USA Trip 2011 Park #3
21 August 2011
The third park in our 2011 US adventures was King’s Island Ohio. We took a bus from Sandusky to Mason, and we learnt all about this thing called ‘oversold’ which we were not familiar with in Australia. Basically, the bus company had sold too many seats, and it was me that was left without one. We didn’t want to miss our ride, so Kyra and I took turns of having an actual seat, with the other person kind of standing/squatting/lap sharing for the next few hours. Eventually a company employee who was sitting in the front seat decided to move her stuff off the seat so that I could sit down. She didn’t actually believe me that I had no seat until she got up and counted for herself. So after hours of driving through nothing but corn fields, we got dropped off at a little petrol station in the middle of nowhere. We called a taxi from there, and a lady turned up with her child in the backseat. This was pre-Uber days, so felt really weird to jump in to someone’s personal car. It was great to finally arrive at the hotel early evening, as we had no energy to do anything but sleep.
Well rested, we went through the usual routine of identifying the best coasters as we walked to King’s Island just up the road. I was really looking forward to Diamondback which seemed a bit like Nitro with some water effects. The park seemed really small after Cedar Point, but honestly we were quite relieved to have less ground to cover. There was the usual variety of non-coaster rides we had come to expect like a drop tower, wind seeker, pendulum swing (Delirium) and seated tilt ride like the Wipe Out (The Crypt).
Diamondback did not disappoint. I was starting to feel a bit more secure with these ‘lap bar only’ coasters and really just loved the massive drops and bumps that would provide some air time. The added comfort also allowed us to get a bit more creative with ride photos which was a bit of fun.
We hadn’t heard anything about Vortex prior to riding it, but we really enjoyed all the twists, turns and loops on the track.
FireHawk was a definite favourite. It was another one that tilted the seats forward so you fly around the track facing the ground, but it started by tipping you backwards. Going up the hill head first was pretty trippy, not being able to see what was coming.
We had been really lucky with the weather so far, but could see a storm rolling in. We raced to The Beast thinking that it may not operate in a down pour. This is the world’s longest wooden rollercoaster. We started the ride dry, experienced a hail storm in the middle, and the heavy rain had passed by the time we got back to the station. Just like bugs, rain and hail really hurt at high speeds. Later on we went to go on the drop tower. Our harnesses were locked in, then it started pouring again and the ride shut. Huzzah – I had got out of another drop tower (I still hate them.)
We ticked off all the coasters like the suspended coaster Flight Deck (now called The Bat), Woodstock Express, the Racer (a historic wooden coaster) and Adventure Express (standard mine style coaster). Flight of Fear (indoor fast launch coaster) was a lot of fun, as was the Backlot Stunt coaster. Invertigo was another first for us – similar set up to a standard boomerang coaster, but the seats were facing each other. Thankfully, no spitters were on board.
The novelty of these amazing parks had still not worn off. We were also amused to see the water park had an Australian theme, with rides like Down Under Thunder, Tasmanian Typhoon and the Coolangatta racer. I was beginning to get a little dismayed that America had so many parks with an incredible amount of roller coasters, yet in Australia we felt like the baby of the game. King’s Island was a solid day of coaster action, and I would love to go back to experience the new coasters Banshee and Mystic Timbers. We were pretty sad to see a great looking wooden coaster closed down however. RIP Son of Beast. Sadly, this would not be my first experience with the death of a coaster…
Roller Coaster Ramble 