King's Island Opening Day

Hey everyone, I know this website is dedicated for Cedar Point really, but King's Island being a Cedar Fair park I figured it'd fit. Plus there are some updates that do pertain to Cedar Point/other info included. Plus being my first time, it's a nice new perspective

First off, we got there at around 9:30-ish waiting to park. This is the one thing about the park I don't like. Parking/entering/exiting is terrible. We waited about 20 minutes just idling up to pay for parking. On top of this, it was just congested to park regardless. Cedar Point definitely has an upper hand in this category. It seems to flow very nicely from the toll booth to parking. Plus the traffic ops. help relieve alot of the congestion.

We literally got to the gates right after the National Anthem played. Being an original Geauga Lake veteran (lol) we went straight to X-Flight. The paint scheme was actually impressive. This ride wasn't ready to run right away, as they were having problems with the second station (right). After about 20 minutes they were pushing riders through with no difficulty at perfect intervals. Now after getting off, we noticed not much was running. The rides were either down due to technical issues, or were having problems in general/not ready. Some rides still needed state certification (Vortex mainly for what I found out). Rides down included the red side to Racer (thus making it not a racer haha), Diamondback (down until around 2PM-ish), Beast (initially after the ERT's I believe), Flight Deck (was down all day I believe, never really heard anything after my initial pass by), and Invertigo (down until around 1PM). Now for the rides, not ridden in this order, just by memory/King's Island website

Now X-Flight (Firehawk I know, oh well) is as good as I remembered it. They actually did better than at Geauga Lake I will say. I remember waiting on the safety brakes before the station, and there were countless times that the ride would end up stacking as a result, but I didn't see this problem this time around. Later on in the day around dusk we did see that they were down to one side operation due to technical issues. Without that the ride was a two hour wait, ouch.

The Drop Tower was such a thrill! Now initially I was thinking that this was just the power tower drop side, same thing same experience. Now this ride was INTENSE. The thrill and drop was much better than even power tower. I will say the wait was a bit ridiculous though (1 hour). Regardless I used obscenities on the way up and yelled them on the way down, lets not go there for the sake of the kids :P.

Invertigo is the same as every other Vekoma boomerang. Now the dual seating arrangement was ok, but regardless it's still a boomerang. I will say though the worst thing about this suspended boomerang was the seats were very uncomfortable. This ride requires scoliosis to ride, you're back will feel that way in the seat. Very uncomfortable ride

Vortex was AMAZING. This easily dropped in my top 10 coasters. I was going by Vortex when I heard the familiar arrow lift hill sound. Realizing it was going through testing I waited right near the entrance to get in as soon as they opened it. I ended up meeting another ride op who worked for King's Island, we stood waiting & talked. Now one thing to note, King's Island is basically second base for Cedar Fair parks. They got last year's uniforms from Cedar Point, except for they retained the dark blue shorts. Now we got completely new uniforms up at Cedar Point this year, they will probably get those next year. Also discussing their park with him, I found some interesting information. Talking about Son of Beast, the heavy rumor is that it is going to be torn down, but they may be looking for other parks/investors to buy it & take it somewhere and retrack/rework it, ect. He said that he doubts it will go the second route considering people know it's issues, ect. he thinks it's going to be torn down. He said give it by the end of this season or next year and we'll see information for sure develop. Now back to the ride, using his info I sat in the 7th car first row, for best thrill. Now he was absolutely right. The drops were impressive, the corkscrew elements, ect. everything was amazing. My only complaint was the trim brakes about halfway through before all the inversions. I do understand why they employ them so I can understand and not really say this ruined the ride.

Diamondback was really really impressive. First off, this ride is such a people eater. They hit intervals like no other & dispatch at just amazing intervals. Very rarely did a train even sit on the block brakes, it was stopped slowly & brought around & right in the station. You constantly move through the queue, there was no idle time at all. I even timed the queues, one normal sized queue line took one minute to get from one side to the other. Epic win on their part. The ride was really great. I wasn't really thrilled with the ride as much as the seats. That's truly a whole experience in itself, but really helped improve the ride. That's even more open that Intamin's giga coaster seats. I don't like Diamondback's hand grip area though, that is my only complaint there.

Backlot stunt coaster was ok. Now the biggest complaint is even the seating. I'm 5'6 and only 170lbs, but this seat squishes you in. I have no problems fitting in anything anywhere, but this is a kiddie coaster seat haha. The best element was the twisting right after the small launch. The ride itself, it's a kid ride, but oh well, I still enjoyed it a bit. It actually did more than I thought it would

The Eiffel tower was a great view. Really cool thing to experience. Now I just didn't like being crammed in an elevator with a bunch of random people but ah well.

Now the best of the beast. Beast was just...ugh I still am lost for words. I watched almost all the POV's prior to going down to King's Island the day before. Seeing this, it looked cool, but seemed like a normal woodie, just with two hills & two big helix's at the end. I even went as far as to reassure this girl right in front of me that if she rode diamondback that this wasn't anything comparable. Now I got on it at around 9:20 as per one of my ride ops friends up at Cedar Point. Let me say, this thing is a beast, and at night...Sorry for the language but HOOOLLLY ****! The hill is slow and steady, and relaxing. When you get to the top, you see NOTHING. I literally yelled out "where the **** is the track!?" and just started to plummet. Now I've ridden alot of coasters & thrill rides, but this thing right here, wow. I was terrified from the top of that hill. The elements were all so impressive, and thrilling as well. I mean, in the tunnels, the twists, ect. You barely see any track if not any at all. Only one part of track is lit somewhat, and then then only one of the tunnels & helixes. I will say Maverick was my #1 roller coaster prior to this visit, this knocked it out & kicked it's ass left & right. I left stunned, terrified, and just amazed. This ride is so impressive. After 30 years, it's still better than alot of rides. This is just the best. If you never have had a chance or didn't have someone refer you. Ride this coaster after night. It's so worth it

Now general info for CP that I said I would include. Their windseeker was missing all the swings in the AM, but by the end of the day they had all swings on & there. The dramatic lighting package when seen in real life is stunning. The tower lights are up top and shine down and illuminate the tower & various colors. The gondola lights work in unison with the lights coming down from the gondolas to the seats. Now here's the way it looks. Starting off at the base of the gondola (lowest point, not where the swings are) you will see a bar of light emerge. Let's say red starts off. It will flow from this point to the top of the gondola, and then flow from that point down the lights attached to the bars holding the swings. So you will see various strips of lights flowing on the ride, in that sequence. The most prominent colors were Red blue, green, and some odd purple, but there were others included, however you will see mainly the red, blue, and green.

Also talking to the same ride op at Vortex. He said with the downtime they have until next week's weekend opening (even though today it's open for a private event), it should be ready by then, as they already have the mannequins ready to go on at a moments notice So he said it looks like construction is ready to go and the testing to begin. He also said the ride ops are anticipating finishing training come this week. So with that being said, when we see all the swings actually on,(which is hard because where they don't hang swings is where the access door is on the other side facing the new entrance), it will probably open very soon after because that means construction is over & testing will begin.

Now I actually hate to say this, but I enjoyed my time at Kings Island so much I think it may be better than Cedar Point. Even right off the bat the park seems so much better. You enter & you're just greeted with a lavish, inviting, energetic environment. The fountains, tower, and tall rides all await you after you get off of the neat, old style French environment. Cedar Point, you step through, and you see straight down the midway at some big rides, but mainly the carousel, amidst being swamped by the picture crews & their cameras. The environment is also very nice. At the top of the Eiffel tower, or even anything, you get a great view of the terrain. At Cedar point. You see Cedar Point, and water, maybe an island or two depending on weather conditions. Might I also add the layout is so much more impressive. At cedar point everything is so flat, and it's really just a big circle with a straight away where the midway is. King's Island, the path's flow with the land, it's textured, and twists around, and moves. Plus the area was filled with more than just rides & attractions. There were trees, scenery, flower beds, benches, food places, ect. My last critique is it was CHEAPER TO EAT-ish. Some things are still outrageously priced (beer bottle was 7 bucks) but some things were reasonable. A cinnabon was I think 5 bucks, which isn't bad. I ended up getting a frozen lemonade (which was SO GREAT) for 4 dollars, and I think it was a 16oz cup. Cedar Point needs to step up the game with food prices, they do seem to be more expensive over the board. Last food critique with this too, is there was a variety. Pizza shops, cinnabon, pretzels, funnel cakes, drinks, starbucks, subway, ect. Where any CP vendor is just a CP food shop with a themed name slapped on the front (for the majority of them)

Well, that's my novel. Hope the info was enjoyable/informative/ect...Whichever way any of you take it haha..Cya all this season on the Corkscrew platform :)

Thanks for the trip report! It was exciting reading about the experience of what appeared to be a first time visit.

I agree that the Beast is just awesome at night! One of my favorite coaster experiences...it feels so fast and fun in the dark and feels like you're away from all civilization. So awesome.

I decided to go to King's Island on opening day JUST to ride the Beast & Diamondback at night, planning on getting there at 8PM or so. I had an all day plan of many stops along the way (It's near a 3 hour drive for me) for my business, and they all took much longer than expected.

My last stop was about 30 minutes from King's Island, and after it, my GPS said I'd arrive at 9:40PM. I was sweating but felt I could still make it. Then, I missed an exit which ate 10 minutes up. I arrived at the park at 9:50PM, parked, and RAN to the Beast as my 1 ride. I arrived at the Beast entrance at 10:03PM, and she would not let me enter!

Cedar Point always gives you like 5-10 minutes past close, so this was a MAJOR disadvantage of KI in my case. It was one of my most disappointing experiences ever, as I had looked forward to riding it all day (and all off-season!). I walked around the park a bit (it's really beautiful there at night), and I took my 3 hour trip back home. And YES - entering and exiting KI can be a nightmare! It took a long time to get out of there, especially with no traffic directors.

It was nice to read your trip to see how the day would have gone though. And it's not the end of the world for me...I'll even have higher excitement for when I go back with some friends to KI in 2 more weeks.

Here's a helpful tip for KI so that you might even have a better trip the next time you go. King's Island was absolutely slammed attendance-wise on this opening Saturday; it may have been a record opening day. If you go Sunday through Thursday in May in the future, you'll find most of the big attractions have no wait at all. I went on a Tuesday or so last year in May, and the park was just dead - they'd even let you stay in your seat and re-ride if no one was waiting...or you could change rows to where no one was waiting. The only problem is that by 2PM or so, we had ridden everything in the park and were starting to feel sick. I know it might be difficult to get there one of these days with work, etc...but it's worth it!

I'm so happy to hear you had such a great time despite the heavy crowds and ride downtime though! Great write up. :)

KI was way off their game on opening day. The sheer amount of downtime around the park was mind boggling. Flight Deck did run until about 11 AM, then went down (while I was next in line in the station) and as far as I know didn't reopen. Except for Diamondback, crews were exceptionally slow, which I guess is to be expected on opening day, but coupled with all that downtime, made for some insane lines. The Beast crew was especially lethargic, regularly stacking all 3 trains.

I will say the employees I encountered other than the ones working on rides were very friendly. We had an awesome waitress/busser at the buffet restaurant, and ran into a couple of sweeps who were asking everyone how their day was going.

So, I believe the only roller coaster that didn't experience downtime was Adventure Express? haha People reported even Crypt and Boo Blasters were down...and funniest of all...the Sling Shot pay attraction was down (What could possibly go wrong with that?). Hopefully KI learns a lesson from this. This isn't the norm for the park though. In my last 5 visits there, I ran into virtually no problems, excluding the occasional down time of Firehawk (which is probably their least reliable coaster).

That makes several people that have now commented on KI's employees being exceptionally kind this season. I better get there soon before they turn bitter.... :)

Lastly, I love both CP & KI to death, and CP's unique peninsula lake setting feels so full of summer, but I agree that KI is simply a more beautiful park to walk around and ride coasters in. People will argue that there's no land issue at CP, but there is. When you're taking down all the trees and mangling your rides together, it takes away from the experience.

For example, Iron Dragon was once like Beast, in that flying through trees just made it so much better. After Mantis was dropped on top of it and TTD came along, ID lost its charm...now it's an exposed mediocre coaster inside a steel & concrete jungle. KI still retains its forest setting, which really adds to the experience.

I was there for opening day at KI. It went pretty well for me, but I didn't do as much roller coaster riding as I would normally (family trip w/ my son).

Passes all worked fine, which was my biggest concern. Headed straight to Diamondback, hopped on the 4th train of the year for an amazing ride. Headed to Beast, which ran very well. So by 9:20ish, I had been on the two rides I really wanted to hit and was off to do kids stuff the rest of the day. Hit up Boo Blasters 3 times, rode Flying Ace Aerial Chase with my son a couple of times (which is a great go-between coaster, btw). Hit all the little stuff like Linus' Launcher and that. My wife really wanted to ride Sling Shot, but every time we went to get in line it broke down. All in all I'll chaulk it up as a win.

Oh, and what trip would be complete without a bank-a-ball win? :)

BBall Champ

I did forget to mention that, the passes did work without a hitch. I was concerned about that.

To the OP's comment that KI is as good or better than CP, in many ways I agree totally with that statement. The overall atmosphere is much nicer than CP, even though the rides don't quite stack up in comparison. CP wins the thrill ride battle for sure.

Beast at night has been a favorite of mine for over 20 years. What a ride! It was better way back in the day when they had the older style trim brakes that were not as noticeable. The ones on there now grab you and bring you near a stop in some cases.

Vortex has always been a bit too much twisting and turning for me. I get a little motion sick and can usually only ride it once per visit. Still a good ride, though.

Flight deck kicks the crap out of Iron Dragon.

Diamondback, wow, front seat, arms and legs forward, what a ride.

And KI's Haunt is, in my humble opinion, quite a bit better than HW at CP. Only downside is no re-entry after 7PM. Dress in layers!

Oh, and we're headed to KI Friday morning for the whole weekend. Praying for good weather, but not so good as to draw out the crowds. I'm thinking Friday the park will be pretty empty with all the kids in school and whatnot.

I imagine a first time Beast ride at night was amazing! I would say it is at least 3 times better at night, and that is considering that I already knew the track layout from riding it multiple times during the day.

Vortex 7-1 is one of the most amazing rides ever! I just discovered it the last time I went to King's Island. In 7-1 the first drop feels like you just rode drop zone/power tower and you still get to enjoy the whole rest of the ride too. You should try 5-1 on Vortex if you go again. It feels like you are completely floating during both of the corkscrews. The front seat isn't too bad either, but any other seat on Vortex tends to give me a headache from all the head banging.

I enjoy King's Island, especially because you also get free waterpark access during the summer, but overall it isn't nearly as good as Cedar Point IMO.

Thanks for the tip on Vortex. I'll make sure to try both those seats this summer -- I've never had a ride on it that didn't end with me reaching for the Advil.

Was there,never did an opening day KI before. After reading the KI Central forum the day before opening day,the large crowd was not a surprise. Been to KI 7 times in the last 4 years. Went with a fellow CP friend,took about a 3 1/2 hour drive,where CP is 1 1/4 hour drive for us. We did Diamondback,last seat,during the morning ERT for passholders,line went fast,good ride. Invertigo,Flight Deck,Beast,Vortex weren't operating after leaving Diamondback. Did Backlot Stunt Coaster,very slow line,and Adventure Express,line moved OK. My goals for this KI excursion was to experience KI opening day (I have experienced every CP opening day since 1996) and to ride Invertigo and Vortex,2 rides I've never done because of motion sickness. I'm 64 and 10 years ago,nothing bothered me,but age has changed things. But the past couple years has been a learning time in the use of motion sickness pills,I take 1 pill about a half hour before arriving at a park,take another after entering the park (CP first aid station behind Snoopy Boutique personnel know me well),and then another pill midway thru the day,seems to have solved all my motion sickness problems. We did Vortex and I enjoyed it, it was a reminder of Double Loop at Geauga Lake,only bigger and more elements. 2 of the 3 goals accomplished, Invertigo (did Mind Erasor,a similar ride, at Geauga Lake many,many times in the late 90s') will wait till the next visit,as there will be a few more times to KI this year. We left about 8:30 as we had to get up to Columbus to meet some friends for social gathering and eats.

Ffej said:

My last stop was about 30 minutes from King's Island, and after it, my GPS said I'd arrive at 9:40PM. I was sweating but felt I could still make it. Then, I missed an exit which ate 10 minutes up. I arrived at the park at 9:50PM, parked, and RAN to the Beast as my 1 ride. I arrived at the Beast entrance at 10:03PM, and she would not let me enter!

Cedar Point always gives you like 5-10 minutes past close, so this was a MAJOR disadvantage of KI in my case. It was one of my most disappointing experiences ever, as I had looked forward to riding it all day (and all off-season!).

I don't know which Cedar Point YOU have been going too, but I have been to the one in Sandusky over 300 times in the last 20 years, and I have NEVER been allowed into line once the ride host's watch reaches closing time. No exceptions, no way.

Maybe Ffej and I haven't been going to the Cedar point YOOOOU go to, but from what I remember, and have heard from park employees/Area manager, the lines don't close until 10:08 (assuming the park is open until 10).

Seriously, IF there is employee at the end of the line I have never been able to get into line more than a minute after closing time. It is like a steel trap shutting - you are out of luck if you don't make it. Applies to rides, haunted houses, attractions, you name it. Maybe if a sweeper sealed off the line with a trashcan and then left, you were able to jump it, but otherwise, sorry, no.

Jump a trashcan after a sweep put it there? hahaha WHAT?! Do sweeps seal off lines for closing time? Or is it a ride host's job to close the line off? I'm confused about that one.

Like I said, I've witnessed first hand when getting off of Millennium around 9:58 and walking to Maverick, it was 10:04. There was a male ride host and security guard sitting at the entrance CHECKING THE TIME, and we still got on. After that, I questioned this and heard from ATL and TL employees and Area Managers, from what I remember, that lines don't close until a little after 10 o'clock. I'm almost positive they said 10:08. Sorry about your little rant, but yes! ;)

Rugrats2001,

I agree with Fjej and TwistedWicker, I have always been allowed to ride anything I wanted until 10:08. Maybe YOU have been mistaking Cedar Point for KENNYWOOD, because Cedar Point actually doesn't abruptly close the park like some other parks. And on Maverick, Top Thrill Dragster, and Millennium, I have always seen a security guard checking the queue to make sure no one is trying to jump over the entrance.

Ffej said:
For example, Iron Dragon was once like Beast, in that flying through trees just made it so much better. After Mantis was dropped on top of it and TTD came along, ID lost its charm...now it's an exposed mediocre coaster inside a steel & concrete jungle. KI still retains its forest setting, which really adds to the experience.

Haha, not to be a smarty or anything but....I'm sure a lot of people would rather have Mantis and TTD over ID with more trees.;)