Trip Report: Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom

It's been a long off-season, or at least it seems that way. I was last in an amusement park in February, but that barely counts as nothing was operating. In fact my last roller coaster ride was Dollywood's Tennessee Tornado, 133 days, 18 hours, and 24 minutes before. Not that I was counting, or anything.

My day began just before 8:00 in the morning. I knew that the trip would require about four hours of driving; I also knew that the park opened at 10:00am. I also remembered reports from last season about the park being mostly closed early in the day, so I was not at all worried about missing anything. I packed the car and collected local coaster nut John Peck (who is now an ACEer), then headed for Coasterville. Dave Bowers joined us, demonstrating his confidence in his crews at Dave's Dominion. I asked him about taking off on Opening Day, but he seemed unconcerned. Off we went to Kentucky Kingdom. Almost immediately we encountered one of the parks most redeeming features: the Expo Center only charges $3 for parking.

After receiving our season passes, we proceeded around the park, past the concrete pad where the Wild Mouse coaster will be built, and across the Damn Bridge. If you are unfamiliar with the layout of Kentucky Kingdom, the entrance to the park is located on one side of a major access road running through the Expo Center grounds. The bulk of the park, including for the moment all of the roller coasters, is located on the opposite side of the road, surrounding the waterpark. The bridge is about four times as long as it needs to be to cross the road, as it has 1:12-slope ramps on both ends, and except for a very short section at one end, no stairs. Adding stairs to both ends of this bridge would cut the amount of walking necessary to get from one side of the park to the other in half.

When we walked past the Wild Mouse site, I was surprised to see that the concrete pad was completely poured, though there was no other evidence of the ride in place. I figured that construction would not have even started yet, this being Kentucky Kingdom.

Our first stop was Chang, the park's B&M stand-up coaster. Chang is resplendent in its neon-green and purple paint which has, after a full season, not yet started to peel Footnote 1. We were also startled to see that the ride was running two trains, resulting in a minimal wait. Darren Mullins joined us, and we headed up the stairs to the boarding platform. There we learned that Chang has been equipped with Mantis-style safety belts, though I think the belts are slightly longer than those on Mantis, and the buckles are slightly more manageable. That doesn't change the fact that it forces the seat higher so that the seat horn was cutting off the circulation to my outboard leg. I also noticed that the belt buckle was clearly marked, "FOR MARINE USE ONLY." As I can't think of any nautical applications for that product at the moment, I decided I probably should have simply left the belt unfastened as I am not a Marine.

Chang is again running remarkably well, and the crew is reasonably efficient. I didn't have my computer with me, so I didn't do any cycle timings on it (besides, I wasn't expecting it to run two trains!) I still don't much care for the ride, largely because I find the train to be so unaccommodating. The ride is a lot like Mantis, but the part of Mantis I like the best...the double S-curves...is missing from Chang. It's a good ride, it runs well, but I'll let everybody else take most of the rides on it.

We noticed that the Chaos was down mechanical all day Footnote 2, and we headed back to T^2. T^2 suffers from an identity problem as the access to the ride has been reversed since it was built. There is a gigantic T^2 logo planted in the ground in front of the ride, but it is easy to miss because it is on the opposite side of the ride from the midway entrance. Meanwhile, the path leading back to the ride also serves as access to the Batman Thrill Spectacular, and accordingly, the end of the path is decorated with a simple Batman logo. Since the Thrill Spectacular show was off this day, and since the T^2 logo is pointing in the wrong direction, several people were heard to misidentify T^2 as "Batman." Whoops.

We headed for the back rows on T^2; in fact I rode in the very back. While we waited I pointed out the spring-loaded teeth that serve as the anti-rollback device on the Vekoma SLC train. We sat in the train, pulled down the shoulder bars, and fastened the safety belts. Moments later we were silently climbing the lift in preparation for the most violent of the North American SLC coasters. Some of this coaster's legendary roughness was evident where the black paint had been knocked off of the rails, exposing the red paint below. We grabbed the grab handles and held on, expecting the train to start bumping and shaking as it started down the first drop.

Something went wrong. The train failed to bump, bounce, or shake. My fillings remained firmly planted in my teeth. My head did not crash into the pads on the shoulder bar. There was some noticeable shuffling, but this was nothing like the worst-in-class T^2 I know from previous visits. I don't know what Kentucky Kingdom or Vekoma has done to this ride, but they have managed to make it a rideable, enjoyable coaster where previously it was virtually unrideable with almost no redeeming qualities. Instead, this was reminding me of my first SLC rides on the Mind Eraser at Adventure World. Wow! To make things even more surprising, the coaster was in fact running two trains!

Or should I say Twisted Sister. The pink train, Lola, was operating, but the teal train, Stella, was not in operating condition. Unfortunately this was also the situation the last time I was at Kentucky Kingdom. That doesn't change the fact that Lola was giving excellent rides, with the trademark strong lateral forces in the front of the train and the typical massive airtime in the back. It's a shame that the ride was running at half capacity, particularly since I am not planning a return trip anytime soon. Lola is all about strong, sudden laterals, and it's a good example of CCI's coaster craft. It's also not a very good demonstration platform for the Gerstlauer trains, as the virtually unpadded trains tend to leave riders bruised after a couple of rides. I hear that the new Gerstlauer trains are a little wider, and that should help, but I will reserve judgement until I ride the Legend next month.

From Twisted Sister(s), we proceeded to Thunder Run. Thunder Run was at its worst a few years ago when it still had the red trailered train. Since the installation of the upholstered, articulated train, Thunder Run just keeps getting better and better, particularly for front-seat riders. The PTC train is very nicely upholstered and compared to the Twisted Sisters trains is a little like riding on an overstuffed sofa. As a rider it is easy to appreciate this train as soon as the train rounds the high-banked turnaround at the bottom of the first drop. That turn is followed by a series of three hills, each taller than the one before it, and each...especially the last one...generating extremely forceful ejector-seat airtime. A meal is served on this coaster: LAUNCH! Fortunately the upholstered seat provides a nice soft landing. To make things even better, the train seems to have new lap bar return springs this year, meaning that the lap bars tend to stay where you put them. In all, the only real problem with Thunder Run is that it lacks a second train. It is a longer ride than the Twisted Sisters, and so the single-train operation is far more noticeable. If Premier really wants people to associate "Six Flags" with a high-class amusement park, they really need to work out a way to put a second train on Thunder Run.

Coaster-wise we had ridden them all except for the Roller Skater. So we boarded the Vekoma junior coaster and took a ride. Hey, it's a coaster and it's fun. What more could we want? I should also note that I rode in the back seat of the train, by myself, so the "no singles in the back" policy we encountered last season appeared to be gone.

I was surprised to see that the Quake (a Vekoma Waikiki Wave) was still in place in the park, and still in need of a paint job. It was also still non-functional Footnote 3. The plate on the ride says it is owned by Vekoma and leased to the park; if that is the case I am surprised that the park has not yet told Vekoma to come and take it away. In all of my visits to the park, that ride has worked properly once.