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Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Monday, July 05, 2010

TR: Kings Islad - June 6, 2010

TR: Kings Island
Trip Report: Kings Island
Mason, OH
June 6, 2010
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June 6th was the day after HoliWood Nights.  Our ambitions for the day were low after having just spend two exhausting days at Holiday World.  Really, the big goal was to see Snoopy's Starlight Spectacular.  With that we pushed hotel check out to the limit, and learned while in the process of checking out we weren't the last.

 Then we left Tell City and headed into Kentucky for a certain IGA that has proven itself to be dramatically cheaper for gasoline.  

Not being in any real hurry, we took back roads all the way back to Lousivile, the highlight of which was driving through the civilian roads in Fort Knox. We eventually got back to Lousiville, and around Le Grange KY got the munchies, a stop at Arby's cured those needs, and we even got to see some sort of craft festival in the La Grange town square.  
So, again, not really pushing it, we arive at the park kind of late in the day.  As usual no problems getting parked or into the park.  We head through Planet Snoopy.  I, being the flag person, noted the flagpoles have been moved from side of international street to right at the top of the royal fountain.  In addition more blacktop in the front gate area is giving way to pavers, and there is some more work going on to finish off Planet Snoopy.

We start the day off with some Diamondback rides, what else?  You may find this a little nuts, but after spending the last two days on Voyage, Dimondback just didn't seem to be up to par.  Continuing our way through the park, we check in at Crypt and confirmed that yes, it still sucks in just about every conceiveable manner.  We continue on to Beast, and I note it got its US flag back at the lift approach, and Dave notes the two click rule is back in force. Oh well, at least Beast got some new wood, and seems to be performing better than it did in April. The line was back to the greeter stand, but I didn't really notice any problems caused by removing the center handrail on the big ramp.  

We headed towards Italian Job, looked at the line, and gave it a pass.  We did, however, decide to take a quick spin on the Troika (Shake Rattle and Roll)  not a bad ride.  We rode Vortex, and got the hardest slam to a stop either of us could recall on the mid course brake.  We noted, and were a bit surprised Euro Bobbles is still operating, we kind of figured the extrmely hot summer we are having would have killed the enthusiasm for those.  

I know Dave doesn't care for Firehawk, but we do take our usual front seat, overbraked ride on Flight of Fear.  I'm just glad the seatbelt doesn't seem to be of concern for me anymore.  We note they moved the exit gate of Dodgems so it's right next to the entrance gate, which causes some confusion as people run to the padlocked shut gate they have exited through for years.  Eventually we make it down to Racer.  I was just starting to notice that airtime is coming back to Racer, when Rideman notes the lapbar has again gone places no lap bar should ever go. Yep, he got his annual battle of Torque Lock.  While he was letting Guest Relations know his feelings on the matter, I was helping myself to a free soft drink, at a Cedar Fair park.  What is this world coming to.  (Thanks to the Coke Zero sponsor booth)

When he came out of GR, we headed to Action Zone, where there was another sponsor booth for the KIN phone, a cell phone idea that was so well recieved it lasted less than two months.  You now, I thought one of the things Cedar Fair did last year was get rid of a lot of these county fair style vendor booths.  I appreciate a free drink as much as the next person, but I don't think a $50 a ticket theme park should look like a $7 a ticket county fair.  

We headed to Invertigo, one of those rides we generally skip because the line is too long.  The line was a little on the long side, but we waied it out.  We were rewarded with a forceful, an surprisingly smooth for Vekoma inverted boomerang ride.  
After that we got as far as the Drop Tower queue area before deciding we really didn't want to wait that long.  We looked through the On Location shop and found a bunch of pac man themed candies, and commented that of course, each piece of the game is sold seperately.

From the gift shop, we headed to Flight Deck on got to the boarding area just in time for the rides to go down for impending severe weather.  We decide to try to put some distance between us and the ride and on the way out, I noticed the new entrance for Halloween Haunt is still there as a re ride gate.  We make our way to the Festhaus without getting wet.  We get a little dripped on on our way to the Emporium, then it really started to come down.  I'm glad we were in the Empoium.  We reclled when Jeff Johnson jumped about 20' when he was sstanding under Tower during a lighning strike.  While in the gift shop, I noticed they were now selling Kings Island car flags.  Hey, I'm a flag collector, and at $4 the price seemed right, I'll pick one of those up on my way out.  

When the rain subsided we headed to the area by the Floral Clock to epereince the Starlight Spectacular.  Where Cedar Point has big inflatable characters, Kings Island used 2D light up characters.  Thereis apatriotic section, there is a camp section, I liked the statue of one of the Peanuts blowing bubbles, and there is a bubbler right there.  The staff in this area wear Charlie Brown shirts, anat certain times a more organized light show takes place on the back side of the eiffell tower that eventually spreads to the whole Starlight Experience area.  We walk back and forth and look at it a couple times.  I mean all the rides are still closed for the weather delay, and truth be known since the rides had been closed for about a half hour now, and it was only aabout 20 minutes until closing, the park had just about totally emptied out.

We saw life at Diamondback, and who needs the single rider line when you can just walk right on to the ride.  We were really surprised they kept the seat assigner there, but so we got a few more Diamondback rides in near ERT like conditions.  For my last ride of the night, I lowered the lap bar just to the line on the column, hich is supposed to be the minimal accepted position.  Last year, I was lucky and sometimes needed help just to even get the bar down that far.  Now there are one or two clicks further I can pull the bar.  With the lapbar a loose fit, Holy Canoli!,
 That is some scare you quality airtime. Wow, Diamondback is still the best ride in the park.

So after we left Diamondback, we returned to the Emporium, I got my flag, , and we just got to the parking lot when wave 2 of the big downpour started.  We were nicely drenched by the time we got to the car.  We concluded the weekend with a stop at Steak and Shake.

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