violakat03

His crazy hat is the best part because it clashes so horribly with his t-shirt!

http://www.thrillnetwork.com/offbeat/2324/...es__season.html Here's a good shot of him from last year. My husband made me a single rider shirt for this year, inspired by Single Rider Bob.

I know we're derailing this topic, but I was reading the legal stuff on that website, and it is NOT free to use for things like YouTube videos. If you use the music you are not supposed to post it on the internet, including in blogs, podcasts, file sharing sites, etc. So yeah, while it looks great on the top end, the 'free' part isn't really free.

Whoa cool! Thanks for that site! I will definitely be making use of it later on when I start doing videos of my trips.

For several years that was our "regular" vacation hotel and we did always enjoy it (that they run shuttles back and forth to KI all day is a great bonus!). What we are actually thinking about doing is spending 1 night at the Great Wolf Lodge (awesome inside water park!) and then one night at a low cost hotel ($80 or less hopefully). The last time I checked, I believe that the Kings Island Resort and Conference Center was $100+/night. I'll check though since it has been a while. Last time I looked at it (this was last fall), it wasn't that much. It was actually a little less than many hotels in the area. Though Avatar can probably tell you for certain what their rates were like.

How did Kat hurt her eg on Drop Tower? It was in my trip report. I think it was just a really bad muscle cramp, but it wasn't fun.

I thought the passes worked great (I kind of doubt they'll use them after opening day though), I just think they either needed more of them or needed to bring them down more often because it seemed like they were always out, and then when you got up to the front of the SRL, there were only 1 or 2 people up there.

LOL What kind of face is that you're making?! Jesse and Robbie look like they're having the time of their lives.

I don't think a ride needs to be groundbreaking to be amazing. Superman: Ride of Steel set no records when it opened, yet has been holding on tight to the number 1 spot in the Golden Ticket awards. I firmly believe Diamondback will be giving it a run for it's money this year. I will also be doing extensive traveling this summer to ride coasters that were not ground breaking. I'm looking forward to Nitro, El Toro, Voyage, Great White, and S:ROS (at SFA). Some of the coasters I look forward to the most include classic coasters such as Wild Thing, 'run of the mill' coasters such as Big Bad Wolf, and other non-groundbreaking or 'significant' coasters that I'm sure will give absolutely amazing rides and still be world-class coasters.

For those who were riding yesterday, show off your on-ride photo here! If you didn't ride or get a photo yesterday, just show us a pic of you near DB or join up the thread later! Ride #1 (with Rex, Jackson, and Rex's fan Matt) Ride #3 (with pkiruler102)

Good to know that they allowed that. I will keep that in mind when I'm a single rider!

I honestly didn't mind the small groups going through, because they were ok with being split up and not picking their seat. It kept both lines moving quickly and assured that no seats went empty. It's when the groups try to sneak onto the same train or try to meet up with people in the regular line via the single rider line that I get irked about it. The single rider lines at Disney allow small groups if they're willing to be split up, that's how we did Test Track. I saw no problem with this, because most groups aren't willing to be split and so the single rider line stays very short and no seats go empty. I don't know that there are enough truly single riders to keep a single rider line busy enough to have a single rider available at all times. My biggest problem with the single rider line is that the associates running it were very rude and didn't want to believe that you could be with a group earlier and now be a single rider. They asked me if I could prove I was a single rider multiple times and kept implying that I was lying about it because they'd seen me with a large group not even an hour beforehand. So what? I'm a single rider now, get over it.

We stayed in the Super 8 Mason. It's at 71 and 741, really close to the park. We paid $50 including tax (AAA rate) for a non-smoking double room on Friday night. Killer deal if you ask me! It was a very nice hotel, actually. The room was clean and the whole place felt new.

I will be there, probably at 4:30 and wearing my single rider shirt.

That was rotag1299! I saw him too. I parked behind a dark blue Saturn ION with an EKU sticker. Was that anyone from this forum? I was in a mint green Saturn and next to giga's dark grey Sebring.

I'm concerned that they may decide to close the single rider line on the dead days. It's a possibility, because the SRL requires more staff attention than the regular line. I hope they don't, as I will be a single rider quite often this year and want to make use of it!

Just remember that going through the single riders line, you sacrifice the ability to pick your own seat. To get that ability, you must go through the full queue and wait the full wait. I got 2 rides in the back seat (first auction ride, then second ride in the afternoon), but after that, I rode everywhere in the train. And yes, your arms WILL get wet in the back seat!

OMG when did you go on it?! it was squeaking up a storm when i was there around 2ish it was unbearable almost!. And you obviously didn't get over to see poor Top Gun.... if any ride were EVER in need of some tender lovin care.... We rode it at about 3 and it was running beautifully quiet, for an Arrow. The wheels did squeal over the fresh paint, but it wasn't shaking and rattling and sounding like the whole structure was about to collapse like it used to.

Part 4: April 18, afternoon and evening We killed a little over an hour at LaRosa's, and then stood and talked to Kawana and his lady in the parking lot. We ended up giving them our leftovers from LaRosa's cause I knew it wouldn't keep well in my trunk and they were hungry. He told us that they only waited about an hour and a half for Diamondback and where the line ended when they got in it. Our eyes got wide and there was an unspoken agreement between Angie and I. Inside the gate, we decided to stop for a picture. Why not? We headed straight for Diamondback and found that the line was shorter than where Kawana had entered, and immediately jumped in it. We ended up meeting an awesome lady named Elissa in line (she will hopefully be joining KIC soon) and hung out with her for awhile. This was her second ride on Diamondback. Angie and I rode last seat again. This time, I stuck my arm out to the side on the splashdown...and got SOAKED. From my shoulder to my fingertips, I was dripping. I shook water off my arm while waiting to pull into the station and I could wring my shirt sleeve out. Angie got it pretty good too and it left a little Diamondback bite stain on her sleeve. After Diamondback, we headed for Vortex with Elissa because Angie and I have been wanting to try out 5-1, and we'd been listening to how beautiful Vortex sounds now. I mean, I really couldn't believe it. It doesn't sound like the rickety old Vortex, it sounds like the spankin' new, hot action Vortex! It even has it's own Arrow roar! I wish I'd gotten video of it running but I was just too in awe of how it's been transformed to get out the camera! It broke while we were in line. However, never fear! It was moving again quickly and the breakdown cleared out most of the queue, so we only had a few trains to wait for our selected seat. I have to say, the experience was definitely very different in 5-1 than in 1-1. Way less headbanging, great air time, though the transitions are still a bit violent. However, hearing it roar in the final helix was beyond words. This coaster is still a great Arrow looper and I hope it stays around for a very, very long time with all the love it was given this year! My favorite ride photo ever. We ended up running into Phantom Theater in the line and he stopped for a photo op with us. L to R: Phantom Theater, gigacoaster2k (showing off her DB ride number), Elissa, me From there, our group set off to The Beast. We got a fairly short wait, 30 minutes or so, and ride close to the front but not very front. Again, it was awesome. As we got off, we found iChase! He was bummed about not being able to ride Diamondback because the test seat didn't fit. We also found pkiruler102! He was excited because he fit in the test seat. We made a vow to make sure iChase got on Diamondback today. We tried the test seat. I thought it lied. I had way more room on the actual seat than I did on the test seat. We decided we'd go for it because you never know if you don't try. We grabbed keiko_coaster and then ended up running across Avatar in line! And guess what? iChase rode! I think the quote as we rolled back into the station was somewhere along the lines of "I can't feel my legs, but I don't care!" followed by lots of "woo"ing. Hey look, it's that weird "omg camera!" face again! We met up at the end of the exit with Avatar and Ogrmac and got a nice group picture with a couple other folks too. I actually lost my voice at this point, but a cup of ice water soothed it enough to allow me to talk normally once more. I just took it easy on the "woo"ing and screaming for the rest of the night to try to keep it from happening again. I still sound rather hoarse and am popping cough drops as I write this. After this, we all split again. Angie, myself and pkiruler102 (Dustin) headed for Drop Tower. 2 cycle wait and we were on that bad boy. Though the drop was amazing, I had the most bizarre thing happen as we started to brake. I suddenly got a shooting pain in the top of my left thigh and the muscle went rigid. I couldn't get out of my seat without help and Angie and Dustin helped me limp over to a bench. I think it was just a muscle cramp because after about five minutes of rubbing and stretching, I was able to get moving again, and then walked it off. By the time we made it to Adventure Express, I was fine, but that was a highly unnerving experience. Dustin said we needed to experience AE at night, and I'm glad he did because ... wow, totally different at night. It's pretty wicked. Those tunnels are pitch black. It's still just as violent as I remember though. The only effects working, still, were the flickering light going into the first tunnel, the jungle sound effects at the same place, and the angry guys on the second lift. I miss the mist! From there, we decided we wanted to get in another ride on Diamondback. Somehow we all got split up though. I think Angie went off to find keiko_coaster, and Dustin had to leave so he went through single riders line. I got stranded by myself so I jumped in single riders also (where the supervisor was a jerk! .. She asked me like three times if I was "sure you're sure" that I was alone, and asked me if I could prove it. I'm like .. um... I have my car keys? How do you prove that, seriously.) and waited about 10 minutes to get a seat. The second time around they were out of single rider passes. I said bye to Dustin, then ran around again to the single riders line as soon as they got passes again, ran into Angie, the supervisor was a jerk again, and waited about 15 minutes. That ride I sat second row, first car - I'm not sure I like it in the front, way too much wind in your face! But still just as much air time. Anyway, as I exited the second time, I completely lost track of Angie, but ran around and jumped back in. This time, when the supervisor asked me if I was positive I was by myself, I looked around me and there was no one in a twenty foot radius of me. I just looked at her and said "do you see anyone with me?" ... ugh. That was ridiculous. So anyway, while we were standing in the station with a 1 train wait, the fireworks began. They continued throughout the entire ride. It was completely awesome. I think the best part was the final helix with the fireworks going off. After getting off my sixth and final ride for the day, the queue was closed. I gave up on finding Angie and finally called her, to find out she'd snuck into the queue right at 10 and was in the last train's worth of people. I spent the next 45 minutes wandering through gift shops, and actually found my old boss's sister! That was pretty cool. Apparently she knew who I was too, because she said he'd talked about me before. Good to hear! Picked up our picture at keyhole photo, and sat out at the exit gate where I shot a closing review clip to close the night out. Angie met up with me in the parking lot so I could return her sunglasses that somehow ended up in my photo bag, and we headed for Waffle House. I got home around 1:30 a.m. and after telling my mom all about my day, started uploading the videos for this TR. My face is slightly sunburned (even though I reapplied sunscreen pretty much hourly and wore a hat), my lips are horribly chapped, my throat is sore from yelling and screaming, my feet are killing me, I realized just how out of shape I really am, I've probably got misspellings all over this report, and I've now been up for 24 hours. But you know what? It's all completely worth it.

Part 3: April 18, late-morning The X-base trip was a bust. Angie, Rex and I stopped to get the above video of the Diamondback line and the rest of the group disappeared. We got to X-base to find Flight of Fear closed and a HUGE crowd of people. Rex split off at this point to go take care of some stuff, and we didn't seem him in the park after that. Angie and I stayed together and decided to head towards Action Zone slowly and hit what we could on the way. Racer was practically walk-on, I think we waited 3 trains for second seat. Red Racer (not racing in the morning) was feeling great and there was NO trim on the turnaround! That was a huge surprised and had me giddy going through the bunny hills. After Racer, we walked past Adventure Express (broken down) and decided that since Slingshot was only $10 for a ride, we were going on it. This was my first ride on Slingshot. The receipt for my first Slingshot ride! Nice shot of my "Diamondback red" nail polish that matches DB's track. This is the first video that I really shot with myself in it, but you can see that I did more of this as the day went on. Angie's random thumbs up next to my ear almost made me crack up laughing. Slingshot was a lot of fun. Not something I'll go out of my way to do again, but definitely fun and definitely worth trying. It didn't feel like it went as high as I know it does, and we only got one complete flip and only one half inversion out of it. From there, we continued on our quest to Action Zone. Drop Tower had a 1 hour wait so we skipped it in favor of Xtreme Skyflyer, which was also running a $10 a person special. We quickly bought our tickets: and got a little video before going on. Angie pulled the rip cord. I'm glad she did. I don't think I could have done it. I was shaking by the time we got to the top. This ride is the only ride that has ever actually scared me. We split the cost of the DVD because my girly scream coming down the first swing was totally worth it. I've never screamed like that on a ride, ever. Did I mention I want to do it again and again and again? After Skyflyer, we checked Flight Deck's line. It was long. As was Drop Tower, Delirium and Son of Beast (Invertigo was broken down). We realized about then that neither of us had eaten breakfast and we'd been at the park around 6 hours, so it was time for lunch! I do my best to avoid buying park food because a.) it's expensive and b.) eating when it's hot and I feel rushed will usually make me sick. So we left the park and headed towards the LaRosa's that's a very short distance from the park. Rex ended up joining us there before heading back to his hotel to crash (he's been up at least 30 hours straight by that time), but at least we got to hang out with him over lunch. I'm sure me and Angie frightened him a little - we're good at that. Heading out to the parking lot, we got a nice surprise - the Diamondback busses were lined up in the old tram area! It was cool to see them in person. And this time, that huge line really was the season pass processing. I felt bad for the people in it, but Kawana said he tried to tell them they could get in on their voucher and come back and they were jerks. So oh well.

Part 2: April 18, morning After finding a parking spot (not hard at all, amazingly), Rex and I did the phone version of Marco Polo (hey where are you? wave at me! can you see me yet?) and got in line with the auction winners. Angie had to go pick up her entrance pass, but Rex had already grabbed mine (isn't he great?) and we were ready to go. It was COLD outside. I was wearing capris and a hoodie and freezing. BTW, I found out later, as has been pointed out in other TRs, that line was not for processing. That was the Gold Pass holders waiting to get in. After waiting around forever, we finally start moving! Through the metal detectors (my camera set them off, grr), through the turnstiles, and.... stop. More standing around, waiting. A good opportunity to grab a quick photo or video or two. As soon as the majority of the group was in the park, we were led down International Street towards Diamondback! Finally, we were going down International Street! I couldn't believe how big the group is. It seemed like there was a healthy number of non-riders coming, such as Trooper Mom. After getting to Rivertown Junction, we stood in line! We did a lot of that. Probably more than we would have if we'd just waited in line with the GP. But it was a different kind of waiting and the energy and excitement was just building, building, building. In Rivertown Junctions, we were given shirts, checked in, and assigned our 'seat' number. The seat numbers were not an indicator of where you were on the train, just what order you got to pick. After a little bit of chaos in Rivertown Junction, eventually they got us all outside and in numerical order outside the queue. After they opened the queue up, it was actually very neat and orderly. We got to listen to the announcements in the station and watch them present A Kid Again with a giant check for $102,000!! I couldn't believe it! They said it's the single biggest check the organization has ever received, and after seeing some of the kids there riding, I know it couldn't have gone to a better cause. Rex and I decided that the back seat was the way to go, and since we were allowed to pick, we skipped the walk-on middle seats to wait 2 trains for the very back. Jackson got the row in front of us. I got very excited as our train came closer!! And yes, we did get a little bit wet. Just a little splash on my forearm. I don't think I need to describe Diamondback. I'm sure you all either experienced it yourself, or can imagine how absolutely amazing it is. I've ridden Goliath at SFOG, and Diamondback blows it out of the water. No comparison. I told everyone it knocked every last one of my top ten coasters off the list and took all ten spots itself. Number 1, Diamondback. Number 2, Diamondback. Number 3, Diamondback, etc. We had to wait forever to get our picture. We were given a voucher for a free photo as a gift but it was a madhouse. Trooper Mom (who ROCKS!) got photos for everyone in our car and passed them out while the rest of us shopped, because she is just that cool. After the madhouse in the gift shop, we escaped to ... another madhouse. Yes, that's right, while we were getting our photos, the herd of Gold Pass holders moved in. Angie, sneaky woman, got a second ride on Diamondback before the chaos descended, but I caught up to her on rides by the end of the day. We escaped to the relative sanity of Rivertown Junction, only to discover that all the food and drinks for our breakfast were gone. Pigs! The employees said they were not expecting as many people as they got (because of tagalongs and it looked like extra riders were added for A Kid Again) so they got wiped out. We got a group of KICers together and headed for The Beast, which was pretty much a walk-on ride for us. We had the whole first half of the train filled with KICers in white First Rider shirts! As we exited The Beast, the herd had moved on to it as well and it was lined out past the end of the queue. We headed towards X-base, but not before grabbing a clip of the splashdown: and the insane Diamondback line:

Alright everyone. I decided a while back that I wanted to shoot video this year, and I gave it a shot for opening day. I used my Kodak EasyShare digital camera and got amazingly good video. It doesn't do well with fast movement and I am apparently pretty bad at holding the camera still while walking, but this was a learning experience and it was a blast. It'll give you a little bit of a feel for how it was in the park during the day. I shot 18 video clips. They're individualized on YouTube for trip report purposes but I will make a combined one out of them eventually. April 17: Gigacoaster2k (Angie) and myself were both riding with the auction winners early Saturday morning. We live fairly close to each other, an hour away from the park, so we decided that rather than get up at 4 a.m. on Saturday, we wanted a hotel. I found us a really cheap (and really clean!) room at the Super 8 in Mason, just a stone's throw from the park. As we came down 741 into Mason, we got to see Kings Island spread out ahead of us. It was already dark out, but Diamondback's lift lights were on and the park was just an incredibly beautiful sight! I was driving so I didn't get any pictures of it, but we tried to get some video of it from the hotel. It proved harder than expected. After shooting that video, we started getting things together for the next day (watching Angie pack her pants pockets was highly entertaining) and got ready to crash for a couple hours sleep! Sadly, at the end of that video, I clicked it off before Angie's quip of "I don't want to go to bed!" I was sure ready. By the time we got everything packed up and ready for the next day, it was about 12:30 and I passed out hard enough that the alarm clock confused me in the morning because I couldn't figure out what was going on. Angie, apparently, did not have that problem and was awake before it went off. Edit: fixed the YouTube links. Continued in next post!

Great pictures Jackson! I love the shots your mom got of us on Beast and Diamondback. Tell your mom she ROCKS! and we love her!

Our group split up towards the end, and they were being pretty rude on the single rider line. They asked me if I could prove I was a single ride, and I looked behind me (there was no one anywhere around me) and was like "umm... do you see anyone with me?" I mean, I know I was with a group earlier, but does that automatically preclude me from becoming a single rider later in the day? I thought they handled it with very little tact.

pkiruler introduced gigacoaster2k and myself to Adventure Express at night. That's a wicked little ride at night! The tunnels are awesome! It was definitely worth the short wait to get to experience it in the pitch black, it was a completely different ride experience.