Trip Report: Kings Island

I spent all day Saturday and Sunday at what is easily Ohio's best amusement park - Kings Island.

I signed up for a special event that Kings Island held in honor of Diamondback, their new roller coaster. Wow, it's an amazing ride with incredible airtime on just about every hill regardless of what seat you're in.

But Diamondback wasn't the highlight of the park. A 30-year old ride remains the park's signature attraction - The Beast. Even after 30 years, it's still the longest wooden roller coaster in the world at 1-3/4 miles! And it's still a great ride. The first time I went on it was when I was 12 (and my brother was only 8) - it was a slightly different ride back then because of the way the braking system has changed over the years. Even so, it's still worth going on again and again. And it's one of the many reasons I keep going back to Kings Island.

Now a lot of western New Yorkers have a bad attitude when it comes to wooden roller coasters because of Darien Lake's Predator (a good ride, but definitely one that shakes everyone up a bit). The Beast is nothing at all like Predator. It does shake around a little as it is a wood coaster after all, but overall it's a very comfortable ride. (A little hint for The Beast: each train on the ride has six cars - if you sit in the middle row on any of the six cars your ride will be less shaky than on the other seats.)

But if you like wooden roller coasters that shake a lot, the park has one of those too. That would be Son Of Beast. It's another record holder as it's the tallest and fastest wooden roller coaster in the world. And it's another really long wooden roller coaster, made even longer I think because it seems to move more side to side than straight down the track. :) Still worth a ride though - I did just one. Try for the front seat if you don't mind waiting a little longer for it. I had to squint during my ride though as the wind was insane (at one point, you go 78 mph).

Flight Deck is another favorite of mine. It's a steel suspended coaster. I'll try to describe it - the entire train dangles from the track and your feet remain enclosed in the train along with the rest of your body. Get your hiking shoes ready to make your way through the long (and I always find empty) queue for this one. You can find the entrance to this one right next to Son Of Beast (it's easy to miss as it's kind of hidden).

Firehawk is a roller coaster you ride on your stomach (it used to be X-Flight at Geauga Lake). I love this kind of roller coaster and this was one of my favorites at Geauga Lake. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go on it this weekend. I put it off until close to the end of the weekend and then it went down for maintenance. I never should have waited - but I'll be going back, so I'll go on it next time.

Flight Of Fear is right next to Firehawk and I went on that a lot. It's an enclosed coaster and highly recommended. I'm not going to say anything else about this one as I don't want to ruin it for you.

I'm also not going to tell you exactly what The Crypt is. It's another enclosed ride and used to be called Tomb Raider: The Ride until Paramount sold the park. I went on this a lot this weekend too as this is my favorite kind of ride.

I couldn't help but laugh on my last ride on The Crypt. Me and some friends were near a family (kids, parents, and grandfather) going on the ride for the first time. No one in the family knew anything about the ride at all. The funniest thing was after the ride when the family was apologizing to the grandfather for even taking him on it. The poor guy was just totally stunned at what he'd just been through. Hysterical!

Overall, there's 15 roller coasters at Kings Island. And that doesn't count all the other great rides too. And they've got a really cool kiddie section, mostly based on Nickelodeon shows.

I've already mentioned how psyched I am about the new Disk'O ride this year at Fantasy Island and Waldameer Park. Well in the Nickelodeon Universe section, they had a Skater ride, which is a step down from a Disk'O in intensity. But it's a step up from a regular Skater ride because it was shaped more like a "W" than the usual "U". It's called Avatar: The Last Airbender. Even if you're not at the park with kids, you've got to go in that section and ride this. I was almost embarrassed to admit I wanted to ride this, but then a few others wanted to too - whew, not so embarrassing after all. Turns out there was almost always more adults on this ride than kids. Such a cool ride.

As for the rest of the park, there's tons of shops and food places, the waterpark is supposed to be really nice (I don't personally know as I usually don't bother with waterparks), there's a 1/3 size replica of the Eiffel Tower you can go up, and the park itself is incredibly clean. At one point on Sunday I saw some important looking manager chasing after a napkin so he could put it in the trash - yes, the park is that clean.

Kings Island is a little under seven hours away from Buffalo and is absolutely worth the visit. It's one of the few parks I highly recommend for the entire family.

And for the day after visiting the park, eat at CiCi's Pizza before leaving Cincinnati. I keep hearing those commercials on Star and Kiss, even though there's no CiCi's anywhere in New York - but they sure have a bunch of CiCi's Pizza Buffets in Cincinnati! And it's not just pizza - there's also all-you-can-eat pasta, soup, salad, and breadsticks too. I was so psyched I just couldn't wait and ate there (and ate and ate and ate) the day before going to the park - good thing the rides don't make me sick or I would have been doomed.

Let me know if you end up going to Kings Island this year (or if you've been already) - I'd love to hear what you think about the park.