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Kings Island 2021 Trip Report

SkyrushSimp

Mega Poster
In August 2021, I went to Kings Island in Mason, Ohio. I came out thinking very positively of it.

When I went, it was 95 degrees and Sunny, perfect weather. When I got in the park, I made sure to hit the low capacity credits first (Disclaimer: I was not allowed to ride the Great Pumpkin Coaster due to the height limit). First I did Woodstock Express. It was fine, nothing special, but it was a Kiddie Coaster and it's fine for what it is. I then made my way to Flying Ace Aerial Chase. I had heard how it beats up your head and is generally unpleasant, but I didn't find it that bad. It was running kind of rough however, which I wasn't expecting. I was planning to go to Mystic Timbers next, but I decided to wait for it to warm up before going, so I ended up at Diamondback. After I rode Diamondback, I came off extremely impressed. It was miles better than Candymonium, Nitro, Intimidator, and other B&M Hypers. After that, Backlot Stunt Coaster was next. Overall, I found it no different then the clone at Kings Dominion, perfectly fine, but nothing to write home about. After that was Racer, a rock solid woodie with decent airtime. I thought it was butter smooth with good airtime, kind of like an upscaled version of Woodstock Express. Next was Orion. I had always thought Orion was basically bigger Candymonium, but after riding it, I can confidently say this is way better than that. It had loads of airtime, speed for days, and even some positive g's, which caught me off guard. I wanted to re-ride, but I still had to get the other credits. Adventure Express was your usual Arrow mine train, not really that good to be honest. Then I did Banshee. I was expecting this to be similar to Alpengeist, my top invert, but it ran slow. I was expecting better, but it really disappointed me. Then I did The Bat, one of the last Arrow Suspended coasters, and I thought it was great. The cars were really swinging, and there was plenty of positives to enjoy. After that was Invertigo. I hadn't ridden any of these Vekoma Inverted Boomerangs, and I came away loving this ride. It was so intense, the drops were awesome, and this ride is straight fun.

After that, it was almost 2:30. I got lunch at the Chicken Shack, and then made my way to Flight of Fear, which had been closed earlier. When I went to Kings Dominion last year, it was closed. The LIM launch was great, but the rest of the ride was not very good. It was very forceless, and I sat all the way in the back. I only had 2 more credits left, and they were right next to each other. I did Beast first, and it had a 2 hour wait. Thankfully, my flash pass cut it to about 30 minutes. Overall, the ride, wasn't insane or anything, but it's laterals and long ride time saved it for me. Finally, I rode Mystic Timbers, which was a walk-on. I thought Mystic was amazing. It had airtime for days, and that layout is really strong. After that, I got re-rides on some of the rides, most notably a Beast night ride, which was everything it was hyped up to be.

So overall, here was the ride counts.
Mystic Timbers: 5
Orion: 3
Diamondback: 3
Beast: 2
Banshee: 2
Invertigo: 2
Bat: 2
Racer: 2
and I got 1 ride on everything else.

And to end this Trip Report on King's Island, here is my rankings of their coasters:
1. Orion
2. Mystic Timbers
3. Diamondback
4. The Beast
5. Banshee
6. The Bat
7. Invertigo
8. Racer
9. Flight of Fear
10. Backlot Stunt Coaster
11. Woodstock Express
12. Flying Ace Aerial Chase
(no GPC, I couldn't ride it)
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
Good stuff! Glad you also enjoyed Mystic Timbers and Orion respectively - getting to ride a full-trained Orion this year was a real treat to understand how it's truly meant to run.

Also glad Beast was open for you! It was plagued by downtime this year. Here's hoping all the off-season TLC and Gravity Group retracking gives us a good, full season of riding.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
yeah, I was praying beast was open 😅 thankfully the roller coaster gods were on my side
Actually to think about it - I only got one ride on Beast last year lol. But it was definitely a weird one, the TTD mid-season closure meant the only Accelerator I also rode was Xcelerator. Weird.
 
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