Trip Report: Kn's riam sIo'nla gus Paynd

Mason, Ohio - 09/27/2003

"It has to be a sign..."

Saturday was the third public operating day of the season for Stricker's Grove, and my first opportunity to go there to ride the Tornado this season. Since Stricker's didn't open until Noon, I figured I'd start my day at Kings Island. So I drove down to Cincinnati, collected Dave Bowers, then returned to Kings Island. The South parking entrance was backed up almost to IR-71, so we entered through the North parking gate, and parked near the center of the lot.

The carnage we witnessed as we exited the car was somewhat surprising, as seen in these photos. It seems that the Cincinnati area was hit on Friday night with some extreme storms, with tornado-force winds. At Kings Island, the 30-year-old landmark sign at the West end of the parking lot was blown down, and as we exited our vehicle, a crew was busily cutting the remains of the sign apart with cutting torches and loading it into oversize dumpsters.

Although it has been modified several times over the years, it is...or rather, was...the original sign, which has been announcing the presence of Kings Island to the Interstate highway for more than 30 years...well, since the park opened in 1972, perhaps earlier as construction was well underway in 1971.
On this day, the gigantic sign was no more than a pile of twisted wreckage. It was 30 years old, but it is unlikely that the park had planned to replace it anytime soon, as they just replaced the electronic message board early in the 2003 season. The early word is that for next year the park plans to replace it with another sign; in Kings Island style, we can probably assume that the new sign will be bigger and grander, probably the largest and flashiest of its kind. Hmmm...I wonder if the new sign will be a totally-immersive one-of-a-kind interactive experience.....

Dave and I entered the park, which was already becoming crowded. It looked as though we might not do much riding on this visit. I stopped first in the Paramount Theater to get my season pass processed. Kings Island doesn't put names on season passes anymore, which dramatically speeds up the process...NO information gets entered into the computer except for the certificate number, the photo is taken, and the pass is printed. I'm pretty sure it is the fastest season-pass processing operation in North America.

Of course, my next stop had to be the Flying Scooter, the Flying Eagles just off of Coney Mall. The bad news is that supposedly for the remainder of the season, the park will be in "limited operation" which frequently means that the Flying Scooter doesn't operate. I wonder if it will even be worth my time to visit the park if that thing isn't running...

We followed up with a ride on Vortex, which was decent, then The Beast, which was also decent by its own standards, and a walk across the back of the park. As we went up the lift on The Beast, I noticed orange cones on the service road behind the ride. I didn't think much of it until we started up the second lift and I saw a folding table covered with paper cups sitting on the side of the service road. I figured there must be some kind of running event going on behind the park. I got my answer when we walked past the railroad station, where a sign noted that "Due to the JDRF Walk, the train will open at 1:30 today." JDRF...hmmmm...another puzzle to work out [Footnote 1].

The weather was nice, but not nice enough for a ride on Wild Thornberries. Rugrats Runaway Reptar Roller Coaster had a long wait, as did the Beastie. Ghoster Coaster, of course, always has a long wait. After walk-on rides on Vortex and The Beast, we decided we had found the crowd. Scooby Doo and the Haunted Mansion also had a long wait, so we skipped it, moving upstream along International Street and cutting over to the Action Zone, where we found more long lines and large crowds. Apparently this is where the rest of the crowd went. That didn't scare us away from Top Gun, but we both opted to avoid Son of Beast. Even Delerium had a full queue house, so we went around the corner. Adventure Express was operating, which was interesting because the sign at the park entrance had indicated that it wasn't. It was a walk-on, so we walked on and got a decent ride. Racer was next, where we walked on and got a lousy ride. I don't know why I bother with that ride anymore. It's running smoother than it was, but that lap bar thing is still a killer.

Dave had heard an interesting rumor about the park involving one or more recent buy-out events, and our next discovery more or less confirmed it, as you can see by a close look at the sign in this photo. The sign is attached to the fence next to the entrance to Flight of Fear, which, by the way, had an hour long wait. The site was recently occupied by an upcharge simulator ride, and apparently more recently occupied by a KUKA RoboCoaster. Odd that they would have it there for a buy-out but not for a normal operating day. Personally I don't think the unit makes economic sense for a park like Kings Island, unless the ride experience on the thing is absolutely amazing and worth a very high upcharge. The capacity is simply too low for it to make sense.

The other interesting thing was across the midway. The park's Scrambler has been almost but not quite totally dismantled. For the moment, we're assuming that it is coming back next season, but I always worry when a ride disappears. In this case, two sweeps and the ride center were both still present, and I noticed that Kings Island didn't bother with the patently silly, but frequently used "RIDE CLOSED TODAY" sign on the partially dismantled ride.

We took one more loop around the park, but it was getting late. Stricker's Grove was open from Noon-3, then again from 4-7, and we wanted to get there for the 4pm session, so we left Kings Island behind. I hope I'll be able to find it next time without a sign!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Footnote 1: JDRF apparently refers to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. [Return to text]

--DCAjr

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