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Park Queue TimesPQT

Kings Island cheat sheet

worked out from 19 days of our own wait data21 rides

Arrive for 11:00 and ride The Beast, Flight of Fear and Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare first. Leave Mystic Timbers until after 3pm, when its queue drops to about 10 minutes. The park's queues peak around 16:00 at 37 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. 13:0032m
  4. 14:0035m
  5. 15:0035m
  6. 16:0037mpeak
  7. 17:0030m
  8. 18:0023m
  9. 19:0022m
  10. 20:0024m
  11. 21:0021mquietest

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. 1The Beast ~56 min typical · up to 48 at peak · worst around 6pm56m
  2. 2Flight of Fear ~55 min typical · up to 106 at peak · worst around 5pm55m
  3. 3Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare ~55 min typical · up to 60 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. 1Mystic Timbers~35 min typical · about 10 min after 3pm10m
  2. 2Diamondback~38 min typical · about 15 min after 3pm15m
  3. 3Orion®~29 min typical · about 10 min after 4pm10m
  4. 4Invertigo~25 min typical · about 6 min after 3pm6m
  5. 5Sol Spin~17 min typical · about 10 min after 4pm10m

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 27% of the park's open hours27%
  2. 2Woodstock's Air Railrunning 30% of the park's open hours30%
  3. 3Franklin's Flyersrunning 33% of the park's open hours33%
  4. 4Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmarerunning 34% of the park's open hours34%
  5. 5Woodstock Expressrunning 34% of the park's open hours34%

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 £29.99 for a year. Paid once, never renews. Your first park day on Plus is free.

Try Plus free

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.