No Chickens Allowed!

Who says?  

 Kings Island near Cincinnati, Ohio. 

This weekend we traveled to Kings Island Amusement Park.  

It was our last bit of summer fun 

before school starts on Wednesday. 

The weather was extremely hot and humid.  

Here's a glimpse of our day.    

There are a few tips I could share for making your trip to this park more enjoyable.  

First, buy your tickets on-line and print them at home.  

You'll save over $16.00 per adult ticket.  

Second, bring a lot of cash - everything is expensive here!

Hope you like fried foods, because that's mostly what they serve.

A positive for me...a Starbucks in the park!  

Third, when they tell you to secure items before a ride, 

they really mean secure those items!  

Here's a photo of a few of the park's collection of lost and found 

but not reclaimed items.   

When one comes to Kings Island (KI), they do so with the intent of riding the rides and or hanging out in the attached water park.  We came to ride the coasters.

*****  

New in 2009 to Kings Island is an outrageous roller coaster called

Diamondback.  KI calls this the tallest, fastest and meanest roller coaster of their park.  This ride even has it's own website!  Diamondback.

230 feet at it's highest point, 10 vertical drops, 2 helix's.  5,272 feet of track, speed of over 80 mph, first drop of 215 feet and a 74 degree angle.  No Chickens Allowed?  

I'd agree.  Below is that first drop...

Here's some of the snaky turns (above) 

and the splashy ending (below).  

Did I go on this outrageous ride you ask?  Well, I text messaged my nephew who had been at the park just a few days before me and I asked him if he thought I would survive.  Yes was his answer.  He did advise me to hold on to my stomach though.  

Being a thrill seeker, I did go on the Diamondback.  It's one of those rides that the more you look at it, the less likely you are to do it.  My advice:  Don't look at this ride till you're on it and heading down that first hill!  Good fortune was ours, we were in the very first row of seats!  Talk about scary!  But way cool too!!!  :)

*****

On the formerly-known-as The Italian Job ride...now the Backlot Stunt Coaster...there are a bunch of silly signs.  As I read them I was thinking the real highway department should make some signs like these:  

Hopefully you can enlarge this picture to see that this guy can't read!  

Below is the Backlot Stunt Coaster in action.  It's a powerful little ride.  One of the biggest challenges was getting into the tiny little coaster car!  

Have you seen the movie The Italian Job?  

Can you guess where the movie this ride was originally based on took place?  KI used to be Paramount's KI.  Now it's owned by a company called Cedar Fair.  The rides have stayed the same, but some of the names were changed...as in this example.  
This ride was called Flight of Fear...changed over the years from The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear.  The alien theme remained.  It's a great, in the dark, ride.  The initial take off is unmatched by any ride in the park.  I don't know the exact speed, but it felt like 0 to 60 in three of four seconds!  AWESOME!  

*****

Oh, the arcades!  My daughter always wants us to win her something...

Here's what my husband tried to win our daughter (her first choice).  What the heck would she have done with one of these things?  What a good dad.  He LOVES games of skill.  He was unsuccessful yesterday (thank goodness).  I like games of luck, and games where I get tickets to redeem!  I was successful, and I won a 12 inch Care Bear Monkey (her second choice) for our daughter.    It could have been worse!  

*****

As the sun set the colors of the park came alive.  

The faux Eiffel Tower looked nice silhouetted against the sky.  

Had Diamondback been less than a 90 minute wait, my sore tootsies might have been willing to hold me up while I waited for one last thrill of the day.  Instead, we happily climbed into our car, turned on the AC and headed for home.  Free water and a nice shower were beckoning!