Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
So because my current girlfriend Emily now has a boyfriend with easy access to four of his local parks, he decided to be a good boyfriend and wait for her to visit those four local parks with his girlfriend. She had never been to three of them (KK, HW, and KI) and at the last one (CP) she had been spited on coasters as well as needed the new one. On my end, two of these local parks had gotten new rides for 2016, so I thought we'd share the experience of riding them together. The first was a defunct CCI coaster that had been RMCed into an airtime machine, the other was a dive coaster that was billed as the king of my favorite park ever.
Day 1
Emily and I got up stupid early to get on the road to Kentucky Kingdom for the first day of the trip, hitting up the two rival parks in the Western Kentucky area. After showing her how bad Cincinnati drivers are, we got to Louisville just in time for park opening and opened the car doors about five minutes after park gates opened.
In line to get our tickets with our out-of-state discounts (which is the best deal ever and comes with free all day drinks to my surprise), one of the guys in line I noticed was wearing a Son of Beast shirt. I commented on it and he noticed Emily. I asked her if he knew of someone who had ridden Skyrush a ton of times, he said yes, I told him, "she's right in front of you." They shook hands and he said he was a huge fan. Once we had our tickets we headed in and told them we'd see them at Chaser. We booked it to the back of the park where the latest and greatest from the drawing board of Alan Schilke, and when I saw the bright red track held up by menacing steel girders, I FLIPPED and hardcore fangirled as Emily just accepted the normal behavior that both of us engage in and kept walking. Finally, we walked into the dead concrete plaza, met up with another enthusiast Emily knew named Brendan (another marathoner, he marathons Banshee), and got in line.
Here we go!
OMG!!!! This coaster is awesome! You start the ride with a gorgeous view of Louisville's skyline before going into this weird twisting drop that somehow doesn't feel inversion-like. From there, the first ejector hill is extremely powerful and really rips you from your seat. The rest of the ride is pretty straightforward: ejector where there's a hill, floater where there's a twisting element, positive force between them. The corked roll had a resultant vector of literally zero about my centroid for two seconds as my world spun around me. But the finale of the ride, the Phoenix-style double up-double down 1-2-3-4 punch is amazing. Each bit varies in intensity but you get slung from your seat repeatedly with more airtime than I would have bet on. After the wonky helix, the train banks heavily in one last-ditch effort to prove it's drunk, before turning into the brakes. All in all, wonderful coaster. It's just so twisty and weird and packs in so much ejector that I can't help but say it gets the bronze spot in my count. The weird drunk twisting, the powerful ejector, and just relentless intense maneuver after violent maneuver after odd maneuver nature of this coaster won me over.
RMC nerd shot
From there, we went to T3, as in, that coaster at the back of the park we just don't talk about because reasons. There, Emily, the Queen of Skyrush, spent the entire ride screaming about how badly it had stapled her and how much her thighs hurt. 1206 laps on Thighcrush? Nothing. 1 lap on a Kumbak-modified SLC? I had to massage her back that night it beat her up so badly. And with how you can see the cars shake and buck around in front of you, that's to be expected. However, as much as it left her in pain, she's with me that Flight Deck is worse.
Afterwards it was onto Thunder Run. I love this coaster, it's in my wooden top 20, but I hate how my fat arse can't ride this wooden airtime machine without the stupid seat divider butchering my hip.
After that we went to the gift shop and I got this cool Storm Chaser shirt, and Emily got a lanyard to start her new lanyard collection. Brendan was nice enough to give us his pass for the discount and the lady was nice enough to take our picture in front of this really cool ACE mural.
After that, the unthinkable happened. Emily had entered the park with 95 creds with plans to make Lightning Run, a coaster that had been hyped to no end to her due to her love of Skyrush, her 100th. However, when we got to Roller Skater, we were told it was down for the day. Therefore, we headed back over the bridge with tears in our eyes, still excited for Lightning Run.
After dealing with the **** morons in the station and the **** morons that decided to put it on one train ops, Brendan, Emily and I got on Lightning Run! I like this coaster a lot, don't get me wrong, but I always thought its fanboys were a tad delusional. And according to Emily, I'm right. She said it didn't give the insane ejector she wanted, and it let her down a bit.
So having been spited of a KK credit, Emily and I headed out to the parking lot for the second park of the day, Holiday World! After the easy hour drive for which Emily was tortured at 99 credits, we got to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari!
Em and I made a bee-line for Voyage for my first time with it not being my #1 since I last rode it. We got in the back seat and let her rip. To my delight, the MCBR wasn't as buzzkilling as it was on HWN last year. Emily loved it and it shot right to her #3 wood spot. Said she enjoyed the power and aggression it had but it was missing that ejector air she loves so much, hence why it didn't beat Toro or Outlaw.
Afterwards, Emily and I headed up the hill for a few laps on Thunderbird. Despite her constantly going on about "ew B&M" and the idiotic "boring & mild" card, she was excited for this ride with how much she liked GateKeeper despite wishing it had better pacing. Getting in line, she stated the same thing I think about how it has a Herschend vibe to it. But she ended up loving this coaster, and we rode in every corner of it. However, her favorite seat ended up being mine; front left outside.
From there it was over to Legend Reborn for us to check out how their little renovation ended up turning out. For starters, it's way nicer with the little bit of banking they added. However, my main problem with the ride still stands: that **** AWFUL helix. But the rest was good, and the reprofiling GCI did actually added airtime to the ride.
Raven was next. I was going on and on to Emily about how we HAD to ride in the infamous death seat. Once on the lift hill, I explained to her why it was called the death seat, and once we rode, she understood! Both of us loved this coaster, but I think I love it a bit more than she does.
Once this was all said and done, Emily and I went over to Holidog's Funtown to CreWho Howler. Which was just another one and done kiddie cred, though we did have to put up with the horrendous music.
From there, we decided to go eat at Plymouth Rock Cafe. She got the side dish plate and I got some fried chicken and we sat down and ate when I realized something; I forgot my phone in the car and it was probably still up on my GPS mount! I finished and made a bee-line back for it when luckily, I discovered that it hadn't been stolen. I grabed it and ran back into the park.
Next up was the moment of the trip that had been wildly teased since we thought Ben would come along (though CP scheduled him those days so he spent them trapped on an island)...
#TheBattleofHolidayWorld
Emily and I both sat down in less busy Voyage rows and went to town. Upon sitting down, this other enthusiast asked Emily if she was Emily from Skyrush that he had on her Facebook. So the three of us marathoned it into infinity, with her not feeling it at all and me working up a pounding headache. However, around park closing, I decided to be a good boyfriend and let her have it, and skipped a lap to go buy the on-ride photo to replace the one of my stupid ex and I. Emily walked off, pissed because she just barely missed a zen ride on it, and we headed back to the parking lot.
As usual, the drive back from Holiday World to Dayton was absolutely brutal but my parents were awesome and had lasagna and onion soup ready for us when we got home. We ate over a Corona and went to bed, anxious to go to Kings Island the next day.
Day 1
Emily and I got up stupid early to get on the road to Kentucky Kingdom for the first day of the trip, hitting up the two rival parks in the Western Kentucky area. After showing her how bad Cincinnati drivers are, we got to Louisville just in time for park opening and opened the car doors about five minutes after park gates opened.
In line to get our tickets with our out-of-state discounts (which is the best deal ever and comes with free all day drinks to my surprise), one of the guys in line I noticed was wearing a Son of Beast shirt. I commented on it and he noticed Emily. I asked her if he knew of someone who had ridden Skyrush a ton of times, he said yes, I told him, "she's right in front of you." They shook hands and he said he was a huge fan. Once we had our tickets we headed in and told them we'd see them at Chaser. We booked it to the back of the park where the latest and greatest from the drawing board of Alan Schilke, and when I saw the bright red track held up by menacing steel girders, I FLIPPED and hardcore fangirled as Emily just accepted the normal behavior that both of us engage in and kept walking. Finally, we walked into the dead concrete plaza, met up with another enthusiast Emily knew named Brendan (another marathoner, he marathons Banshee), and got in line.
Here we go!
OMG!!!! This coaster is awesome! You start the ride with a gorgeous view of Louisville's skyline before going into this weird twisting drop that somehow doesn't feel inversion-like. From there, the first ejector hill is extremely powerful and really rips you from your seat. The rest of the ride is pretty straightforward: ejector where there's a hill, floater where there's a twisting element, positive force between them. The corked roll had a resultant vector of literally zero about my centroid for two seconds as my world spun around me. But the finale of the ride, the Phoenix-style double up-double down 1-2-3-4 punch is amazing. Each bit varies in intensity but you get slung from your seat repeatedly with more airtime than I would have bet on. After the wonky helix, the train banks heavily in one last-ditch effort to prove it's drunk, before turning into the brakes. All in all, wonderful coaster. It's just so twisty and weird and packs in so much ejector that I can't help but say it gets the bronze spot in my count. The weird drunk twisting, the powerful ejector, and just relentless intense maneuver after violent maneuver after odd maneuver nature of this coaster won me over.
RMC nerd shot
From there, we went to T3, as in, that coaster at the back of the park we just don't talk about because reasons. There, Emily, the Queen of Skyrush, spent the entire ride screaming about how badly it had stapled her and how much her thighs hurt. 1206 laps on Thighcrush? Nothing. 1 lap on a Kumbak-modified SLC? I had to massage her back that night it beat her up so badly. And with how you can see the cars shake and buck around in front of you, that's to be expected. However, as much as it left her in pain, she's with me that Flight Deck is worse.
Afterwards it was onto Thunder Run. I love this coaster, it's in my wooden top 20, but I hate how my fat arse can't ride this wooden airtime machine without the stupid seat divider butchering my hip.
After that we went to the gift shop and I got this cool Storm Chaser shirt, and Emily got a lanyard to start her new lanyard collection. Brendan was nice enough to give us his pass for the discount and the lady was nice enough to take our picture in front of this really cool ACE mural.
After that, the unthinkable happened. Emily had entered the park with 95 creds with plans to make Lightning Run, a coaster that had been hyped to no end to her due to her love of Skyrush, her 100th. However, when we got to Roller Skater, we were told it was down for the day. Therefore, we headed back over the bridge with tears in our eyes, still excited for Lightning Run.
After dealing with the **** morons in the station and the **** morons that decided to put it on one train ops, Brendan, Emily and I got on Lightning Run! I like this coaster a lot, don't get me wrong, but I always thought its fanboys were a tad delusional. And according to Emily, I'm right. She said it didn't give the insane ejector she wanted, and it let her down a bit.
So having been spited of a KK credit, Emily and I headed out to the parking lot for the second park of the day, Holiday World! After the easy hour drive for which Emily was tortured at 99 credits, we got to Holiday World & Splashin' Safari!
Em and I made a bee-line for Voyage for my first time with it not being my #1 since I last rode it. We got in the back seat and let her rip. To my delight, the MCBR wasn't as buzzkilling as it was on HWN last year. Emily loved it and it shot right to her #3 wood spot. Said she enjoyed the power and aggression it had but it was missing that ejector air she loves so much, hence why it didn't beat Toro or Outlaw.
Afterwards, Emily and I headed up the hill for a few laps on Thunderbird. Despite her constantly going on about "ew B&M" and the idiotic "boring & mild" card, she was excited for this ride with how much she liked GateKeeper despite wishing it had better pacing. Getting in line, she stated the same thing I think about how it has a Herschend vibe to it. But she ended up loving this coaster, and we rode in every corner of it. However, her favorite seat ended up being mine; front left outside.
From there it was over to Legend Reborn for us to check out how their little renovation ended up turning out. For starters, it's way nicer with the little bit of banking they added. However, my main problem with the ride still stands: that **** AWFUL helix. But the rest was good, and the reprofiling GCI did actually added airtime to the ride.
Raven was next. I was going on and on to Emily about how we HAD to ride in the infamous death seat. Once on the lift hill, I explained to her why it was called the death seat, and once we rode, she understood! Both of us loved this coaster, but I think I love it a bit more than she does.
Once this was all said and done, Emily and I went over to Holidog's Funtown to CreWho Howler. Which was just another one and done kiddie cred, though we did have to put up with the horrendous music.
From there, we decided to go eat at Plymouth Rock Cafe. She got the side dish plate and I got some fried chicken and we sat down and ate when I realized something; I forgot my phone in the car and it was probably still up on my GPS mount! I finished and made a bee-line back for it when luckily, I discovered that it hadn't been stolen. I grabed it and ran back into the park.
Next up was the moment of the trip that had been wildly teased since we thought Ben would come along (though CP scheduled him those days so he spent them trapped on an island)...
#TheBattleofHolidayWorld
Emily and I both sat down in less busy Voyage rows and went to town. Upon sitting down, this other enthusiast asked Emily if she was Emily from Skyrush that he had on her Facebook. So the three of us marathoned it into infinity, with her not feeling it at all and me working up a pounding headache. However, around park closing, I decided to be a good boyfriend and let her have it, and skipped a lap to go buy the on-ride photo to replace the one of my stupid ex and I. Emily walked off, pissed because she just barely missed a zen ride on it, and we headed back to the parking lot.
As usual, the drive back from Holiday World to Dayton was absolutely brutal but my parents were awesome and had lasagna and onion soup ready for us when we got home. We ate over a Corona and went to bed, anxious to go to Kings Island the next day.
