PKI Opening Day!

Well after many longs months of suffering through withdrawal, my friend and I decided to take the ever exciting drive from Pittsburgh to Cincinatti late Thursday night to hit up the park for its Opening Day on Friday. I've only been to PKI once, 6 years ago.. so I was looking forward to it.

Anyways, we stayed at the Best Western right across from PKI, I def. recommend it if anyone is ever looking for a convenient and decently cheap place to crash before a PKI visit.

We got to the park (after waiting for at least 20 minutes in a hugeeee line of cars) around 10:30. All I can say is.. THANK GOD we didn't have to get a season pass processed.. the line was HUGE.. ALL DAY. After waiting in line for about 20 minutes (thanks to this stupid B) we got our one day passes and happily proceeded to wait in a 15 minute line to go thru the metal detectors, and then we happily waited another 10 minutes in the line to actually get into the parks. Now.. I'm used to parks that check your bags, buy your tickets, and let you enter all in the same place.. not in three different steps.. it wouldn't have been THAT bad if it wasn't for dumb guests, but I will say the guy scanning tickets acted as if each ticket was an entirely new concept to him... Ok.. on to the rides!

We were going to hit up Italian Job first but we ended up on the wrong side of it so we headed back and walked on FOF instead. Here's my short review of the day.

FLIGHT OF FEAR- walk on

Two thumbs up for the Lapbars.. and the ride was overall good. However, the lights were on! The ride sucks that way!

ITALIAN JOB- 30 minutes

My first IJ:ST ride.. It wasn't very impressive.. fun.. but not worth a long wait. The helix at the beginning was cool, and so was the direct hit from the water at the one scene.. but the pitch black tunnel was great. Overall I liked it, short.. but sweet.

THE BEAST- 15 minutes (2nd row)

Now.. 6 years ago I was BLOWN away by the Beast. This morning I was borderlined depressed when I found out how they neutered the poor guy. The trim on the first drop, after the first drop, and also in the shed thing all grabbed the train HARD... It was still a decent ride.. but read on..

ADVENTURE EXPRESS - walk on

A great mine ride! And who can not love that anticlimatic ending!

SON OF BEAST - closed

Well, on Adventure Express we saw some cranes working on SOB.. so once again, I missed the credit. To be quite honest though.. I wasnt too sad.

TOP GUN - 15 minutes

A nice suspended.. but not a Big Bad Wolf.. desperately needs some attention.

DROP ZONE - 30 minutes

WOW.. I love Intamin drop towers.. Why doesnt Hersheypark have one of these yet?? Pure greatness.

DELIRIUM - closed

After riding MAXAIR last summer, I was sad to see Delirium testing, but never loading. I think I read on here that it did open up later on though.

RACER BACKWARDS - 10 minutes

Awesome!! And strangely smooth as a baby's bottom.

RACER FORWARDS - 10 minutes

Awful!! And strangely rougher than Mean Streak..

TOMB RAIDER - 30 minutes

I heard mixed reviews about this ride.. I thought the effects would be better, but overall the theming was really great and the ride was pretty fun! Two thumbs up.

Now.. I'm not sure if I missed anything, but we went back to ride the Beast and DAMN.. give this thing a few hours to warm up, ride in the front and the back a couple times and all of that worrying I had earlier about it being neutered was taken away! The trims still slowed it down, but there were some points that I thought we were going wayy too fast for the wood to handle! The ending helix is easily a Top 3 "coaster moment".. insanity! Great Great wooden coaster.

We did a few other things but I'll shut up and get to the pictures!

Pure terror and insanity! I love the Beast.

At the top of the second lift, you look down a huge ramp.. not a drop.. a RAMP.. and you see this tiny hole.. and you know there is probably no way this is going to work..

and finally, a tribute to the Beast.. Here's the first drop..

Delirium, we just got to watch it swing.. Boooo

Pollock, Warhol, and all strange artists have nothing on this deep and meaningful image.

PKI is a Coke park.

We stopped for ice cream and got creative.. here's our reflection.

Racer! Backwards = smooth, Forwards = blood in urine

We didnt ride Vortex, I rode it six years ago... paint job looks great though.

Drop Zone.. people under me on the ground probably thought it was raining..

Once again I miss the SOB credit.. but I also dont have health insurance.

This is one of those exclusive pictures.

Finally we're in! After awful lines for parking, tickets, security, and admissions!

Wow, great pictures. I like the "PKI is a Coke park" one. I think I stayed at that Best Western when I was there, too.

Awesome photos. Too bad Delirium was closed, that's my favorite ride in the park.

Nice pics. Just curious, do you have a Sony dscw7?

I get to check this park out for the first time in June and all PTR's are super appreciated. Thanks for the info and great pictures.

You...Didnt...Ride...Vortex?

BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!

You realise your missing out on the single greatest ride in the park by doing that, right?

How long were you there anyway? I wanna know if your another person I missed that day..

Pretty cool Pix.

PKI is one of those parks I haven't ventured out to in a long time. I think I need a Beast fix right now. Wild One and Roar just aren't doing it.

Yummmm...

Beast.

I can't wait until I get to ride it again.

In the dark!

This time, I keep my mouth CLOSED. No more bugs for me, thanks!

Riding the Beast at night would be amazing! I wish it was dark by 8 PM on Friday or we would have stayed to do that! Do they light it up at all? We were going to pay the extra $5 for the second day admission but I talked myself out of it. I want to hit up parks I havent been to yet this summer and a ticket for PKI would make me HAVE to go back there instead of somewhere else. I'm kind of bummed out about that now thinking about the Beast at night... weak.

Is Vortex actually smooth? I remember wanting to die a few years ago after it... or maybe that was FOF with OTSR..

We were in the park from 10:30 to about 6:30.. so we probably walked right past each other a few times and didn't know it. If you saw someone wearing a Phoenix shirt from Knoebels that'd be me.

That was Liz's camera in that pic.. she has a Sony.. so you're probably right. I have a Panasonic Lumix... both are great! But its more fun to use her camera on rides so she'll freak out.

Eric

My gf Julia and I hit this park on Easter Sunday. I took a bunch of pictures, maybe I'll post them if anyone wants to see. The new ride - Avatar is very fun. Different than what we expected. As for park operations... PKI is the worst park I've been to in a long time... come to think of it, I wish six flags would take over!! wow, can't believe i just said that. Son of Beast had a sign in front saying it might open LATE spring, Delirium was closed the entire day, There was a 10 minute wait for Italian Job, and the crew wouldn't even let us wait 1 cycle for a front seat ride!! Wow, even Cedar point lets you wait for the front seat now on MF and TTD. Take a hint, PKI! When we finally got on it, the show sequence wasn't working for us, no fire, no gunshots, no nothing. The helicopter, we noticed later, is stopped in the up position, no popping up from behind the wall anymore. To top it all off, even Face-Off was closed. 1-cycle waits on Drop Zone and re-rides on Top Gun and Backwards Racer made the day. Adventure express is still good, and you get a nice view of the giant paperweight SOB from the lift hill. Julia wasn't too dissapointed she couldn't ride SOB, quote "My ovaries are thankful we didn't ride." Also for 2 chicken fingers baskets w/fries and drinks - $24.03 WOW! I have pictures as I said, I may post them. Some good shots of Avatar.

-James

Great photo TR!

I love PKI so similar yet so different from PKD

I would like to see your pics James

I love Paramount's idea of "Late Spring", Volcano opened in "Late Spring".........August 1st 1998

Calm down dude, it's opening weekend, and they didn't have employee dry-run days this season. Cut them some slack!

In response to them not having a dry-run day: I'm only holding them up to standards other parks seem to have no problem keeping, besides, I went on Sunday, the park had already been open 2 days before. Any problems that are minor should have been weeded out. I know all the rides had been cycling before hand, because I talked with people who work there that I know who were there for training weeks ago. If they maintained there rides properly during the offseason, I doubt so many would not be working. Don't get me wrong, I love King's Island, just not the way Paramount has been running it. I hope they sell soon... then I'll get a season pass again with no hesitation.

Great Bear Lodge seems to be coming along nicely

No Line.... wait, it's closed, too. Action Zone only had Top Gun and Drop Zone runnning....

It was probably for the best...

Look out, Jules! Top Gun's Coming! And it's squeaking horribly for some reason...

??? no comment

Delirium wasn't running.... Sad, sad, sad

SOB from the lift hill of Adventure Express

I still miss King Cobra... The footers are still there

My favorite mine train by far...

WHAT?!? I knew pricing was bad, but after $10 for parking I thought we could at least eat for less than $20... oh well

Finally time for lunch, we each had chicken fingers and a drink, nothing special or much

I don't know derek, but he seems to like vertical loops, so here you go

Vortex, Arrow Goodness at last

Sad Me standing where the Flying Eagles once stood.... have to get down to Carowinds get my snaps now.

The vehicle is completely different, though

The layout of the track seems exactly like survivor at PGA

The new nick universe was very nice. All the Hanna Barbera rides were re-themed into stuff children would understand now, and Avatar was awesome.

Julia and Me at the obligatory front gate photo area, at least they used our camera...

Any park with a giant phallus can't be that bad, right?

Very nice PTR, both of you. I really really need to get down there sometime. Too bad Cedar Point doesn't open this early

Aside from the awful operations getting people into the park, I really didn't notice too much BAD ride operations.. except for Drop Zone.

Great photo's too! PKI has a really weird assortment of rides. They really need a B&M and an Intamin to round things out.. if they got them along with their two great wooden coasters (omitting SOB).. I'd be in line getting a season pass even tho Im 4 hours away!