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"This is the Tragic Kingdom."
Sunday morning we had some decision making to do. We were in Tell City, Indiana. There had been some talk of going to Beech Bend, but Mean Mr. McNally said that wasn't real practical. Kings Island was closed for the day. I had hoped that LeSourdsville Lake would be open, but it wasn't. That left one logical alternative: Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom.
We arrived at Kentucky Kingdom right at lunchtime, and by mutual agreement we opted to seek out lunch before entering the grounds. We never actually got lost, but I missed a turn and we ended up circling the airport and fairgrounds in a significantly larger circle than I had planned in search of food. We ended up at a Shoney's just across the expressway from the Expo Center. Y'know, the area around that airport is pretty desolate. After a longer delay than we had planned for, we parked at the Expo Center ($3). We had to park pretty far out from the gate, but I predicted that it wouldn't necessarily translate into a big crowd because so many of the vehicles had placards on them referring to alpacas. An alpaca is a specific breed of llama, bred mostly for its fur, and I suspect that there was some kind of convention going on at the expo center.
As we entered the park I noticed that Kentucky Kingdom is yet anonther park that spent its capital improvement budget on useless magnetometers. Magnetometers which, incidentally, failed to detect the Victorinox knife I happened to have in my pocket. Either that or it detected it and the attendant decided I was mostly harmless and ignored the machine. I am, of course, mostly harmless anyway.
Once inside we went left around the front circle. The park is basically laid out in two areas. The entrance is on one wide side of a wide oval with attractions and joints around the ring and a kiddieland in the center. Over the years they have managed to screw up the perfectly logical layout of this side of the park by adding a hidden dead-end at one end of the loop and sticking two rides back there where nobody can find them. On the side of the oval opposite the entrance is the Damn Bridge, which goes over a major thoroughfare and then leads to the larger side of the park. On that side is the waterpark, and a convoluted double-oval layout which I will complain about later. 8-)
We proceeded first to Road Runner Express. I had ridden before, but others in the group had not. It's a Maurer-Soehne Wild Mouse, and except for the 4-seat cars, it has more of a traditional Wild Mouse feel to it than, say, the Mack Mouse. I think it has to do with the scaffold structure. We climbed into the car, were asked to do the impossible with our lap bars (still don't know what that was about, they were down as far as our fat thighs and guts would allow...) and we dispatched into the ride. We cruised through the first four or five brakes before getting hit HARD on a couple of them. Road Runner is a fun ride, and probably has the most extensive theming of any ride in the park.
We exited the ride through its decorated shipping containers, and noted that a completely unmarked path leads back to the pendulum boat ride, which isn't even visible from the midway. We couldn't tell if it was operating or not, so we continued around the circle. This took us past the Break Dance, which appears to have gained tub doors this season, past the pad which once housed the Zeppelin ride (now the home of one of those 4-in-1 bungee trampoline upcharge things) and we noted the Skycoaster and the spring-driven slingshot ride. This took us around to the Damn Bridge, but before we crossed over we decided to take a ride on the Rainbow. Remember, this was just a few days after the fatal accident at Elitch Gardens where the guy jumped off mid-ride, so as much as anything we were demonstrating our confidence in the ride type.
Well, I should have been suspicious when the operator only allowed a half-load of people on board. Initially I thought the operator was just being lazy and miscounting, then I realized he had counted out EXACTLY a half-load. Then it was my turn to ride. As the ride went around, it shook violently. Normally, the only forces on a Rainbow are up-down and left-right. This unit also had a violent front-back shake to it that had me wondering how long it would be before this ride was featured on the Evening News. As the ride ended, Dave Bowers and I agreed that our impression of this Rainbow after riding it was, "run like hell."
Speaking of rides that make me want to run like hell, as we crossed the Damn Bridge we happened to notice that the Quake was in its usual position (left arm down, right arm up). Brad also noticed that two Guys in Blue Shirts were doing something at the top of the right hand tower. "Preparing to dismantle that hunk of junk?" I suggested, but it looked more like repair work. Honestly, I don't understand why that ride is still there. I have ridden it, and it was a lousy ride then...a dull, boring, uninteresting headbanger. Since then, it isn't a headbanger anymore, but it is even less interesting because it never operates. Well, that's not entirely true. Last time I was at Kentucky Kingdom I saw it operating, then I watched it fail in a way that prompted me to "run like hell". Today the Quake stands as a monument to Vekoma's leasing program, an arrangement that allowed smaller parks to "go Dutch" to get a big European spectacular ride without paying the big European spectacular price. Or something like that. I just wonder why Kentucky Kingdom keeps removing good rides and that worthless contraption still sits there.
At the end of the Damn Bridge, we went down the ramp, turned around and went under the bridge, then back up the hill on the other side. I noticed that the waterpark entrance that had been sealed up a couple of years ago has been re-established closer to the Damn Bridge. The day was exceedingly hot and humid so the waterpark was packed. No matter; that means shorter waits for the coasters. The first coaster we came to was the Roller Skater.
Now, I freely admit that I am now spoiled by the larger versions of the Roller Skater, such as Woodstock Express at Cedar Point, or the inverted version, the Rugrats Runaway Reptar Roller Coaster at Kings Island. But regardless of which model you are talking about, Vekoma has built pretty much the perfect family coaster. I hate to think how many millions of potential coaster enthusiasts were traumatized for life by those awful Allan Herschell and Ben Schiff "kiddie" coasters, tiny little insanely violent rides suitable only for hardcore enthusiasts who generally aren't permitted to ride them. By comparison, the Vekoma 700-series coasters are beautifully engineered, not too threatening (face it, how intimidating can it be when the train looks like a bunch of roller skates?), and just exciting enough for the whole family to enjoy. The one at Kentucky Kingdom is also in a beautiful setting, over a small ravine and completely canopied with trees. Pity the rest of this concrete jungle doesn't look like this.
On our way over to the Roller Skater we passed Swampwater Jack's restaurant. I've read some good reviews of the place, but I've never eaten there as their operational schedule seems to more or less match that of the Quake. In fact our decision to have lunch outside the park seems to have been a good one as I don't think there were any open food joints in the whole park. Anyway, the building is surrounded by whimsical signs and accessed by a neat wavy-surface trip hazard of a bridge that I never dreamed would be permitted in a major amusement park. One of the signs caught my attention, though, setting off one of my pet peeves: "Lottery Loosers Welcome." It made me just want to scream, "'lose' is spelled with one 'o', dammit ;)". Hmmm...sounds like a good thread title for rec.roller-coaster... [Footnote 1]
After the Roller Skater I took a look at the arrangement for loading wheelchairs onto the park's carousel. Then it was off to Thunder Run.
Thunder Run is easily the most improved wood coaster I have ridden. I still remember when the ride had a trailered train with hard urethane foam seats, and the ride was nearly unrideable. Some years ago the park changed the train to a very nice upholstered, articulated train. They also performed some known and unknown bits of wizardry on the track and structure to turn it into the ride we know today. Unfortunately one of those modifications was the removal of the footers intended to support a transfer table and storage track for the ride, so the chances of it ever running a second train are pretty much zero.
From experience I know that Thunder Run is a front-seat ride. A few cycles' wait and that's where I sat. The first drop isn't that spectacular, except for what happens at the bottom. Curt Summers and Charlie Dinn are known for building what has come to be known as the "Dinn & Summers Curve", usully something like the second hill on Mean Streak, where the train climbs into a steeply banked curve. This frequently doesn't work well (see Mean Streak, also Werner Stengel's failed attempt to do the same thing on Son of Beast), because the train loses so much energy climbing the hill that it won't stay on the outside rail of the curve, leading to what acts like a gauging problem.
Well, on Thunder Run it's a different sort of Dinn & Summers Curve. At the bottom of the first drop, the train goes immediately into a 180-degree ground-level turnaround, banked at about 80 degrees. It's a bit like the bottom of the first drop on Superman: Ride of Steel at Darien Lake. This is followed by a series of three straight hills, each one taller than the one before...and mysteriously enough, each one delivering a stronger punch of airtime than the one before. The back-end turnaround is another low, steeply-banked turn, followed by a pop-up hill that takes the train up to the one flat turnaround through the top of the lift hill. Another couple of hills, another low turnaround, and the train flies into the station approach brake. Thunder Run is a truly phenomenal coaster; it's just a shame that the ride only has one train because it is a long ride, and when it gets busy the line moves very slowly. Luckily the ride wasn't busy when we rode.
For the heck of it we rode the Intamin Flying Dutchman. Except for the name the ride bears absolutely no resemblance to the Vekoma Flying Dutchman. This ride is basically a circle swing where riders get to sit in 2-passenger Fiberglas tubs that look like wooden shoes. It would be the last ride we would ride for a while. We hiked down the path towards Crittenden Ave. Past the pizza shop (closed), past the Subway shop (closed), past the drink stand (closed) and old rest room building (closed), past where the two kiddie rides were (both removed), past Mile High Falls (don't know if it was running), past the Zeppelin ride moved from the far corner of the park, past three game joints (closed, closed, closed), a pop machine (sold out), a food joint known as Lola & Stella's Blue Moose Cafe (closed), a souvenir shop (closed), a fence surrounding the Thriller Bees (Huss Bee-Bee) location (ride removed), and under the archway leading to Twisted Sisters (or whatever they're calling that ride now). Our big surprise here was that both tracks were actually operating. Given the park's propensity for forcing customers to do lots of unnecessary walking, it was no surprise that the queue structure has not been fixed. You see, this is a dual-tracked coaster, which means that for Kentucky Kingdom it has an unusually high capacity even with only one train per track. So naturaly it has the largest queue structure in the park, and the shortest available path through that queue wraps the long way around the queue block. There are two entrances side by side, neither one marked, so we entered through the right-hand entrance. After hiking all the way around the (empty) monster queue, we learned that we should have taken the left-hand entrance, as the right-hand entrance leads to the wheelchair lift. So at the decision point where we were to choose between Lola and Stella, we had to jump the railing to get back into the proper queue. But this infraction is minor compared to what most of the locals do...this path split is right at the base of the stairs for Lola and at the entrance to the path leading to Stella. Most people ignore the fact that this path joint is separated from the midway by a railing, a flower bed, a hedge, a fence, and a bench, instead opting to avoid the long walk around the (empty) queue structure by stepping onto the bench, jumping over the fence, landing in the hedge, stomping through the flower bed and climbing over the railing. The ride operators were spending an inordinate amount of time berating people for this particular behavior, which has been a problem (hence the five layers of defense) since the ride opened. But The People do have a valid point. On a day like today, the queue doesn't even extend to the bottom of the stairways; why should everyone have to do all that unnecessary walking to get to the ride? Twenty minutes with an angle grinder would help a little bit; setting up an alternate entrance, bypassing the queue block, in place of the railing, flower bed, hedge, fence, and bench would be ideal.
We started with a ride on Lola, then took a ride on Stella. After Thunder Run earlier today, not to mention the Legend and the Raven the days before, neither Lola nor Stella was particularly spectacular. But they're good coasters. They are CCI rides, and you know what that means: They just keep going faster and faster. Stella has an amazing pop of airtime on the second drop, and Lola seems to be all about flinging you sideways. Either way I was happy to have the outboard grab handles on the Gerstlauer train. I recall these rides running better than this, which is odd because I didn't hear or feel anything that seemed "wrong" this time around; the only thing that makes sense is simply that I had ridden the Legend the day before and nothing quite compares to that one. Particularly running the way it does during Stark Raven Mad.
We left the dueling coaster and walked through what looks to be (but isn't) an employee gate next to the (closed) Blue Moose Cafe. Since the path under Thunder Run has been sealed off, this is the only way to get from Thunder Run to Blizzard River and T^2 without going all the way back to the Damn Bridge and around past Chang and around the waterpark. This path is a desolate route between a board fence and the Top Eliminator upcharge attraction, a set of top fuel dragsters. I think they were operating, but I didn't see any riders at this time. This path does offer some nice views of the back half of Thunder Run, that is, the part behind the lift hill. But it's a long walk with pretty much nothing to see or do. Finally we reached the sealed-off path under Thunder Run. Now instead of walking a desolate path between Top Eliminator and Thunder Run, we would walk a desolate path between Blizzard River and the back of the waterpark. In front of Top Eliminator we noticed that the two upcharge simulators have been removed, leaving an empty space in front of the Top Eliminator garage.
Blizzard River, the park's rapids ride (this one is so far without inversions, to the best of my knowlede) had a very long line, and none of us really wanted to get that wet. On we went to T^2.
Getting to T^2 is a bit of a challenge these days. Because of the way the paths have been re-routed, the midway now runs behind the ride instead of in front of it. The stunt show ampitheater, being used this season, as I understand it, for appearances by WWF personalities, was technically built in front of T^2, but the layout of the park tells you the shed is behind the coaster. Welcome to Kentucky Kingdom!
A week earlier I had taken a couple of rides on Serial Thriller at Geauga Lake. That's known to be one of the best-running suspended looping coasters around. One of the rides I took that time was a front-seat ride, something I hadn't done in years, and it reminded me of why I actually like the SLCs, though I generally ride them in the back. It's all about the leg-choppers and the inversion that makes you say, "Thank God that was there!" So, seeing a not-too-long line, I opted for a front seat ride. That proved to be a serious error. We spent most of our waiting time on the platform, a platform which apparently accommodates far too many people. The ride has two trains (I could swear it once had three, though it never ran with more than two) unlike the wood coasters, but only one was operating. It was really hot and really humid, and the attendants looked like they were alternately either melting or sticking to the floor, resulting in an exceptionally slow dispatch interval. We waited in excess of a half-hour for this (I suspect it was significantly longer, but I didn't time it). Then the ride was worse than unremrkable. T^2 has always been the worst or second-worst of the SLCs, and this time was no different. Well, it was different. There was one spot on it where it did something very strange. Somehow the train lurched in such a way that it literally bounced me into the air, then dragged me downward and forward to crash painfully into the seat horn. Ouch! Dave Bowers and John Peck declared it a ride with "no redeeming qualities whatsoever." I tend to be a little more generous, but I think in the future I'll stick to the back car.
While we were waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting), the wind picked up and the sky darkened. As we got off the coaster I looked across the road towards the park gates and noticed the sky turning green. Patrons were voluntarily evacuating the waterpark. With only about an hour left before our previously-planned departure time, we made the mutual decision to move quickly but carefully back to the car before things got ugly. Nobody mentioned it, but I have no doubt that all four of us were thinking about the tragic storm that had hit Kennywood two days earlier. We circled the waterpark past the stand-up coaster Chang and the place where the kiddie carousel that was removed this season used to be to the ramp leading onto the Damn Bridge, which was choked with a large disorganized mob of somewhat-concerned people trying to get from the waterpark to their cars. John actually assumed the role of bridge traffic cop/cat wrangler in an effort to get at least the people around us to move in a somewhat orderly fashion. His efforts paid off, and we rushed across the road, cut through the kiddieland, and went out the front gate, piling into the car just as a bit of hard rain started. As we left we had nasty storms and hard rain until we got just outside of Louisville, then it was clear the rest of the way home.
All parks have their good points and their bad points. Kentucky Kingdom is a particularly odd case because while the good point/bad point situation still applies, it applies in a far more extreme fashion. Because where Kentucky Kingdom is good, it's really good, with rides like Thunder Run. But where the park is bad, it's really bad, with entire sections of the park completely shut down, with rides that haven't run right in years (assuming the Quake ever did operate right), and with attractions like T^2 which is the very worst of its kind. The park has a whole lot of potential, but design, operations, and landscaping need a whole lot of work. I can't say I much cared for their normal crowd much, either, but that may be because the four of us may have been the only people in the park that day who were not chain-smoking and entering the dueling coaster by going over the bench, fence, hedge, flowerbed and railing. The park yanked out a half a dozen rides this year. Having an entire midway either stripped or closed on a Sunday afternoon is a very strange maneuver. Closing down paths and causing lots of unnecessary walking is always a popular stunt, too. The thing that really bothers me is that every time I visit this park, I see something either operationally or in something that a ride does that triggers my "run like hell" response. It's the only park I have been to that has actually managed to scare me. Maybe I am just being paranoid. Maybe the heat and humidity were getting to me. But within a couple of weeks I visited Six Flags Geauga Lake and had a wonderful time on a bunch of mediocre rides, then I went to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom and had not a lot of fun on a couple of outstanding rides. Perhaps if I had done what the locals had done and spent the day in the waterpark I would have enjoyed myself more. But I didn't want to cool off in a waterpark. If I just wanted to keep cool, I'd have just driven home in my air-conditioned car. I was there to have fun on the coasters, but it was as though the park infrastructure just wasn't set up for that. Worst of all is the atmosphere, the general feeling, the "vibe" if you will that I get from this park. It feels like nobody cares. It's entirely apathetic, as though it simply doesn't matter whether I have a good time or not. It just isn't right. I don't know what Six Flags is trying to pull with this park, but if they continue to develop it at the rate they developed it this season, within five years it will be totally emptied of rides and attractions except for the damned Quake. It's a real shame, because Thunder Run and Twisted Whatever are both (all three?) fantastic coasters, but as a package, the park simply doesn't deliver. The first time I visited Kentucky Kingdom I thought the place had a lot of potential, but as the years go on, it seems the park becomes less attractive, less well developed, and less fun with every passing year. The park is going backwards, and I'm sorry to see it happen.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Footnote 1: For those of you who do not read rec.roller-coaster, one of the longest-running threads of all time is entitled, "'millennium' is spelled with two 'n's, dammit! ;)" It started in mid-1999 as a spelling flame and developed into an argument over when the new millennium actually started. That discusson continued into early 2002, so there is no argument that the thread required two millennia to run its course. [Return to text]
--DCAjr
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