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The Snake Pit Saloon sign is absolutely one of the coolest in the park.

If they want to stay true to Diamondback's theme, the would need to remove the "Ohio greenery" look and add lots of bare dirt with plantings from the Sonoran desert.... prickly pear cactus, saguaro cactus, chaparral, mesquite trees, cholla cactus, and Palo Verde trees.

Some sloppers claim that it makes art more accessible to disabled people. It doesnt. Disabled artists hate AI slop and just keep on creating art.

I didnt know they have one! This is so cool! Id love to work in there! I did do some graphic design projects at trade school.

Finally got to ride! I love the queue, it kept me pretty entertained for quite some time. The portraits in the hallway are excellent. And the loading area.. Far exceeded my expectations! Its so cool! I was struggling with learning the blaster basically the whole ride. Between that and how many scenes there are, it took some time for my brain to process it all and my love of the ride increased as a result while using the bathroom after getting off the ride. I am really pleased about the castle redesign and the designs of the vehicles and blasters and that they brought the most iconic song from PT: E into the ride. Projecting notes on a lot of the scenes instead of having screens everywhere was a brilliant move. Larry running around the way he is towards the end of the ride is such a clever reference to Scooby Doo/Boo Blasters. The scene that references was one of my favorite things about Scooby Doo/Boo Blasters. I was honestly really shocked at how different the scenes are compared to Boo Blasters to be honest. Overall, it is a fantastic addition to Kings Island and I need to ride it more to fully appreciate and process everything that is there on ride. Way better than Villain Con Minion Blast and Fast & The Furious Supercharged.

I really wish they could just move one associate from one of the five alcohol stands in Rivertown over to the Coke Freestyle. The bar by Diamondback already needs to go back to being a food stand, so maybe that one? I think they should put a new grill location there since they removed the hot dog from Jukebox Diner and the Brewhouse. Speaking of Rivertown, is there anything y'all think the park could do to improve the ambiance of the area that won't cost a million dollars? My vote would be a queue building for Diamondback and more trees/natural foliage. I feel like there has to be something they could do beyond that, though. I'd love to see more river-related theming as well.

^^Can he also please increase the staffing budget for the drink stands and the smaller food stands like Meteor Canteen, Pig Pen's Mess Hall, and Wishbone Grill so they can be open more often?! Drink stands specifically. It is hard to have increased guest throughput when the Tower Drinks and 2 out of the 3 Rivertown drink stands are almost always closed bc that backs up the lines at the ones that are open.

The worst part is that cleaning like this is a simple training issue that can be solved with a bucket, a rag, and a command to wipe the trash from the table/counter into the bucket. Sweeping is a little harder since you can't carry around a broom/dustpan as easily. It would be best if the park hired more dedicated custodial staff (dedicated as in specific, not dedicated as in better). That might actually be coming sooner than you think as (from what I've heard) Six Flags just increased their capex budget specifically for maintenance and park services. John Reilly really wants to improve the guest experience beyond what it has been for the last few years — I hope we can see some good benefits from that at Kings Island.

Now that's an article I'd like to read, Don. Would love to see one of top 10 dirty and top 10 clean

Cool. Let it go and move on. K thx.

Dollywood’s Splash Country opens its 26th season with Neon Nights, new food offerings, upgraded amenities and one of the cleanest water park experiences in the Smoky Mountains. Full Story: https://themeparksbydon.com/dollywood-splash-country-neon-nights-2026/

^That will be changing soon....

I, personally, wouldn't do that. I'll post it here; I know park employees have a working familiarity of the posts that show up on this site. I'll post pictures here and give someone who works "back stage" a chance to address. I don't have an ax to grind with KI, SF, etc... just want them to do better! And, while I'm at it- REPLACE THE BURNT OUT BULBS LINING THE BUILDINGS ON I-STREET

@Outdoor Man, Skyline could know if you posted the photo on their social pages.

I agree. Guests are gross. People do things at the park that they would NEVER do anywhere else. That said, there's no discipline in keeping areas clean by employees either. I mean, does Skyline know one of their locations has a serving area that looks like this? I agree with Don; Kings Island was a near-benchmark of cleanliness for YEARS; one season changed that perception.

Behind and on the counter is on the employees 100%. Tables, floors etc are still on the employees, but as @Hawaiian Coasters 325said, patrons should do their part and clean up after themselves. You can say what you want about the under 18 children, but this entitlement rears it's ugly head up to the boomers. And it's not isolated to KI, look at hotel room check outs, restaurants and shopping carts. It's all pure laziness. In 2020 and 2021, I would had much more empathy for things like this . But those years are way behind and the company wants to lean staff and make the parks "comfortably (very) crowded."

Via Marcus Leshock in Facebook: BREAKING: “Multiple bomb threats” reported at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California this morning. The California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department are investigating a threat that indicated a bomb was allegedly placed at a specific location within the park, according to CBS News. Magic Mountain was scheduled to open at 10:30am local time, but it’s unclear if that will happen. Magic Mountain released a statement: “We are aware of the police activity near the park and are currently monitoring the situation in coordination with local authorities.” In their own post, the CHP said: “Magic Mountain Amusement Park entrance will be shut down as CHP works with LASO after receiving multiple bomb threats at the park.” At this time, it isn’t clear if the threat is credible.

That's not acceptable and the fact employees in uniform were around just yapping and not doing anything about it makes it worse! Those employees need to be disciplined! When I worked there ride ops weren't allowed to leave at the end of the night until the entire perimeter of our ride area was clear of any trash or debris. And the area supervisors would hold cleaning audits after park close and if they found just one little candy wrapper, your ride crew failed! Cleanliness was one of the major cornerstones when I worked there and I hope it still is! I think the park needs to have this brought to their attention as I know upper management does not tolerate stuff like this. I know someone last year posted a massive rant on a facebook group of Festhaus being filthy and not long after they brought people over to clean it. We know the park reads the facebook groups. Also I think guests need to take a part in this too. When you're done eating, clean up after yourselves and throw your trash away!

RCDB now lists Invertigo as SBNO since July of last year.

If I were to do a piece on the 10 dirtiest parks in the amusement and theme park industry, Kings Island makes the list. It’s sad because for decades it was among the top 10 cleanest parks.

Also, I'm CPI trained and on our Crisis Response Team. I've dealt with kids in their most extreme and difficult moments. I work in a school currently that has the wealthiest families per capita and they have the exact same issues I had in the school with Title I funding for being the highest poverty school per capita. Sure, there are times poor parenting is to blame for student struggles, but that is not the case most of the time. From my 15 years of experience working hands on with children. Now, when I was an intake officer and licensed probation officer working at the juvenile detention center, many of those kids had difficult family situations, but that is a very small percentage of the youth population being arrested and brought to the detention center. I would not extrapolate the issues I saw at the detention center to the regular issues happening in schools and the like.

I'm a special ed teacher. I've worked in both elementary schools and high schools for closing on 15 years now.

The park NEEDS to address this. This is horrible, terrible, gross. What's worse is that while enjoying our Skyline, no fewer than 4 employees in Supervisor attire were nearby standing, talking, walking by, etc... addressed nothing. I didn't take a picture of the Brew House mens room... which I felt like my hands would have been cleaner had I NOT washed them. Water all over the floor.

I'm hoping that food lines will be less extreme as more associates come in after schools let out. A lot of people said that yesterday was a wash for Cedar Point because their operations were insanely bad, but I feel like they really just experienced a slightly worse Opening Day than normal. Should they be able to get everything done during the off season and have it all running in May? Yes, but I also don't think that would necessarily improve the food lines or the nightmare that was the VIP lounge. (At this point I really think the park should consider rebuilding the DA! bridge and turning the Forbidden Frontier space into a giant outdoor VIP Lounge.) I think it's good that the All-Season Fast Lane is starting to sell out at each park. Leaving it up and available all season isn't great IMO. Hopefully we will also see the total number of daily Fast Lane pass sales reduced.

The associate at the register told us to put it on the sticker when he handed it to us. I think your experience might've just been someone forgetting to say it since those are new.