Park Review

Paramount's Kings Island Kings Mills, Ohio By Andrew August 25, 2001 I presently live in San Diego and, with my head now bowed in indignation, acknowledge Six Flags Magic Mountain as my home park. Before this trip, I had never been to Ohio. Thus, I hope that I am offering all of you a fresh, unique perspective on the Ohio parks that I visited. I had my Sony CLIE PDA with me for most of my trip and took notes throughout my visit especially between rides and activities at each of the parks I visited. In my report, I have applied overall ratings (from 0 to 5, 0 being the worst and 5 being the best) to the various rides that I experienced. Each rating reflects the overall experience including theming, thrill, fun, etc. The rating for each ride is relative. In other words, a rating of 5/5 for a wooden roller coaster is rating it only against other woodies, not all coasters in general. The categories I rate separately are: flat rides, woodies, steel non-inverting, steel inverting, stand-ups, suspended non-inverting, and suspended inverting (aka SLC). I will rate a B&M floorless coaster, such as Medusa, against all other steel inverting coasters. By the same token, I do not rate shuttle coasters separately. Thus, Raptor and Face/Off, for example, are rated in the same category. I am posting these reports to both RollerCoasterTalk and the message board at Ultimate Rollercoaster. So, for those of you who read from both of these sources, please forgive the duplication. For those of you who like to read TRs (and if you don't, I figured you stopped reading this long before getting to this part), I hope you find it enjoyable reading. My trip was quite exciting with new favorite rides discovered. Ok, without further ado, on to my report. I left Sandusky around 7pm on Friday, August 24th. Unfortunately, I almost immediately ran into some nasty bumper-to-bumper traffic on OH Hwy 250 (is this Ohio or Los Angeles?). I would estimate this traffic delayed me by about a half-hour, if not more. In any case, after about 4 hours (including a stop for gas and, you guessed it, White Castle) I arrived at my hotel, the Holiday Inn in Kings Mills. Incidentally, I was very impressed with the hotel. It is kept up quite well and features, among other things, a free shuttle to Kings Island. Cedar Fair, how come you don't do this for your guests staying at Breakers Express? Shame on you! Unfortunately, shortly after leaving Cedar Point on Friday, I was starting to feel a cold coming on. By the next morning, as I headed out to Kings Island, I was feeling even worse. I refused, though, to let whatever was coming on deter from my experience at one of our nation's finest amusement parks. I arrived at Paramount's Kings Island shortly after 9am on Saturday, August 25th and met up with Kings Island Brian just past the front gate. After a short wait, we were joined by Columbus ACEr Adam. Soon thereafter, we, along with various other ACErs, were taken on a walk back to Son of Beast. This was the first walk back that I had ever taken part in. Among other things, I got to walk directly under Face/Off. Very cool! Son of Beast (4/5) We were fortunate to have three back-to-back rides on this monster before 10am when we had to move on to other rides. Each of the three rides we took in seat 6.3. The ride featured some decent drops and nice speed. Of course, this ride is well known for its braked straightaway leading into the only wooden coaster loop in the world. I found the ride to be relatively smooth. Still, after three back-to-back rides, it was a great wake-up call! We next headed over to the Flying Eagles flat ride where we met up with three additional ACErs, Chris, Derek and Jack. Flying Eagles (5/5) Wow! What more can I say? This has to be one of the most incredible flat rides I have ever been on. How unfortunate is it that there are only a couple of these left in the world? This ride is kind of hard to explain. Essentially, it consists of approximately one dozen cars that are attached via cables to a central spinning pole. Each car has a rider-controllable "wing" the affects how far out each car swings. If you can get your car to swing up high enough, it does this really cool "snap" thing that, at first, can be quite frightening until one gets used to it. We were fortunate to head over to the Flying Eagles early in the day before the longer lines formed. As long as the line is not long, the ride operators allow people to ride the cars singly. Once the line builds up, everyone must double-up in the cars. We each got in about 5 or so rides before the line became long enough to require doubling up. We then moved on. What a ride! Vortex (4/5) After a 15-minute wait, we boarded Vortex, PKI's Arrow looper. This is one of Arrow's first megaloopers. PKI applaudably had three of three trains running, even at this early stage of the day. Per Adam's suggestion, Brian and I rode in seat 7.1. I was able to keep my OTSR up a notch or two. As a result, I experienced great airtime down the first hill. As one of the first Arrow loopers, this ride has a very unique track design. Strikingly different from other Arrow loopers that I have been on, the first drop does not go into the first loop. That happens after another hill. In any case, this was a fun ride. I rate it just below other Arrow loopers I have been on such as Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain and the Great American Scream Machine at Six Flags Great Adventure. Snack time: The six of us next decided to split a pie of Cincinnati's famous LaRosa's Pizza. I found it pretty good which is saying a lot coming from a guy who grew up in Jersey! 7th Portal (4/5) After a 30-minute wait, we experienced the 7th Portal motion simulator. The simulator was pretty good featuring good 3D effects and decent motion synchronization. I found this experience to be far superior to the Golden Eye simulator Paramount used to have. That thing was a dog! Incidentally, the best motion simulator I have ever experienced has to be Search for the Obelisk at the Luxor in Las Vegas. What great syncing they have on that ride! Beast (5/5) After a brief 15-minute wait, we boarded the longest coaster in the world (well over a mile along with a dispatch-to-dispatch time of nearly five minutes!!!). The Beast was operating with all three of its trains. We rode in seat 6.3. Man, what an awesome coaster this is! It has awesome speed and superb curves and tunnels. It has great acceleration after the second lift hill into an incredible helix. This is, by far, the best woodie I have ever been on. Sorry Ghostrider! The Beast is absolutely incredible! After out ride on the Beast, we ran into Scott and Carol Holmes from Indiana, of Holiday World Raven fame. Those two are colorful characters. It is great to see such coaster dedication and enthusiasm. Racer (forward) (4/5) After a 15-minute wait, we rode in seat 1.3. PKI was operating two trains/track at the time. This ride featured outstanding airtime throughout. It was fun but, overall, was not quite as good as Gemini at Cedar Point. Incidentally, in my CP trip reports, I tagged Gemini as the best steel racer I have been on. I have to correct that. Gemini is the best racer, period, that I have been on! Then again, I have not been on many racers. Flight of Fear (4.5/5) After a relatively long 90-minute wait, we rode PKI's LIM coaster, Flight of Fear. They apparently were running only two of three trains which, while slowing down the line, also apparently allows PKI to leave the mid-course brake turned off. We rode in seat 1.1. This coaster is a great dark coaster and definitely has its best moments in the second part, after the mid-course break. I am told this ride is the same design as the Poltergeist coaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas. If so, the dark theming and lap bar restraints of FOF make it a much better ride. Incidentally, while it seems hard to tell given how dark this ride is, it seems as if this coaster features inversions that go well beyond basic loops. If so, this has to be the first coaster I have been on that only features lap bar restraints despite the fact that it features inversions beyond basic loops. I also have to say this ride features excellent theming. Snack time: I had an excellent lemon Italian ice from a cart near King Cobra. It definitely helped soothe my sore throat. Adventure Express (3.5/5) We next rode PKI's mine train ride, Adventure Express. This ride was a walk on with three of three trains operating. We rode in seat 5.3. This is an excellent mine train ride, definitely better than Cedar Point's. It features a nice surprise after the second lift hill that I won't give away to those who haven't ridden it. Face Off (5/5) After a 105 min (accentuated by a 30-minute break down), we rode in seat three. This Vekoma Invertigo coaster is the same exact ride as the one at Paramount's Great America. Yes, I love the Invertigo design! I can't wait to ride Deja Vu at SFMM next week! Dinner time: We ate at a restaurant in the Action Zone area. I had a grilled chicken with French fries. The chicken was pretty darn good while the fries were just ok. We next headed over to Eiffel Tower so I could take some pictures. Unfortunately, it was closed due to mechanical problems with its elevators. Next, we headed back over to the Action Zone to ride Drop Zone. I really wanted to ride this one given how much I love Drop Zone (a second-generation Intamin Free Fall ride) at PGA. The Drop Zone at PKI is the second generation of an Intamin Free Fall ride design to feature the Drop Zone name. Unlike the 1G Drop Zone at PGA, the 2G Drop Zone at PKI is much taller (315 feet) and features one entire "disk" that drops, not several four-person cars. This seems like a much better design. Unfortunately, though, I never got to experience it as the ride was shut down while we were in mid-queue due to lightning. Instead of taking the chance of waiting for Drop Zone to re-open (it was now well after 9pm), we decided to head back over to the Beast to have some nice dark rides on it. On the way, we caught up with Jeff Siebert, director of Marketing for PKI. Jeff is quite a vibrant character. He is a really nice guy who apparently has done wonders for the park. Keep up the great work Jeff! We then arrived at the Beast and were able to get in two more incredible rides on this monster before the park closed. We rode in seat 1.1 the first of the two rides and in seat 6.3 for the second ride. We had a brief 15-minute wait each time. The ride in the back was definitely rougher than the front but still an absolute blast! It was totally dark and absolutely incredible. It was drizzling slightly the first of the two rides but that didn't faze us. Man, this ride is so awesome in the dark! It is like a dream. I love this coaster! We were very fortunate to have Brian, one of PKI's ride operators, working on the Beast. He is, hands down, the most enthusiastic and friendly ride operator I have ever seen. He was greeting everybody, getting everyone pumped up for the ride and asking people how much they enjoyed it after it was done. Man, what a combo! Outstanding coaster, outstanding ride ops! I left the park tired, but absolutely thrilled. This is one superb thrill park! Even having not ridden some of its premier rides such as Top Gun and Drop Zone, as well as others like King Cobra and the Racer (backwards), I was extremely impressed. Wow, what a park! Thanks to Kings Island Brian, Adam, Chris, Derek, Jack and the entire PKI crew for a great day! Andrew The above park review, and all other reviews contained on this site, are property of Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Geocities and their respective owners. See Yahoo's Copyright Policy for more information.

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