Paramount Kings Island

We were going to spend a day and a bit at Paramount Kings Island. The chain had recently been put up for sale by the owners and bought by Cedar Fair and although it was too soon to see how this would affect the parks, we could get an idea of how they might change from speaking to the staff. I had only ever been to Paramount's Kings Dominion and had really liked the park, so it would be interesting to see how this one would compare.

We arrived late in the evening for the first part of our visit to this park.

We were welcomed to the park by Maureen who works in the parks PR department. If I was to say she was the most enthusiastic person I'd ever come across I'd be understating the fact significantly. She reminded me of the women in the Terminator 3D pre-shows. "Super", "Awesome", "Really Neat" etc... We were provided with VIP passes and lanyards, and ponchos for the wimps, it was just about to rain as we arrived and Maureen didn't want us getting wet.

The plan when we first arrived was to head over to Son of Beast and ride it in the back seat. However as we got to the entrance it had been closed down due to the weather. So after rocking out to the cheesy but entertaining School of Rock show, we headed over to Flight of Fear, which was running. Just like PKD it has a really clever queue line, and the ride itself is just as confusing as I remember. At times its hard to tell when you're upside down and when you're not.

With the rain starting to subside we had a go on the Racer, the parks racing wooden coaster. Where one of the trains if facing backwards. This is the conventional train where riding in the front means you're riding in the front.

This is the other side, now if you're riding in the back are you riding in the front too?
Too paradoxical for me to try to resolve at this time.

Unlike Lightning Racer at Hersheypark the trains here although they left together never returned together or in anything remotely like racing. I think at the turn around one side was just considerably slower to the point that the race was all but over.

In the evening the park gave us an ERS on The Beast which is the longest wooden coaster in the world both in length and ride time. You can't see much of the ride from the park as it goes out into the trees so you have no idea just how long it is until you ride it. When you do so you also realise why it has the record for ride time, the ride has been over braked to the point that all of the fun has been taken out of it, at least in the first half of the ride. The second ride is a lot more fun. The ERS was disappointing to most people because of the braking. You really wanted the brakes to be opened up to see what this ride was designed to be like, but it wasn't to be.

The next day we were welcomed with breakfast around their latest coaster The Italian Job.

They even went to the trouble of theming the breakfast table for us!

The ride is a lot of fun and what it lacks in height and inversions it makes up for in it theming with the trains made to look like the minis from the film, and you driving around a carpark, through a roadblock into a factory where you're shot at by a helicopter with explosions and water sprays, before diving into a tunnel and out through the movie poster.

The ride is a lot of fun, although it appeared that not all the effects were working. I thought, and I might be wrong, that the cars fishtailed into the bends to simulate skidding and headlights should come on through the tunnel. Neither of this was happening today.

I'm not sure why Mark and Jenny are looking so happy. Their drivers aren't looking at the road in front of them. Because this ride is so heavily themed expect the licence to be bought by Cedar Fair rather than have them re-theme it.


After having our fill of mini driving we headed off to Tomb Raider, a dark ride that uses a 3-row top spin in an enclosed room to provide its thrills. The ride is actually very clever and completely disorientating as you spin around the insides of a temple being bombarded with water and fire effects.

With the two most popular attractions out of the way it was time to hit the rest of the park. First up, back row on the Son of Beast. Now a lot of people were adamant they weren't going to ride this today as it was in their words "a piece of shit". However with rumours of Cedar Fair talking about getting rid of it, they gave it one last go. Soon the fastest, tallest and only looping coaster could be no more...

And it wasn't that bad. Yes it was a little shaky in places but nothing like J2. I tend to find those rides that people say are rubbish to be OK. SLCs and Goudrix at Parc Asterix for example. I've never had problems with the, and I didn't really have problems with this. The one complaint I did have is the angle that your legs are forced to bend at when you're in the trains. They've raised the floor or something that ensure your legs are at 90 degrees. Not that comfortable to be honest!

The Top Gun coaster at this park is an old style suspended coaster, but not a bad ride. It's a shame it is as short as it is as by the end of it the cars were swinging from side-to-side quite a lot.

This is the children's go-karting area themed around the Tom Cruise classic, Days of Thunder. I found it amusing that the majority of kids could barely see over the steering wheels so I had no idea how they knew when to turn. If there are cars that need the floors boosting its these, not the Son of Beast ones.

Face Off is the park's inverted boomerang. It was a bit too shaky for me.

Interesting Sign #20
"Ohio State Law Forbids Dropping Objects"
Now I can only assume this is a joke as this sign is found in the queue line to the park's drop tower.

Adventure Express is the park's mine ride and its really well themed and goes on for ages. It does have a rather anti-climatic ending where after going up a lifthill surrounded by stone statues banging drums, a voice booms out "prepare to meet your doom", at which point you turn into the station and are told to "exit to the left". Where was the doom bit?

The park has a huge children's area themed around Nickelodeon shows. It has actually been voted the #1 kids park in the world, which is surprising as its all a bit too bright and in your face for my liking. I much preferred Storybook Kingdom at Idlewild, at least it was educational.

They have a kiddy inverted coaster though called Runaway Reptar which is a lot of fun.

The cutely named "Fairly Odd Coaster" is very good too! I didn't know that Fairly Odd was a reference to a show, I guess I'm not as "hip" as I thought I was.

The Scooby Doo shooting ride was a nicely themed dark ride but my gun wasn't very accurate, so I didn't score that highly.

For those that want to escape the rides, the park does offer some nice gardens and landscaping.

In the afternoon the park allowed us to walk amongst The Beast ride, which was a great thing to do as I mentioned earlier, you just can't do this usually.

I think it was good for the riders too, the last thing they expect to see is a bunch of people armed with cameras waiting for them to come flying past. A nice surprise for them. Actually from down here the ride seemed to be going a lot faster than I remember when I was on it. Maybe the braking is a good idea after all...................Nah, definitely not.

The Beast's first drop, looks like it goes into a cave, but it's just a fake piece of rock wall to give the effect.

Vortex is a massive looping coaster, and it was a little rough in places but nowhere near as bad as I'd expected having ridden other similar rides.

Aero the Airbender, is apparently a TV show in the U.S. In the UK, I think it would be given a different name due to the reinterpretation of the word "bender". This is a fairly new ride that split enthusiasts into whether it was a coaster or not, and whether or not to add it to their counts. As it turned out, it made no difference to me as it broke down when I was at the front of the queue so I didn't get to ride it anway.

And just like Kings Dominion the park has it's Eiffel Tower replica and fountains as the centre piece to the park.

I really liked PKI, it's very close to the sister park in Virginia both in ride quality and hospitality. It will be very interesting to see how this park takes shape once Cedar Fair start to make their changes. It was also here that I bought my third season pass of the trip as I was planning to visit Carowinds and PKD later on.

Is it Christmas already? Well we can only be headed to Holiday World