I got to visit Kings Island in Cincinnati, Ohio at the end of July for my first ever visit. Even with all of the virus precautions in place, I still had a great time despite all of the rides being closed for a couple of hours early in the day. Crowds were light, so I was able to ride every coaster multiple times that I wanted to.
Opened in 1972, Kings Island has a long history, starting with a park called Coney Island located elsewhere in the city that was majorly successful. However, due to its location on the Ohio River, the park was moved to higher ground and rebranded into the new theme park of Kings Island in 1972. The park also served a stint as Paramount's Kings Island that saw the installation of several lightly-themed attractions before Cedar Fair bought all five of the Paramount Parks in 2006. The entrance leads into International Street and the iconic 1/3 scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. In the background, you can see the new Orion "giga coaster."
Orion is one of the few new roller coasters that have opened this year. It is the 10th tallest in the world at 287 feet with a 300-foot drop and a top speed of 91 miles per hour. Orion is a great ride and is one of my new favorite steel roller coasters!
My dad took this picture from the Eiffel Tower. You can see Orion towering over the Racer, one of the rides that sparked a new interest in the wooden coasters and was famously featured in The Brady Bunch.
Any park with a working glockenspiel earns extra points.
The park's darkride has always been in this building and has gone through several themes over the years, with the most recent being the "Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Mansion" interactive ride since 2003. It was altered into "Boo Blasters" when Cedar Fair took over.
Seen here are three of the park's roller coasters: The Beast, the world's longest wooden coaster, is on the left, Diamondback, a hyper coaster, is in the right-center, and Mystic Timbers, a wooden coaster built in 2017, is on the far right. Also of note on the far left is the former site of
Vortex, a looping coaster that closed at the end of 2019. I missed out!
Mystic Timbers was majorly hyped up, but I went in with too high expectations because even after three rides I came away disappointed. The track is very twisted, but no matter how many crazy directional changes and pops of airtime this coaster throws at you, it’s a bit too smooth for me. I love wooden coasters, but those made by Great Coasters International that I’ve ridden just don’t have the edge that I look for in a woodie.
The Beast is about as legendary as it gets when it comes to wooden coasters. I was hoping I would love it but wasn't expecting much, and as I anticipated, it didn't have a lot of action over its long length. The thing that made the ride worthwhile was cruising through the woods, and it’s hard to imagine what this ride would be like without that feature. The final helix also did not disappoint and is definitely the most forcefully memorable one of any wooden coaster.
My first visit to Kings Island was lots of fun and gave me a perfect opportunity to take in all that the park had to offer. I look forward to returning in the future!
5 comments:
I was glad to hear that you got to go to King's Island this summer! That is a park that has always interested me, ever since I saw it as a child, on TV shows like "The Brady Bunch" and "The Partridge Family."
Does Kings Island still have some of it's "flat rides," like the Trabant ride that looks like a giant roulette wheel? Or the "Crazy Barrels(Drunken Barrels)" ride? I know that other parks have removed these type of rides, so I'm just curious about King's Island.
Thanks for reading, TokyoMagic! As far as Kings Island flat rides go, the two that you mentioned, including Der Spinning Keggars (love the name!) were removed a while ago. Quite a few parks, including Magic Mountain, had that model, but they only exist internationally now. The Wheel of Fortune Trabant is actually now at a park in Pennsylvania called Delgrosso's two hours away from me that I've never visited, but it's closed this year.
They still have the Monster and the Scrambler that came from Coney Island, though, plus the 1926 carousel.
Andrew, I'm glad to hear that King's Island still has a "Monster" and a "Scrambler".....and a Carousel! That's pretty darn cool that they came from Coney Island! Not only did Magic Mountain get rid of their Crazy Barrels, they got rid of quite a few of their other flat rides as well, and didn't even replace them with something else. I hate it when parks do that! Magic Mountain, as you probably already know, had a Bayern Kurve called the Swiss Twist, but they ripped it out. :-(
Andrew, I went on a trip to King's Island in 1974, with my neighbors (I grew up with their kids). We had a blast - but the only ride I remember being on was the Eiffel Tower. I do remember the park being spacious and not crowded. It wasn't as nice as Disneyland, but it sure was great, for the Midwest area.
One other thing I remember about that trip, was all 4 of us kids were smashed in the back seat of the car and the radio was blaring Blue Suede's "Hooked on a Feeling." "Ooga-chaka, ooga-chaka, ooga ooga, ooga-chaka."
Thanks for your fun post!
Sue
Those are some great memories, Sue!
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