Hey you guys and gals!,I apologize for not having been on the board much lately. I have been quite busy with the start of school. Work has also been depleting my time as well.Anyways, my family and I ended up taking a short but well needed vacation to Cincinnati, Ohio for three nights on July 8th-11th. We ended up visiting Paramount's Kings Island the Wednesday of our trip. This was to be the biggest part and the main reason as to why we went on vacation. This tr will be quite interesting because we were under a severe thunderstorm watch all day! But the sun was shining till about 7:45 that evening (story on that to come later). I will write my TR in the form of rides done in order and how many times:When we arrived at PKI's front entrance it was actually showering! We got into the park and ran for cover in a front shop. The rain quit after about 9:40 AM just in time for park opening. When the ropes were dropped, we chose to head to Son of Beast first!
Son of Beast: 2 rides, 15 min wait each time. All I can say is wow! I throughly enjoyed this woodie. The height and speed are just simply amazing! We rode front seat on the first ride and enjoyed the visuals, the back seat was somewhat rough though. I am not sure I will do that again. The loop was smooth and very intense! Rating: 9/10We next dropped off merchandise at the car and proceeded onto:
The Beast: 5 rides, walk on-6 min wait each. What was great about this was that there was no wait all morning! We got five rides in under an hour. The Beast still runs great, though I am not sure about those magnetic trim brakes. They seemed to slow down the beginning of the ride way too much. Rating: 8.5/10.We took a short break for lunch and rode the train.
Train- Fun ride through the woods. I have to credit the park for at least providing semi-real propane steam engines. Rating- 6/10My sister and I then proceeded to...
Vortex: 1 ride, 5 min wait. Wow! I can see why this did not have much of a line. It's your typical arrow headbanger. My head and shoulders were in complete pain afterwards. It almost seems as if it is too rough to handle. Rating: 3/10.
Racer: Four rides, walk on-5 min. wait each. Still a fun ride with decent airtime. It almost reminds me of a mini-American Eagle, though not quite as rickety. It ran smoother but it would have been better if my racheting lap bar did not crunch down into my thighs each time. Rating- 7/10
Flight of Fear: 1 ride, 45 min wait. This had the longest line of the day. This was mainly due to the lax ride ops that were working the coaster, and the long loading prodecure. The ride ops were either talking to their friends between every dispatch, or they were screwing around. The loading procedure was also long because they had to check seat belts first, then pull down the restraints. The operation here reminded me of something right out of Six Flags. Luckily the ride was pretty decent. I enjoyed the launch throughly, though my head flew around a bit in some of the inversions. I could see how this could have been a major headbanger with the OTSR's. Rating: Line 2/10, Ride 6/10.That was the longest line that we had encountered all day. It was after FOF that the rain decided to pour on us for about 20 mins. We ducked into a nearby candy shop for cover. MMMM....Sweets! After the rainstorm ended we headed to:
Adventure Express: 1 ride, walk on. This ride was still enjoyable. The effects are a bit cheesy but the ride is pretty decent. A rough and tumble mine train. Rating 6/10
Top Gun: 4 rides, walk on each time. Wow! This suspended coaster still kicks butt. I love the speed and rate of swinging that you get throughout the ride. I also love the close "headchoppers" that you get with SOB, and some of the support structure. The only drag to this one was having to walk the long queue over again, but they opened up the switch back after our first walkaround. Rating 9/10From here we broke off for an hour all on our own to go shopping and browsing. My sister and I went up on the Effiel Tower.
Effiel Tower: 1 ride (or view), no wait. Cool views. Especially with neat cloud formations in the background. Rating 7/10My sister and I met up with the family for dinner. After dinner we made the decision to head back to the SOB/Top Gun area because that is where we wanted to head next.
Son of Beast: 2 rides, 10 min wait each time. The first ride went great but the second ride is where my storm story is told. We were standing in the station for SOB and we are one train away. The ride ops get notified by phone that nasty thunderstorms are moving towards the park but are still several miles away. So they kept on operating the rides. Well, we get into our train, and are dispatched from the station. Well the rain picks up as we are leaving the station. We are in the front seat. We are climbing the lift hill and we see a bolt of lighting on the other side of the park!! Well since we were at the top anyways, we finished our ride. SOB ran INSANE! VERY fast on wet rails plus with the pelting rain made it a crazy ride. This was definately one of the best rides on a coaster that i have encountered in some time. Anyways, so we hit the brake run at the end of the ride, and we see a bolt of lighting RIGHT behind the skycoaster across the midway!!! That freaked us out! We soon arrived in the station and were the last train of the evening on SOB! The major thunderstorms came afterwards and closed the rides down for most of the rest of the night.So, that was our day at PKI! We got a total of 22 rides during the day. The park was practically a ghost town all day because of thunderstorm watches and rain. We had a great day! Sorry for this being such a long novel, but I had to explain all of the good parts. Hope you enjoyed it. I learned one thing on our trip: I REALLY am crazy
!Overall park rating: 9/10
