While I'm no longer a Gold Pass holder, I do still...

While I'm no longer a Gold Pass holder, I do still enjoy a trip to Kings Island once or twice a year. Some of the rides have gotten progressively more and more rough over the years (whether that's due to poor maintenance or unavoidable over the lifespan of an amusement park ride), surprisingly even Diamondback has gotten rough in the troughs of the track.

Parking can sometimes be a disaster on busy days and you'll end up in BFE with a long blacktop walk to the entrance but that's really just an amusement park thing not unique to Kings Island. The ticket prices haven't gone up in recent memory and you can get them at a discount at a lot of places (like Kroger, or some credit unions), but the parking fee is still a bit much on top of the ticket.

Getting both the amusement park and the water park with one single ticket is pretty nice though and adds a lot of value (potentially at the cost of making The Beach Waterpark that much more abandoned).

The park is always really clean and well kept, and the staff are usually pretty friendly and helpful.

My biggest gripe is the cost of food (again, I realize this isn't unique to Kings Island and is just an amusement park thing). A lot of even the basic food is marked up to pretty exorbitant prices (even Skyline Chili), and the Reds Hall of Fame restaurant has some of the worst made food I have ever eaten for the price (seriously it tastes worse than some fly-by-night, no-name buffet off a random highway).