TR: Paramount's Kings Island
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Date: April 18, 1999
Location :Kings Mills, OH
Crowd: Light
Weather: Cold, spots of rain, 1 heavy downpour
Admission: $34.99
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Ok, as you may recall from my posts in the PKI ROLL CALL thread, I was severly worried about the weather conditions for today. Chiefly since PKI has this 50degree Steel Coaster rule, and it was not shaping up to be 50, and Face/OFF is a steel coaster. What happened? Read on!
Ok, When does a person's coaster season start, when they first set foot on park property, or when they ride that first coaster?
I arrived at the park about 8:50am, knowing the gates opened at 9, I took a liesurly walk from the drop off area to the gate, with a little bypass in the Season Pass building to get my $300 coupon book. (Whoo Hoo, Big Deal! Yeah Right). It was here that I noticed the first change of the day. Instead of the beige with blue trim ticket booths we are used to seeing, they are now Yellow with blue trim. Also evidence of a new general public picnic grove can be seen in a litte land clearing and paving next to the season pass building. (they had about 4 tables set up today). You may know that the former general public picnic grove now has a huge ride sitting in it......
Well I got in line for the turnstiles to open at 9AM sharp and quickly made my way to "The Official Coaster Enthusiast Early Morning Meet Up Area" otheriwse known as the blank land between the Glass Blowers and the Men's Restroom. And I tell you every coaster enthusiast in a 100 mile radius must have been here today. I am not EVEN going to mention names in fear of leaving somebody off and getting their feelings hurt.. I believe we had 19 in number when they took us for the walk-back.
As you maight know, PKI offers ACE members one special perk, that is we get the first Beast train of the day. Or rather they walk us back to the Beast through closed sections of the park, and plant us in line such that we are just stepping into the train when the ropes drop (Letting the earthlings into Rivertown) Well the Beast turned into a virtual Beast ERT. I got 4 rides in in a hurry, with (are you ready for this? - a TRIPLE ride on the Beast The bad news is that the Beast is running with full brakes, which can be measuered in how you approah lift #2. Under normal conditions you fly halfway up that lift before it catches, today the train poked along just far enough to engage lift #2.. Oh and along with repainting the queue areas and the trains, they have added more substantial queue gates, something they did to all the coasters.
After 4 Beast rides, we headed down towards Hanna Barbera land and noticed no major changes to Rivertown, entered Hanna Barbera Land, and what is this? Keyhole Photo Ambush, "Didn't we see you at the front gate?", anyway Keyhole Photo now has digital cameras. So we make our quick jaunt accross Hanna Barbera land and take 1 spin on the Beastie. I still love the purple/orange color scheme. Beastie over with it we did a quick inspection of HB, no major changes here,, and headed to see ----
"Paramount Action Zone" (PAZ for short) - The themed area formerly known as Adventure Village, formerly known as Wild Animal Habitiat, formerly known as Wild Animal Safari. Ok, we entered by the Paramount Theatre, where we quickly noticed the walkway from next to the Paramount Theatre to the Amazon (oops, read on) Falls, exit has been sealed at both ends. Forcing everybody to walk accross the wooden... I mean the blacktop path/bridge. But not without first seeing a new Water Race game. Ok, some said "you won't recognize it" Sorry, I've seen that parcel of the park too many times to be fooled. Remember the large clearing in the center, with those irregular shaped seating walls? Well that is now all multi colored cement, with the bulk of the center roped off. Dead center is the Paramount Water Tower, where the Paramount Stunt Show takes place. You can stand and watch the show around the perimieter. Kafe Killamanjaro got a new facade, a new theme, and a new name "Stunt Crew Grill", the restrooms got modernized (Hear that Joe Schwartz, Restroom Improvements!) and then you walk past Amazon (Ooops) The new name is Congo Falls, same ride new name, new paint job. Well you may recall the usless path that ran past the falls leading nowhere? Well now that path is wider and serves as the access to Face/OFF. As you may recall Face/Off (Vekoma Invertigo) sits in the old picnic grove. You enter past the ride and Coke Machines, to a COVERED queue house. the first thing you notice is the vibrant Red/Yellow color scheme, the fact that the Boomernag is almost right out over the midway, and you start to come up with comparisons to the Boomerang. Well it is a vast improvement to the Boomerang concept, After waiting in the queue house (back on the other side of the ride, you go through a walkway to the station that has high fencing on both sides,in fact the whole queue house has fencing around it, as does the exit ramp and station. There is no way you are getting into the ride area. Ok, after traveling under the vertical loop by shelter of the high fences and the shading, you turn to run alongside the mid course brake run, then up a ramp into the station. Here you find out they are assigning seats, but you can join seperate queues for either of the "Front/Back" seats. And the signs read just that "Line forms here for the Front/Back Seat" For my first ride I chose a "Front/Back seat which meant an extra three train wait. I chose the end closest to the midway, so you travel though the boomerang in the traditional directional orientation. I then get up to the queue gates, I mean the full queue DOORS, as I said the whole ride is guarded by 6' high fencing, including the station. Ok after the doors creep open you take your seats. Same SLC shoulder harness, seatbelt arangement, but the seats seem to have an odd slant to them. A few moments laster we were traveling backwards out of the station and up lift one. Now on a boomerang you are sitting in a car, so even though you are leaning on the shoulder restratins, you still have the car body. Now you are in SLC seats, lying on the shoulder harness going up the lift. Nothing else below you. As some mentioned it feel is very similar to that of the initial accent for a Skycoaster. Silent lift, release back through the station, through the boomerang , NO headbanging, through the vertical loop, (is this thing AWESOME or what!), and up lift two, with NO JERK, I mean the transition from gravity powered to lift mechansim is seamless and you travel all the way to the top of lift 2 and without pause are relased to d it all over again. This is one smooth ride, Vekoma has come a LONG way with this product back through the station no brakes back up lift 1 where you are then slowly lowered back down into the station. The floor come up shoulder harnesses release and the full size exit door opens.
My reaction : Awesome, incredible, earth shattering. Now the bad news: throughput. Even on a dead dog day like today with near walk on waits, this ride had a FULL queue house and an hour+ wait. I severly wonder where they are planning on putting the overflow queue area, or perhaps they are going to subscribe to the RCT theory that once the queue house fills, guest will turn away. Ok, away from Face/Off, it was decided that since it was 12:15, (45 minute wait then), that lunch was in order.
So we all marched to our favorite food eatery, the Festhaus.
When will PKI learn we like foods other than burgers, pizza, and ice cream? now we got in the Festhaus rather early and were rudely taken aback by the pricing scheme. If one got a hamburger, fires, and a Coke, their bill was easily $8-$10. Add to that that the burgers looked pretty sad under their heat lamps, and the fires were cold. My suggestion is togo with the Chicken Fingers which were hot, and filling, but also expensive at $5.50. You will also note that the sauces are not out on the condiment rack, but the cashier SELLS them to you at a per-packet price.
Ok, while we watched movie trailers in the Festhaus with NO german food, no german music, etc, we ate our overpriced lunch. It was then tat we had to start dealing with "A Coaster Enthusiast Who Shall Remain Nameless" His name was not Coaster Bob, but he proved just as popular ;)
After lunch a spin on Racer (Forwards) was in order still its great self, but we notices Adventure Express had GUESTS on it. So from Racer we scurried over to Adventure Express to learn that they only had 1 train on. Not only that but they were perfectly simulating two-stop loading. The train would stop, they would unload it, they would advance it to align with the queue gates (3-5') and load it. Ride Adventure Express and I got my first look at "The Project we have been requested not to discuss on here" From Adventue Express it is onto the newly repainted Top Gun, Yep silver track instead of red/pink. Looks Sharp. Here I first went down the exit under Sean's orders to keep looking at him, then he told me to look at "The BIG spot where you can see "The Project we have been requested NOT to discuss on here"" It may just be a huge land clearing now, but it has potenetial! Then onto Top Gun for look 3 at "The Big project we have been requested not to discuss", some rumor mongering time, and off to other things, like the "Ditch Mitch Mini Marathon" which Sean finally sacrificed himself for the betterment of the team. (I neaver saw Sean after that, :( See you the morning of SRM!) It was at this point that we saw Vortex running, so we headed down for a Vortex ride, same as last year. Then we notced that while we were riding Vortex, storm #1 came, BEAST TIME
Back to beast for an in-the-rain Beast Ride, those skids don't look so almighty now, huh???
From Beast the group went ???, and Dave Althoff and I went to sample Face/OFF again. 1hr+ wait, and we sat where the seat person sent us. This time traveling BACKWARDS ot the normal boomerang orientation. I must say the middle of the train is incredibly smooth and mild. Almost makes you wonder why it has a 54" height requirement. AfterFace/Off, we decided to go on a walk though the park. Top Gun, too far, Adventure Express, still 1 train, so Racer Backwards it be, and who should be sitting in the aliging seats on the Forwards train but the group. (HI Guys!) Oh and the park has gone out of its way to make sure we know the Racer is two seperate rides. Adjust your ride counts accordingly!. From here it all gets hazy, we go back to Vortex, "you know who siting", so I say "How about a Flying Eagles (Skooters) ride?"
Flying Eagles - or "TPM can be overdone"
As most of you know, PKI runs their Flying Skooters with a "Thou Shalt Not Ride Single" rule. Which is usually not enforced. Well today it was enforced. Now first off all, the 'goal' of the rule is higher capacity, HELLO, there is no one in the queue behind us!. But let's pretend that "You MUST have two riders per tub" well then the ride operators should use a little bit of brain in pairing up riders. For example you do not force (depsite objections) Dave Althoff and myself ro ride in the same tub. We barely squeezed into the seat, just barely got the seatbelt fastened etc. Then you have got to think of the wisdon for putting two heavy people on a ride that hangs from wire cables. To make it all worse no sooner had he started the ride, did Storm #2 hit, THE BIG ONE. Needless to say the ride was not pleasent. Well we ung out under an overhang for the storm to pass, then Beast time. Well we got to the Beast, but to late for the Rain-run. A normal Beast Ride. Oh no, there is You-Know-Who, and he followed us doen the exit, and would not leave leading to "Mini Marathon 2" We lost him as he went to Hanna Barbera Land. Well maybe the storm cleared out the Face/OFF line, guess not. Well a ride on Top Gun while we are here, hmm, I wonder how this looks from the Tower. Ohh impressive. Back down, where Dave Althoff and Co. tormented the tower-ride op with the"Small World" theme song. Then some strange coaster nut behavior under tower, mostly about RCT, then two more rides on Vortex to finish the day, Then "Game Over" A slow walk back to the front, a Funnel Cake in hand, and off to the parking lot. Coaster Season 99 has begun!
Oh, also PKI got new pay phones all over, they look just like the standard pay-phone employed in Canada.