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I rode it yesterday and I was thoroughly surprised at how immersive the queue was as well as the right itself. I do feel like the ghost note element was not distracting and you can honestly somewhat ignore them and just take in the ride itself if you wanted. A few critiques and some that I hope they fix as a season progresses: My two cents in the new ride vs the old ride: I would honestly give it a B+. There are a lot of technical things. I still think they need to work out, but overall the ride isn’t bad – I think there are a few things that I mentioned in the spoilers that kept it from being an A+ ride. I went in knowing that it wasn’t going to be a carbon copy of the original, and I have to give credit to the park and Sally for reintegrating the original IP into a layout/concept that had been altered well over 20 years ago.

I don't know if the popcorn scent wasn't working yesterday when I was there, but I did not smell any sort of popcorn scent in that section of the queue. I agree with your point about the animatronics and the risk of unruly kids potentially destroying them. When I first saw photos of Larry in there while the ride was under construction, my first thought was I was afraid that unruly kids may throw objects at him and/or go behind the barrier and try and touch him. I really hope they enforce zero tolerance of any sort of interfering with the animatronics in the queue and I really hope in 5-10 years they're still on top of the animatronics and it doesn't become one of those rides where some stuff is working and some isn't like Boo Blasters was.

Rode it Friday twice and then on Saturday with 2 of my grandkids. This ride is absolutely fantastic for what is is meant to be. In my opinion this is NOT for the original Phantom Theatre fans. It is "inspired" by the original ride NOT meant to be a reproduction of it. Keep in mind FAMILY RIDE. The original was much darker and scared small children. This one still does a little (especially the lightning/thunder effects in the queue). The biggest surprise and what made me smile was where the "peppers ghost" effect used to be. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT in my opinion. I'm sure I'm in a minority but I think the peppers ghost effect in today's day and age may be more trouble than it would be worth. Face it people today are a little more "brave" to deface things (spitting on mirrors, gum, etc.) I'm sure that would require daily cleaning. I truely fear for Larry in the queue. They have signs about cameras but by then it may be to late. Plexi glass around the section would help (but spitting may still be there). Doing this would have to have left the exit doors still accessible and would may have affected the popcorn scent (loveley touch). Another observation was the neither the Maestro nor Larry do the narration for the information videos on how to use the flashlights. This may be a signal that in case Maestro or Larry stop working the instructions would still be viable. I used Fast Lane my first ride (20 min) the second i waited in line (almost 3 hours). The line seemed to go in spurts. I can understand this because with the new cars, new tech and I'm assuming some work on the track system since it was exposed I think it will take some time to fine tune it. After all with 28 or so boxes and 400-500 in each box that's alot of weight compared to cycling with half of the boxes empty. Saturday when i took the grandkids it was about 2 hours and even though we were there around 3-4 we did get the keychains they were given out. Finally, I noticed a LARGE amount of people entering through the exit. The line was all the way outdoors every time I passes the ride all day. I'm sure the long waits were becuase of stopping for loading special needs which is fine but it does bring up how many people were taking advantage of the situation to avoid the line. Honestly I've never seen that before with Boo or Scooby. It will be interesting to see how long that line is next weekend or in the middle of the season. I understand the need for those who need it but I have heard that KI is rather lax on the reasons they accept for these exceptions. All in all a FANTASTIC addition which I will be riding over and over. Great job to Sally and the KI team (and Rick)!!

The boxes are two at a time (two boxes, two blanks) this creates much more space between sets of boxes. My first ride the first box had no one in it and I was alone in the 2nd box. I had 999,999 by the 1/2 way point of the ride (Hilda). The second time I rode it i was in the first box with a fellow rider and not sure how many but there were people in the 2nd box. My score was around 390,000. So the more people competing to hit notes the lower the score (from what I could gather 1 person has to hit the note for points, if more than 1 hit it at the same time the note survives. ie. no ties). Hope that helps.

Just a random question, why are so many people maxing out the score with like 999999? Targets worth too many points? Ride breaking down/stopping for loading resulting in these crazy maxed out scores? Been seeing a lot of them posted on Facebook

Got two rides in today and absolutely exceeded my expectations, I want to thank Six Flags, Sally, and Kings Island for making this all happen, briefly wanted to share my pros and cons of the new ride and Share a few photos from the ride, I plan on many many more rides this summer. Also got a super smooth ride on The Beast so shoutout to the retracking crew for doing a superb job. Phantom Theater Pros: Soundtrack and Toccata is back Facade and Queue is outstanding with the spooky theme All the animatronics are amazing simply put New life has been breathed into the building especially when entering the loading area with the lighting windows Cons: The wait time was ridiculous for a ride that has a tried and true loading process Some effects are cheap and carried over from Boo Blasters like Larry on the turntable and the Bosco door Not sold on the interactive aspect 100 percent, I like it but think it could be better, maybe it’ll grow on me Some of the animatronics have a goofy look that fights with their scary original Overall a phenomenal addition to Kings Island for families and friends to ride for years to come and a worthy successor and tribute to original Phantom Theater and so, so much better than Boo Blasters, could not be happier to have Phantom Theater back at the park.

One could surmise that any park not given the President treatment is open for being sold off or closed. Rumor was the ideal plan was to get to under 15 parks and this aligns with that rumor. Along with this change, it resulted in slashing of personnel as well....

I remember if there was a dedicated topic for Six Flags removing the General Manager and Park President position, so I'll put this here. Six Flags to Reinstate the Park President Position at 10 Parks The following quote is from a Green Tagged: Theme Park in 30 post and references the original story broken by Brady MacDonald at the Orange County Register on April 16th. I am happy with this decision, but am also questioning the motive behind which parks were chosen to receive GMs. The five legacy Cedar Fair parks on the list are top performers overall. The list of legacy Six Flags parks is made up of both winners and losers for that legacy company. IIRC Chicago's Great America, Great Adventure, and Magic Mountain are all comparatively big time money makers while SFOT was doing horribly up until it got some refreshed investment this year. It does not feel great to have the threat of more park sales looming over Six Flags' head this close to when they just sold off 7 parks. Even if it results in good things for the company overall, reducing the company's overall size from 41 parks down to 32 (not including SFQC) over the course of a few years does not make it look successful. Only counting overall dry park resorts just looks worse with that number going from 26 parks down to 17. Selling any more parks without officially splitting the company sounds like it would scream "we're in a death spiral but want to make it look like we're not" to me. If this really is a sign that the company is looking to divest more parks, I hope they don't sell the parks to Herschend. I don't want to see one mega chain forcibly shrunk only to see the other (now) mega chain grow even bigger. HFE does amazing things in their flagship parks, don't get me wrong, but I'd much rather see another new chain come into play instead of feeding the current ones. Do you think the reinstatement of the Park President position is a sign of anything to come? Do you, like me, wish they would call them General Managers instead? Change is sometimes scary, and boy am I scared for my happy place right now.

Can you expand on that? I can entertain rumors about Fiesta Texas, but Dorney does not seem like a good fit for HFE unless they're really trying to corner the PA market. If anything I'd be worried about Kings Dominion being sold to Herschend since they've received more/better investment recently. Also, before anyone tries to suggest otherwise, Jeffrey Siebert leaving Six Flags is not a sign that Fiesta Texas will be sold off. I've been following the "drama" (if you could even call it that) and it sounds like he left willingly for personal reasons. This might've been something he was already eyeing and the opportunity presented itself right as Six Flags announced that they were planning to reinstate the Park President position at 10 parks. I'll post more about that in a more relevant topic thread. It is odd that Fiesta Texas is not currently set to receive a Park President.

Great meeting you too!!

I think if it was built to either equal or exceed Fury 325's stats then the park would've had a definite hit instead of a "really good but people are butthurt" hit. That said, I'm not sure exceeding Fury is what Orion really needed to do. I maintain that I think it would've been made more special by including an inversion or two. If Orion came before Fury 325 then it might've received less criticism. Either way, it's pretty cool for being a (maybe, probably, definitely) reallocated coaster project and ticks all of my boxes for what I like.

I think Maestro still sounds like himself, the difference is that Richard Doyle used a less antagonistic tone of voice in the new recordings. That's literally the most authentic voice acting you can get without reusing the original recordings. While I agree that I miss the heavily antagonistic and scary tone I've seen in videos of the original, I think the new version is what the park needed. The music does need to be turned back on and the audio levels fixed throughout the whole ride. I think the park and Sally Dark Rides will be making some adjustments in the upcoming weeks while the park is closed. The ride speed also felt slow, but I'm not entirely sure about that being the case. I have a theory that some things like the speed were set a certain way for the first rides (such as the decreased speed to help everyone get used to the new loading arrangements) and will be fixed.

A follow up- I wonder how things would’ve been if Orion was built equal to or larger than Fury in 2020.

You are talking about the Muffuletta sandwich and pasta salad that has been available at French Corner for the past 2 seasons or so.

I've been hearing that the seatbelts were also shortened for FOF. I'd love to see the ride get a good refurbishment with new (more comfortable) trains and other upgrades instead of being torn out entirely. It seems to be the hardest coaster for adults to fit into so anything that makes the train less restrictive would help so much. I haven't seen anything about that, but I did see a photo of Banshee's train shed that had a crate marked "Diamondback" under it. There looked to be a whole pile of stuff under there, including what might've been a tightly wrapped lift chain for something. Could you tell if the one by Beast's second drop was a larger (40 ft) or smaller (20 ft) shipping container? I'm wondering if it was used to store some materials for the rebuild of that drop or if it's housing something else. Now that I've had a little more time to process yesterday I will admit that I was in a bad headspace when I was writing some of my posts. I feel like I was overly critical, though to be fair I still stand by most of what I said. Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare is still super amazing! Some of the little changes throughout the park looked really good. Those little quality upgrades do a ton of good overall.

Earlier today I saw a photo of a meat (?) sandwich on a burger bun cut in half with a bowl of mac & cheese in between the two halves. Does anyone know what Kings Island food item that might be? It looked to be from French Corner, but it wasn't the shrimp po boy or the new crowaffle breakfast sandwich. It looked to be really nicely presented so I'm wondering if I should see about trying it. I wish they would've kept some form of hot dog on the Brewhouse's menu instead of making it a Chef's Special item — though I do appreciate that the new hot dog is available for the meal plan. In case anyone would like to see, here is the 2026 standard menu at the Miami River Brewhouse. As you can see, the prices now range from $13 to over $20 for the entrees. I also noticed that they don't have a price for fountain beverages listed anywhere, which would be nice to know if I didn't have the drink plan. Some of these prices are ridiculous, but I think most guests know to either buy a dining plan or eat outside of the park. Speaking of the meal plan, do you like that the meal plan and drink plans are separate or do you wish the two were combined for a slightly higher price? I prefer them to be separate.

Herschend rumors intensify for Fiesta Texas and Dorney Park.

It was a mistake - it was the whole spiel used at park open and then stopped it about halfway thru and then played the correct closing spiel.

I got the roasted pork at Grain and Grill for lunch today. They were out of alfredo so I got the potatos as my side. I'm surprised the alfredo is a side. Fettuchine Alfredo has always been a meal to me. For dinner, I got the smoked chicken with mac and cheese at Coney BBQ. I was very impressed with the chicken. It was pretty moist which is how I like it and it is a pretty good size piece of chicken. They ran out of the chicken right before me, but luckily they had more coming out right away so I was able to get it. I definitely would have a backup plan as it does look like the chicken will be very popular so it may be one that runs out a lot.

Used my second meal at Grain & Grill. I wanted to get the roasted pork there, but they were out of it when I went, so I ended up just getting the chicken tenders with alfredo instead. I will advocate for Grain and Grill having the best chicken tenders in the park, though it's still chicken tenders at the end of the day. I do really appreciate the switch to alfredo, as it is one of my favorite pasta options and I'm glad it's now available at the park. I've seen some people upset that the alfredo replaced the macaroni and cheese that used to be served at Grain & Grill, but that's still being served at Coney BBQ so I can just get it there if I wanted it that much. I prefer it when the different restaurants have separate options from one another so you're not just getting the same thing. I'm going back to the park tomorrow and I'll use my first meal at Grain & Grill to try and get that roasted pork.

Perhaps they have that to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the USA?

Aaaand KI plays the National Anthem at close.

I never rode the original but I thought this one was a lot of fun and a vast improvement over what Boo Blasters had become by the time it closed last year. I waited about 2½ hours, getting to the park just after opening and getting in line about 10:15.

Did anyone else notice the shipping container by Beast's second drop?

A few noticeable staffing cuts on some rides. The Eiffel Tower cut the base person Franklin's Flyers is a single op ride now Wasn't able to confirm it, but heard through the grapevine that the 2 Adventure Port rides are single op (correct me if wrong) Not a good look for capacity and throughput as that is apparently a vision for new CEO John Reilly