All Activity

A beach themed stunt show I think can be a very good show!

Something fun has been happening at Magic Mountain: more and more Six Flags logos are being replaced with MM's classic logo! It started with the big highway sign, then they started popping up on the new trash cans, and now the main park sign at their front fountain/waterfall has been replaced. I'd love to see something similar happen at Kings Island and Cedar Point with their classic logos being used on more than just printed park materials. I don't think legacy Six Flags would have ever done that unless it was a very specific situation.

It's been updated since your post with the new name, which is Beach Blast X-treme. Not my first choice of wording but I'm interested to see how it turns out. The real relief came from the Nighttime Spectacular description listing fireworks as being part of it. Hopefully they don't do something similar to what happened with the Star Spangled Night event where it was quietly changed to be smaller after its initial upload to the website.

Holiday World lands the No. 1 water coaster in USA Today’s rankings, with two more water coasters in the top 10 as the park heads into its 80th season. Full story: https://themeparksbydon.com/holiday-world-usa-today-awards-80th-season/

I might do the zoo. The plan with St Louis is to do museums and the arch on Friday, Reds/Cardinals game on Saturday and SFStL on Sunday. May do the zoo Saturday as the game is a night game. KC will be simple, just exploring downtown and WoF. Leaving St Louis very early. I'm somewhat contemplating a day and a half at SDC and exploring Branson a bit. I'm also looking forward to doing BBQ in St Louis and KC. Also also, expressing my discontent with the Chiefs. 😉

Dollywood earns seven Top Workplaces awards in 2026, highlighting its employee-first culture and why it continues to deliver one of America’s best theme park experiences. Details: https://themeparksbydon.com/dollywood-workplace-awards-2026/

Never said it was just the youth, but more often than not the issues I have witnessed and dealt with personally have been with those under the age of 18. I realize this behavior is brought on by lack of parenting or poor parenting. But the song remains the same however you wanna slice it. Bad behavior could become a valid reason to cut fireworks/drones and later nights-thus giving more parks justification to close earlier.

It's not just that. I think the dining plans increase the number of problematic guests in the park. For years the last barrier to keeping Kings Island from being used as a daycare in the summer was the expensive food prices each visit. Now that those prices are included in passes with the meal plan the parents are further incentivized to drop the kids off even more during the summers where they can runaround and cause problems at the park instead of at home. And yes, I realize most kids don't do this, and that the chaperone policy exists. However, nothing prevents a parent from entering with the kids through the gate and then taking off.

Let's not kid (pun intended) ourselves, it's far from just youth that cause incidents.

I'm curious how Herschend would handle Haunt, but I'm more than willing to give up what we know as the Haunt for Herchend to do things their way the rest of the year. If Haunt is going to be a pay experience for the mazes it might be best to just get rid of it and have a fall themed event. I'm starting to think Haunt might be passé anyway. Even if they were to put the full effort in the idea is not new anymore and I don't know if it would be seen as special as it once was.

https://www.sixflags.com/kingsisland/shows The live entertainment page is listing more shows including the Kings Island Nighttime Spectacular. Trailblazers X-treme (which might not be the new All Wheel Sports show's name) is listed with the 2025 dates though, so the information might not be completely accurate yet.

The sad thing is with the state of these parks I could see 9PM or earlier closings happening to help kick back the late night unruly behavior from unsupervised youth. Seems to get worse and worse as years go by.

Yeah...these gas prices really have me looking at EVs right now and that's something I never ever thought I would do! Not that I'd pull the trigger any time soon, but if gas gets to some even higher astronomical price, it may not be window shopping anymore 🙃 Also St. Louis is a lot of fun! I've been wanting to make a return trip out there to make some new fresh memories. Their zoo is amazing, but definitely huge and requires a full day to really take it all in. The sculpture park is fun and interesting. Their science museum is rad. Tons of great food to be had all around. Honestly, I'd rather just spend the day hanging out and doing St. Louis stuff rather than go to SFSL. Far too much to see and do outside of that park.

Kroger has a coupon for 4x fuel points if you shop there on Fridays. I’m going to start hoarding fuel points for my Virginia trip in June.

Oh the things I'd do for an electric car and some solar panels at home right now. I'd really like to make it out to SFSL this season to go snag one of the last park-branded magnets or shirts (I did the same with Six Flags America), but between gas prices and the lack of meal plans I think my group's trip plans have also gone from maybe to probably not.

Key word there being "should". I know Six Flags would not bring them back in the company's current state, but I do think a company focused more on guest experience (rather than paying down debt) would know the fireworks are something that should always happen with 10pm park closing at Kings Island. There's a chance that Six Flags starts shutting the park down at 9pm during the week to say "It's not a 10pm closing so no fireworks" if the situation is really that dire. Otherwise they just get rid of them altogether with no excuse. Either is possible.

There's a good chance these trips get massively cut. I don't think I can deal with gas prices for all this. At the bare minimum, I'll try to keep Cedar Point and SDC.

You know deep down that's not how it works. If they get rid of them they'll be gone forever. Here's to hoping common sense prevails and they keep them for all 10 pm closes.

The fireworks ending each night at Kings Island are one of the best traditions that the park has! If the budget really forced any cuts to that department then I would be fine with the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday schedule, but it should be one of the first things brought back when the budget forecast (presumably) improves. Not only is Kings Island the last Taft/KECO/Paramount park that has nightly fireworks — or any form of nightly nighttime spectacular in general — it is one of the only parks in the country that does it. Disneyland and Magic Kingdom have their fireworks, I believe Epcot has a nightly show that uses Spaceship Earth, and Epic Universe is supposed to have one once they get their situation figured out. I haven't heard about any nighttime firework spectaculars that happen every night from many other regional parks. I think Holiday World has one, but I can't remember if theirs is only drones or not. If the drone show does get moved to the fireworks plot then I could see a very large area of trees being cleared for it. The current setup doesn't use the entire Vortex plot from what I can tell, but the firework launch pad is not big enough.

We need to keep the fireworks. I understand they are expensive and not necessary and most people leave at 9 instead of 10 but they are tradition...and we are one of the few if not the only park in the Taft/Paramount group that still does nightly summer fireworks. Hoping the fireworks can stay and if they do need to cut back maybe they could move to Fri, Sat, Sun fireworks nights? Not that I want them to do that but I'm saying please don't get rid of them altogether

On the webcam now, Adventure Express has finally started testing

As it is now and when Winterfest returned, as Winterfest Way (with the blow molds and that animated tree) was/is the best.

The tree that used to sit on that foundation was moved to Coney Mall, across from the Zephyr a year or two after Winterfest returned. Probably more foot traffic in that area. This was before they made that path be the Shooting Star path for Winterfest. That is one of my favorite decorated areas of the park.

If they were to move to just a drone show, would be a good opportunity to move the drones to where fireworks are launched off then finally put a big new attraction in The Vortex site

Lusty Lil's Western Roadshow at the Gossip Gulch stage isn't returning for 2026.