Date:6/23/2024
Destination: Louisville, Kentucky
Goal: Kentucky Kingdom
Distance: 143 Miles
Means of Travel: Driving
Potential Credits: 1
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An array of colorful amusement rides, in the foreground a blue and yellow train climbs curves of red track held up by unpainted steel truss supports. |
You know that one park that isn't your "home" home park, but isn't much further, and because of that you probably don't go nearly as much as you probably should? Yeah, that's Kentucky Kingdom for me. At 2.5 hours from Dayton, compared to just 1 for Kings Island, and with Cedar Point not much further and valid on the Kings Island pass, and add in Holiday World at just an extra hour, I don't spend as much time at Kentucky Kingdom as I maybe could. And maybe I don't need to. Back in 2016, the opening of Storm Chaser gave me a home RMC within a day's drive and it was a once/twice a season park for me easily. However, since the opening of Steel Vengeance, the specific draw for me to come here has been less in recent years than it used to be. But you know what? That isn't the park's fault! It's still a great place, they still invest in it a lot, it has some neat history for such a modern park, and their ride lineup is killer.
My buddy Connor and I, who go way back but have recently started doing coasters together again more and more, was the person I ended up asking to do this with me. After I embarrassingly got Walk of Shamed on Outlaw Run last March, I knew I needed to lose weight before my upcoming SweDen 2024 Region Trip so I'd fit into Wildfire. Three weeks out (and after Connor getting me badly addicted to those little Starkist tuna packs), I had gone from 285 in March to 262 in June, and I wanted to see if I'd fit on a gen 1 RMC. Dollywood was the initial plan this weekend, but Ben had something come up and couldn't make it. Kentucky Kingdom was the backup. So I asked Connor if he'd be down to divert my trip here this weekend and he was down! Storm Chaser, here I come!
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A suburban Cincinnati street after an early morning rainstorm, with retaining walls and greenery on either side of the wet road. A simple brick apartment sits to the left. |
I slept horribly the night before, I even asked us to wrap up Dungeons & Dragons early so I could get home and get a good night's sleep for the early morning the next day. Then I felt bad for being awake until 5 am because my stupid brain wouldn't shut off. Waking up at 8 (tried to sleep in til 9 but couldn't even get back to sleep) I got on the road and made the hour drive to Cincinnati to meet Connor.
Upon pulling up in his driveway, his girlfriend and her grandpa were outside. The grandpa yells, "hey Connor! When you're on them roller coasters, hang onto your keys!"
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A shot of an ornate church-like building on the side of a highway, similar to other dated architecture you see in Cincinnati. |
Connor took the wheel and we just kind of caught up the entire drive. We'd seen each other recently but it was nice to hang out again and get the boys back together and do another 2015-esque coaster trip.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A logo reading "KENTUCKY KINGDOM AND HURRICANE BAY" sits on two black poles in a planter amid greenery. |
My last time here was in 2022, after a trip to Louisville with the crying loser I was dating at the time ended horribly with her ditching me without any fight or anything taking place, after making sure things would be okay to meet up and make plans and the like.
(Get this: the dumb bitch texted me crying at 1 am the next day feeling awful for inviting me and telling me to get the room when I asked if all would be okay.)
Our first ride was the Breakdance, which took forever to load and unload, but it was worth it because that's a fun little flat I'd been sleeping on!
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A red and yellow logo says "STORM CHASER" on it, with a hill made of two red rails supported by unpainted steel trusses. A blue and yellow train flies over the hump. |
There was a line for Lightning Run, so we decided to just cut it back and get Storm Chaser marathoned.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett, a 30 year old man wearing a teal button-down over a purple Iron Gwazi shirt, stands in front of a roller coaster supported by unpainted steel truss. |
I FIT!!!! After basically starving myself for two months, after getting turned away from a train equipped with almost the same restraints, losing over 20 pounds, and walking over a mile around my neighborhood daily, I've gotten my fat ass into a first generation RMC from the same exact year as Wildfire. Just gotta not stuff my face between now and Sweden and maintain that healthy weight and boom! SweDen, here comes Jarrett the less fat American!
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Beneath dingy gray clouds, a plain steel lattice support structure holds up the red rails of a roller coaster, with a blue train loaded with riders flying over a hill. |
Only because I've never broken it down on my blog before, here's a look at Storm Chaser for those of you who don't do bad weather!
Storm Chaser's start is pretty basic, you turn into a lift, maybe there's a bit of lateral kick as you engage the chain. At the top, you crest the lift, get a nice view of the Lousiville skyline, and turn into a fairly fast-paced turn for that height. It then rolls downward into the drop, which drops you with a good full G of hangtime, before launching you into an ejector hill. From there, you go through a pretty tame overbank into two twisted airtime hills broken up by a turn, and both airtime hills have some pretty snappy lift to them. There's another overbanked turn into another airtime hill, the second isn't as jarring as the first but it's still pretty good. The corked roll inversion that follows is nice and flowy and you get a little bit of floater through it.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue and yellow roller coaster train zips over a hill tracked with red rails, in the background rises a blue and silver water flume ride. |
Storm Chaser is infamous for its very violent ending, which has aged to be kind of a predecessor to the Steel Vengeance/ArieForce One/Lightning Rod practice of just wrecking you with airtime before hitting the brakes. There's a violent double up into a drop off, then a climb into an equally violent double down. It's four very strong, abrupt moments of airtime that hit extremely hard, especially for an older RMC. There's one helix after, which has a weird little tip out corner at the end of the turnaround, which feels like it'll tilt you out of the train. It then just says fuck it, jolts up and to the left, and throws all rules of comfortable design to the win to slam you into those brakes.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue and yellow roller coaster train twists through a rolling element tracked with red rails. More red rails supported by unpainted steel trusses form hills in the background. |
As I stepped aside to go take stills, Connor went to ride Eye of the Storm. Not wanting to subject myself to a crappy Larson Loop, I set up my DSLR and started shooting.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A teenage boy climbs roughly fifteen feet off the ground up a river rock stonework chimney on the side of a log cabin-like building. On the ground, a boy and a girl, both in their mid-late teens, stand and watch. |
There ain't no stupid like theme park stupid. I said what I said. In 2017, Connor and I were on my region trip that year at Mt. Olympus and saw this stupid asshole jump a low zone fence to get a $20 bill that fell out of Hades 360. This continues our pattern of attracting the stupidest guests when we hang out.
Connor and I decide to meet up at the Storm Chaser plaza when I saw this circus act going down on Chaser's photo booth. This brainless unsupervised teenager decided he was Spiderman, climbing this chimney for the entertainment of his buddy and girlfriend. After mulling over the ethics of what I was about to do, I snapped this photo, did not get any of their faces, and showed the photo employee who told him, "you need to get down right now." Even better? When I walked away to show the park employee, Connor said the girlfriend was visibly pissed at me and pissed at the employee, rather than Peter Parker over here for being a dumbass.
This very week, a gentleman at Kings Island climbing two fences he shouldn't have climbed ended with a horrible death that probably traumatized dozens of people. I wasn't sure if I should just let Darwinism take its course or step in, but I decided the latter because I didn't want to see someone fall and hit their head on a day that was supposed to be fun. But this was definitely the "incident" of the day.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue wooden coaster train rumbles by a path with some trees and a lazy river in the background, riders put their hands up or grab onto the lap bars. "THUNDER RUN" is written on the front of the train, in orange and yellow letters. |
As if unsupervised teenagers hadn't already killed all my brain cells, we went over to the Dinn wooden coaster...though that isn't that fair a statement because this is my favorite of their rides. Thunder Run is what Hurler at Carowinds wishes it was, it actually hits its airtime moments and doesn't beat the shit out of you. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said completely for this ride, however. Don't get me wrong, it was very enjoyable and I had a hell of a time, but going into that last corner, it whacked me pretty good and hurt my shoulder. This made us decide to take a break.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Over an unpainted picket fence, a field can be seen with a pile of smashed cinderblocks, ruined concrete footings, and pieces of red coaster track laying dismantled in the background amid a shed and some trees. |
We swung by the former T3 Khmer Rouge torture field ride site. They seem to have meticulously dismantled the coaster, rather than sawing it up as it deserved, but left most of the infrastructure in rubble. Hopefully Herschend replaces it, ideally with a new coaster but I'll take anything but a fence and smashed station.
Come on, give us our version of FireChaser Express! Kentucky Kingdome needs a quality family coaster and there are disused buildings in the vicinity already!
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Kentucky kingdom employee in a blue shirt holds a cup of pale liquid up to a row of colorful beer and cider taps. |
After getting our tacos, we took them to the brewhouse, where I elected to get one of those refillable beer cups. I asked for "the gay one in the middle," and she for some reason was going to get the pink one instead of the rainbow. But the rainbow pride cider was really good!
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A takeout box holds two tacos, one topped with guac and the other with salsa, with a Kentucky Kingdom cup holding bubbly pale amber liquid. |
Kentucky Kingdom's tacos are so good, and they even come with free guac and queso! This is my go-to when I come here, especially if I'm watching calories.
We were planning on Kentucky Flyer next, but that was down, so we decided to go to the front of the park and shop and the like.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A queue line stretches into a doorway, next to a black sign that says "NO ONE PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT." |
Guess we can't ride this ride.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A teal cinemal screen shows the logo for "HAPPY FAMILY THE RIDE." |
Their 4D theater has had some interesting options over the years, the one time I did it it was Wizard of Oz. This time it was Happy Family: The Ride, just a simple short film about this family that rides a ghost train and gets turned into monsters. Think someone bought the Addams Family off of Temu. Cute story, it was okay for what it was, but there clearly wasn't much demand for it.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A green roller coaster train goes up and around a curve of blue track. |
We did some gift shopping next, and then headed over to Lightning Run to wait out one train ops. This is usually the worst line in the park, but even then I didn't mind because I could take stills.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A green roller coaster train goes down a drop of blue track, in the foreground guests queue for a swinging disk ride. |
Haven't ridden this in years, and honestly it's never a huge priority when I come here because it's honestly just a less extreme version of Storm Chaser. There's tons of good ejector on this, for such a tiny coaster it packs a punch, I do think it's cool it's the only one of its kind in the world, I respect it for what it is. It's a training RMC, the airtime hits the exact same it just isn't as strong magnitude-wise. But if you're too much of a pansy to handle Storm Chaser's ending, this'll gladly act as Weenie Hut Juniors for you.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett drinks a beer out of his plastic cup in front of the Storm Chaser sign. |
Drunk Uncle Jarrett cracks open a PBR on the patio, lights up a Newport 100, and gives you the most fire engineering lesson on why you don't make load-bearing wheel brackets under lots of fatigue out of aluminum. Lousiville, Kentucky. Thanksgiving, 2024. Color.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue and yellow roller coaster train flies over a hill tracked with red rails. More red rails supported by unpainted steel trusses form overbanked turns in the background. |
So yeah, we we wanted to ride Storm Chaser next.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett and Connor sit in the front row of a blue and yellow roller coaster train, with black lap bars pulled down. |
We elected to wait for the front on one train but it was worth it. Storm Chaser packs such a punch up front, particularly at the end. It's one of those coasters that hits harder on the tail end of the ride, so having a bit more momentum at the end helps. This is also why it was so much better with the harder steel/nylon wheels, despite what some people might tell you.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue and yellow roller coaster train takes a turn, loaded with riders holding on and/or putting their hands up. A yellow hoop-shaped ride can be seen. |
Such a damn good coaster, I'm lucky it's so close and I'm proud of it as my home RMC. Sure, Steel Vengeance is just a bit further for a much better ride, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't come back to this nice, quiet park and enjoy Storm Chaser more often.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: On a wooden station platform, Jarrett and Connor sit in the front row of a coaster train themed as a silver propeller airplane. |
Storm Chaser aside, we elected to return to Kentucky Flyer, do the Ferris Wheel, get cinnamon bread, and leave. Kentucky Flyer was operational this time, and it was just as smooth and enjoyable as I remember in 2022. These Gravity Group coasters have a bad rap for getting rough, but I've never had that issue on any of the tiny little Timberliner rides. It's got some good airtime, it jumps around a lot in not a lot of space, I've got no issue with this ride.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An orange and yellow Ferris Wheel rises into cloudy blue skies. |
We got in line for the Ferris Wheel next, only to see that we were getting crunched for time and it was going to take a bit to get on, so we elected to leave. On the way out, we tried to get cinnamon bread, but in total contrast to Dollywood, they turned us away and said there wouldn't be any ready for half an hour. So we took the L and headed out.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: From a white, rusty truss bridge, the skyline of Louisville can be seen on the water, with another bridge stretching to the KFC Yum! Center. |
Drive home wasn't too bad at all, Connor was awesome and drove, and we stopped at a Pilot stop so I could change out of my gross park clothes and get Subway and junk food (perfect way to celebrate weight loss!) to kill the drive.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A red Dodge truck stops in the middle of the street in front of a building. |
But because Cincinnati, we were minutes from Connor's house when we ran into this asshole darting around and stopping in the middle of the road.
Connor dropped me off, I took my shit to my car, and drove the hour home so I could shower and get to bed at a decent time.
 |
| IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A blue and yellow Storm Chaser train heads down a straight length of track. |
We had a great day! I always loved this little underdog park, their rides are surprisingly in line with my personal taste in coasters, and I've always respected Storm Chaser as a good use of the RMC I-Box ride system. And I'm really glad I fit back into RMC after that embarrassing walk of shame at Silver Dollar City. Special thanks to Connor for going with me and getting me in with his bring a friend ticket, I'm really glad we're doing coasters together again!
And kids, please, don't be stupid and climb buildings.
