Kentucky Kingdom

Visited: October 19, 2024

Attending: Just Brian

Kentucky Kingdom wasn’t in my original plan, but when I realized that Kings Island was likely to be mobbed, I chose to go ahead with it. The park only has four credits I’m interested in, so I figured I could sweep those up even if I only had a few hours to do it. Plus, I’ve never been to Kentucky, and it kind of stands out on my “states visited” map, which gave me a bit of incentive. So I called an audible on my hotel reservation, stopped very briefly at the Hard Rock Casino to pick up a pin, and headed down that way.

This park seems strange. Or at least, it’s strange in the way it’s configured during its Halloween event. The park is bisected by a road, which makes moving around awkward. There’s a large bridge between the two halves, and at least one staffed crosswalk that I could see. The back half of the park seems to be where most of the action is, with most of the coasters and the water park. However, the water park was closed for conversion to their winter event, leaving the impression that the back half was just a long strip along the road, with a “pod” at either end where the coasters are. Apparently this isn’t the case during most of the year, so I kind of caught it at a bad time. Nevertheless, it’s nearly impossible to see any of the coasters from anywhere in the park, which is very unusual.

It’s also unusual that the park is on the grounds of the Kentucky state fair and I guess convention center? That made the parking confusing. The parking booth that Google directed me to was for the convention center, and they didn’t seem to have any idea about the amusement park, or whether my ticket included parking or what. So maybe I overpaid, maybe not; it’s hard to tell. I was able to get a spot that wasn’t too far from the entrance, but definitely closer to the convention center, so I can see why this is a point of contention.

I also didn’t know a ton about the coasters at this park. I had an idea of what they were, but I didn’t exactly know what they’d be like to ride. So I was going into this with a fair amount of curiosity.

Lightning Run

When I got inside the park, there was a Halloween parade going on right in front of me, so I slid around to the left, because I had seen Lightning Run over in that direction. Although the sight lines inside the park are terrible, Lightning Run has the virtue of being a very nice shade of blue, so it’s not too hard to spot. There wasn’t too much of a line, for which I was grateful, but it was also clear that they were only running one train, and the ops weren’t exactly speedy. (This would become a theme for this trip.)

I opted for the back row, and didn’t have to wait very long. JohnMike had told me that Lightning Run used RMC restraints, which I generally find pretty comfortable, so I was pleased about that. I also discovered that Kentucky Kingdom is pretty strict about their loose-items policy. Or at least, they say they are. Given Allison’s experience earlier in the day (which had nothing to do with a ride), I figured I’d follow the rules and stowed my phone and keys in a bin. Plus points for not having paid lockers; minus points for having no security at all on the bins.

The ride isn’t all that tall, just 100 feet. It’s not particularly long, either. And yet, it packs an absurd amount of elements into the ride. It’s a Chance Hyper-GTX model, the only one of its kind so far, and I (and many enthusiasts) have no idea why. This thing is intense, with elements that seem too tight for the length of the train. Maybe I was biased because of the seats, but it felt like an RMC built on traditional steel track. The airtime was surprisingly intense, the transitions were sharp but not painful, and the whole experience got my heart racing. I have to wonder if this ride’s appearance works against it, because it doesn’t look that intense from the outside. I would’ve done another lap, but I had other credits to get, and I wasn’t feeling confident about the ops.

Kentucky Flyer

I found the bridge over the road pretty easily, then walked…and walked…and walked…over to Kentucky Flyer. It was a calculated risk, choosing the family coaster over the RMC, but I hoped the ops would be quick. They decidedly were not. This ride is stupidly hard to find, way at the edge of the park, and then with an additional narrow path to traverse to get to the entrance, for most of which you can barely see the coaster. I started my wait on the stairs, and got to the station within a few cycles, but then got held up because of a “lost phone” incident. They cycled the train near-empty (the only rider was the op who was coming off duty), which revealed the errant phone lying right there on the track. Ironically, it was much more visible to the people waiting at the air gates than the ops on the other side of the track. Most people in line bailed at that point, and the off-duty op was stuck on the brake run while we all waited for maintenance. I decided to stick it out, because I was pretty sure that picking up a clearly visible phone wasn’t going to take long. I promised myself that I would put my phone and keys in the bin for every coaster at this park.

Anyway, the ride itself was pretty darned good. Kentucky Flyer is the most notable of these Gravity Group family coasters, much like Oscar’s Wacky Taxi at Sesame Place. It’s definitely a family coaster, just under 50 feet tall, with an out-and-back layout, but it’s got some nice Gravity Group twistiness even within the basic layout. The airtime was better than I expected from the back car. It wasn’t super-exciting, but there was a definite feel of good air. This is no kiddie coaster, but it’s still rideable for just about anybody. If you want to make a young person into an enthusiast, this should do the trick.

Storm Chaser

After an absurdly long walk across the park, I came across the entrance to Thunder Run, and then kept walking even further to get to Storm Chaser. This one is all the way out to the other edge of the park, with very little around it. There’s a pretty nice waiting area on the infield, where the train is zipping around you in every direction. If I’d had time to spend gawking – and if they’d been running more than one train – it might have been a great spot to collect some off-ride footage. Unfortunately, I had business to attend to. Storm Chaser is one of the earlier “conversion” RMCs, like Wicked Cyclone, meaning it’s designed by mad genius Alan Shilke. Unlike the New England masterpiece, this was a refurbishment of a wood-on-steel coaster, Twisted Twins, meaning it’s now an all-steel RMC. That has a negative impact on the aesthetic, and the surroundings only make it worse, out in a weed-strewn field across the street from a bunch of warehouses and tractor trailers. It’s very possibly the worst view from a coaster I’ve ever seen.

The original coaster on this site was a pair of dueling twister coasters, so the conversion doesn’t spend time inside the structure like Wicked Cyclone or Steel Vengeance. Like Iron Gwazi, it’s out there in a big loop, and you have very little idea where you are in the layout. The barrel-roll drop was more intense than the one on Twisted Timbers, starting with a distinct yank, and the coaster never lets up from there. There’s overbanks, for the RMC value of “overbank” that actually means “very nearly invert you, then rip you back the way you came.” One of those is a zero-g roll, but it’s kinda hard to remember which one, because so much comes at you all at once. The helix near the end is crazy intense at a point where most trains are trying to shed speed, and it finishes with a head-chopper that’s much more effective than it has any right to be.

Storm Chaser is also the originator of the “trick track double-up,” which sounds like one of those silly element names, but there’s no other way to describe this. It’s trick-track in the RMC fashion, which translates to “toss you violently to one side, then the other, with no pause in between.” I’d experienced the trick track on Twisted Timbers, but this one isn’t even slightly kidding. “Violent” is the only word to describe it. Worse, Kentucky Kingdom put the on-ride photo point right at the start, so you’re blinded right as the element starts, meaning you get no warning that you’re about to get yeeted the other direction. It was bad during my sunset ride, and even worse on my second ride, which happened after dark. This is one of the more powerful RMCs I’ve ridden, and I’m not sure how many times in a row I could handle it.

Thunder Run

This is the only coaster left from the original era of the park, a Dinn Corporation woodie from 1990. I’m glad I didn’t know that going in, because I’d have approached it with a lot more fear. However, this is the rare Dinn that’s held up well, either through maintenance or sheer luck. I was a bit surprised to see the heavy PTC trains, and expected something a bit milder than what I got. And “mild” is not a word that belongs anywhere near this ride. It’s a pretty standard double out-and-back, but the banking on the first turn after the drop makes it clear that this is from the person who designed Hercules.

Like Storm Chaser, this thing doesn’t let up at any point, and with the 1990s construction techniques, it’s right on the edge of painful, perhaps just across it. I don’t know that I could ride this a lot of times, but it’s definitely worth a ride.

After Thunder Run, I did another lap on Storm Chaser. I thought about doing one more, but the ops really were terrible. It was full dark, I hadn’t gone back to the car to swap my glasses, and I hate being visually impaired in a darkened park, especially with the added chaos of a Halloween event going on. So I took my leave slightly early. Kentucky Kingdom, for all its strange history, is currently a really good half-day park for enthusiasts, or maybe a full day if you really like violence. The slow ops actually help to offset any ill effects from trying to marathon these super-intense coasters, by forcing you to take a break.