!

Chitown's finest resident here!!!!!
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Postby Rusty888 on April 20th, 2006, 3:46 pm
Hahaha, that's awesome!
i'm rocking the suburbs, just like quiet riot did...
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Postby Ilovthevu' on April 20th, 2006, 6:05 pm
People are having enough trouble with that ride already. SF has taken all or most of all of them out of those parks. Do you really want IB to take theres out because people have found the trick to have them be locked upside down??
"I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
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Postby Trailblazer Tony on April 20th, 2006, 8:45 pm
^I think after seeing what happened to the one at Michigan Adventure, locking two people upside down for a couple minutes would play a very small role in them wanting to take it out. And no, i won't do it, but it is tempting nonetheless.
RIP: Trailblazer and Deja Vu...heck, even Alien Encounter :(

Fangs Up Cobra Style!!!

Chitown's finest resident here!!!!!
Trailblazer Tony

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Joined: August 29th, 2005, 2:50 pm
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Postby FParker185 on April 21st, 2006, 8:51 pm
While i strangly reccoment against doing it, it is worth noting a concern above.

IB's Chaos probably wont be around that much longers anyways, I think the only reason it's there this year is all of a sudden it's a novelty again being one of the only ones left in a park and may possiby be marketable.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder
Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping
Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
FParker185

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Posts: 4508
Joined: February 5th, 2004, 12:04 am
Location: Joliet, IL


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