Trip Report: Paramount's Kings Island (#2)
Mason, Ohio - 04/23/2006

"They really need a show crew here."

Well, there is no holiday this weekend. I had considered going to Kentucky Kingdom on Saturday and then attending Thunder over Louisville, the supposedly enormous fireworks display that kicks off the celebration of some horse race each Spring. But I didn't yet have my Wyandot Lake pass, and I slept in on Saturday, so I opted not to go. Instead, on Sunday morning I collected Dave Bowers from his home in Cincinnati, and we proceeded to Kings Island.

Getting into Kings Island is getting more and more difficult. I was careful to leave every metal object I could think of in the car, except for the camera and telephone. I handed those to the gate attendant, and stepped through the me_al detector. Once I was through, the alarm went off. I backed through the gate. No alarm. I stepped forward through the gate. The alarm sounded. I went through backward. I went through forward. I went through head first. I went through feet first. I was doing this stupid little dance trying to figure out why the alarm wouldn't let me through. Perhaps I should have taken that as a sign and just gone home right then and there. When it is easier to board a commercial airliner than it is to enter an amusement park, there is something terribly wrong somewhere, and I am inclined to believe the problem is at the amusement park. This is one of those situations where there has to be a better way to accomplish whatever it is they are trying to do.

Once finally inside, we started down International Street and took the first Right into Nickelodeon Universe. After all, this is the part of the park that just got a significant makeover. The two kiddie sections, the Hanna-Barbera section and Nickelodeon Central, have been combined into a single area, and it is fast encroaching on the end of Rivertown. As previously noted, the swing ride, the bumper cars, the car ride, the train ride, the two coasters, and the overhead pedal car ride all got new names and paint. The Turtle and the Helicopter ("Boo Boo's Baggage Claim" and "Jetson's Orbiters" respectively) were both removed, and the biplane ride got new vehicles and was placed in the space vacated by the other two rides. The kiddie Whip was relocated and renamed, and the Batflyer coaster and the hand cars were removed. We opted for a ride on the Fairly Odd Coaster, better known in these parts as the Beastie. The ride is now blue, the trains are now pink and green, and apart from that it hasn't changed much. It's running pretty well, and I still don't understand why it, unlike ALL of the coasters like it [Footnote 1] is braked on turn #3.

Removing Ghoster Coaster and (more important) taking out a fence that had backed up Dirck Dastardly's biplanes actually opened up a lot of space in this area of the park, and eliminated a nasty dead-end. The Whip was moved back there, and the old Quick Draw's Railway now has a couple of Blue-themed cars on it, so this is really starting to come together. Also coming together is the frame for the shade structure over the Avatar queue, which will bring some welcome relief. The ride has decent capacity, but because it is a flat ride with batch-loading and a fairly long cycle, the line gets long and demands a bit of a wait, even if it's only a cycle or two. Not nearly as much of a wait as the Ghoster Coaster had, but then, you could say that about any ride in the park. We took a ride, and I think Dave enjoyed it a little more than the guys last week. I still have kind of mixed thoughts about it. I like the ride, but I absolutely hate the seat mold. I am not a LEGO minifig, but that's what the seat seems to be designed for. Also, the ride's placement in Nickelodeon Universe is a little puzzling as the general concensus of all the adults on the ride (and unfortunately also a few of the kids) is that Avatar is NOT a kiddie ride. It's a good ride, and it can accommodate a lot of kids, but it is NOT a kiddie ride.

It was as we circled on around past Plankton's Plunge, the new junior drop tower (think "Frog Hopper") that we spied a slightly disturbing sight. It was the old game where you attempt to catapult a rubber chicken into a stock pot attached to a revolving barbeque grill in order to win a prize. The prizes this year appear to be an assortment of Care Bears look-alike plush. Now, I'm no Care Bear fan (genuine or otherwise), but even I think there is something slightly disturbing about stacking the bears on the grating of the simulated barbeque grill!

Our circuit took us around the usual circuit, past Tomb Raider (which I generally don't ride because dangling from a shoulder bar is not my idea of fun) to The Beast. The more I ride this thing, the more confused I become as to why people seem to like it so much. Okay, so it's long, and we got an especially long ride because the ride set up and parked all three trains on the ready brakes for a while. The ride is long, but that's about it. It is rough, it is slow, it is braked in very strange places, and it has perhaps the worst PTC train in the region. That's the part that particularly annoys me. Why is it that of the nine adult wood coasters Paramount owns that run PTC trains, their biggest park has the worst trains? Some soft cushions would help, but above all, why does The Beast have that idiotic seat divider that goes all the way up to my armpit? Yes, the ride has received some much-needed track work in places, but it's still a rough, slow ride compared to what it could and should be.

Things were a bit different up the hill where the Flying Scooter used to be. The line for Italian Job: Stunt Track extended into the queue house, but just barely. The crew for this one has almost got ride operation down to a science, the likes of which the rest of the park could learn a lot from. For reasons known only to the crew member in question, groups were shifted in line and we were sent to the front row, which I know from experience is where you can get the best ride on this coaster. Okay, so the theming on this ride, apart from the mid-ride show scene, has pretty much gone away. That doesn't change the fact that the ride is a great ride, it's a lot of fun, and theming or no theming, it's a winner. I hope Kings Island understands this and knows this and learns from it, because Italian Job succeeds so well in the areas where Tomb Raider and Son of Beast fail so miserably, because while each has a nice hook, the rides are not very good. Italian Job has a couple of nice gimmicks, but those don't matter much because the ride is good. And THAT is what really counts.

We rode the Troika (whose Kings Island name escapes me at the moment) and the Vortex. Vortex is Vortex, and it's about as predictable as a Kings Island ride gets. There is a reason that this has been a signature ride for Kings Island for nearly 20 years. Beyond its station, we considered a ride on the new Hanna-Barbera ride film, but that was closed down in favor of the old Spongebob Squarepants flick, which we skipped. Instead, we toured Coney Mall.

After skipping the Wave Swinger we checked on Flight of Fear. The queue house was full, the room was dark, and there was no evidence of air conditioning inside. After waiting less than a minute, we turned around and walked out. Long lines are one thing, but long lines in a dark, loud, crowded, stifling sweatbox are something else entirely and we decided we wanted no part of it. We decided to come back later.

Further down Coney Mall is the ever-popular Monster. This year, Kings Island has modified the tubs slightly, adding a bracket that sticks out beneath the tub latch handle. It's similar to the modification that Cedar Point made a few years ago on their Monster. The difference here is that while on Cedar Point's ride, the operator simply sticks an Eyerly Door Key through the end of the handle to lock it in place. On Kings Island's ride, the bracket has two thicknesses, so the pin has to go through three thicknesses, and they are using a lock pin instead of the Eyerly key. It works just as well, but it takes a little longer to fasten the pins. Incidentally, the pins do make sense. It is possible to pull the tub closed on a Monster or Spider and not raise the tub far enough for the latch lever to drop all the way into its locked position. If that happens, it is possible for the tub to pop open during the ride. The safety pin will prevent the latch lever from getting lifted out of the locked position, but more important, it cannot be inserted unless the lever is fully locked. I wonder if Kings Island has considered using Eyerly Door Keys, which would be simpler than the lock pins, and just as safe...although probably more expensive, since they would have to come from ORI.

Our next stop was the recaR, and to be honest with you, we should have kept right on going. The miserable train problem persists here just as it does on The Beast, and apparently the crew on the ride has been given a new directive this season. I kind of understand it, but it really makes no sense at all. They are being most insistent on ramming lap bars down to the "second" notch. I use the term "second" advisedly. It's the second position where Kings Island's bars will actually click down. In any other park, that would be about the fourth notch, and that is a bit of a problem. For me to get that position, I have to actually stand up in the seat, lower the bar, and slide in behind it. This particular position has the unfortunate characteristic of not only being pinned tight against my thighs, it is also *below* my gut, which means if I so much as lean forward during the ride, the bar can actually come down lower. Just putting the bar into that "second" notch means that I am firmly pinned to the seat, and feeling every joint in the track right through my legs and spine. Of all the adjectives I might choose to describe a ride on the recaR or on the Racer, most of them are unbroadcastable, and "fun" is certainly not among them. I can kind of understand what is going on here. I can't really blame the crew, since they are doing as they are told. I can understand the policy, because the coaster has the miserable electric ratcheting lap bars that if they open up all the way cannot be closed again unless the solenoid is triggered. So I can kind of understand the 'two click' thing. But then, the ride has safety belts on it; isn't that enough redundancy against a failed lap bar, on a ride that has been toned down and re-engineered so that it won't throw you anyway? How does it improve my safety to jam a lap bar down into my gut in such a way that I get hurt? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having safety equipment in the first place? Is this another case as on Flight of Fear where the "tighter is better" crowd has adjusted the design so that the maximum adjustment position will safely secure the smallest rider who can board the coaster? If that is the case, then why bother with adjustable lap bars at all? The crew does the best they can with the combination of equipment and instructions they are given. The real problem is that the equipment needs to be rebuilt. Put back the first notch. Or convert over to a modern lock design that doesn't lock in the full-open position unless the mechanism is in its released state. In the mean time, they really should take advantage of the redundancy in having the safety belts, and accommodate us riders who are most appropriately accommodated in the "first" lap bar notch. When my ride was over, I was so hopelessly wedged into the seat that the lap bar wouldn't open without a lot of help, and as I limped away, nursing the bruises on my outboard thigh, Dave turned around and went up the entrance ramp for the Racer. I should have known better than to follow him. Sure enough, on the other side of the station I ran into the same issues. Unless the operational procedure or the train changes this season, I think I'm done with the Racer for this season. Such a shame, too, as I kind of like that ride.

We continued on around the park and took a ride on Adventure Express. Remember I said something about how the effects on the ride had received some attention? Well, apparently Bad Things happened over the intervening week. The little spears were not working at all, and even more of the lights were burned out in the tunnel on the second lift. At least the ride system is still in good shape, even if that last drop is a little anticlimactic.

Some form of insanity prompted us to enter a full queue house for Delerium, knowing that would be a 45-minute wait. I don't quite know why we did that, knowing that we had deliberately avoided such waits for other rides so far. But I can't complain too much considering that now that the Flying Eagles are gone, it's quite possibly the best ride in the park. Last week it wasn't running; this week it seemed to be running pretty well.

We exchanged the usual in-joke about Son of Beast being closed for repairs. I'm glad to see that the park knows it has problems with the ride and is trying to fix them; I just fear that what is really wrong with the ride can't be fixed without replacing the train. Hmmm...I'm sensing a pattern here. Kings Island has five wood coaster tracks, four of which are running full size trains. Of those nine full-size trains, not one of them is any good to ride in, and of the park's five wood coaster rides, the best one of the bunch is the one formerly known as the Beastie.

Top Gun, on the other hand, is not closed for repairs. Its theming elements are just about gone, but the ride itself is still in fine form, and is certainly the best-running of any of the suspended coasters I've ridden, yes, even better than its clone, Vortex up at Canada's Wonderland. We rode, then decided we didn't want to wait in the really long line in the Face/Off queue house. Face/Off is a good ride, but its capacity is really far too low for this park, even when it isn't terribly busy.

As we exited Action Zone, Dave was careful to note the price of a small soft-serve ice cream cone: $2.99. That would prove to be useful information later. We investigated Flight of Fear and learned that it had gone down mechanical. We took a trip up the tower and took some photos. Back down on the ground, we checked the price at the Graeter's franchise: $2.99 for one scoop. Hmmm...$2.99 for a small soft-serve cone of something that cannot legally be called "ice cream," or $2.99 for a good size scoop of a high-quality premium local ice cream, the kind that costs $2.15 in the local parlor. Mmmm. Sounds like I'm going for the Graeter's. Easily one of the best concession decisions Kings Island has made. certainly a lot better than the Mexican joint last year, which has become another Skyline Chili location.

We finally made it back to Flight of Fear. We were warned that the ride was running only one train, but there was nobody in the queue house. We were able to feel our way through the dark room until we tripped over the stairway, then go up the stairs to meet up with the end of the line. They're back to braking the ride excessively again, but apart from that it runs great, and if I may be allowed a little smugness here, still gives me a chance to say, "I told you so." On the exit, the crumbling concrete walls have been covered with a grey plastic wall covering that looks like it belongs in a restroom. It isn't crumbling anymore, but I wouldn't call it attractive by any means.

Back in the outskirts of Nickelodeon Universe we rode the Phantom Flyers. Now, at Carowinds, the Phantom Flyers are, in fact, the Flying Scooter ride that got mercilessly ripped out of Kings Island. It is, of course, too much to ask that Paramount might have heard the cries, the protests, the appeals, the petitions and the demands of their local audience demanding the return of the Flying Scooter. Instead, the Phantom Flyers is a Zamperla Kite Flyer similar to the one at Camden Park [Footnote 2]. The Kite Flyer is an attractive ride, but personally I think the Dartron Cliff Hanger, while it looks more like a carnival ride with its exposed latticework and canvas sails, gives a better ride. Of course, neither can come close to a good Flying Scooter.

We finished our day with a ride on Scooby Doo and the Haunted Mansion where once again, our car only had 1.5 working guns in it. I'm beginning to think that is their performance standard for this ride. Which brings to mind one of the most obvious observations we shared during the day: Kings Island is quite capable of doing great show, and there is evidence of it all over the park. But the show elements on the rides are falling apart, and my conclusion is that the maintenance of the ride show elements is the responsibility of the ride maintenance department. Kings Island has a great maintenance crew, well known for taking good care of the rides. But those guys are ride experts and mechanics. What the park needs is a separate mainenance crew that doesn't work on ride systems, but that is responsible for making sure that the animation is working, the sound is adjusted properly, the speakers are not blown, and all the lights are working. That is, a show maintenance group. This is a major amusement park that has decided that it wants to be like Universal Studios. But they fail because they are only like Universal in that they operate amusement parks that they're trying to sell off. They don't pay the close attention to detail and to 'good show' that sets Universal apart from Paramount, Six Flags and Cedar Fair. Paramount has no problem investing in new attractions that, show-wise, are every bit the equal of anything that Universal does, but they demonstrate an unwillingness or an inability to maintain that show, and it simply looks bad.

For me, what is even more distressing is the way the ride selection at Kings Island keeps dwindling. It's not just because of rides that they remove [Footnote 3] although they still have a net loss of one ride for this season. It's also because there is a growing complement of rides in the park that, thanks to their operating procedures or the modifications made to the rides over the years, or the quality of the ride experience, they simply aren't any fun anymore. At Kings Island, I'm pretty much done with their bumper cars, Drop Zone, Son of Beast, The Beast, both sides of the Racer, and Tomb Raider. That's seven rides, including three (perhaps four, depending on how you count them) major coasters that simply aren't any fun to ride. I can't think of another park with such an extensive list. At Cedar Point, for instance, my 'don't ride' list is pretty much limited to Mantis: TCFKAB, Chaos, and Thunder Canyon. And I'll ride Thunder Canyon if I have a full set of clean dry clothes available. The point is, the park is doing inscruitable things that are not entirely customer-friendly. I'm sorry to see it, and I hope they reverse the trend before the bulk of their customer base starts to notice.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Footnote 1: Including, but not limited to, Sea Dragon, Wyandot Lake (1956/Allen); the Scooby Doo-type rides at Paramount's Kings Dominion (1974/Allen), Carowinds (1975/Allen) and Canada's Wonderland (1981/Summers); and Zach's Zoomer, Michigan's Adventure (1994/CCI). All are similar in size and layout to the Kings Island coaster, but none is braked mid-course. The Michigan's Adventure ride does not have flanged wheels. [Return to text]

Footnote 2: It's worth noting that Camden Park's new ride for 2006 is, in fact, a Flying Scooter. [Return to text]

Footnote 3: No, I am not referring only to the Flying Scooter. But I am still mad about that one. [Return to text]

Next: J&J Amusements

Back to Trip Reports 2006
Back to the Trip Report Archive
Back to Dave's Adventures
Back to Dave's page.