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Park Queue TimesPQT

Kings Island cheat sheet

worked out from 24 days of our own wait data21 rides

Arrive for 11:00 and ride Flight of Fear, Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare and The Beast first. Leave Diamondback until after 11pm, when its queue drops to about 9 minutes. The park's queues peak around 16:00 at 39 minutes and are lowest around 21:00.

Before you go

When to go

The days and months this park's rides run quietest

Quietest weekday
Thursday
Busiest weekday
Saturday
Quietest month
November
Busiest month
April

Each ride's own quietest and busiest day, tallied and weighted by how long its queue runs. For a dated answer use the crowd calendar, which scores every day of the year.

The shape of the day

Average queue across the park, hour by hour

  1. 11:0028m
  2. 12:0031m
  3. 13:0033m
  4. 14:0036m
  5. 15:0038m
  6. 16:0039mpeak
  7. 17:0035m
  8. 18:0024m
  9. 19:0024m
  10. 20:0025m
  11. 21:0022mquietest

Arrive for 11:00. Queues climb to their peak around 16:00 and fall back through the afternoon; the last hour or two is the quietest the headliners get all day.

Ride these first

The headliners: longest queues, worst by late morning

  1. 1Flight of Fear ~61 min typical · up to 106 at peak · worst around 1pm61m
  2. 2Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare ~61 min typical · up to 68 at peak · worst around 5pm61m
  3. 3The Beast ~55 min typical · up to 79 at peak · worst around 4pm55m

Straight to these from the gate, in this order. Every minute before the park fills is worth three later.

Leave these until later

Rides whose queues collapse late in the day

  1. 1Diamondback~39 min typical · about 9 min after 11pm9m
  2. 2Banshee~36 min typical · about 6 min after 10pm6m
  3. 3Kings Mills Antique Autos~37 min typical · about 10 min after 10pm10m
  4. 4The Bat~39 min typical · about 15 min after 11pm15m
  5. 5Queen City Stunt Coaster~31 min typical · about 9 min after 10pm9m

Save them for the last two hours, when the coach parties have gone and the queue is a fraction of the afternoon's.

Watch-outs

Rides that spend the most of the day not running

  1. 1Surf Dogrunning 22% of the park's open hours22%
  2. 2Woodstock's Air Railrunning 32% of the park's open hours32%
  3. 3Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmarerunning 37% of the park's open hours37%
  4. 4Woodstock Expressrunning 37% of the park's open hours37%
  5. 5Snoopy's Soap Box Racersrunning 39% of the park's open hours39%

If one of these is the reason you came, ride it the first time you see it running rather than saving it. The full picture is on the reliability page.

On the day

Your day-of sheet

The same park, for one date: the forecast, the hours, and your ride order

Plus members get this sheet for a date: the crowd forecast for the day, its published hours, a ride order worked out against that day's wait curve, and a printable version to take in.

PlusThe day-of sheet is part of Plus

Here, that is a ride order for your date, the forecast and the hours, printable.

  • Your rides, in order

    Sequenced against the wait curve, so the headliners land in their quiet windows.

  • quiet till 111pm · 66m

    Your date, hour by hour

    How the wait climbs on the day you picked, and the window it stays low.

£4.99for a park dayor £24.99 a year for every park day, cancel any time.

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Everything above is each ride's own recorded queue over recent weeks, sampled every few minutes through the park's opening hours - not an opinion. A ride with too little history is left out.