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United Spites of America - Summary

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
You'd think 2 and a half years of preparation for a trip would make things run smoother. It did not.

This was the life changing, Cedar Pointing, US Beast of a Voyage that I once had planned out for 2020 and that was, of course, cancelled later that same year, giving birth to the epic Eurodemption #1. Our determination to make it happen at all costs saw it re-booked and re-cancelled a further three times throughout 2021 while the indecision over entry requirements remained firmly in place, leading to the excessive Eurodemption #2. By the time 2022 rolled around I had gone over this route plan in so many iterations that it was now firmly etched onto my retinas - there will be no Ange-Michels this time I can assure you, this was Ameridemption and it was going to be amazing. Once the flood gates had been opened once more, the trip finally happened, and immediately went wrong.

Day 0 - Travel

After arriving at Heathrow earlier than ever before, we took our then mandatory covid test and proceeded to check in the bags at a very comfortable time frame. I had noticed during this process that a few of the escalators were closed off, only to assume they were broken. This was in fact to filter everyone down to a single entry point for access up to the next floor where security takes place. On this floor were cattlepen queues as far as the eye could see which, although they looked grim, flowed rather well. After a reasonable 40 minutes or so, by no means the shortest wait of the trip and definitely not the longest, we arrived at the scan your boarding pass barrier. The barrier said no.

According to differing stories from various parties this was either an outright system fault, or an arbitrary feature that (incorrectly) determines 'whether you'll make the plane or not from this point', even though we still had well over an hour at this moment in time. Regardless, the staff at these barriers have no power to override the system and were unable to help in any way. We were scooted to one side by some other airport staff into a small group of other travellers with the same issue. Apparently they were going to ask our airline to grant permission for a visual check in order for us to bypass the barriers. American Airlines said no.

The airport staff then suggested that we all head back downstairs to the airline check in desk to sort this issue out with them ourselves. We did so, only to find that the desks were entirely abandoned and there were no airline staff available to assist. After being shouted at, and subsequently ignoring another airport staff member who was insisting that we had to go through the queue again, we found the upstairs staff once more and relayed the fact that the airline were MIA. This confused them, as they had supposedly just spoken to them and they were now at a loss as to what to do. As were we all.

Suddenly the very man who had checked our bags in appeared at speed and began to argue our case with the barrier staff, who suddenly looked terrified at the sight of our group determinedly pouring straight towards them. We were manually let through with the 'visual check' and assured by the airline staff member that "once you're confirmed to be past this barrier on the system, you will make your plane", which I can only assume meant we would soon get those announcements over the speakers saying hurry up Mr. Slow, we're holding up this flight for you.

Security itself with all the trays and scanners was actually operating at the highest capacity I've ever seen it, which is strange considering the queues are so bad right now. The sudden increase in demand must be insane. We made it through there very quickly to then see the sign that gave us the good news that our gate was as far away as it could physically be, at what was suggested to be a 30 minute walk. Those barriers clearly underestimate our speed as, along with a few of the others, we sprinted it in under 5. Only to arrive at the gate and see one of the same staff members already there shrugging and saying the gate's closed mate.

To this day I don't fully understand how the time sink happened or how seemingly most of the rest of the passengers ever made the plane in the first place, unless 90% of those were from connecting flights. Our little group of stragglers from the barrier incident had all felt that they were way ahead of schedule at every step of the process until the mishap occurred and now here we were looking at a plane that was fully prepared to leave without us. All forms of protest were in vain and a high up member of staff approached us to diffuse the situation. "Guys, there's nothing we can do to get you on this plane, but don't worry. We have hundreds of flights leaving for the US today and we will get you on one of them, 110%. Go to our ticket rebooking desk right now and they'll sort you out" Fearing a repeat of the check in desk incident from earlier, we pressed further and specifically asked if anyone was actually at that desk and whether they were aware that we would be coming. The answer was yes.

Once we had manouevred through the various back alleys of the airport that led us to said desk, during which we managed to lose at least half the group, we arrived to see two staff members who had no idea that we were coming. One was under training and the other was seconds away from leaving for the day. A strongly worded phonecall was made, presumably back to the guy we had just spoken to, to the tune of why have you done this? and I need to go home now. All credit to her though, she stayed on and helped us in our time of need.

The options were nowhere near as vast as had been promised, particularly as it was supposedly now our fault that the airport was useless and the airline shouldn't have to compensate for that. Option one was the April Orlando special - come back 24 hours later for the same flight to Philadelphia, oh and we won't pay for a hotel. a) we aren't losing a day of our holiday and b) we live here. Option two was an 18-hour overnight flight with a layover in Los Angeles (so the complete opposite end of the country). A simple "no" was sufficient to shoot that one down and arouse a long overdue smattering of laughter amongst our fellow passengers.

I was straight with her about our own situation at this point - we're driving to Pittsburgh tonight so you can dump us anywhere in the Eastern US TODAY and we'll be out of your hair. (Fun aside, we would have been flying straight to Pittsburgh had this been 2020 and they hadn't cancelled that route since covid). A plane leaving for New York in 3 hours soon had our name on it, but it was in a different terminal and we'd have to queue for security again.
We took a bus to T5 and once more found ourselves in a massive line that this time had various artistic murals of empty water bottles seemingly set up in protest throughout all the temporary barriers that held everyone in place. During this wait we had to make an urgent phonecall in order to rebook our car hire, seeing as we were now going to be arriving into a different city.

Fair play to BA this time, as we had a flight + car booking and they could already see on their system that we had been rerouted, they were happy to oblige, no fuss. We were given an email address and the personal mobile number of an agent in an office in Crawley and instructed to explain our situation via email and text in order to get the quickest response possible. By the time we made it to the gate, which hadn't been closed in our face, we received a call back from an extremely helpful person who moved our car hire, no questions asked, and delivered the wonderful news that it was now in fact £500 cheaper for us. Ordeal = profit, apparently.

The flight itself passed without much event. I won Who Wants to be a Millionaire (a tradition on planes which I've now managed to keep since January 2020), watched a Korean action film and tolerated what some would call food. Soon we found ourselves at JFK, which turned out to be ridiculously quiet, ready for a fight with Avis, the very car hire company that had tried to scam us just a couple of months ago. Though media has tried to teach me things about New Yorkers, they were totally solid and the whole process was so much better than it had been in Miami. Just like 3 years prior we were given El Toro: the car (a Kia Soul), though sadly not in the correct colour this time.

Thankfully JFK isn't how I pictured it either and doesn't dump you into 6 lanes of yellow cabs honking their horns and not moving, so we managed to escape the clutches of the city in no time at all and begin the, more arduous than initially intended, first long drive of the trip.

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Our estimated arrival time was well past 2am at this point and that was without factoring in a stop for food. Having been stung in the past by American hotels who arbitrarily decide (just like those barriers) that you're too late and not going to arrive after a certain time in the evening, lie about trying to contact you and then kindly cancel your room without notice, we called ahead to the establishment in order to let them know how late we were running. We're not out of the woods yet.

The guy we spoke to said that it was fine for us to turn up at whatever time, however he had already cancelled our room without notice because they had checked the credit card details earlier and they weren't valid. Oh and he lied about trying to contact us. So here was the situation - I had booked almost every hotel on this road trip back in January for the sake of forward planning and cost saving. The credit card which I had used expired at the end of April and both of the systems I used for the bookings had a method for updating your card details against each one. When my new card sprang into action at the beginning of May, I went online and updated these details accordingly. Clearly this didn't work and now not only did we not have a hotel for the first night, we potentially didn't have one for any of the rest of the trip because we had to assume they will all be this useless and silently bail on us at any given moment.

It was at this point we stopped for both food and a minor mental breakdown about why nothing works any more. There was no point in pressing on to what would now likely be a 3am arrival at a hotel that had already spited us, for a worse deal than originally planned. We could just continue the long drive in the morning. I instead managed to find what looked like a last minute steal on a 2 bedroom suite that just so happened to border Hersheypark. A phonecall was made in order to make sure they could accommodate us arriving late. We were assured that the receptionist would be there waiting for us.

They weren't, but an envelope and key with my name on it was waiting on the desk when we got there. I can only look back and laugh at how gone we were by this point as I recall simply standing in the road in the middle of the night for a good 10 minutes and staring at a sign with what appeared to be a 'no parking' symbol above where I had parked the car, in what was a clearly marked parking space. I suppose they can't crush our car into a cube, it already is one. The room key was marked with a number 2, but the hotel was comprised of several different buildings, so we then spent a further 10 minutes wandering up and down in a daze, trying all the wrong rooms also marked 2, at great personal risk. Finally finding where we supposed to be, up a rickety outdoor wooden staircase, I discovered our actual quarters also had a door down to a basement pulled straight out of a horror movie. I smiled to myself briefly, thinking of all the things that could still go wrong at this point, up to and including death by phantom, locked the door again and promptly passed out.

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Well we weren't due there for at least another two weeks, but at least we could look at rollercoasters from the window in the morning, how many can you spot?
Oh right, rollercoasters. Well that will just have to wait until next time.
 
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JoshC.

Strata Poster
Well Day 0 and your trip to America sounds more stressful, and yet more entertaining, than my simple trip. I've got the popcorn ready for the next installment!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
After not enough sleep I awoke to both blinding sunlight and the deafening roar of a thousand trucks clattering past outside. Fortunately the car hadn't been towed away overnight and it was with slightly fresher eyes that we discovered the envelope had contained detailed instructions on how to find the hotel room! Oops. After a quick glimpse at Skyrush and a tactical stock up from Walmart, we hit the road to Pittsburgh, again.

Day 1 - Kennywood

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The view as we picked a prime spot in the free parking area, at the top of an outdoor escalator, was a sight for sore eyes. The freshly painted phantom was gleaming and the curtain, which seems to spend more time down than it does operating was chugging up the lift hill in a welcoming fashion. Everything was back on track.

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Sadly the first thing we came across on park is that the Old Mill was spiting for the day, I had been looking forward to checking out the umpteenth iteration of this classic dark ride.

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But there were more pressing matters just around the corner and we took our spot in a slow and steady 30 minute queue (it's back to one train operation already) for the unique stylings of Steel Curtain.

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First impression was that the lift hill is extremely loud, especially when on board, pretty much the only factor that would hurt the rerideability of this thing, which I loved. An excellent kick off to the trip.

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There's nothing life changing going on here, but it's a very refreshing, modern take on the multi-loopers of old and so much more enjoyable for it. It rides very well with decent forces in all the right places and the inversions are interesting and varied. The layout tries to throw a couple of good airtime moments into the mix but they don't really land and that's probably the main thing that holds the ride back for me. It may have a silly football theme but I did enjoy the stylised announcements that come with it and visually it's a pretty stunning coaster, particularly when you catch certain elements at some angles.

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Headed straight over to Phantom's Revenge from there, which was another instant winner. Those trains are like riding in an armchair, strangely comfortable while leaving you in a very exposed and comprimised position for once things get going.

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And oh, how it gets going. That second, terrained drop is insane. It's not the most spectacular in the sensation department due to the profiling, but it picks up a ton of speed from this into a very forceful pullout and turnaround, which is unnervingly smooth.
Things only get more exciting from there as you hurtle up a weird kink in a tunnel that always shifted me out of position, left me pinned there for the entirety of the following corner and then the magic happens.

The ridiculous airtime moments that are awkwardly crammed into the final section are frighteningly good, especially sitting in that armchair stance at the back of the train. There's just so much character to this ride, it's a total legend.

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I did slightly fall in love with this area that it sits in as well. The interaction between Phantom, Thunderbolt and the terrain here is just one of those magic spots in a park that gets me all giddy thinking about all the visual moments it can deliver.

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Talking of Thunderbolt, that was a silly bit of fun. I couldn't work out at all what was going on with the layout from the station, there's a perfect bit of framing that makes it look like you won't even make it up the first hill. It's not overly violent but the crazy laterals that cause them to enforce having 2 people in every row, no singles, are the highlight, along with the very landscape driven layout.

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From here we hit the parks only operating dark ride, Ghostwood Estate. The preshow is a little on the nose, in that Mr. Ghostwood both sets the scene from a storytelling perspective, but also rattles off all the safety instructions completely out of character. It's a fairly standard fare, early style target shooter with spooky scenes, the type that makes me regret playing the game on a single lap because I miss most of what's actually going on visually. We experienced a short break down, so got to stare at this one particular part for a good while though.

While queueing for that one we had begun to grow uneasy about the hotel situation again, the uncertainty was gnawing at the back of our minds. We took a brief interlude from the park at this point to make some phonecalls. The first one was to the hotel for that night, who were simply unable to accommodate our request to change the details due to a combination of being useless and rude. Seeing how that might have ended up being the case for a further 20-odd establishments, I decided to give the booking company a call instead. I explained the situation to a guy who clearly didn't know what he was doing - we're on holiday, all of the bookings appear to have the wrong card details, I've updated them on your site (as instructed) but it hasn't worked, can you do something about it?
The answer was no, with the only offer being to cancel all of the rooms for me, then go through rebooking every single one over the phone with him again at that very moment, while none of the original prices I had spent countless hours going out of my way to obtain would be honoured. I was in the middle of arguing that last point when the guy simply hung up on me. Thanks for being a loyal member eh? It was clear we would have to take matters into our own hands and after one more failed attempt with the next hotel, we decided to ditch that one and book something else on the spot, hoping that the rest would be at least somewhat helpful when the time came. For now, that was too much time spent not on park, back in we go.

To add to our troubles, Sky Rocket appeared to have gone down on our way out and had not returned to operation as we passed it again. So it was time for the Jack Rabbit.

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I've heard the tales of the legendary double down on this ride and even got a play by play of it from the row behind us while on board. "Here comes the double dip. Airtime. Hoho!" While yes, that part is admittedly rather good, it's very much a coaster defined by a single moment amongst several left turns.

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We went back to check on Sky Rocket again and all was well. The prototype is pretty decent to be fair and I much prefer it to the version 2s, not least because they hadn't yet invented the various awful restraint systems that come with it. Aside from comfort levels, the layout just has more going on obviously and flows much better than straight lines. Both the top hat and hold before the vertical drop are quirky and the rest rides with a similar charm to a lap bar Eurofighter, so, passable.

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Racer was now needed to complete the woodie set for the park and the queue was a lot less stewy than it had looked earlier. I rode a ridiculous 49 woodies on this trip, upping the wood count by over 60% and I can see myself struggling to come up with much to say about a fair few of them as they all begin to blend into one. S'alright.

While in the vicinity we took the opportunity for a reride on Steel Curtain and made it as far as sitting in the seats with the lap bar down before being evacuated back behind the air gates due to a restraint issue. Having queued an almost identical 30 minutes and come so close to riding, there was no real option other than to stick it out and watch the comedy unfold. The restraint system makes a very characteristic fast sequence of clicks as it gets activated and deactivated at the push of a button the console. The operator must have spammed it a good hundred times over the course of the next half hour, we believe more for effect than to be of use. An engineer had to come and replace one of the retrofitted seatbelt locking mechanisms on the train in order to fix the issue, and dropping his spanner down under the station didn't help matters. After many more shrugs from the operator and "I'm just pushing buttons", we were back in action. More points for Steel Curtain as far as I'm concerned, it became a running joke of the trip to keep pressing the car unlock and lock button in an attempt to replicate the noise.

Time was running a little short now and we still had two creds to get. Well, one, as the Lil' Phantom was spiting, though I don't know if it's one they would have let us on anyway.

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Last up was Exterminator, the oddly themed indoor Reverchon spinner which actually made it reasonably interesting, span well too.

Satisfied with the achievements, we spent the final hour of the evening on Phantom's Revenge, a suitably spectacular way to end the day. The staff were really good fun, the ride was kicking all sorts of ass and I really did love Kennywood by the time we left. It could well be my favourite park of the trip. Which is worrying.

Up next - the shed
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Great reports so far @HeartlineCoaster! Sorry to hear that the trip started on such a turbulent note, but Kennywood looks like it went well, which is nice to hear!

Out of interest, are you visiting Hersheypark on your trip, seeing as your hotel is/was so close?
Yes mate, the revisit to Hershey will be featured on Day 16 of the report. The positioning of that hotel was entirely coincidental however, as the road from New York to Pittsburgh takes you pretty much straight past the town.
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
Holy sh*t, that first day sounds horrendous and really gives me great faith for my upcoming flight with American in a few months, which I'm already having issues booking due to some of their quirks and abysmal wait times when calling reservations :rolleyes: At least Kennywood was pretty nice to you!
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
There's a real chance that HWN Voyage and maybe one or two others is a potential Helix beater; I highly anticipate whether or not that Liseberg champion will be toppled. If not, then we're looking to see that ride retain its #1 status for a very long time unless a new ride comes out of nowhere and beats them all...
 

Matt N

CF Legend
There's a real chance that HWN Voyage and maybe one or two others is a potential Helix beater; I highly anticipate whether or not that Liseberg champion will be toppled. If not, then we're looking to see that ride retain its #1 status for a very long time unless a new ride comes out of nowhere and beats them all...
How about Steel Vengeance? I know @HeartlineCoaster doesn’t have any of the other RMCs in their top 10 (as far as I’m aware), but Steel Vengeance basically seems to encapsulate elements of all of the big RMCs they’ve rated highly (I think?), while also being a longer ride to boot.

What’s not to like about more of a good thing?
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
How about Steel Vengeance? I know @HeartlineCoaster doesn’t have any of the other RMCs in their top 10 (as far as I’m aware), but Steel Vengeance basically seems to encapsulate elements of all of the big RMCs they’ve rated highly (I think?), while also being a longer ride to boot.

What’s not to like about more of a good thing?
I know Heartline likes to factor in location when ranking coasters as is with Taiga, so even if all the boxes are ticked we still have that to consider. While there's easy compensation in terms of the ride's lakeside view surrounded by some top tier coasters, then comes potential concerns with the trains and the restraints...

We'll wait and see!
 

Lori Marie Loud

Giga Poster
I know Heartline likes to factor in location when ranking coasters as is with Taiga
And, in the case of parks, their ride offering. He's literally stated the SOLE reason that Dollywood didn't dethrone Liseberg as his favorite park is because Dollywood doesn't have a terrain Mack multi-launch (in other words, something like Helix).
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Holy sh*t, that first day sounds horrendous and really gives me great faith for my upcoming flight with American in a few months, which I'm already having issues booking due to some of their quirks and abysmal wait times when calling reservations
Get to the airport stupidly early is the only advice I can give right now.
HWN Voyage
Ha, you can blame the Queen for me not getting to experience that.
I know @HeartlineCoaster doesn’t have any of the other RMCs in their top 10
You've made Twisted Colossus sad.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Our next day was dedicated to a full 12 (13) hours at the beast that is Kings Island. I had got it into my head over the various years of planning that this might be a tricky one to complete, there's always a bit of trepidation when you're staring down 15-odd creds and thinking anything could go wrong at any time.

Day 2 - Kings Island

We arrived nice and early in order to deal with some business, namely picking up our '2020' cedar fair platinum passes that they had kindly offered to honour in 2022 instead. Brandishing various emails and the original tickets, we confused a friendly and helpful member of staff and, miraculously, ended up with exactly what we wanted, parking refund and all.

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Even though the park wasn't officially open yet, they do let you wander in to wherever you like without any form of batching or rope drop and so we opted to camp out the entrance to Mystic Timbers. It was a rather joyous spectacle, the simplicity of watching several test trains running, a staff member appearing at the entrance at 09:55, getting a phonecall at 09:58 and opening the queue. Just like clockwork, seems rare to find many parks with a performance record like that.

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So at precisely 10:00 we were seated on the first train of the day and ready to find out what's in that bloody shed. I do have to give credit to the marketing of this ride, that phrase has stuck with me like very little else in the industry and it feels like I've been saying it for a lifetime already.

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Before you get there however, there's some track to negotiate, a surprisingly awesome layout full of high speed, relentless, bumpy, twisty goodness. GCI are back on top form and I can't emphasise enough how much I've missed this. As you hit the brake run hot, some creepy warnings are played over the speaker system warning you not to go in the shed. The announcement breaks up, losing clarity as you head inside. The first half is standard GCI storage shed, but the second half is themed. We were right at the back so couldn't actually see what was going on, nor hear the little radio that plays one of several old pop songs so it was a little confusing when the rest of the train were seemingly clapping along for no reason. After much suspense, one of several sequences takes place, themed to one of the rides in the park and you're scared straight back into the station.

All in all I absolutely adored Mystic Timbers. Not only is it amongst the most standout pieces of hardware that the manufacturer has ever pieced together, it has bags of character and charm and I couldn't really have asked for more. Except maybe fire.

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Headed round to the Beast next to continue on the woodie streak. It was an honour to finally get on this legendary ride and I had no idea what to expect. It's a laugh.
The freshly reprofiled first drop actually felt quite good but it doesn't really do a whole lot of significance over the remaining 7000ft. But, over that length, it's just an all round fun time 'being' on an old wooden rollercoaster that isn't overtly offensive. The trims make me chuckle when they hit in all the places that might have otherwise looked exciting, but I think my favourite moment of the whole thing is the timing of the trains - they blaze past each other at a very specific moment that marks the beginning and end of the ride for each respective group of guests and it's such an on-board spectacle.

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After thinking a nearby ugly building was Flight of Fear and then discovering that it was just an ugly building, we doubled back to Diamondback. The longer, stadium seated trains on B&M hypers have grown to concern me as I had until this point found them to be unfailingly inferior to the standard design. I think Diamondback managed to buck that trend somewhat, but by no means did I find it spectacular. It's average, run of the mill at what it does best. Floaty drops, meek airtime, trims that make me chuckle just when it looks like it's about to get exciting. Slow it down there, you're having too much fun.

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And so to speed things up, Orion was the obvious next choice. An old technique was reborn on this ride, one that takes me back to the days of the disappointments of X2. 'Sunglasses on, not caring.' It will be coming up a lot over the next couple of weeks.

It ain't no Fury, but I still prefer it your average B&M hyper simply for breaking that formula. I'm not big on the sensation of speed as a whole, but at least it feels fast paced and fun, until that same old trim in the same old place on the first airtime hill at least. Just. Design it better. Oh and the brake run being taller than most coasters is a rather facepalm moment too.

The one thing these do have going for them is that they've really nailed the giga drop. It both feels huge and it kicks your ass, where other manufacturers have somehow failed.

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Continuing on the theme of failings, Banshee, what the hell was that? One of the last hopes in the world for me to fall back in love with the B&M invert again and it just goes upside down 7 times with a similar sustained force throughout. Sunglasses on, not caring.

The one thing the vest design has going for it is that the seats feel wider and you don't have to rub sweaty elbows with strangers.


Having made excellent time on what we considered to be the 'big 5', it was time to start operation mop-up.

The Bat was spiting. Abandoned, with one train parked on the lift hill. That's going to stop me having the set at some point (unless they just close it) and I'm significantly bothered by that fact.

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Adventure Express was a thing. The quirky themed lift hill at the end of the layout was an unexpected highlight that led to absolutely nothing.

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Racer was very enjoyable. It felt more powerful and significant than the Kings Dominion equivalent and that endless line of sequential hills is always fun. Suffers from the same issue of you not actually knowing who wins because the trains finish apart from each other, divided by painted walls, but the sheer length of the pre-brake run track with everyone just wobbling in a straight line for 15 unchanging seconds had me in stitches.
Of course we immediately went round again for the other track.

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Flight of Fear was awful. There's more to see in the queue than the KD counterpart but it went on forever and then the ride was running really, really poorly. Ruined the reputation of this attraction for me, as is the job of a good clone.

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All the other queues for stuff we needed, but didn't really want, were starting to look bad now. Grabbed a snack and headed into Backlot Stunt. It's more nicely presented than the KD equivalent (that's 3 now) but the special effects part still didn't work, nor did it have the comedy of someone in the train reacting to that fact.

What else have they got? I'm struggling to rattle them off in my head now.

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Woodstock Express. It was a bonus just to be able to get on it, and for it to not have the 90 minute queue stated on the app (trying to scare us off I feel).

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Invertigo. World set complete, now let's never speak of it again.

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The Eiffel Tower was open, unlike the KD equivalent (4). I did have to laugh when the lift operator said it's an exact replica of the real thing. Despite the fact it's a different colour, size and shape.

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Good views though.

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And we saved the worst til last. Flying Ace Aerial Chase was a total travesty in every conceivable way. Sunburn, heat exhaustion, terrible capacity, medics were called to the station, a ridiculous safety announcement that tells you 'not to stand up' on a suspended coaster and an awful ride that manages to bang your head at under 10Mph. I was lined up to see a perfect shot of a small child taking the restraint directly to the jaw on one particular transition. Sign of a quality product.

Chores successfully completed, back to the good stuff.

Mystic Timbers had developed a fairly hefty queue, but it was worth the wait of course.

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Orion's queue had also got a little larger, this time we got to queue through the theming, which was nice to see.

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Couldn't be bothered to queue for anything else, so gave the shed one more go as the sun was going down. This time the wait had some great comedy in the form of a large bunch of teens deciding to alter the distribution of large quantities of small rocks within the queueline. PASS IT BACK, PASS IT BACK, PASS IT BACK! Everyone got involved. Who needs queueline TVs.

Night had fallen and the ride was hauling so hard it made a noise I've never heard GCIs make before. The wheels (either sidestop, upstop, or both) were literally screeching with force and excitement, what an incredible ride. Also 3 different laps, 3 different monsters.

But of course night falling can mean only one thing in this park. Even the op box says it on a sticker. The legendary Beast night ride. We sprinted into the queue just before park close, having only just discovered that there was in fact a firework and drone show on that night (and every night with a 10pm close, to celebrate their 50th anniversary). This meant the only way to ride it involved having to watch the spectacle while standing in the queue, at which point the ride was temporarily shut down for the display.

Some technical faff later, the ride suddenly starting chewing through the queue at an extremely impressive rate. We ended up amongst the last few trains and were treated to a fantastic atmosphere with cries of BEAST, BEAST, BEAST, BEAST! on all sides.

It's not going to be making any waves, but I get it, it's just one those things you have to do some time. The tunnels and laterals felt all the more brutal in the darkness and another train of ghostly figures screaming down the first drop towards us as it all came to an end was quite the moment.

Kings Island then, what a park. I've never felt particularly positive or negative about a Cedar Fair establishment before. Things have changed.
 
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HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I've always known Kentucky Kingdom as the place next to a tyre fire, so was surprised and confused to be entering the car park via a big, posh exhibition centre entrance.

Day 3 - Kentucky Kingdom

Once again we arrived early and the first order of business was brandishing various emails and tickets dated from 2020 in the direction of a guest services window. We had originally been booked to come on their special event that coincided with the Holiwood nights weekend, which included free drinks, though this was sadly no longer a thing. This also meant we had paid for two days when we only needed one, but as we've learnt already you've gotta spend money to make money.

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Our new tickets were located in a secret envelope in a secret box in a secret drawer in the back of an office somewhere and sure enough they got us straight in.

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It was a quiet, murky day and some stuff wasn't open yet so we ended up on Thunder Run first. I had forgotten this ride exists to be honest, they still have an old woodie here? And two Runs?

Turns out the ride is largely forgettable anyway, though far more substantial in footprint than I had imagined from standing within the structure. Wood, corners, a couple of hills, it had it all.

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Storm Chaser was waiting for us at the back of the park, looking grungy as anything. This is what I had pictured for the park and it didn't disappoint.

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I think the aesthetic is rather admirable and special in it's own way, a nice contrast next to poster boys like Wildfire and Hakugei.

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God damn Iron Gwazi is it a good ride too. Flopping out of the seat from the very first moment in that inverted drop before being violently ejected many, many times. It sets out to be an airtime machine and delivers an incredible set of punches. Even the other elements like the overbank had a good sideways kick to them, meaning that they weren't just filler.

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This wonky sequence of multiple hills is a fantastically vicious pre-finale, though it does sort of run out of things to do through the last corner into the brakes. A little too short to compete with the best of the best, but it's still an easy top 25 and can sure give the bigger beasts something to sweat about.

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Vekoma Junior was ready to accept customers and had a really funky beat playing in the station to set the mood.

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Then we got lost trying to avoid the water park in our street shoes in an attempt to find Kentucky Flyer. There it is.

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It's cute and fun, though not the most potent of these things. I always love a piece of Gravity Group, but this one feels like they tried to do White Lightning over half the track length and it just doesn't quite carry that physics-defiance, relentlessness and longevity that most of the other baby ones manage so well.

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Things that couldn't be further from cute and fun - T3. Fair play to the park, they're on board with the joke as to how bad SLCs are and even hype up the fact in the station.
Far from the worst of these I've done so far, but good ride it is not.

We headed over to Lightning Run in anticipation of completing the park in record time, only to discover that the weather had turned against us and it had ceased operation.

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Sure enough, it began to rain almost immediately and we attempted to take shelter in the 5D cinema. This plan failed as we were stranded in the outdoor section of the queue for what felt like an eternity, waiting for the next batch, which may or may not have included a technical breakdown.

Nothing exciting going on in here at all, just something dry to do. They were playing the laziest cut of Ice Age 4D imaginable. I don't really remember the previous iterations I've seen in parks, but surely they weren't this bad? The preshow is just clips from the film with the dinosaurs in it, with no set up. Then the actual film is just more clips from the same film with no pay off. Stuff happens that doesn't get concluded, scenes chop and change randomly in an attempt to only have 'things that work with moving seats' and I've already used too many words on this attraction now.

The rain was only slight at this point, but all the coasters remained down. The Storm Chaser crew stated that it rides just too damn fast in the wet and breaks itself, which I fully believe. Advice outside Lightning Run ranged from "I hear the weather is improving after 5pm" to "We're not supposed to give any indication of time".

It wasn't ideal, but this felt like a good opportunity to continue the round robin of hotel phonecalls. We encountered a new low from one particular staff member who was beyond rude and obnoxious. From the moment she answered the phone there was a combination of an abject lack of care and a paranoid wariness that we were some form of pranksters. It basically boiled down to no, I can't update your card details, nor can I guarantee your room, nor can I cancel it for you.
"But that's your job right?"
"Yes, but you go online yourself."
Needless to say we didn't stay there.

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Time passed quickly and Lightning Run began cycling to our great relief.
We hopped aboard the weirdly elevated seats and experienced the world's first Chance Hyper GT-X in all it's glory.
It's good. From an off-ride visual it appears to burn through those elements at a blistering speed, though on-board there's a few less sensations going on than I had perhaps anticipated. The legit airtime hills are great and it's wonderfully paced, but some of the other moments were a bit of a let down. Nice and unique in any case and I look forward to a resurgence of the model.

With many laps of that under our belt to be sure, it was now a question of how long can we stay with Storm Chaser before we have to tear ourselves away and get some more creds. The answer - quite long, though it helped that it was a walk on.

Beech Bend

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Fortunately our next destination had a time zone change in the right direction to gain a cheeky extra hour of operating day. The park also run a deal where you can get in for extra cheap on a Friday night, which suited us perfectly.

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The reason for the visit of course was the Kentucky Rumbler. Such a good name. Is it king of the Kentuckys?

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Yes it is. GCI man, they got me again, what's going on?
A curved drop that turns into a violent plummet to start proceedings, backed up by an action packed, airtime filled, rumbling romp of a ride. I loved the perpendicular station flyovers and the fact that it isn't just 72 corners and crossing points. It tries for other things and delivers them exceptionally well. A surprise hit for sure.

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As importantly, there were +1s to be had.

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And I did their ghost train for 'research purposes'. Meh.

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Then we got stuck on a block section of the spinning wild mouse.
Two engineers appeared at speed in a golf buggy, almost tipping it down a steep grassy bank. The issue was resolved in no time and we were treated to a very slow rendition of the spinning second half, from a standing start. Fresh experience I guess.

A couple more rumbles on the Rumbler were sufficient to see the day out in style, and a successful one too!

Up next - wood
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
For 2 years in a row we’d been booked to visit Holiday World during their famous Holiwood Nights, with tales of a trimless Voyage taunting my very soul. Sadly, because of a certain Monarch, I was unable to make it happen this time around and we instead ended up with a purely vanilla visit to the park. Tickets had already been refunded at this point, so no issues there at least.

Day 4 - Holiday World

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To make things even more bog standard, we opted to ride the woodies in the recommended order from smallest to largest.

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Which meant beginning with Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven.
It’s a solid starter pack, I like the look of the building and the big bird judging you from the front of the train. Claims of this being best wooden rollercoaster in the world at one time seem a bit bold, but it’s easily one of the best CCIs I had experienced up until this point.
Decent airtime, excessive laterals, a great setting through the woods and that surprise massive drop halfway through the layout make for a strong introduction to what Holiday World is all about.

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And in keeping with that theme, we grabbed the first of our many free fountain drinks on route to the Legend. Why can’t all parks do this?
But not that net thing, get rid of that.

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Once again the station has charm with a big fancy mural of the headless horseman and the ominous bell ringing upon dispatch of each train. Legend is essentially the same concept as Raven, but a bit bigger. It interacts with the water park, has some freshly reprofiled sections, even more excessive laterals and an eerily similar surprise massive drop halfway through the layout. For all that I’d say it’s the slightly weaker of the two just for the sake of pacing – it drags on a bit unnecessarily towards the end, though still a lot of fun.

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Oh no. I have to say that Voyage was my most anticipated coaster of the trip, if not the entire world, at the moment we arrived on it’s doorstep. No doubt you know I’m a sucker for the Gravity Group and this was the king, right? Right? It hadn’t really sunk in that we were about to embark on this journey even at the point of parking ourselves in the back car and in my head it could only go one of two ways – the best thing they’ve ever made and therefore by default instant top 5 material, or it would Grand National me and I'd hate it.

Oh no. It was neither.

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I knew it from the very second the first drop happened. It didn’t scare me. The best of these absolutely terrify me.
The subsequent two massive ‘airtime’ hills are nothing but a waste of wood, steel and momentum. They had nothing to offer. The following tunnel moment and wild pop out of the seat is cool and what I had expected most of the ride to be, yet it follows that up with a third piece of nothingness.

Things do get more exciting at the far end in the woods, high speed lurches, twists and turns are exactly the formula that makes these things so special to me. For the sake of the ride having such sheer size and length however these are all just a bit drawn out and there’s some deathly suboptimal corners in there. The first return tunnel offers a brief glimmer of hope before the mid course brake run, which of course saps some energy that we can’t afford to lose at this point.

Once again it starts to do the good stuff with several back to back bangers, but then halfway through this it feels like they suddenly realised during the design process that they’ve got an awfully long way to go to get back to the station. The pacing is put on pause once more with some overly underwhelming shallow turns as it continues to thunder back to civilisation.

The big twisty hill at the end of this section is a welcome return to form but I found the ride may as well have ended at this point. Many more corners and plaza dodgings finish the event on the wet blanket that is Orion’s brake run, where I can quote my reaction after the second lap – “nahhhh.”

It’s most certainly a victim of expectation. I give it a good slating because I’m a picky bastard with too many comparisons to draw at the point, yet I don’t dislike the ride by any means. It’s middle of the road for the Gravity Group, which still puts it amongst incredible company, I just guarantee that it could have been so much more. It was a learning experience for me on the day as well as for the manufacturer when they were building it – they got better at what they do over time. This was early days and it already has all the makings of best wooden coaster on the planet. Just cut out all that faff.

So with that dream smashing disappointment out of the way, it was time to head up the hill for the last major cred. I do admire the fact that they have a height checking board for Thunderbird all the way down the bottom to save the short from having to make the journey, it is quite the trek in the heat.

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I then also had to laugh at this starflyer thing which is both shorter than the coaster and the nearest tree. What are you expected to see from it? Bring back the crow’s nest.

Anyway, Thunderbird. S’alright.
It’s an unusual experience to get that launching kick on a B&M wing, though I expected a bit more of a song and dance in the shed to compete with the likes of Baco. The coolest part of the ride for me was the initial inversion, which has an uncharacteristic plunging sensation out of the top if you’re in the right seat.

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From there it’s a bit of meandering and trees, the back to back turnarounds felt a little excessive. I found quite a chunk of the ride missed the mark on the on board visual spectacle that these usually provide, it made me recall Wild Eagle with those fun near misses with it’s own supports amongst gorgeous scenery – this doesn’t do that.

It does near miss a shed near the end with a fun attempt at a twisted airtime hill that sadly doesn’t work, then it ends on the classic and uncomfortable slow inline directly into the brakes.

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With the major coasters now complete it was of course dark ride time. Gobbler Getaway is a load of silly fun in which I’m not sure whether I was relieved or disappointed that you aren’t actually shooting the turkeys. The ‘guns’ are for calling the turkeys back to where you want them and then, spoilers, thanksgiving dinner ends up being pizza. Which I’m perfectly alright with. Ok, maybe not American pizza.

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Last cred in the park is Howler, a Holidog (park mascot) themed Zamperla 80STD, also known as the knee smasher. Gets the job done.

I think it might be for the best that we didn’t get to experience Holiwood Nights, all things considered. We were ‘done’ with this park far quicker than I had ever anticipated. I’m not sure feeling obliged to hang around for two whole days and feigning some enthusiasm for a selection of rides that didn’t turn out to be world class would have been all that beneficial to the cause. The operations were generally and unexpectedly very poor across all the rides during our visit and with the fact that they’ve had to implement measures for reducing the capacity of the special event, there’s every chance it could have been even worse for us.

We did however feel obliged to make the most of our single day ticket and so took another lap of the park and all four of the major coasters, this time sunglasses on, not caring. Opinions were solidified rather than changed in any way and we headed out, satisfied, just before the water park closed and everyone rushed back into the main park.

Up next – too hot, too many creds.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Great report once again @HeartlineCoaster!

I must admit, I’m surprised you didn’t particularly rate Voyage. I’ve heard nothing but superlative reviews about that ride, and being the huge Gravity Group fan you seemingly are, I was genuinely anticipating a possible Helix beater for you there.
 

Lori Marie Loud

Giga Poster
Great report once again @HeartlineCoaster!

I must admit, I’m surprised you didn’t particularly rate Voyage. I’ve heard nothing but superlative reviews about that ride, and being the huge Gravity Group fan you seemingly are, I was genuinely anticipating a possible Helix beater for you there.
That's because he wasn't able to get out in time for Holiwood Nights. Had he been able to there is a very good possibility it would have beaten Helix, considering that @Kw6sTheater rode Trimless Voyage and it wound up so thoroughly lodged in the #1 spot that not even Iron Gwazi and Steel Vengeance could knock it out.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
That's because he wasn't able to get out in time for Holiwood Nights.
Nah, I've been thinking about that and it's not going to make enough of a difference realistically. Not stopping on the mid course does absoutely nothing to help the first drop and big hills (which were the most disappointing part of the ride) and as far as I can tell would only really accentuate the few pops of air that immediately follow those brakes. It's not like Voyage is so close to being my favourite that a little bonus like that that will tip it over the edge. It's way too far gone for that.
 
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