PhotoTR: Holiday World & Kings Island

Hey everyone on TPR!

 

This is my first Photo TR.

I live in Los Angeles, and flew out to Austin Texas to drive up with her and my niece to visit our hometown and family there. My mom and little brother had invited me to travel out to Holiday World and Kings Island while I was there.

 

I didn't sleep the night before Holiday World, but the constant access to caffein helped a ton. The weather couldn't have been more perfect and the crowds were light.

The Raven - Meh. I've never understood the hype on this coaster. It's just okay. The rest of my group agreed. We didn't return.

Thunder Bird - Best Ride at the park by far. Also one of the better coasters in North America.

The Voyage - Still a top woodie, but they really need to do something about the last third of the ride and how rough it's getting.

The Legend - I'll save my hatred for this ride just just throwing the letters, "RMC" out there. Gosh how good this thing could be if it wasn't so painful.

The rest of the park is okay. The best part being the water park which is simply the best out there. The newer area near Thunder Bird is a great direction for the park to go.

Overall, Holiday is still a fun family park with a destination water park.

 

Onward to Kings Island.

 

Kings Island surpassed our expectations. Being a huge Cedar Point fan since I was little, I always considered Kings Island to just be the other park in Ohio. I'm happy to say that Kings Island holds a candle on its own. In beauty, scenery, and greenery, Kings Island has Cedar Point beat... Don't get me wrong, Lake Erie is gorgeous, but the amounts of concrete on that peninsula is outrageous.

The rides were excellent as well.

Banshee - Our first coaster. Best invert out there. Rode it three times in total.

Diamond Back - Fun, easy ride that could be much better without trims.

Mystic Timbers - Easily second best coaster at the park behind Banshee or Diamond Back. Wild, smooth, hair time filled, laughter invoking ride through the woods and in a couple tunnels ending in a comical shed with ravaging bats and monster trees.

The Beast - WE ALSO LOVED THIS. I heard it was horribly rough, but thought it was one of the smoother woodies out there beating The Legend and The Raven.

Vortex - Fun, no complaints.

Windseeker - It actually sort of happened to creep me out at the top.

Back Lot Stunt Coaster - Fun little ride. Mom liked it. Glad we could laugh on it together.

Firehawk - Painful but fun layout.

Flight of Fear - A lot of fun, a little rough, but who cares when you get to walk through UFOs into the station.

The Racer - Blast from the past. It's a rough old fun woodie.

The Bat - One of our favorites. Despite its short track length, still a great ride that whips you around.

 

Over all, Kings Island is on its way to becoming one of the best parks in America. With plenty of rides for the whole family, several top notch original coasters, the best family area in America, and beautiful scenery. I'm excited to see what comes to Kings Island over the next ten years.

 

Hope you enjoy the photos!

Holiday World from the near by highway. Almost missed this shot, glad I made my mom drive around the extra few miles.

Look what we have here!

To be honest, Thunder Bird is what we were most excited for!

Would love to see more of these launching wing riders! Blows all the others out of the water, in my opinion.

Mom was scared to ride, but she made it through and LOVED THUNDER BIRD! (she had a lower back surgery fusion and has been afraid to ride more intense coasters)

I become strange when I haven't had sleep in two days; but the endless nights with close friends I hadn't seen in quite a while were well worth it.

Great ride, except the last third of the ride has gotten a bit rough and unenjoyable.

Thunder Bird is truly the prize at Holiday World. Hope to see more big steels at the park.

Soaring off into the sky.

Despite the cold, and my lack of swim wear, I decided to give Mammoth a ride. She was incredible! Best water slide I have ever been on, and the pneumonia was well worth it.

Liberty Launch was fun too with some "oh shit!" air time at the top pop.

Some more perfection.

Ending Holiday World photo tr with some more weirdness.

We were mostly excited for Kings Island! Being huge fans of Cedar Point, we decided to wait til 2018 for Mean Streak RMC and give Kings Island a try.

The entrance is classic, and stunning. It's wonderfully wide and open and the eiffel tower at the end of the fountains sets the park up really well.

We skipped out on Delirium because we've ridden MaxAir at Cedar Point - which we loved btw.

This we were excited to ride.

Banshee was my surprise favorite. Every element was spectacular and I loved the new style B&M trains.

We never got over to Invertigo. I have been on De Ja Vu which I thought was fantastic and highly underrated.

Diamond back is fun... But, why in the world is it watered down by the extremely unneeded trim brakes!? It kills the airtime when the cars aren't going that fast over the hills to begin with. Other than that, still a great coaster... Just not capable of being the Big Ticket Roller Coaster the park needs to make itself a huge destination like Cedar Point.

The entire area around Diamond Back is really beautiful.

The area around The Bat was a nice escape from the more crowded areas.

My brother on the left, Matthew, and his friend on the right, Jacoby.

The screaming noise when the train crests the lift... I would be okay with them giving it the axe.

Inside a UFO queuing for Flight of Fear.

Got it from my momma.

The entire park was lush, green, expansive, and surprisingly stunning.

Vortex wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. A stunning looker too.

I also loved the windseerker!

This one was just uncomfortable.

Fun course, but just painful.

The beauty again.

There's our baby.

Went up the Eiffel to get some over view shots of the park.

The entire children's area was the best we've seen at any park.

It's simply adorable and filled with rides parents can ride with their kids.

We were hoping to ride, but ran out of time for this one.

One last ride on Diamond Back. Actually took place later, back car ride, while the fireworks blasted over us the entire ride. What a way to end our day at King's Island.

My brother and I are one day going to open up the world's greatest Theme Park.

Mystic Timbers was AMAZING! By far the best GCI out there.

My and the bro and bro's friend.

So proud of this woman for continuing to conquer her fears by getting on Diamond Back and Mystic Timbers.

Solid drop tower. Prefer this style over other drop rides I've done.

A shot from us entering earlier in the day.

Thanks Kings Island for a wonderful day!

Getting our night ride on Mystic Timbers.

Saying Goodbye.

Driving back to the town I grew up in Southern Illinois. After spending too much time in Los Angeles, I had forgotten how beautiful the midwest truly is.

Back at the house, down for my much needed nap with Mr. Richard.

Love the report! Holiday World and Kings Island are two great parks!

Great report, two of my favorite parks.

When I went to KI, I noticed how much greenery that park has (even though it was as hot as Hades on the day I was there)

Great report!

 

I have a trip report from Holiday World on the way so I don't want to get into too much detail but I have to admit that after spending so much on admission I was sort of annoyed after riding Raven and Legend as our first 2 rides of the day and realizing how overhyped they were. Luckily we liked Voyage and Thunderbird is absolutely great so we left with a favorable opinion of the park by the end of the day but I feel like the fact that people love the park and the people that run it so much (as they should because they seem like great people and) that it might be clouding their judgement a little and preventing them from admitting that Raven and Legend suck in their current form. Sure this is entirely subjective and some people may disagree, but I walked away thinking that I couldn't really be the only one who felt this way. They were both rough as hell and generally complete crap.

Awesome report!

 

It's interesting to hear that Legend is rough. Didn't they just retrack the whole thing GhostRider-style last year?

Awesome report!

 

It's interesting to hear that Legend is rough. Didn't they just retrack the whole thing GhostRider-style last year?

 

They retracked the first drop and section immediately following it. That part is great, but after that it really goes to hell.

That's a shame to hear Raven hasn't aged well, that used to be one of my favorite coasters. I know it's not the absolute best ride around but it was always a really fun coaster with a few solid pops of air in a pretty fun setting.

Nice trip report! Loved the photos as well!

Fun! My father and I are going to be taking the exact same trip in a couple weeks! Although we have a different starting point (Springfield, Missouri). But I'm so excited! if you say Raven and Legend are pretty rough, I'm sure I'll love them. I love old and rough woodies. Although most that I've ridden that people say are rough, I don't really think they are. Just a little shaky but nothing too unbearable. And Kings Island looks really great, too! I really can't wait to ride Banshee, Diamondback, Mystic Timbers, Beast, Vortex, Bat, and Invertigo!

I enjoyed this TR; especially seeing kids who appreciate their parents so much...your Mom has clearly done a good job...I agree with your review of Raven and Legend...I believe I said the same thing during our only visit to HW a few years back (and was then publically shamed for such opinion by HW fan boys)...need a return trip now that Thunder Bird is there...I grew up on KI and love that park...was able to take my kids there a few years ago all the way from out here in SoCal and have them experience night rides on the Beast...now I see a reason to return there as well with ST opening.

Thanks for the response! I hope to get more trip reports soon! Wisconsin Dells, Silver Dollar City, and Six Flags Magic Mountain. More family and friends like family pics to come!