Geauga Lake or Kings Island

TTD4Life said:

As for design.. yes, The Villian does beat it.. but the thing is, the Villian isn't a good ride. Yeah, its good to look at, but when it comes to rideability and fun-factor, The Beast absolutely destroys it. You must either be short or just completely numb 24-7 to not be able to feel that sort of pain. I suggest anyone who hasn't ridden it don't even waste their time. There is a reason why I rate this ride very last on my coasters ridden list. CCMR is better... lol.
*** Edited 1/31/2007 6:45:53 AM UTC by TTD4Life***

CCMR is a hybrid coaster with steel track and wooden supports so technically CCMR is steel so you can't really compare
*** Edited 2/1/2007 9:28:49 PM UTC by First Ride Ever ... Magnum***
*** Edited 2/1/2007 9:30:02 PM UTC by First Ride Ever ... Magnum***

The primary criterion for classifying coasters is in the type of track and train it bears, not the supports. That's why CCMR is a steel tube coaster, not a wooden one. Ditto for Gemini.

^^ You have exactly captured my sentiments about SOB and Villain. I found the latter an order of magnitude more painful than the former, and I only ride it a few times a season (despite it being in my 'home' park) for that reason.

TTD4Life also nailed it about Big Dipper. Every year it seems more fun. Of course, I'm a sucker for classic woodies.

The only thing I have to disagree with is, I like my name. ;)

I was in no way implying that your name indicates a lack of knowledge. It indicated (to me at the time before you told me) that you liked a particular ride with particular characterisics.

To claim that one has ridden the Villian when it opened and then to claim there was no air on the ride has either forgotten a lot or has never ridden the Villian. There was air the last time i rode it in 2006 still on the pull outs on the turns even if some was lost on the camel backs. While the air is greater on the Dipper, the combination of all the forces and track on the Villian gives it an overall better package.

You seem to spend a lot of time complaining about pain. I have never ridden a coaster worse than the Son of Beast. It ruined my last trip to KI and from what i've read around the boards i'm not the only one. SoB was by far the roughest coaster i have ever ridden. Hands down. Turn of the century Mean Streak is a close second followed by the current Villian. Current Beast goes in the catagory of "pick the wrong seat and you'll have to see a back specialist" (which i was supprised of since i had never had a bad ride on it before the last few years).

Wooden coasters are a funny thing.

One year you're on the top of the world and then people complain about roughness. I think it's pretty clear that it's tough business keeping a woodie running well, at least in our neck of the country. Mean Streak, Son of Beast, Big Dipper, Villian, Raging Wolf Bobs and even the Beast have had serious complaining brought up about their rideability and roughness at one time or another. It makes me wonder how Kennywood does it?

The last posting shows me that in the end you can't get over how poorly the Villian has aged.

TTD4Life said:
"But when all that turns into PAIN, it really doesn't matter. "

and:
"I'd take the 'poor pacing' of a 30 year old ride over a 7 year old pain machine."

My whole point all along is that the Villian is a very good ride that has aged poorly (become rough). The Villian at its prime is by far the most interesting and best designed wooden coaster in the state by my accounts, for all the reasons i have listed. I just didn't want people to forget that this was once a common opinion and should be something any coaster enthusiast (like First Ride Ever... Magnum) should check out at least once. I also felt that GLP needed a little bit of support ;)

And i'm not even going to touch the Dominator thing...

It would depend on what you had in mind before visiting the parks.

Where as I love both GL and KI my issue with KI has always been not that much to do and the things you want to do are all far away from each other. (ie: Top Gun to Beast) You can easily ride everything at that park in a matter of hours and then find yourself with nothing to do. Unless you want to do Boomerang Bay.

For anyone with kids I would recommend KI in a heartbeat because you can not beat their kids park and rides. Makes me wish it was that wonderful when my kids were little, they would have adored it!

As for GL, you can easily ride everything in a matter of hours also. For anyone who does water parks, WWK rocks and is a total blast. I'm not a water park person myself (I am bathing suit intolerant ;)) but love WWK. We plan our day to spend morning-mid afternoon at the rides, then eat lunch, then head to WWK for the rest of the day. We even hit up a couple of the coasters on our way back out of the park.

The thing about KI and GL is their landscaping is breath taking. KI always looked wonderful before and it will be interesting to see how CF can take that one step further.

Even though KI is only 70 minutes from us and GL is 2.75 hours we will still make more trips to GL. As much as my hubby is going to hate that (he LOVED X-Flight and wants to go to KI to ride it) that is the park we prefer. Besides Dominator is there :)

Neither park can compete with CP as far as having things (rides and shows) to keep you entertained the whole visit.

JMHO

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 1163 :)

GL and KI are too differant parks to really compare. They may share similar types of Coasters but you can't really compare the two parks since they are so differant. Geauga Lake is more of a regional park while Kings Island is bigger,more widely known. Besides they are both about 4 hours away from each other.

I vote for Kings Island.