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I personally wish the park meaningfully engaged with its audience way more. The promo for Phantom Theater has been so stale that I feel like having a brand new ride hasn't even made waves within the park. Given that that ride hasn't changed the landscape of the park, they should be way louder and way more creative about its presence so more guests ride it and are excited for it. I fear the depths of this issue go so deep. Has anyone seen the sign by the highway? It cycles through the same ~3 images all day, and some of the images have been the same for years. It's almost like they go out of their way not to make an effort with any community engagement.

I think it looks better without the other screen honestly because the fire on the tv screen looks so fake so the way it is right now with just the coils looks better to me, the strips at the bottom of the stairs are small potatoes to me, I honestly do not even recall what they looked like when they were in place, the only thing I would change right now is giving the gargoyle dialogue again because I think even if his lips don’t move it would be a welcome addition, same goes for our boiler boys as I think more dialogue is a almost always better, I also have found that the flashlight messes up for me the most on the second Maestro scene towards the middle of the ride, not sure why that scene specifically but every time I’m going through there the flashlight gets stuck but overall the ride is still absolutely amazing

You’re not wrong. They should have published content about the shows. And they should have posted wishing dads a Happy Father’s Day. They could have asked to share photos of guests with their dad at the park.

What about the shows that got nothing over this past weekend? Am I wrong that would have brought more bodies through the turnstiles to see them and spend money?

What’s changed is having people that know the difference between storytelling and messaging in the PR and social positions at KI and within Six Flags. You can tell the people doing it now don’t really know the park or their audience with the content that gets published. Disney Parks and Universal still do it as they’ve done it for years. They create emotional content, not marketing content. Disney and Universal routinely post content that makes people feel something: Family moments. Character interactions. Guest reactions. Behind-the-scenes stories. Cast/Team Member spotlights. Nostalgia. Vacation memories. Kings Island and many Six Flags parks often default to “The park opens at 10.” “Buy tickets now.” “Here’s a ride photo.” “Food item available this weekend.” When I was running social media, people knew there was a person behind the account. The Beast Groundhog Day tradition is a perfect example. It wasn’t an advertisement. It was a personality-driven tradition. Today Kings Island and many other Six Flags accounts feel corporate and interchangeable. Disney and Universal make fans the stars. Look at Disney and Universal feeds: Guest photos. Fan videos. Influencer content. User-generated content. Vacation stories Disney even has dedicated influencer and creator programs built around sharing guest experiences. Kings Island and Six Flags needs that. Kings Island and other Six Flags parks now operate as if every piece of content has to come from the marketing department. The smartest social strategy today is letting fans tell your story for you. They are part of the conversation. Universal is particularly good at this. When something is trending, they join in. When fans joke, they joke back. When someone posts something funny, they engage. They feel like a participant in the community. Kings Island and other Six Flags accounts feel like a digital billboard. Disney and Universal are masters of teasers, construction updates, countown content, behind-the-scenes reveals, and sneak peeks. Kings Island used to be. Epic Universe is the perfect example. Fans were invested years before opening because Universal constantly fed the conversation. Kings Island and Six Flags parks often go from announcement, construction photo, opening day. There’s no story arc anymore like there used to be. (Scroll back to Banshee and Mystic Timbers teasers, announcement, construction updates, ride opening, and post-opening content.) The biggest difference is Disney and Universal tell those stories constantly. Kings Island and Six Flags often tell people what they can buy, what time the park opens, and what ride is operating. One builds a community; the other shares information. Bottom line: PR and social media in the industry hasn’t changed. Kings Island changed from what they had successfully been doing, which was taking a page from Disney and Universal.

The music was very noticeable in the stairs going down to the queue yesterday morning, which included Toccata & Fugue in D Minor. I didn't notice anything after that. The strips on the stairs in the portrait hallway are also still missing, but that issue may be low on the totem pole. If I had to take a guess as to what the issue with the first boiler is, I think it is a physical issue with the TV that cannot be easily fixed. If it's something to do with the outlets/cords/internal components/etc then it would be hard or impossible to fix without taking the rest of the boiler off/apart. It looks somewhat fine without the screen IMO.

I am going to lay this out a bit and hopefully @DonHelbigcan explain a few things for I simply don't understand. I'm no way it's this too be disrespectful to SIX PR. I am just asking questions to learn. I was at the park Thursday through Saturday. During that time of me just relaxing and enjoying the park I was posting on the KIC socials. I highlighted merch, promoted the outgoing magic show, mentioned Congo being back open (with over 113,000 views and still counting as of this post), made 5 posts about the Opening of BeachBlast. All of this is just fun for me to do and I enjoy it. I looked at the Kings Island Facebook page and saw only one post about the Halloween haunt. I thought that was odd timing with it being a holiday weekend. I don't understand why the outgoing magic show and the opening of the BeachBlast show were not highlighted. It seems like that would have made a great social media post over the weekend. As much as it cost them to bring those two shows to the park, you would think they would want to get the highest ROI on them. So my question would be, has PR and marketing changed in the industry, all industries? Am I wrong in thinking that a social media promotion and highlight of the outgoing and incoming show would be a benefit for the park, or is that not how PR works now? Is data showing it not benefit the parks to do such things any longer? It seems they're relying 100% on fan sites and Facebook groups to do the promotion for them? I realize SIX is trying to save money and may not be the fault their PR staff themselves for I don't understand all they are doing. Any PR majors want to jump in here and help me understand? Obviously this is to spark conversations so everyone else give your thoughts as well.

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Thrill seekers will have to wait a little longer to experience Tormenta Rampaging Run at Six Flags Over Texas. The record-breaking 309-foot dive coaster was expected to welcome its first riders this Friday, but the park announced that commissioning and testing are taking longer than anticipated. No revised opening date has been announced as crews continue preparations for the coaster’s debut.

Im thinking it's a mix of budget/staffing as well as employees not caring to clean up. Like I've seen stories on here as well as in the facebook groups that employees were standing around doing nothing/yapping with each other when they could be cleaning. Imo that's a discipline issue. When I worked in rides, our supervisors would get onto us daily almost to make sure we were cleaning after park close and not standing around talking the whole time.

I've lived in the Detroit area all my life, but Kings Island has always been our go-to park. Growing up, we went there because of the kids' area. In my teens and twenties, I was more of a Cedar Point fan because of the roller coasters, and I'd head down to KI ever few years for a concert or a weekend getaway. When our son was old enough in 2015, we started making Kings Island our annual family vacation because, again, the kids' area is so good, and it was a better-paced park for our family (nostalgia didn't hurt). The last time I had went to Cedar Point was back in 2012 to celebrate my wife's 31st birthday. I didn't intend to take a long break, but I also didn't mind because as fun as the coasters are, CP was always the lesser park in my opinion. The food options weren't nearly as good, the park wasn't as nice, and there was a trashiness to it that I didn't pick up from Kings Island. But last year, we got Gold Passes, figuring that our family is old enough (son's 14, daughter's 10) for us to enjoy Kings Island but also start giving Cedar Point another try. So, this past weekend we drove on down for two days. We knew it would be busy, so we splurged and got Fast Lane Plus for Friday. Throughout the weekend, we were able to get on all the big rides and do a few, like Steel Vengeance, twice. In the 14 years I'd been away, Cedar Point has really upped its game. I love the new boardwalk area. Last time I was there, they were just tearing down Disaster Transport and the Space Spiral, and the addition of GateKeeper, Wild Mouse and the Grand Pavilion really make that area special. I especially loved the food options at the Grand Pavilion and the chance to enjoy a meal overlooking Lake Erie (the weather was sunny and 75 all weekend; perfect). I also think their Frontiertown reminds me of what Rivertown at Kings Island used to be. I would never wish to get rid of Mystic Timbers or Diamondback, but I feel like Rivertown is a bit smaller than it used to be. It feels like a quick jaunt from Camp Snoopy to the White Water Canyon station, where the theming starts to peter out. But Cedar Point's Frontierland stretches for so long. I love that they have the shaded stretch with the forts and shops (and live music) still maintained without big rides cutting in. Then you get to the more Western-themed section and you get the two best rides in the park. I loved Cedar Farms as a dining option, and Backbeat BBQ looked like a lot of fun, too. Just such a nice section, especially on our second day, when we wanted to slow the pace down and take it easy. The coaster lineup is second to none, of course. Steel Vengeance is possibly the best coaster I've ever ridden -- Maverick is pretty great as well. The Raptor still holds up, and Siren's Curse has the single most terrifying element I've experienced on a coaster with that tilt, followed by a ride that is just so much fun. I think Valravyn and GateKeeper kind of struggle to be more than their gimmicks, but they're fun. The kids rode everything they were tall enough for -- Raptor and Rougarou's restraints meant they were the only things my daughter couldn't ride. She was a little daredevil; Siren's Curse was her favorite. We closed out with a ride on TT2, which might have been her limit ... she was in tears when it ended. I'll admit that while I had no problem with the original Dragster, that spike element might have been a bit much for me. I still think there are some things Kings Island does better than CP. The people ops at Kings Island are so much better; all the Cedar Point ops seemed stressed out, and in some cases were yelling at people to get on rides more quickly in a way that felt very rude. Kings Island seems to have loading and unloading down to a science, where it seemed the Cedar Point teams were struggling a bit. And all the big rides went down at least once over our time there -- Maverick, Steel Vengeance and Millennium Force were closed for several hours. And while I think Cedar Point has a much better Frontierland/Rivertown area, Kings Island is still the cleaner and better-designed park...that circular structure really makes it easy to navigate from one area to the next. We met up with our church youth group the second day and trying to check in was a chore because there's not really an easy way to get from one end of the park to the next. Also, I'm not sure if this is a Six Flags-wide change this year or specific to CP only, but the meal plans were wonky. The entrees and sides were self-explanatory, but the included snacks were pretty much non-existent. You could get Dippin' Dots and...that was about it. I seem to remember at KI last year being able to get the Oreo churros, Aunt Annie's, and a few other snack items throughout the park, but none of that was included in our meal plan. But still, a great trip. We'll be back!

Tony ran Operations and was over Park Services when I was in that department. Crazy how dirty the park appears to be by comparison. I'm sure it's budget related, mostly.

I might need a break from Cedar Point for a while. I still rather like the park. Its more about how they have rides designed to force supposed 'good' operations. I know why Magnum and SteVe need to have faster loads and unloads, but its annoying the way the crews treat guests. And while other rides don't have that, there's this arrogance that the staff has that's been rubbing off on me the wrong way my last few visits. I'll probably swap in either Philly or Gatlinburg next summer instead (probably the former as I've been craving fountain ERT at Longwood, HP and Knoebels something fierce). I'm going to wait until July 4th to make my decision for Missouri. At the very least, I'm planning on keeping SDC to get Thunderation before it bites the dust. St Louis and KC are iffy depending on how gas prices go the next month (can't discuss further as it breaks KIC's TOS). Kentucky Kingdom will be some time before that in case I am making the push to 200 coasters ridden.

You mean geese poop practically part of the floor design at this point at Enrique and Skyline Pavilion is a problem 🤢

^ Don I hope they realize this with the number of complaints they probably get weekly. I was lucky when I went with my newly wed wife a month ago, that I didn't notice too many negative things. The only thing I noticed was unclean tables.

The little things matter. They’re often what separate a good park from a great one. When the small details start being overlooked, people begin to wonder what else is being overlooked. The smallest details often make the biggest difference. Kings Island built its reputation on attention to detail. Over the past couple of years, attention to detail, and the standards that guests should expect from one of the industry’s premier amusement parks has not been there. There’s no excuse for lack of cleanliness around the park. It used to be a priority. Now it’s not. And it shows. I grew up with the park. I care about the park. The small details that are now being missed matter to me.

Is it really that hard to get the name of the park right on the food receipts?

Funny thing about the music. Got three rides in today. First time I could hear the score clearly through the queue and ride. Definitely seems like it’s something they’re working on. Not perfect, but it’s getting there. Appreciate the work that’s going into it, still. Side note, the show looked great. Everything worked perfectly sans the screen in the furnace. Which is a bizarre. Seemingly an easy fix. Not sure what’s up there.

I am just amazed with the quality of ride that they produced. So these comments below are just comments. There were a few things that were better about the original ride. The theater performance scene was more grand. The talking face projection in the armor The talking gargoyle. I also agree more music would make it better, especially in the very beginning where the posters are. The maestro’s organ music throughout the ride would increase the mood.

I'm back at it. Went to the water park today for the first time this season. No different over there. Someone mentioned that things weren't always clean in the past. I know, but it really has never been this bad, especially this bad on a consistent basis. I would contend that when. Greg Scheid was Park president, for the most part, the park was an immaculate shape. When his successor was running the park, and his name escapes me at the moment, The park was in pretty good shape too, albeit by a lesser extent, but still in good shape. It seemed like when they eliminated the park present position and made it a regional thing is when things started falling off the rails. I had hopes that when. Tony was promoted to Park president that these things would be fixed quickly, but we're 2 months into the season and that hasn't happened yet.

Swung by the park today after not really being able to go to the park proper. (Studying for the 10 was a beast, passing it was a challenge and now it’s onto my series 9 test in a few weeks) The waterpark finally seems to have some decent operations with getting both sides of various slides in operation to keep up with capacity. The park is really busy however I decided to pass up on the wine festival, I wish we had some more pronounced wines that have some solid regional quality than what we got this year!

Let's not kid ourselves into a delusion that all was perfect from June 30 2024 backwards. The only perfect year under Cedar Fair that I experienced ( and I started following things in 2014 with multiple visits vs once or twice yearly) was 2022. Every time I went it seemed as if the park was purring along like a well taken care of Mustang GT, although my blinders probably shielded the misfires that year. Before the current lament, there were dirty tables, surly employees, no ice, no soft drink syrup and food issues. There were Cedar Fair SUPERVISORS (emphasis added to reflect the uniform) who stood around and ignored problems or worse yet, tried to maintain a "bestie" relationship with their reports to avoid conflicts. However, in 2022 around Haunt or WinterFest, things started changing. In 2023, things ramped up with the park's lack of attention to detail, midways not being washed amongst other things. The veil was ripped open and internal politics were laid bare and incompetence across different areas exposed. Then the merger news came out and was consummated mid season 2024. All appeared to be going well, and there was optimism about Cedar Fair bringing the Six Flags properties up to standard. And now here we are. My hope is that money will flow, smart decisions could be made, and the Kings Island legacy will prevail. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Hopefully, homeostasis will prevail and things will return to a new normal.

Here's a photo of the new Fool the Guesser (Age & Weight) game set up in the Rivertown gazebo. I'm not that upset about this structure being used as a game stand since it's only had a bench and/or an activation point in it for the last few years. The game equipment may be the same from its former location Rivertown across from LaRosa's. It looks nice enough and the name signs are 3D (not printed), so it gets bonus points from that alone. It's clear to me that the maintenance team is doing what they can with the resources they have, though I suspect that almost every budget across the board has been severely tightened in an effort to help pay off Six Flags' debt. Effects and issues in Phantom Theater have been repeatedly fixed (minus the first boiler TV), rides like Invertigo and Congo Falls have been repaired, and some park leadership have been spotted all over the park. Just today I repeatedly saw a group of people who I believe to be the top Food & Beverage leadership making their way from restaurant to restaurant. The issues with guests are more noticeable in our post-merger world. There's definitely also an issue with some associates not cleaning the spaces around them, but that can be fixed with better training and heightened awareness. We knew that 2025-2028 would be a rough patch for parks like Kings Island as the company figures itself out and pays off debt. There are a ton of little changes that can happen at the local level and I hope those can start to happen sooner rather than later. I'm not going to shill for KI/SF, but I do think there is still a light at the end of the tunnel.

Based on attendance increases and pass sales and general survey sentiment reports the chain puts out, yes, sadly the average visitor doesn't notice some of these things. Most are not looking for the artistry and functionality of a fountain. It is "oh a fountain" or "that mist feels good" and only the enthusiasts are counting how many nozzles aren't working. Look how many are too lazy to pick up after themselves and leave cups and plates on the tables. And many that do cleanup after themselves will simply try to shove it into an already overflowing garbage can rather than be inconvenienced by walking 20 feet to an empty or less the full garbage can.

I have a feeling that low quality flags will keep Congo Falls for a while since they're making so many cut backs. They seem to be fine with older rides and not fixing them like they should.