Kings Island (KI) Discussion Thread

According to KI's Instagram It's open to the public

The time is coming when everything will be revealed and made known to all. After months of speculation as to what's behind the fence in Coney Mall, Kings Island will make a major announcement Thursday, August 15 at 10 p.m. All guests visiting the park that day are invited to attend. While Kings Island closes August 15 at 8 p.m., select rides, games and food locations will remain open in Coney Mall for guests to enjoy from 8-10 p.m. #TEOTWAWKI #KI2020 #KingsIsland

I'm gonna try to be there as well.

Dang, that sounds like a good time! Now I kind of want to go down there for it!

[vimeo][/vimeo]

I hope it's more Antique Cars

Are you suggesting on the current configuration or a new layout altogether?

Here you go, it's a relocation.

Interesting. I wonder why they’re set on making the announcement at 10 if the park closes at 8. Does it not get dark in Cincy till that late?

Someone said that it's going to be projected onto FoF's building, so total darkness would be ideal.

If it's constellation themed, it's fitting to announce it at night.

I was at the park today and had a great time. Very short lines everywhere. I did see a rideop with a Zodiac button on. I don't think they have a ride call that do they? If they do, it must be in the kiddie area. That would make sense with the "nighttime reveal" of this info. Just a thought.

^Zodiac was a double-armed ferris wheel that operated in Coney Mall throughout the 70s-80s...

There is an easter egg nodding to that ride as well as several "fallen" rides on Antique Autos. While it would certainly fit the constellation theme, I doubt it would be called that.

If it's constellation themed, it's fitting to announce it at night.

On this note, its cool that the last 3 coaster announcements for KI will have taken place at night (and have all had fitting themes)

I bet it's going to be a giga coaster...

Has anyone used Uber to get to and from the park? Our hotel is about ten minutes away, but I don't know if they usually drive up to the drop off/pick up area and their availability on a Saturday night at closing.

I have not used an Uber to get to the park , but lots of bars and restaurants around. I do not see it being that hard to get one. I think the drop of is right in front of the Big kings island sign. So a small walk to the gate

Dang, that sounds like a good time! Now I kind of want to go down there for it!

DO ITTT!!! I think I might be able to make it. I work that day but I talked to my manager about maybe getting off a bit early. Even if I can't we close at 8 and I could be out of there pretty quickly and make it to the park before 10.

Interesting. I wonder why they’re set on making the announcement at 10 if the park closes at 8. Does it not get dark in Cincy till that late?

No, it doesn't really get dark until around 10. I've been waiting for dark to go on my night walks and it's been about 10 every day before the sun is all the way down.

I bet it's going to be a giga coaster...

 

Has anyone used Uber to get to and from the park? Our hotel is about ten minutes away, but I don't know if they usually drive up to the drop off/pick up area and their availability on a Saturday night at closing.

When will you guys be going to the park? Shoot me a message because maybe we can meet up and I could help you.

Dang, that sounds like a good time! Now I kind of want to go down there for it!

DO ITTT!!! I think I might be able to make it. I work that day but I talked to my manager about maybe getting off a bit early. Even if I can't we close at 8 and I could be out of there pretty quickly and make it to the park before 10.

I haven't completely ruled it out yet, but practically speaking, it's a long ways to go just for that, and a bit costly without a pass, and needing lodging. I've gotta save for this trip to Canada's Wonderland and Niagra Falls next month! Lol But if I end up going, I'll be sure to let you know!

Sorry for being so bad at following news but IS there a 2020 ride coming to KI? If so do we know anything of any value?

Sorry for being so bad at following news but IS there a 2020 ride coming to KI? If so do we know anything of any value?

It's a B&M Giga starting near where Firehawk was and running the length of Racer. Looks to be right around 300 feet from leaked blueprint calculations and about the same length of Leviathan.

And this isn't just another one of those sarcastic exaggerated coaster jokes. It's going to be awesome. You can find a few renderings based on the blueprints online and there are some construction updates. I just saw the site on Saturday and they're still pouring footers at this point. All of the land clearing seems like it's done.

Sorry for being so bad at following news but IS there a 2020 ride coming to KI? If so do we know anything of any value?

 

It's a B&M Giga starting near where Firehawk was and running the length of Racer. Looks to be right around 300 feet from leaked blueprint calculations and about the same length of Leviathan.

 

And this isn't just another one of those sarcastic exaggerated coaster jokes. It's going to be awesome. You can find a few renderings based on the blueprints online and there are some construction updates. I just saw the site on Saturday and they're still pouring footers at this point. All of the land clearing seems like it's done.

Oh, wait for real?

I actually did start rolling my eyes upon reading it assuming you were doing the usual "lol theyre getting a giga" they really are? Well daaaamn.

OK well, pencil KI into my 2020 trip. Hershey, KW, CP and KI. Because its never too early to plan.

^Lol. I'm glad I clarified that it was a real comment. I roll my eyes every time I see someone joke about some obsene new addition.

*******On another note****

Emily and I took kind of a last minute trip Saturday. We usually leave at 5am or so that morning and drive back the next day, but we hit Indianapolis the night before. We spent a couple hours eating dinner and walking around. I didn't realize how pretty the city was at night and how much active night life they had.

City Circle:

One of the 1,000 selfies we took this year:

I'll put the rest into mostly into random cliff notes form:

I know some of you have been hearing about me singing the coaster Blues this summer, but our trip hit the spot. It was a nice refresher. We love King's Island and even before the new giga I always end up feeling like it's my favorite park by the end of the night.

We woke up the next day and did our usual hotel game plan strategy of a half asleep 20-30 minute quick workout, coffee chugging, breakfast eating, sun block applying, pre-game. Except this time we had to cover a two hour gap to the park. We got to the park after 11. We don't rush these things, anymore.

Fast Lane Plus was necessary. The park was packed. We hit Banshee first and avoided a 30-45 minute wait immediately. We hadn't been digging it over the past couple visits, but our front seat ride kicked ass. The speed and 'feel' of the transitions on Banshee almost make it seem like a hyper, sometimes. It's hard to describe. I'm not complaining what-so-ever, but it seemed like the paint went from looking shiny and perfect last season to really starting to noticeably fade this season.

We had a few rides on Mystic Timbers and our night ride was phenomenal. All of the props are still working great on the shed. FL+ makes this ride almost always walk-on.

Beer Man is still killing it at this park and there are a lot of great patios to sit at. The one behind the hamburger/bar/whatever restaurant is great. It overlooks Diamondback's splashdown and it's almost directly under the lift. But, the restaurant really sucks at cleaning up the area and there was trash and leftover food everywhere. "Have a Six Flags day!"

Racer was running great. Our side lost as usual. Seriously, we always lose on racers, not that it matters. It's just fitting. The Coney Mall refresh looks nice.

The new antique cars look great and the course is long. Definitely better than average.

The front midway refresh is beautiful. The German animated clock at Festhaus is great. All of the landscaping was well maintained. I noticed they had to plant new trees and the mature trees are gone. That sucks and I hope the new trees will grow quickly.

Diamondback held a 10-15 minute minimum FL+ line all day. That's the first I've ever seen that. Even during the Haunt it eventually goes back down to a stairway wait. At one point it was almost completely full.

I'll admit that Diamondback has developed a more noticeable rattle in the back seats. It's always been there, but it's more significant now. Just like on Behemoth, I was fine with it but it ruined it for Emily. Great. Seriously fffcking great. Now she's being picky about this and I know it's only a matter of time before she says she doesn't like B&M Hypers anymore, which have always been some of our favorite. She'll at least always be skeptical. How can you be OK with The Boss and and Beast, but not Diamondback???

For now, the back seat is off the table. The middle seats (yawn) are smooth. She loved the front still, but I'm legitimately concerned about this and slightly irritated. We already have to exclusively ride in the front on Inverts, which I'm OK with. But, I love back seat rides on hypers, even though we'll always try to squeeze in one front seat ride.

Regardless of all that, every time I ride another good hyper I question if I like it better than Diamondback or not. I really liked Nitro and I thought it might be my new favorite. I try not to be over analytical about this stuff, but I'm always reassured that Diamondback is my clear favorite after not riding it for a while. It kicks major ass and I really hope the new Giga doesn't take away from that. Diamondback is so good and fast that the park could have almost indefinitely done without a giga. I never thought I'd say that, but I think it's true. That's not to be confused with me being incredibly excited about the new giga.

If Emily ends up hating Diamondback, I'll end up hating her.

The new giga construction site is massive and I got excited looking at it. Footers are still being poured, but a lot of them are finished. All of the footers around the station seemed ready for vertical construction. Land clearing looks finished.

Snoopy/Charlie Brown/Race log flume whatever ride really took a crap on us. Are they always trying to completely fill logs, now? I love flumes. I thought only Great Adventure was trying to ruin them by filling the logs to max capacity? We avoided that flume for that reason.

Usually we get a mild splash due to our light log (lol?), but we were grouped with a lady and her two kids instead of getting a log to ourselves. I knew we were screwed with the extra weight and we were in the back. I put my shoes up high on the inner ledge and hoped for the best. When we finally splashed down I tried to pull Emily back to try to sacrifice her in order to cover me. It didn't work. I saw the massive wave of water closing in on me in slow motion and I uncontrollably uttered an audible, "ffck..." I don't think the lady was pleased... It hit the worst case scenario and got my shoes wet, too.

Eat sh*t Charlie Brown!

The Beast is a little more rough this year than I remember, but it's still a great ride. We were going to cap off our night with it, but we got there right before the fireworks, which I forgot all about. The FL+ line looked about 15 minutes long and it was almost back to the exit merge. We were willing to wait. Then, some people came down from the FL+ station entrance and explained they were going to stop running trains because of the fireworks about to start. Expected. But, they also said the ride operators told them they were only going to run a few trains after the show??? This didn't seem right, but we were too far away from any employees and I didn't want to risk it. I regret that decision.

We hit Diamondback instead, which totally delivers on night rides. But... Once again, we closed out another one of our coaster days on a sour note. We would have been on the lift hill JUST in time for the finale of the fireworks. All of the passengers rushed to their seats and we sacrificed a good spot on the train to sit in the middle in order to get on the ride. Almost everyone was on board with getting the hell on the train to see the fireworks from Diamondback! Except for the car in front of us.

It would have worked out perfectly. The few people in front of us took their time and put their sh*t away in the bin. When one lady got back to her seat she spent a lot of time screwing around with her hair extensions to try to secure them for the ride or whatever the hell she was doing. She insisted on riding with her purse strapped around her and no one stopped it?? Right before the train was dispatched the fireworks stopped. Then, she ended up taking her sandals off and tucking them in her restraints. We sat in a lifeless middle seat, but at least I got to see her sandals fly off the train during the first airtime hill. I hope she enjoyed her walk back to her car. She sucks.

All in all, it was our funnest park trip this summer since we went to Cedar Point early on. We even saw a ton of people our age without children, which is a nice reassurance. I will note that the music actually sucked, lol. Usually they play some current hits, but it was all like unknown artist pop-like music. I'm not really complaining, but it was weird. Everything else was great, except for our Uber driver taking 30 minutes to pick us up. "I thought you guys were at Soak City" despite our GPS location. Soak City? 10pm? She even drove right by us once and we were really fighting the clock to get to the Greaters ice cream shop next to our hotel so we could eat it in our room... We only got to Graeters with 2 minutes to spare. I understand why she said she used to live in a gated community with her husband, but when he passed he didn't leave her any money.

King's Island rocks. I'm excited for next year.

Of note, we also missed meeting up with Janae, which I didn't realize had messaged me on FB. That marks the 5th missed opportunity of meeting up with someone on TPR I would like have done, with most of them being my fault. Sorry.

Peace.

I was surprised how much I liked Cincy. I regret having so little time when I went last year, and will deff make sure to spend more time in the city when I go next

This was Indianapolis, which is a couple hours away. But, we do want to briefly explore Cincinnati on one of our many trips to KI sometime. I think we've been to KI over 10 times since 2013 and we've yet to hit the city aside from one night after the park where it was the nearest Hyatt that wasn't booked. Even then, we just went straight to bed and stopped for breakfast on the way out of town.

I was at the park on Saturday as well and got this from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I feel like I shouldn't have been so surprised considering it's a Saturday in August, but wow.

That and the weather was beautiful.

Dang. I had always heard complaints of a rattle on DB, (a rattle I for one admittedly hardly notice, even towards and in outeredge seats), but very seldom have I heard anyone say it ruined or even significantly diminish the ride.

Perhaps its a matter of expectations? After all, no one goes into riding decades old wooden coasters (Beast, Boss) expecting a smooth ride so its not out of the ordinary when they're rough.

I guess you could say B&M hypers often fall victim to their own lofty standards, to where anything short of a perfectly smooth ride seems like a letdown.

It's definitely noticeable in the back of the train wing seats (12, 14, 16), not as noticeable in the inner seats (13, 15) and it's been like that since it opened in 2009. For some reason the bottom of the drop coming out of the turnaround going up into the trim brake hill is the worst part. It's like you're going through gravel I suggest riding in 13 or 15 next time.

Personal faves: row 2 for the hangtime over the first drop on the outer seats, row 10 for a good blend of middle and back, and then either 15 or 16 for the whip over the drops.

Pieces of a crane have arrived on scene, so hopefully we'll see some track pieces sometime soon.