Trip Report: Kentucky Kingdom
Louisville, KY
August 29, 2021

Authors note: Earlier this season, I posted a rather scathing review of Kentucky Kingdom, calling it perhaps one of if not the worst days I have ever had going to an amusement park. When I park shows improvement, I feel it only my duty to post a prompt report reflecting same.

"Well, that went a whole lot better, not perfect, but much better"

As the summer winds down and the calendar shows us we are almost to September, Dave and I realized we both have underused Kentucky Kingdom passes, and a desire to go back and use them despite the fact the park showed us a truly awful time last visit. It's not that we any real money tied up in this season, like a lot of parks, the park extended our 2020 season pass into a 2021 pass. But there was a lot of unfinished business let to attend to.

So, at a reasonable time, Dave picked me up shortly after 11, meaning after a couple stops for input/output functions and the usual spot of slow traffic, and the detour since the I71 bridge south over the Ohio river is still closed, we were barreling off the exit from 64 around 1:30. This would be an unusual visit for us, in that at least for me, this is the first time I have been to the park while the Kentucky State Fair (and why isn't it the Kentucky Commonwealth Fair) was in session. We were a bit surprised by the lack of traffic around the fairgrounds, and noted one side effect of this is that Kentucky Kingdom visitors are restricted to use only Gate 2 into the fairgrounds, and then were further restricted to just a few sections of the fairgrounds parking lot.

The irony was not lost on me that the park has pretty much failed its whole original purpose, that to be a permanent midway for the state fair, one that could be used to make extra money by staying open all season, not just 1 or 2 weeks a year. The history of Kentucky Kingdom is storied with failure, the first iteration which was just the front side of the park was marketed as being on par with a Disney park, an expectation set the park could never hope to achieve, and a legendary story about grossly overselling the park to the Girl Scouts as a preview further cemented that one to doom. Then the park took a season or two off, but then opened again, and quickly and aggressively expanded across the fair entrance driveway adding rides and a whole waterpark. Even in this era, rides like T2 and Chang were built capable of running 3 trains, but with the stated expectation that would only be during the fair, as during this era the park was still much a part of the fair midway. Then Premier Parks got it, and at first things seemed like they would still move full steam ahead, a dueling wood coaster, a wild mouse, a classic Schwarzkopf shuttle loop, but then Premier (Six Flags) started stripping rides from the park, and nothing new was added. This came to a head in 2009 when the contract with the fair was not renewed, a battle over who really owns the rides ensued, and the park sat empty for about 5 years. Then there was talk of the Koch's (of Holiday World fame) buying it, but that fell through, and then out of nowhere the park announced a re-opening, and a lot of new rides were brought in, old rides were rehabilitated, and other park improvements were made. But with this iteration of the park, the park no longer provided its rides to the Fair to be the fair's midway, instead continuing to operate as a separate concern, even during the fair. This seemed to come to a rather comical head last season, when Kentucky had a scaled back modified state fair with no midway - because amusement rides are too much of a COVID spread risk, yet the park carried on doing what it does even as the fair went on with no rides of its own,.

But I digress, but I digress to show that it seems like the fair board and the park must have an acrimonious relationship. So we pull into gate 2 as directed, and we do get free parking with our pass, and the parking troll advises us to keep to the right. (We are at the far left booth). It seems that fair traffic is also allowed to use gate 2 while we can only use gate 2. They have divided the road that runs through the center of the park in half, those going to the Fair, use the left lanes, those for the park, the right lanes.
A barrier runs down the middle of the road to keep the two separated. Those who are familiar with the park probably know where this is headed. The good news is the fair board has provided parking adjacent to Kentucky Kingdom.., the bad news is said parking is back behind Kentucky Flyer. From there you have to follow a long trail that runs along the perimeter of the park to get to the parks regular front gate. Why they could not have put the midway in this part of the parking lot, and put the park parking up by the parks main gate is a move that can be described as sticking it to Kentucky Kingdom. Yes this does mean you have to cross the fair access road as you take your hike around the perimeter of the park. No drop off area means those in wheelchairs, strollers, and carrying swim bags and other baggage have to lug and push or assist those all the way from BFE to the main gate. As a move that can be described as the fair giving park patrons a middle finger salute, the fair runs a tram, along this same pathway, but only fairgoers can use it. You see the park tried to build a Berlin Wall (ok Berlin Fence) to keep fairgoers and park goers separated along this walk from the deep reaches of parking to the main gate. What really shocked me is the fair seems to be so intent on twisting the knife, that they are missing a great profit opportunity. What's that? Well don't you think amusement park fans just might be the same type that would ride the midway rides you have forced them to walk right past, yet if there is a Berlin Wall between the two attractions, there is no Checkpoint Charlie where one could pay to cross over to the other side.

Of course, I am not holding Kentucky Kingdom blameless in this. There exists, right at the head of the Kentucky Kingdom designated parking lot, a service gate, said service gate would put patrons in right next to Kentucky Flyer, and more importantly right into the water park where most of said baggage is going. How hard would it be to set up a temporary second gate to your park. - Essentially move the gate, or okay, if you have a season pass or other prepaid ticket you can enter here, if you need to buy a ticket or need anything more complicated that GR needs to get involved, then you have to hoof it to the main gate. Even setup a large sign with a QR code to your ticketing site so folks can buy a mobile ticket right there, show their mobile to the ticket scanner and in they go.

So, after grumbling through a long hike, we get to the front gate. We see the park has augmented its front gate security checkpoint. They have added metal detectors, probably as a result of "Do Something!" in response to the wave of violence that has plagued amusement parks this summer. Again they know the vast majority of their crowd is coming from the left, do you think they moved the security entrance from the right hand side, of course they didn't. That said getting through the screening and into the park was a breeze. Guest Services was in no mood to hear our suggestion about popping open the back gate, even if just as an exit. I figure they are so used to playing heavy defense that they don't know how to take a suggestion. Instead they responded with a litany of why it can't be done. There goes your out of the box thinking. "You expect out of the box thinking here, they never took Starchaser out of the box!"

Oh, we also noted the drinking fountains have been turned back on but with very low pressure, and I think they piped the hot water to the drinking fountains, but even as is, its one step closer to normality. We headed to the rides, we first past Fear Fall, which according to the website was closed for rehab, and it was. In this case a whole seat was sitting in the infield next to the ride, so perhaps it really is getting rehab, as opposed to rehab being code for "short staffed". Next we pass the Breakdance, which always disappoint me, so we skipped it. We didn't skip Professor Johns Flying Machines (Larson Flying Skooter) which was a walk on (as was the Breakdance) . It wasn't the best flight I've ever had, but not the worst either. We skipped Cyclops and Lightning Run for pretty much the same reason: I don't fit, and Dave doesn't find either ride to be particularly pleasant), we did check in on the Lighting Run test seat to find its still totally useless.. It's plugged in, but you can lower that lap bar all the way to the seat and the light won't come on.

Next up is the Bluegrass Bakery, large sign proclaimed Now Open, the hours of operation however told us not till 3. We continue on around the antique cars are closed, while the teacups didn't have a closed sign, I never saw an operator for them. Up Up and Away was closed (Samba Balloon) as per the website. The amphitheater marquee told us no shows today, but Scream Extreme was open, and was a walk on! (Zamperla Endeavor) Maybe not a good as the old Enterprise it replaced, but a really nifty ride nonetheless.
A time check revealed it to be 2:50, Dave strongly hinted I go the bakery sooner rather than later, since we have certain trust issues with this park, and we don't know how much of it they make. But standing outside in this heat, which got real miserable real fast, wasn't sounding great either. So we headed for a ride I don't think we have done in many years, I think it was closed last year for COVID, I'm talking about Thrill Park Theater or the 5D Cinema. And that just happens to be this years new ride, something about Yogi Bears Picnic Adventure. Its a cute movie with forms starring Yogi and Boo Boo (and the park ranger) in a style of animation much more advanced than the 70s style. The preshow is all about Yogi and Boo Boo getting confronted by the ranger for stealing campers picnic lunches, to which Yogi invents an obviously dubious flying machine loosely patterned after a motorized hang glider . As you can imagine everything that can go wrong does go wrong and you go from flying, to shooting the rapids, to going down the falls, to the big twist reveal, to a blue screen "PRESENTED BY WARNER BROS." That was the hardest end cut I think I have seen, I mean at least the old Cinema 180 ones that would end so in the middle of a car chase so close you could read the license tag of the car ahead of you were in theme, this was a rough cut to just a blue credits screen. It's like they said "How long of a ride do you want, ok, animators just keep drawing and we'll cut it when we need to, don't worry about a satisfying ending, it's good enough for Kentucky Kingdom" One point of humor after the film there is a recorded announcement, part of which is to wait for the operator to instruct you to leave, we had been standing up, but sat back down and looked at the operator who did notice and gave us the nod to exit. This ride does exit right into a gift shop where the end of season sales have started. A brief tour of he gift shop, and hey its 3. Did I mention we walked right into the preshow in progress with no waiting.