Kings Island with the Kids – End of School Edition

Josie’s last day of school was Wed, May 30 which was a half-day.  We didn’t have anyone to watch her on Thursday.  So I figured I would use some vacation time and take the girls to Kings Island before it got hot and crowded.  As it turns out, we had a day and a half of light crowds and perfect weather.

Since I had both girls by myself this time, I left my camera at home.  I recently upgraded to my first-ever smart phone (due to a broken screen on my ancient Nokia).  So the handful of pictures come from my cell phone.
As I have mentioned in past trip reports, I use Kings Island at least in part to train the girls for our upcoming Disney World trip.  By this point, Josie is a veteran.  But I am still working on Kara who can be hestitant around characters or intimidated by rides.  On this trip, Kara would visit with the characters.  But only if I was holding her.  Thus, no pictures of the kids with any characters.
On Wednesday, my sister and her family were also in the park.  We had hoped to meet up with them at some point.  But her kids are older and we never did cross paths.
We were somewhat limited in what we could do.  There are only so many rides at Kings Island for a three-year-old.  And Kara refused to ride some of the ones that she could have ridden.  For her part, Josie was a great sport.  She coached Kara along to make her feel comfortable and didn’t mind passing up her usual favorites like Surf Dog.
In general, I rarely asked Kara if she wanted to do something.  I just got in line.  If she didn’t want to do it, she objected.  If I had asked, she probably would have said “no” a lot more often than she did.  Using this approach, I actually got her to ride The Great Pumpkin Coaster for the first time.  I think she enjoyed it, but I couldn’t say for sure.
We cut our usual path through Planet Snoopy.  You have to ride Woodstock’s Whirlibirds before the line gets backed up.  We also hit the carousel since it’s close by.  In the past, it took some coaching to get Kara on these rides.  But this time, she was ready.  She was very excited to ride a zebra on the carousel.

Josie wanted to run through the water play area.  It’s basically a maze with some sprinklers and other kid-soakers.  It’s a good way to let the kids cool off on a hot day.  But today wasn’t all that hot.
Kara wanted no part of the sprinkler maze, so I let Josie enter by herself.  She can be a little nervous when I am out of sight.  So after I watched her enter I had to high-tail it to the exit so I could be waiting for her.  Just as I arrived at the exit, Josie came out looking like a drowned rat.
I had brought along our refillable cups and popcorn bucket.  So I got some ice waters and popcorn for the bargain price of $2.99.  Word to the wise, the refillable cups and popcorn buckets are good season after season.  They are a baragin if you hang on to them.

After a brief rest and allowing some time for Josie to air dry, we hit some of the kiddie rides behind Surf Dog.  Josie and Kara rode the Beetle Bugs, the Snoopy Junction and the Off-Road Cars a few times each.

As a coup-de-grace, I decided to cap the day off with Boo Blasters.  Josie used to be afraid of this ride.  But I got the sense she was ready.  Kara wasn’t thrilled about the queue area.  But with Josie’s encouragement, we got her on the ride.
It used to be that I could trick Josie into thinking that my score was hers and vice versa.  She believes this because she likes to win, so she’s willing to accept any story in which she is the winner.  But she’s finally reached the point where she figured out that the score in front of her is indeed her score.  She said several times “I used to be good at this!”
Kara sat in the middle wide-eyed and clutching her gun.  She was stone-faced.  I really couldn’t read her.  She did hit a target somehow.  And afterwards, she said she enjoyed it.
Josie had her heart set on going up the Eiffle Tower.  By this point, Kara was pretty tired.  She didn’t like the idea very much.  I kept telling Josie to just stop talking about it and we would go up in the elevator.  But Josie kept trying to verify that was the plan which made Kara cranky.
We boarded the elevator without any issue.  When we got to the observation deck, Kara asked where the Eiffel Tower was.  I pointed to Windseeker.  That got a skeptical look.  But she rolled with it.
The next day, we had a full day off school.  I decided to start the day off at Soak City.  I had taken them to Soak City last summer when it was still Boomerang Bay.  It didn’t go well.  The kids refused to do anything that invloved splashing which is pretty much everything they are tall enough to do.  On that trip, we ended up scrapping things and going back to the dry park.
This year, I planned ahead.  I packed a change of clothes knowing there was no way we would spend more than a couple of hours at Soak City.
As Gold Pass holders, we were allowed into the water park an hour before it opened.  This is one heck of a great perk!  The conversion to Soak City includes a lot of small ammenities like shade-providing awnings.  Since we were admitted early, we were able to pick a prime selection of beach chairs on which to leave our towels.
There is a pool at Soak City that is my girls’ favorite.  It’s a zero entry pool that never gets deeper than 3 feet.  Josie can touch even at the deepest part.  Kara can touch in about two-thirds of the pool.  There’s also a waterfall at the deepest part.  We spent about an hour in that pool.  Since the park was not yet open to the general public, we had the pool to ourselves.
We made a very short visit to the water play area where the girls enjoyed shooting me with water canons.  But since there was a lot of splashing water, they refused to enter the actual play area.
We went back to our beach chairs under the shelter.  I still had most of a bucket of popcorn from yesterday.  So I broke that out and we rested for a half hour or so.  Once the girls were full of popcorn and dried off, we headed over to the train station.
Kara absolutely loves trains.  So even though the wait for the train was kind of long, I wasn’t about to walk to the dry park like I usually would.  I hadn’t been on the train myself since they removed the live actors.  While I miss the old show, this was an enjoyable relaxing ride. 
Ride-wise, we did most of the same things we had done the day before.  Josie rode Linus’ Launchers  and Joe Cool’s Dodge-ems a couple of times each by herself.  We got in line for Boo Blasters again, but Kara immediately protested.  So we let that one go.
Josie likes to end her day at the Eiffel Tower.  So we went up to the observation deck before leaving the park.  Having done it the day before, Kara no longer objected.
On the way out of the park, Kara fell asleep in her stroller.  I decided to make a quick stop to Guest Relations to take care of some business.  Kara turned 3 this year, so this is the first year in which she requires a pass of her own.  I bought her pass when I renewed the rest of ours back in the fall when it was only $70.
Usually when you do this, you print up a voucher and take it to the park to process your pass.  But over the winter, Cedar Fair changed their system.  So the vouchers wouldn’t print.  I decided to stop into Guest Relations to see what could be done.
There was an elderly woman at the Guest Relations desk.  Standing beside her was a manager who was clearly training a new employee.  I explained our situation and answered a few questions (such as how we got into the park without a pass for Kara).  When he was satisfied, the manager coached the employee on how to help us.
Uncertainly, she printed up a little bar code and handed it to me.  She directed me to the pass processing office.  As it was late in the day, there was no wait to process Kara’s pass.  This had been my reasoning all along.
I asked the girl at Pass Processing if they could take Kara’s picture while she slept in the stroller.  The girl agreed.  But then we hit a snag.  It seems the old woman at Guest Relations had printed up the wrong voucher.  Now Josie’s pass had a picture of Kara sleeping in a stroller.
Fortunately, this girl knew what she was doing.  She retook Josie’s picture for her own pass.  Then she took another picture of Kara sleeping in a stroller and issued her a brand new pass. 
Since things were going well, I asked if she would mind retaking my picture.  I had dropped 50 pounds since my last picture was taken.  She agreed.  A few seconds later, my ego felt much better about my season pass picture.
Speaking of which, it feels absolutely great to be able to get into any ride without squeezing into the restraints.  Some of those rides are punishing if you’ve packed on a few pounds!
That was the end of our School-Year-End celebration.  However, I felt bad that Josie hadn’t gotten to ride any of the big kid rides.  So this weekend, I took her up without her little sister.  We actually by-passed Planet Snoopy for once and made our way back to the Coney Mall.
On our way, we made a brief stop to ride the Viking’s Fury.  I made sure we sat in the middle because I knew the ends would be too much for Josie.  Even so, Josie wasn’t a fan.  But I let her know I was proud of her for trying it out.
After that, we went to Coney Mall.  Josie wanted to ride the Scrambler.  I talked her into trying out the Zephyr which scared her at first.  But by the end she was enjoying herself.  Then we hit the Shake Rattle and Roll.  And I was quite shook up.
It was another beautiful day.  But it was getting fairly hot.  I tried to talk Josie into a water ride on our way to Planet Snoopy.  But no dice.  Instead, we went right to Surf Dog. 
After Surf Dog, I had pretty much had my fill of rides.  We wanted to see Ed Alonzo’s Psycho Circus before we left.  So I offered to get Josie a snack before the show started.  We ended up grabbing a couple of bottled waters and a hot pretzel.  (I didn’t bring all the usual refillables with me on this day.)
When Josie was little, she would get a hot pretzel and feed half of it to the birds.  Back then, they were the standard Super Pretzels.  The new pretzels have more of a Bavarian quality to them.  I don’t think our snack was worth the $10 I paid for it.  But I have to admit it was the best hot pretzel I have had in quite some time.
After our snack, we headed straight to the Kings Island Theater.  We got there just in time for the Magic Show.  The show is very lively if somewhat off-color.  There are girls in somewhat revealing costumes and poop jokes.  Josie sees worse on Nick.  So no worries there.
The show is fun and lively.  Alonzo is a gifted performer armed with some pretty impressive tricks and a lot of corny jokes.  Both Josie and I laughed from start to finish.  The production values aren’t quite Vegas-level (okay, they aren’t close) but they are better than you would expect from a regional amusement park.
In short, do not miss this show!
After the show, Ed and the girls stick around for pictures and autographs.  Ed was dripping with sweat.  But he seemed very genuine when greeting everyone who waited to meet him.

I explained to Josie that Ed used to be on a popular TV show (Saved By the Bell) and that he was “famous”.  She was quite impressed to have met a famous person.
We couldn’t leave without our usual trip to the Eiffel Tower.  On the way, we stopped and caught a couple of minutes of the Peanuts show by the fountain.  Josie thanked me repeatedly for spending the day with her.  You can’t put a price on a day like that!
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daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

Keep at it, Dad! By the time November gets here the girls might be ready for some big time thrill rides! My 6 year old nephew is a major thrill seeker, to the point where he very nearly wears my brother and his wife out. They’re pretty game, but they also want to stop for a meal and a sit down. Neither of those is apparently in his vocabulary, though. No wonder the kid’s so skinny. And what did they expect when they named him after me? They’re lucky he’s not quite tall enough for everything yet. Did you get… Read more »

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago
Reply to  lebeau

We’ll be leaving NC the last day of June and returning a week later.
From what I understand, wireless service is poor all over SF, which is why most hotels there charge for WiFi and why I chose the one hotel I could find that provides it for free.
Being a bit of a pessimist, I’ll wait and see what hand I’m actually dealt when we get there.

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

We were actually able to write the iPad off on our taxes because I use it with a lot of my clients on my job. It’s an awesome tool. We’re almost completely ready, but now that I’m out of school (as of today) I’ll have some time to consolidate our plans/paperwork/info into a trip binder so when we need something we can find it. Maybe I’ll post a picture of my binder in the interest of baring a private shame publicly. The Walt Disney Family Museum is there in San Fran, so we’re planning on seeing that, but from what… Read more »

daffystardust
Editor
11 years ago

Of course we had another small flood in the house and we had to buy a new hot water heater. If Mad Men has taught us anything, it’s that anytime you think you’ve gotten ahead, something’s bound to come around and kick you in the teeth. There’s never enough money.
The last day for kids was on Friday. I just had to finish up some paperwork on Monday and today. Otherwise, it’s pretty typical for this area.
Ah yes, the binder will be glorious this time…Sooo Glorious…

tripwheels
11 years ago

Just wanted to let you know I have nominated you for the Versatile Blogger Award and it will go live in a couple of hours. Enjoy!

audreyhudges
11 years ago

It is really sad when you think the vacation will be over and go back to normal in school days. Since, school days is coming children needs to enjoy more and it is in theme park. Children will be more happy with this kind of treat.

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