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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.

After reading some of the comments today, what's the parks deal? Why do they have to cut back on so much stuff? Do they think the average visitor isn't going to notice some of these things? Makes me miss the Cedar Fair days from 2006-2024. All I can say is Six Flags, you wanted to merge so badly, now make the parks like they were when Cedar Fair was running the show. Bring back the Quality in things. That's what brings the guests back.

I distinctly remember how grand the theater reveal felt on the original Phantom Theater, particularly with how the music seemed to fill the space.

It's not very family friendly to leave a dead cat sitting out there for everyone to see. 😂

Back up! FB_VID_2027701799472995025.mp4

Ah, I get it now. I never noticed the smaller gaps between vehicles on Boo Blasters or just never paid attention. I would like to see something about the flashlights too. My best guess is that there are cameras in each scene that spot your flashlight and a computer calculates the angle and distance (game consoles have done this for years) The same computer would also be tracking the notes and their point values. while adding the colored light to the display, while removing notes as needed and assigning points, like a video game.

At this point they should just attempt to restore the fountain similar to how it was before. If corporate isn't going to give them the budget to have a fully working dancing fountain 24/7 then they should just axe the "bellagio style" fountain altogether. Also while I understand the purpose of lighting, Im not a big fan of how the park has slapped multi color LED lighting and trusses everywhere on all the buildings and along the fountain. I personally think I-street would have a better atmosphere if they just go back to just having the white light bulbs on the buildings and the gas lamps while still lighting up the Tower and fountains in multi color like before.

Story logic, the peppers ghost effect makes no sense (it didnt in the original either, but it was trying so hard to knock off Haunted Mansion so its expected) since we have already seen the "ghosts" fully formed it never made sense why we went back to them being transparent. But I agree that the figures and the whole scene is too big and squished for the space. The turntable was clearly just a budget move where they "wrote" a scene just to use the turntable. The whole space - as you mentioned - should be zoomed out a bit - with a few rows of seating, then the stage with footlights and the characters a bit smaller - using forced perspective to make it feel like we are at the back of the theatre. The way it is feel like looking at a display window trying to be a theatre.

As was said before, it's the same number of vehicles as before, just spaced differently (2 blanks between the 2 vehicles. This helps the experience with the spacing. Also I'd love to see a short on how the flashlights work. Several things are taken into account. If you try to point it to far ahead the system get's confused (your light may be a different color) also if 2 people it the note at the same time, in my experience neither get's the note point. Also there are different point values for different notes. Maybe we can get everyone on here to try and find out if that is true and what the values are.

I'm saving my opinions on this park until some more full-length videos of this park are released, but I don't think I've read many good reviews at all. While it is a park completely dedicated to children I can already tell that they leaned a little too far into that prompt and didn't leave much for the parents to enjoy.

The amount of ride vehicles (27) is the same as it was during Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle and Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. Where the original Phantom Theater had 55 vehicles, 28 were removed for SDatHC and BBoBH, and then half of those were moved up one space for PT:ON. There is one lone vehicle (I believe it's opera box #1) for those who are lucky enough to be placed in it. Honestly I'm shocked at how fast this queue goes when I remember waiting a lot longer for Boo Blasters. As for the lack of a pepper's ghost scene, my complaint lies more in the fact that they went with two "small" scenes instead of either one large auditorium scene or one turntable scene and a more zoomed out stage scene. The old library looked a lot bigger because it had more depth and didn't have all of the stage wings on either side. Fun Fact: if you look in the background of the stage scene, you'll see the Boo Blasters castle painted as the background with the entrance gate and fence as a physical set piece in front of it.

Ironically, they are dancing to some programmed light and fountain show right now. Looks like it's in prep for the 4th of July. Edit: After watching a few minutes of the varying sequences, it made me really wish I saw it in person. I'm left thinking about how I would actively go out of my way to visit IS during my park visits to see a fountain and light show, much like what I did for Haunt. I can't help but feel that the lack of a show makes for a missed opportunity on the daily for both the guest experience and the ability to draw people to a central shopping and dining location in the park. The Royal Fountains certainly need a more regal treatment.

They are in a bad state and its still early in the season. I sat by them to eat my dinner from Grain & Grill. I know they are trying to save money, but these details are noticed. If they can't fix these very visible issues, what are they skimping out on behind the scenes we can't easily see? Here are the photos I took this evening of the fountains and you can see the amount of jets not working.

And they cycled it afterwards.

I hadn't been able to get to the park this year until today and I avoided this thread because I wanted a fresh experience: As someone who enjoyed the original ride for its whole run, I have a bias towards nostalgia but I get why they went with more kid friendly designs and interactive elements. I appreciate that you can just ignore the interactive nature of the ride without missing any of animatronic effects. That's a big plus to me. I assume the flashlights use a tracking system similar to the Playstation Move controllers? Mine was a blue light and there were some scenes where it didn't work at all while I could see other people's lights working. I just saw some videos of the ride where the flashlights had some real hiccups to their display. Fortunately I didn't have that at least. I like how nice the queue is but there's too much going on in there for how loud it is with a room filled with people, including kids. I couldn't hear anything Larry or the Maestro were saying. Apparently they removed a bunch of ride vehicles? The line still moved fast but that surprised me. The lack of a big pepper's ghost scene disappointed me. I did dig the animated paintings in the queue Hopefully I'll get another ride soon and I'll just not use the flashlight to take in more scenery. Today was more crowded than what I normally care for and I opted not to wait again. But I think as long as the ride is maintained properly (obviously a big concern for many people), this should continue to be a popular ride for years. EDIT: It just occurred to me why they probably removed the vehicles. Guessing each scene can only track 6 flashlights?

I don't think it's going anywhere. There's maintenance working on what looks like a pump right now.

I wouldn't count it out yet....

Nothing is confirmed yet, but if this does end up being the end for Congo Falls... I don't think it's being removed for a future attraction. It's incredibly weird timing to be closing this ride right at the start of summer instead of Labor Day weekend. That only signals to me that it's removal is due to high maintenance costs and the plot will sit vacant for a while. Just like a certain "other" plot that has been sitting vacant for 6 years...