Back to the Trip Report Archive
Back to Dave's Adventures
Back to Dave's page.
"That's with the word 'safety' in quotes, right?"
The trip was a bit of a gamble. It rained overnight and was still raining in the morning. I opted to sleep in, and that was probably a good thing. I drove to Cncinnati, collected Dave Bowers, we had a fast-food lunch, and when we got to the park the weather had cleared. It was still grey, ugly and cool, but it wasn't raining, and at times the sun actually peeked out.Of course, this was my third visit to Kings Island in four weeks, and the park doesn't change that much in two weeks. The train didn't run all day, Vortex was out of service without obvious cause, and Reptar was down probably because of the cold. Oddly enough, White Water Canyon was open when we arrived, though they wisely closed it a few hours later.
I noticed that primer has started to appear on the pizza shop in Rivertown, and on the Eiffel Tower. THAT is going to be a massive paint job, but it is almost as sorely needed as the Vortex paint a couple of years ago.
A couple of weeks ago, I got some truly awful rides on the Racer and on the Beast. Racer hasn't gotten any better, but I rode up front on The Beast and it was significantly improved from a couple of weeks ago. I hope that is a good sign.
Another potentially good sign was that Tomb Raider was operating. Inside, there are some deficiencies in the pre-show, specifically the cool lighting effect on the sliding door, and in the ride chamber there are some odd things happening. But the ride program is the same as always, and it reminded me why I don't ride it very often. You know, I distinctly remember a ride safety expert admonishing a room full of inspectors and ride operators, telling them that on a Ring of Fire, Kamikaze, or other similar looping ride the operators shouldn't stop the riders and hang them upside down. If that's the case, then who can explain why it is okay for Tomb Raider to hang riders upside down from the shoulder bars for upwards of 30 seconds? It's extremely unpleasant, and it wastes time that could be used to do something interesting. With the elaborate sets and a ride system capable of doing amazing things, they could do so much more with this ride. But they don't, and riders...or rather, former riders...are continuing to vote with their feet.
Elsewhere in the park, Flight of Fear was running only one train and so had an insane wait on a day when the rest of the park was nearly empty. So, naturally, I rode other stuff instead. I got a great ride on the Monster, then I made the mistake of riding Kings Island's bumper cars. This was a mistake not just because Kings Island's bumper cars are extremely slow and have almost no air in the bumper tubes (meaning no force at all on a collision), but because they are equipped with these stupid little loop belts almost long enough for me to stick my upper arm through. The operators insisted that I put this strap around my neck and under my outboard arm. This is a belt barely long enough to go around my upper arm, let alone around my neck and across my upper chest. The result was just short of strangulation before the ride even started. I don't understand how the ride can be permitted to operate like this. The short strap is probably fine for small children, but for anybody else it's certainly dangerous. I wish they would either reconfigure the belt (I favor a strap with a buckle to be fastened under both arms) or operate Kennywood-style, having adults go beltless. That was a bad enough experience to warrant a complaint; it will be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
We got a ride on the Troika that was so short it made the Cedar Point ride cycles seem long, but that turned out to be an error. The operator restarted the ride, and we got the normal cycle. I think I like the way Cedar Point's Troika runs a little better, but Kings Island's ride has a much nicer setting and a better ride cycle time.
Speaking of errors, it seems that The Beast was misbehaving a bit today, freezing up from time to time and wreaking havoc with the timetable. It seems that the crew traced the problem to some issue with the platform gates. The crew took to briefly opening and then closing the gates just before each dispatch and that seemed to solve the problem. There must be a switch knocked loose under the platform or something.
With the light crowd, I had plenty of opportunities to enjoy my favorite flat ride in the park, the Flying Scooter, where I got lots of extreme-action rides. Near the end of the evening, the ride was taken over by professionals. Seriously. Dave identified the oncoming riders as a group of the park's area managers. Several of them were asking us amateurs for flying lessons. Others were doing a pretty good job of taking the rest of us to school. They took their ride, then went back to their closing duties. We took our final ride of the night, and it was time to go.
I'll certainly be back again, but it will be a couple of weeks, as other parks are starting to awaken for the season. Kings Island is slowly getting pulled together for the full season. There is a real but not unexpected problem this season in that all the major high-profile renovation is going on in the waterpark, and it makes it look like there isn't much changing in the rest of the park. Clearly that isn't the case, but the things that are going on are not high-profile renovations. But there is a lot going on, and in another month when the new waterpark opens, things are going to get very interesting.
--Dave Althoff, Jr.
Back
to Trip Reports 2004
Back to the Trip Report Archive
Back to Dave's Adventures
Back to Dave's page.
