Finally I See Da Point - Day 4 - Kennywood

[Peet]

Over 20 years ago as a young teenager I watched (many times) a documentary about Ultimate Thrill Rides featuring the latest cutting edge rides including “Top Thrill Dragster” – the World’s Tallest and Fastest coaster, and also “Power Tower” at a park half the World away over the Atlantic called Cedar Point, and I dreamed that one day I would be lucky enough to visit.

In 2020 things finally fell into place and flights were booked for me and two friends, but I don’t need to tell you how that ended.

Six years and three children later, it was time to try again. A group of four of us obtained the appropriate leave from work and, more importantly, from our wives (with a total of 7 young children between us) for a five-night trip. We also had enough accumulated Avios points between us for us all to get return flights to Pittsburgh for £100 per person. It seemed too good to be true. Was it? Read on to find out!

We arrived in Pittsburgh on the Thursday afternoon, hired our car which was of course huge, and stayed over just North of Pittsburgh ready to harness the jetlag to help get on the road bright and early up to Sandusky. Driving along the peninsula towards the park it was breathtaking to see Cedar Point’s truly ridiculous skyline come into view.

We were staying in a park hotel (Sawmill Creek) so got access to the park from 9am with a limited selection of rides running, so went straight to TT2. We then had an almighty faff of hiring a locker and storing absolutely all of our possessions, including suncream, hats and sunglasses before joining the queue. Now, it was a very sunny day and in our excitement, none of us had taken the time to apply suncream. It turns out the TT2 queue is not well shaded and was already long even during the early access time. The fast pass queue opened before we got on and took total priority for a while so we stood there sizzling in the full sun for a good half hour in total which was a very bad start to the day we had been looking forward to for so long. From here I’ll switch to a ride-by-ride review for our 2 days in the park:

Top Thrill 2 (total 7 rides)

My expectations for this ride were high but were blown out of the water. I can’t really explain how or why this is so much better than Kingda Ka, Formula Rossa etc but it really is. Absolutely amazing experience, especially in the front and back rows. This is a firm top five coaster for me, ranking wise really only the three big RMCs can compete. Speaking of which...

Steel Vengeance (total 12 rides)

Okay so when you ride a coaster that’s so widely regarded as the best ride on the planet, reality can never really live up to expectation. Riding it a handful of times on the first day it was clearly an absolutely elite coaster, but I found it doesn’t really have that “wow” moment like Iron Gwazi’s death roll, Zadra’s stall, R2H’s crazy double inversion, or even TT2’s reverse spike. Into the second day I was still mulling over where it might sit in my top ten, a little disappointed that it hadn’t blown me away. However as night fell, we headed over for some dusk and then night rides, and this is where everything changed. Not only was the ride experience in the dark out of this World, I also witnessed the greatest operations I have ever seen in my life. Staff were absolutely sprinting around the station, barking out instructions to colleagues and guests alike, apparently hell bent on churning out as many trains as physically possible in the final 30 mins of the day. The result was no stacking on three train ops, and on the run into the station you got to see the next train coming down the first drop towards you, which all added to the sensational ride experience to make this the best half hour of coastering of my life.

In all honesty if I’d had a similar night riding experiences on Zadra or Iron Gwazi, perhaps they would top my rankings, but I can only rank based on my experiences, so I have to follow the cliché: Steel Vengeance – New number 1.

Maverick (total 5 rides)

Yeah this is a really good ride, the first drop is punchy and quite unique and the launch is great. I’ve ranked it #23, a few spots behind Taron. If that missing roll was anything like the Mosasaurus roll on Velocicoaster then it would have been much higher.

Millennium Force (total 3 rides)

Fantastic ride, although it had much slower ops than every other ride in the park for some reason, hence the low number of re-rides. I’ve ranked it #27 overall.

Siren’s Curse (total 5 rides)

My first tilt coaster, and the tilt really does add a lot to the ride experience, not just a gimmick. Riding the tilt at the back of the train is one of the most “WTF” experiences on any coaster I’ve ridden, up there with Nighthawk’s corkscrews and a B&M pretzel loop. After that the ride has a brilliant layout for its size, the onboard sound is good, and we got two night rides on the first day which were fantastic. I’ve ranked it #28.

The above coasters were a clear "big five" after which there is a big step down, here are the rest.

Valravn (2 rides)

This is an enjoyable ride for sure but one of the weakest 200 ft + coasters I’ve been on; it just doesn’t really have any particularly memorable moments.

Gemini (1 ride each side)
Surprisingly smooth for an old Arrow, this was actually really good fun. Long live Gemini!

Magnum XL200 (2 rides)
I rode this in row 3 like you’re supposed to and I was not prepared for the amount of thigh bruising. The ejector airtime is out of control but I didn’t really find it enjoyable to be honest, I was too busy figuring out how to minimize bodily harm. Rode it again towards the back and it was more enjoyable but I still think I’d rather ride Blackpool’s version.

Cedar Creek Mine Ride
I have huge respect for Arrow and what they did for roller coaster technology, but this is a bad ride – it doesn’t do much and what it does do is jerky and uncomfortable, plus there is almost no theming.

Rougarou
We all enjoyed this one more than expected, nice and smooth, solid old-school B&M. Still once-and-done though given what else is on offer.

Iron Dragon
Quite long and fairly enjoyable but it feels rather slow, easily the weakest of the 4 arrow suspended coaters I’ve ridden.

Corkscrew
Janky and rough but a classic, and it looks great off-ride.


Blue Streak

I thought this was great, with a surprising amount of airtime for an old ride, but my friends disagreed and all thought it was too rough so no re-rides.

Raptor
We rode the clone at Walygator last year, both are great rides, among the best B&Ms out there excluding hypers/gigas.

Power Tower
I had to ride this having seen it on the Discovery Channel all those years ago. Of course it’s a standard S&S launch tower, these are always great fun.

Gatekeeper
Spite :-(

Leaving the park on the second day straight after the SteVe night ride session we honestly couldn’t believe how lucky we had been to fully experience this extraordinary place. Our sky-high expectations had been met in every respect. I have no hesitation in saying IMHO it is the Best Theme Park in the World.

TLDR:

 

[Hutch]

Your thoughts on Steel Vengeance sum it up pretty well. I wouldn't say any individual moment is among the best of the world, but put it all together and get on one of those seemingly endless night rides, it turns into something special.

Even on repeat trips I always do multiple days at Cedar Point. The park has its issues with ride downtime and crowds, but there's so much to do and so many amazing rides that I always end up having a really fun time.

 

[Peet]

We could easily have spent the whole trip at our new favourite place, but it was time to move on. We had an early morning drive through Ohio for another bucket list park. While King’s Island is not the same calibre as Cedar Point, we had pretty much the perfect day there, totting up some 37 rides in total over about 13 hours. Here’s a ride-by-ride account, in order of our first go on each ride.



Orion (4 rides)

It’s a good ride, but definitely the weakest giga* coaster I’ve ridden. The overriding feeling is that this was such an odd choice of new coaster when they already had Diamondback – they could have built a killer RMC, a Mack Xtreme spinner, an Intamin multi-launch; there were plenty of choices that would have been completely different to their existing line-up, yet instead they went for a scaled-up version of something they already have, with a very similar ride experience. It’s like going to a restaurant and ordering the same thing for your starter and main course. I’d love to know what on Earth they were thinking with this choice.

[*yeah come on it’s the drop height that counts]

Flight of Fear (once and very much done)

This is awful – the cars are extremely tight and the ride is rough without any real redeeming fun. This was my first old-school Premier Rides LIM coaster, I always thought they looked really cool – are they all this bad?

Racer (3 rides total)

Lovely ride, nice and smooth on both sides, very good fun. However we have to talk about the layout. In my early days of playing Roller Coater Tycoon I would build my racing coasters as exact mirror images like this to make sure they got back to the station at the same time, but after a bit of practice I found I could build much more interesting designs where the two tracks would interact and race properly like Grand National, Gemini etc. In RCT terms, this layout is absolute beginner level.

Adventure Express (1 ride)

We all enjoyed this one, it’s janky but that kind of adds to the fun, the theming is good and it feels like it’s buried in the woods. It was a bit disappointing though at the top of the second lift hill to find rather than the drop we were expecting, we were just back in the station.

Banshee (4 rides total)

I did quite enjoy it but it’s a bit too much of a positive Gs machine for my liking. The in line twist at the end is something a bit different for a B&M invert.

Bat (1 ride)

I would have liked more goes on this but there was a slow queue; it’s really good, in a different league to Iron Dragon. Probably the best of the 8 Arrows on the trip, and definitely the best suspended coaster I’ve ridden.

Invertigo (1 ride)

Quite enjoyable actually, I think just because I’ve done quite a lot of the standard boomerang now it’s refreshing to go on one that’s a bit different. The face-to-face seating worked great for our group of four, unlike when I rode Triops at Bagatelle; I was on my own so it was a bit awkward staring at a stranger for the whole ride.

Diamondback (4 rides)

This is an absolutely solid hyper, I’d rank it similar to Nitro and Mako; better than Silver Star and Intimidator, not as good as Shambhala. We got one night ride in too which was brilliant.

Mystic Timbers (7 rides)

Okay so this is a good ride, it really is. And it’s very different to the Racer and the Beast so it was a great addition to the line-up. I enjoyed it, especially in the dark. But to be honest I’d been expecting more; this ride has been ranked really highly but I personally didn’t think it was anywhere close to Troy or Wodan. And what’s in the shed? Well I’m still not too sure; I think the projectors were misaligned because there were some blank screens and some vague projections on the walls that you couldn’t really see. And some music. And a fan. And a long wait. This did not enhance the ride experience.

The Beast (6 rides)

It turns out we left the be(a)st till (almost) last. I wasn’t really blown away on my first ride, but with each re-ride I started to enjoy it more and more. I've ridden nearly 500 different coasters now so they do tend to become a bit samey, but this one is absolutely nothing like anything else in the World, the only ride it can really be compared to is The Ultimate (RIP). And the comparison is that the Beast is better.

There is a strange system whereby the ride stops running at 9:30pm in preparation for the fireworks/drones at 10pm, but the queue stays open until 10pm, and the ride starts running again around 10:30pm just for the people who got in the queue before 10. So in short you have the choice between a fully dark ride on The Beast, or watching the fireworks – you can’t do both (as you can’t really watch from the queue). We didn’t travel half way around the World to watch some fireworks so the choice was obvious.

So our sixth and final ride on The Beast was just before 11pm and it was nothing short of euphoric; it’s an absolutely mad ride and I love it. It’s coming up to 50 years old and it’s still the best ride in the park, and my third favourite wooden coaster after Wildfire and El Toro.

Note – it had some extensive track work done over the last closed season, in fact a chunk was completely demolished and rebuilt, which may explain why it’s running so well.

Queen City Stunt Coaster

This isn’t great. Are there supposed to be special effects? If so they weren’t working.

Woodstock Express

Cute kiddie wooden coaster, quite fun even for grown ups.

We didn’t mess around with the other kiddie creds – I love to rack up my count as much as anyone but couldn’t justify sacrificing re-rides on the big coasters for another Vekoma rebound etc.

Eiffel Tower





Not really a ride but the views over the coasters were fantastic. Hands down the best observation type theme park attraction I've done.

Drop Tower

Enjoyed it.

Phantom Theatre

Didn’t like it. And that’s definitely not just because I got the lowest score of the four of us, noo.


Phew that was a long day, getting up around 5:30am then riding from 10am to 11pm, but with the big finale on the Beast in the pitch black it was overall one of the best days of riding I’ve ever had. It’s a lovely park, it really is, but it does lack that World Class coaster to set it apart. If only they had a 220ft wooden coaster that could be RMCd...

 

[Peet]

Day 4 – time to head home, but first one more stop. Yes it was a ridiculously short amount of time to spend in the USA but real life and responsibilities beckoned for us all so we headed back to Pittsburgh but of course no self-respecting enthusiast can pass though this city without a stop at its Legendary Trolley Park.

The thrill of arriving at this famous little park soon gave way to a realisation that we had been completely spoiled at Cedar Point and King’s Island by the efficient operations, free water fountains, and good ride availability. None of these were present at Kennywood; it was very busy, the fountains had all been turned off or clumsily removed, and worst of all the main reason for visiting – Phantom’s Revenge was showing no signs of life.

We started off on Steel Curtain and this was a pleasant surprise, a great smooth coaster with fun elements and a very unique feel. As an engineer who works in heavy industry I loved the views over the steelworks from the lift.


After that we went to Racer which must be the single least efficiently operated ride I have ever seen. Only one pair of trains was running and they sit in the station for a solid 5 mins or more between rides as the riders getting off mill about the large station in all directions retrieving bags, discussing the ride, deciding which exit to use etc and only when they finally clear the station do the incoming riders begin their own considerable bag faff. Come on Kennywood, you’re better than this. The ride is cute, good fun, but massively tamer than the Grand National. I can add to the list of things that are bigger in the UK than the USA – gallons, billions, and moebius wooden roller coasters.


Next up was Jack Rabbit, this has a really lovely vintage feel and one moment of surprise ejector airtime, lovely stuff.


Still no movement from the Phantom so we broke for lunch at a burger place with a carousel theme which was cute. In true Kennywood style though the lunch queue was glacial and some of the least efficient serving of food I have ever seen.

To complete the East side of the park we went on Sky Rocket which was honestly not great. Not terrible like Flight of Fear, just not great.


Then we finally went over to the Phantom’s Revenge entrance to see just “how” closed it was. There was a staff member on the gate saying it might open later so there was hope.

The only other big ride still to go was the Thunderbolt which was terrific, especially if you enjoy turning right (who doesn’t?). Like the Racer and Jack Rabbit it felt very well looked after and was running really well. As we got off we saw a magnificent sight – an empty train slowly ascending the lift on Phantom’s Revenge, the day was really looking up.


We got a spin on Exterminator while we waited anxiously for Phantom to open, this was surprisingly good with four large-ish adults spinning around in the dark it’s definitely the most fun I’ve had on a Reverchon spinner, although that is a fairly low bar.

We did re-join the queue for Thunderbolt but it broke down just before we got on, and we then saw for the first time passengers on Phantom’s Revenge so we escaped the Thunderbolt station and ran over for our first experience of that famous 228 foot drop down the hill. This didn’t disappoint, it was smooth, forceful and absolutely tons of fun. There’s even a surprise moment of ejector airtime near the end which I hadn’t expected. I will say that the famous second drop is not very steep by modern standards, so while it is really great careering down through Thunderbolt, it doesn’t have the airtime that you’d expect from a modern hyper coaster drop.

Just for a laugh they mixed up the cars from the two trains for this season so each train is a mix of two colours which is kind of fun.

And that’s it. After a couple of choice re-rides the day was done and it was time to head back over to the airport. Kennywood had its frustrations, and we didn’t get as many rides as we’d have liked, but it’s still a lovely park with a cracking selection of modern and vintage rides and absolutely loads of character.


Overall it was a near-perfect four days of rolling and coasting. We’re not as young as we used to be and all four days had been extremely hot and very intense, so we were all absolutely broken but very very happy. The only problem is that we’ll probably never top that trip. But one day we will try. Thanks for reading.