King's Island Roller Coaster Report
Saturday afternoon, while bobbing about in the gentle waters of Mentor Headlands, I said, "You know, we could go to King's Island this weekend. It's practically our only chance to, this year."
And lo, a quixotic adventure was born. We got out of the lake and lay on our blanket on the sand, drying off via sunlight as best we could. I took my braid out to speed the process of hair-drying and ended up with a phenomenal case of Beach Hair.
(For those uninitiated, the tangled, sticky, sun-bleached state of Beach Hair is attractive, but hazardous to brush and comb safety. With my length of hair it becomes nigh on a threat to life and limb.)
We were starving from our romp in the lake, so we hit Pickle Bill's, consuming hot fried food on a wide patio looking over the Grand River, surrounded by camp and mannequins. (Gawd I love Pickle Bill's. The fried dough with cinnamon-honey butter! It's like a donut as an appetizer!)
I digress. It was not the quickest start to an adventure. "At least we won't want to stop for food," Brian said, as we rolled our distended bellies home.
We threw some clothes in a bag and ran out the door. Brian booked us a hotel via cel on the way.
And by 10am Sunday, we were at King's Island!! Since my childhood I've been wanting to see it. And it did not disappoint. The layout and the theming were very good. It felt the most cohesively themed of the parks I've been too. The lines were atrocious - we had only two coasters with waits under an hour - but that was likely due to it being Labor Day Weekend and "dollar hot dog" day. (No, we didn't get any dollar dogs. Too busy waiting in lines.)
Naturally, we went straight up the 1/3 scale Eiffel Tower to plan our assault on the ten adult-sized roller coasters in the park.
1. The Invertigo was right by the gate, an "inverted boomarang" coaster - it's not a circuit track but a u, you are chain-lifted up, dropped, lifted into a fun cobra roll and loop, then back up another hill on the other side, where the train is caught and lifted just a bit more before the return trip. The seats were back-to-back, and Brian and I were seated in the very last, rear-facing seat -which put us in the front seat on the return trip. I have to say - waaay more thrilling backward, as expected. The cobra roll elicited a genuine "oh shit!" from me on the first (backward) traverse. (Originally themed "Face Off" when Kings Island was a movie-theme park. Brian and I got a kick out of looking up the movie themes.) It would perhaps have not been so thrilling had it not been our first ride, so I'm glad it was.
2.Flight Deck (originally "Top Gun") was an aircraft-carrier-themed suspended coaster. We did not have high hopes for it, thinking it would be one of those oddly-calming low-thrill coasters, but it was actually QUITE peppy, and it's higher drops and tighter turns made it a lot more swinging than "Iron Dragon", which might be the origin of my low opinion of suspended coasters. The view from the cars was charming - a little stream and woods all around.
3. Adventure Express A mine-ride, very mild (as those are), although there's no official word on it having an "Indiana Jones" theme, I think Lucas could make a case. The theming was all the ride, really. Ends on a lift hill with animatronic stone idols beating drums. Cute!
4. Flight of Fear (originally "The Outer Limits") is an indoor mag-launch coaster with the longest line in the park. We waited two hours for this one, briefly relieved by the spectacle of the ride's entrance into a huge flying saucer. Televisions placed throughout the queue played a sci-fi drama centered on the ride, but it was hard to hear what was said. We were melting in sweat when we entered the saucer, which was cool and clean. The ride operator changed up the 'launch count' with sadistic glee and the ride itself was clearly deserving of its favored status with the long-waiting devotees. There are inversions and turns and... well, it's hard to tell. You're in pitch blackness for most of the ride and the sensations are more than a little confused.
5. Firehawk Originally operated at Geauga Lake as "X-Factor", this is a "Flying Coaster" - after you are seated and strapped in, the seats fold back, leaving you laying on your back. After the first hill, you spend most of the time upside-down, so that you are looking at the ground. This has the effect of making the train itself rather hard to see - you are, in essence, given the illusion of flying (albeit well aware of your weight hanging in your harness.) We found it unique, but suspect the novelty would wear off quickly.
6. The Racer A wooden Racing Coaster. Classic. The first half was my favorite, with the steady march of hills, but at the tail end it wings out into two identical but separate turning tracks, so you lose sight of the second coaster, and on return the bulk of the ride is between you. Also, it appeared the blue coaster won most of the time (and the line for blue was considerably longer, so I suspect this is common knowledge.) A good roller coaster, but it cannot touch The Gemini for racing coaster stardom.
7. Backlot Stunt Coaster a mag-launch coaster with a brief "effects" area, based on and originally named "The Italian Job" - you're shot up a spiral in a 'parking garage' then weave between cop cars in a concrete canyon, stop in a narrow corridor of shipping crates where sounds and lights give you the effect of being fired on by all sides and a helicopter, then a gust of flame erupts, hot enough to feel, and you are shot a second time through where it just was. I found the 'shooting' rather tame, but enjoyed the cop cars and the flame. Also the ride itself was faster and more thrilling than it looked from outside.
8. The Beast At this point we feared how much time we had left in the day (it was already 7pm and we had three hours to cover three coasters, with more than hour waits common.) So we went right to the jewel of the park, the coaster I had most wanted to ride. When The Beast opened in 1979, it held nearly every record a coaster can have - and it still maintains its crown as longest wooden coaster in the world. Designed in-house (which I also love), it's a terrain coaster with two lift hills. It takes well over four minutes to ride. We made sure to get a seat near the front and found the coaster not rough at all (for wood), and the thrill of its breakneck turns cannot be beat.
9. Diamondback classified as a "hyper coaster" for being over 200ft tall, it's a chain-lift steel coaster with a traditional out-and-back design. (LOVE THAT) The real appeal of this ride is in the seats - you are seated in a chair that sits above the track, with only a center lap-bar to keep you in the ride. The lack of shoulder restraint is freeing and pleasant, to say the least. It also makes for quick ride loading. The hills are sharp and I felt negative g's a few times, with some lovely banks, too. The ride culminates in a 'splash down' which is cooler for spectators than riders (the water plume rises behind the train due to paddles attached at the rear of the last car.) MY FAVORITE. I would ride this coaster again and again and again.
10. Vortex When it opened in 1987 this steel coaster held the record for most inversions. It has two loops, a double corkscrew, and more stuff I didn't even know how to count as I kept getting tossed upside-down. Six inversions in all. Brian loved it more than I. I'm more of a hill-thrill gal (I love me some air time). But it was definitely worth the 15-minute wait (shortest at the park!) and we were glad we managed to squeeze it in as our last coaster of the night. I also loved its Victorian House styled queue, no doubt designed to be in keeping with the Old Time Themed area "Coney Mall" that it adjoins.
It was 9:30 when we left The Vortex, feeling tossed about but triumphant. We toddled the few steps to The Windseeker to end our night at King's Island. Alas, we were not loaded onto the giant swing-ride before the 10pm fireworks, but we did enjoy watching them through the white lattice of The Racer behind us.
And lo, a quixotic adventure was born. We got out of the lake and lay on our blanket on the sand, drying off via sunlight as best we could. I took my braid out to speed the process of hair-drying and ended up with a phenomenal case of Beach Hair.
(For those uninitiated, the tangled, sticky, sun-bleached state of Beach Hair is attractive, but hazardous to brush and comb safety. With my length of hair it becomes nigh on a threat to life and limb.)
We were starving from our romp in the lake, so we hit Pickle Bill's, consuming hot fried food on a wide patio looking over the Grand River, surrounded by camp and mannequins. (Gawd I love Pickle Bill's. The fried dough with cinnamon-honey butter! It's like a donut as an appetizer!)
I digress. It was not the quickest start to an adventure. "At least we won't want to stop for food," Brian said, as we rolled our distended bellies home.
We threw some clothes in a bag and ran out the door. Brian booked us a hotel via cel on the way.
And by 10am Sunday, we were at King's Island!! Since my childhood I've been wanting to see it. And it did not disappoint. The layout and the theming were very good. It felt the most cohesively themed of the parks I've been too. The lines were atrocious - we had only two coasters with waits under an hour - but that was likely due to it being Labor Day Weekend and "dollar hot dog" day. (No, we didn't get any dollar dogs. Too busy waiting in lines.)
Naturally, we went straight up the 1/3 scale Eiffel Tower to plan our assault on the ten adult-sized roller coasters in the park.
1. The Invertigo was right by the gate, an "inverted boomarang" coaster - it's not a circuit track but a u, you are chain-lifted up, dropped, lifted into a fun cobra roll and loop, then back up another hill on the other side, where the train is caught and lifted just a bit more before the return trip. The seats were back-to-back, and Brian and I were seated in the very last, rear-facing seat -which put us in the front seat on the return trip. I have to say - waaay more thrilling backward, as expected. The cobra roll elicited a genuine "oh shit!" from me on the first (backward) traverse. (Originally themed "Face Off" when Kings Island was a movie-theme park. Brian and I got a kick out of looking up the movie themes.) It would perhaps have not been so thrilling had it not been our first ride, so I'm glad it was.
2.Flight Deck (originally "Top Gun") was an aircraft-carrier-themed suspended coaster. We did not have high hopes for it, thinking it would be one of those oddly-calming low-thrill coasters, but it was actually QUITE peppy, and it's higher drops and tighter turns made it a lot more swinging than "Iron Dragon", which might be the origin of my low opinion of suspended coasters. The view from the cars was charming - a little stream and woods all around.
3. Adventure Express A mine-ride, very mild (as those are), although there's no official word on it having an "Indiana Jones" theme, I think Lucas could make a case. The theming was all the ride, really. Ends on a lift hill with animatronic stone idols beating drums. Cute!
4. Flight of Fear (originally "The Outer Limits") is an indoor mag-launch coaster with the longest line in the park. We waited two hours for this one, briefly relieved by the spectacle of the ride's entrance into a huge flying saucer. Televisions placed throughout the queue played a sci-fi drama centered on the ride, but it was hard to hear what was said. We were melting in sweat when we entered the saucer, which was cool and clean. The ride operator changed up the 'launch count' with sadistic glee and the ride itself was clearly deserving of its favored status with the long-waiting devotees. There are inversions and turns and... well, it's hard to tell. You're in pitch blackness for most of the ride and the sensations are more than a little confused.
5. Firehawk Originally operated at Geauga Lake as "X-Factor", this is a "Flying Coaster" - after you are seated and strapped in, the seats fold back, leaving you laying on your back. After the first hill, you spend most of the time upside-down, so that you are looking at the ground. This has the effect of making the train itself rather hard to see - you are, in essence, given the illusion of flying (albeit well aware of your weight hanging in your harness.) We found it unique, but suspect the novelty would wear off quickly.
6. The Racer A wooden Racing Coaster. Classic. The first half was my favorite, with the steady march of hills, but at the tail end it wings out into two identical but separate turning tracks, so you lose sight of the second coaster, and on return the bulk of the ride is between you. Also, it appeared the blue coaster won most of the time (and the line for blue was considerably longer, so I suspect this is common knowledge.) A good roller coaster, but it cannot touch The Gemini for racing coaster stardom.
7. Backlot Stunt Coaster a mag-launch coaster with a brief "effects" area, based on and originally named "The Italian Job" - you're shot up a spiral in a 'parking garage' then weave between cop cars in a concrete canyon, stop in a narrow corridor of shipping crates where sounds and lights give you the effect of being fired on by all sides and a helicopter, then a gust of flame erupts, hot enough to feel, and you are shot a second time through where it just was. I found the 'shooting' rather tame, but enjoyed the cop cars and the flame. Also the ride itself was faster and more thrilling than it looked from outside.
8. The Beast At this point we feared how much time we had left in the day (it was already 7pm and we had three hours to cover three coasters, with more than hour waits common.) So we went right to the jewel of the park, the coaster I had most wanted to ride. When The Beast opened in 1979, it held nearly every record a coaster can have - and it still maintains its crown as longest wooden coaster in the world. Designed in-house (which I also love), it's a terrain coaster with two lift hills. It takes well over four minutes to ride. We made sure to get a seat near the front and found the coaster not rough at all (for wood), and the thrill of its breakneck turns cannot be beat.
9. Diamondback classified as a "hyper coaster" for being over 200ft tall, it's a chain-lift steel coaster with a traditional out-and-back design. (LOVE THAT) The real appeal of this ride is in the seats - you are seated in a chair that sits above the track, with only a center lap-bar to keep you in the ride. The lack of shoulder restraint is freeing and pleasant, to say the least. It also makes for quick ride loading. The hills are sharp and I felt negative g's a few times, with some lovely banks, too. The ride culminates in a 'splash down' which is cooler for spectators than riders (the water plume rises behind the train due to paddles attached at the rear of the last car.) MY FAVORITE. I would ride this coaster again and again and again.
10. Vortex When it opened in 1987 this steel coaster held the record for most inversions. It has two loops, a double corkscrew, and more stuff I didn't even know how to count as I kept getting tossed upside-down. Six inversions in all. Brian loved it more than I. I'm more of a hill-thrill gal (I love me some air time). But it was definitely worth the 15-minute wait (shortest at the park!) and we were glad we managed to squeeze it in as our last coaster of the night. I also loved its Victorian House styled queue, no doubt designed to be in keeping with the Old Time Themed area "Coney Mall" that it adjoins.
It was 9:30 when we left The Vortex, feeling tossed about but triumphant. We toddled the few steps to The Windseeker to end our night at King's Island. Alas, we were not loaded onto the giant swing-ride before the 10pm fireworks, but we did enjoy watching them through the white lattice of The Racer behind us.