It was a real crapshoot but I had the grand gesture of “taking” Henry to King’s Island for Father’s Day, if by “taking him” meant that we all woke up at 6am and made him drive the nearly 4 hours to Mason, Ohio on a piping hot 90 degree day in June. To be fair, Chooch and I swore that we would help drive home but, SPOILER, Henry was in HERO MODE and refused to give up the driver’s seat, fucking bitch boy martyr that he is.
Anyway, we got there an hour after the park opened. The sun was already blistering with nary a cloud in the sky for even the slightest cover of shade, but!! The park was blessedly empty. I mean, nearly every coaster was a station wait. (I texted this to Christina who lives near King’s Island and they were like, “Does that mean it’s not crowded?” YES, YES, THAT IS WHAT THAT MEANS.)
We had as close to a perfect day as possible, really. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it were 20 degrees cooler, but other than that – absolutely no complaints. No fights. No arguing. No annoying people. No bad ride ops. For as sickening hot as it was, everyone seemed to be in good spirits, right down to the ride operators who were super personable and speedy with the dispatches while also reminding us to stay hydrated.
Henry was sighted here!
On the real though, we have never had to wait very long for The Beast any time we have been to King’s Island, so it wasn’t too shocking to be able to walk right up to the station. The Beast, and the new family boomerang, was the main reason I was so pushy about returning to KI this year. The Beast was recently retracked (just in parts, I believe) and Chooch needed that new boomerang cred.
The first time we rode it that day, I will be honest here: My impression was, “Wow, was that kind of not that great, or am I just spoiled now?” The Beast used to be one of my fave woodies! And I still had fun, don’t get me wrong, but it just didn’t feel as wild and chaotic? We were sitting in the front row of the last car, if you care about stuff like that.
Later though, Chooch and I went back on, this time in the middle row of the last car, and I have to say, it was A LOT more fun that time. I hesitate to say that it had “warmed up,” because it was like 90 degrees that day, and should have been HAULIN’ no matter what. But the second time? DEFINITELY HAULIN’! I kept saying that over and over again too because I wanted to feel like a coaster d00d, man.
Idiot Family.
When we were in line for the Soap Box Racer boomerang, Chooch me some kid’s Instagram from his class where he posted a clip of the LIVE STREAM OF COMMENCEMENT which I didn’t even know was a thing, so hooray knowing that viewers at home got to witness this:
It’s so jarring, even though I’m expecting it, to see Chooch come shooting into the frame. Maybe I was dehydrated and brain-burnt from the sun, but for some reason, this made me LOSE MY MIND in line, and I could NOT stop laughing. To the point where I had to do a modified pee squat to keep from pissing myself. Of course this was the ONLY coaster where we actually had to stand in line (granted, only 10 minutes) because it’s brand new from this season so everyone flocked to it.
This coaster was really cute and what a great fit for Camp Snoopy! I would have been stoked to ride something like this as a kid – who am I kidding, I probably would have been too scared to, who knows.
Blue ice cream is A MUST at King’s Island. What flavor even is it?? Berry, I guess? It’s so satisfying.
I started eating it / catching the drips with my big mouth before I remembered to take an obligatory selfie with it. I’m losing it, you guys. The boxes aren’t being ticked.
We sort of let him eat this in peace.
Boo Blasters was a walk-on and let’s be real, we only rode it to get out of the heat.
Adventure Express is actually my favorite ride at King’s Island LOL. It’s the best mine train that I have ridden in America, to be honest, and they recently rethemed it a bit and it’s so good, just so so so good. Henry is usually a poo-pooer of Adventure Express but suddenly he now says that it’s, “Not bad.” I forgot how unexpectantly aggressive it is and was screaming my face off the whole time.
Also, it was around this point that my stomach was starting to cramp from probably a combo of the ice cream and extreme heat. We rode Banshee after this and 1. I forgot how insane and intense this B&M invert is; 2. the ride op stapled me and I have never before had such an unpleasant experience with vest restraints, 3. my stomach was in so much pain.
I guess that’s the trade-off – everything was practically a walk-on but because of that, our bodies weren’t really getting enough time to readjust and reset in between each coaster which probably wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the whole “surface of the sun” heat advisory that day.
Not pictured, but we also rode The Bat, Orion, Mystic Timbers, and Diamondback up to this point.
Me: I want to get photos of the new themed area.
Also Me: I’m so hot, what was I doing again?
Racer was retracked, but only partially, and I felt like the old tracked portion was bad enough to keep my opinions of this coaster low. Also, I rode by myself on the left side, and Chooch chose to ride with HENRY on the right side, and then they WON. Ugh. BUT I beat them out of the exit so technically you could say *I* won.
The return part of the Racer was actually decent though. If they retracked the whole thing, it would be so re-ridable.
After our second ride on Orion, where some trashy broad was SO APPALLED that the line attendant made her stand off to the side and wait because the rest of her group wasn’t there yet and she was crying because “now look how many people are waiting for the front row!” and the Orion crew member was like, “Too bad, I can’t let you go until your whole group is here.” She did the whole THROAT SOUND TO INDICATE DISGUST AND DISBELIEF IN THE KEY OF KAREN and then started to call someone on the phone to see where they were in line, so presumably that person/people was just going to line-jump their way straight up the station, who even knows. I fucking hate entitled people so much. We all paid to be there, now stand in line and STFU! Also, there were hardly any lines to stand in anyway so why didn’t she just wait until her whole party was ready to get in line at the same time!!??
That was the only weirdness we encountered all day, and it didn’t affect us so whatever.
Taking a break after our second ride on Orion.
Literally just fighting to stay hydrated all day.
Backlot Stunt Coaster! We’ve ridden all three of these around various Cedar Fair Parks, but the one in King’s Island is the best. The one in King’s Dominion doesn’t have any of its effects working anymore, and I think Canada’s Wonderland was the same. This ride is so much fun though.
Also, Chooch decided that he doesn’t care for any coasters that don’t have a launch. Cool. But did we ask.
LOL the last thing we did that day was ride White Water Canyon, the rapids ride, and we got DUMPED ON. The crew also can control the geysers so the kid working in one of the booths downright unleashed on us and we were like drowned rats by the end. Not gonna lie, it felt fucking great in the moment but it was a really uncomfortable walk back to the car after that.
Henry and his uniform of Oversized Shirt and Cargo Shorts.
LOL I just realized that one of the kids in the background had run ahead of us when the gates for the train were finally opened, allowing us to enter the line for the rapids and then he was sooooo distraught because his dad was like, “Fuck no, I’m not running” so the kid kept stopping and yelling, “DAD! COME ON!!!” and then eventually had to admit defeat and let us and everyone else pass him because Dad wasn’t playing the Line Jumping Game. GOOD GUY.
Having ridden everything we wanted, and not wanting to end up in the hospital with heat stroke, we left the park at 4PM. Plus, we (we lol) had a 4 hour drive ahead of us. Lest you think that the day was 100% perfect, I am here to tell you that all bets were off as soon as we left the park and that’s when the HANGER set in bigly and we ended up arguing so bad over where and what to eat and ended up at a truck stop where Henry got two slices of Sbarro for him and me, and Chooch wanted biscuits and mashed potatoes at Popeyes.
It was a terrible, miserable, hateful dinner but hey, at least we had one of the best amusement park days ever beforehand! I’m just going to go ahead and say that King’s Island is my fave Cedar Fair park (I haven’t been to any of the ones past Michigan’s Adventure though).