KIghostguy

Christmas at the Southern Palace at Six Flags Over Texas. https://twitter.com/amusementtoday/status/1568733271953141762?s=20&t=pa93wMLC_5eTkhOO-cMg6w

Well deserved! Great to see the park get the award and recognition. Also worth noting that Kings Island was ranked as 8th best park in the world in the magazine issue! Pretty cool to see. But also--Carowinds Winterfest is the fifth best Christmas event in the world?! https://amusementtoday.com/issues/2022/GTA2022/

I'm definitely surprised there wasn't any new Phantom Theater merch other than the poster this summer--maybe it's just yet to come in? The characters are unique, distinctive to Kings Island, and highly marketable. The Usher plushie in particular is a no-brainer. I would buy that for sure!

And to think there was almost no central water feature in Rivertown at all! Greg Scheid originally wanted to eliminate Swan Lake completely when building Diamondback. I'm grateful and happy that we at least have some water features left in the park.

IIRC the Rivertown waterfall was turned off when Diamondback was installed. I miss that one as well!

I miss this SO much. Relaxing in Tower Gardens next to the waterfall is one of my earliest memories of the park. I was so upset when they got rid of it.

Alien X sounds pretty cool. I always like it when they tie a Scare Zone or Maze into the land that it’s in. Nice that we’re getting a replacement for Urgent Scare, too!

I think that’s great. The last two times the organ was restored, it was so quiet you could barely hear it. You had to be standing right up against it. I think it’s a beautiful sound and it deserves to be heard throughout the park.

I popped in for a quick visit today earlier this afternoon. The "No signal" TV that was broken at the Flight of Fear exit vignette is back in operation! Which was great to see. The podcast wagon is still not emitting audio. No idea about the station music/light in the meteor because like I said, I was just there for a quick visit. It's great to see that that TV was fixed, I hope the other elements will be repaired soon.

The organ was working today! Yay!

I haven’t heard of any other parks having trouble replacing lightbulbs and fixing broken speakers. And there’s no excuse for constantly gating off a themed show space that you spent money to build in the first place.

That TV has been out since last season. For a significant portion of last year, the TV had half of its display burnt out! I guess the rest followed soon after. A shame that it’s been so long without a fix.

I think you quoted the wrong post.

The sign was installed at Kings Island in June 2020. I believe it was originally created during Copperhead Strike's teasing campaign.

I noticed that the instant photo booths have been reskinned to fit in with the land they are in. Very nice touch! Here is Rivertown’s:

Area 72 is in quite a sorry state. No audio coming from the podcast wagon. One of the "surveillance camera" TVs in the Flight of Fear exit photo booth vignette is black with a "No signal" sign. No music in Orion's station--no surprise, there's been no music in there this entire season. It's only a custom soundtrack that the park spent a pretty penny on. I haven't been able to spend time back there at night since I got home from Hersheypark, but I assume that the light in the meteor is still burnt out? Just like it's been since JUNE 2021. I also assume that the spotlight on the Bureau logo is still burnt out as well? Why did the park invest in this stuff if they were going to let it all break down or burn out anyways and decide not to fix it? Orion is a great ride, and is still the newest ride in the park. Kings Island should make sure that the total experience is still shining like new. The quonset hut was gated off today, as it is probably 85% of the time I've visited the park in the past two years. Working at the park last year, I had multiple guests stop in and ask me why the building was gated off, so it’s not like this goes unnoticed by the average guest. I get that it's gated on lower crowd days, but Heaven forbid guests have to walk another 10 feet. Quelle horreur! Even more frustratingly, the queue blueprints from May 2019 show that there was not supposed to be a gate in that location. It was going to be a solid queue railing. Why spend the money and time building cool theming and a fun preshow if you're just going to gate it off almost all the time? Also, one of the show lights in Mystic Timber's Shed is burnt out. Don't know for how long since like I said, I've been gone almost all summer. It's to the right of the main screen and is supposed to illuminate the animated saw blades on the wall. Cross-threading here a little bit, but I do worry about the possibility of Phantom Theater coming back. Would I love to see it? Absolutely. But the park right now seemingly has trouble with speakers and light bulbs, so how on Earth could they maintain animatronics and illusions long-term?

The organ broke down yesterday afternoon and they popped the CD back in. The Carousel was playing the CD all of today. A very disappointing sound to hear! Not a good look at all for something advertised as one of the key permanent changes to the park this year.

Walked through this yesterday. What a great way to activate this space and bring some new life into this beautiful respite! Remember when this was just a trashy smoking area under a previous administration? How far the park has come! My only other comment with this is that I'm genuinely surprised there is no mention of Gary Wachs or even Charlie Mechem. They did such a nice job paying tribute to Rick Bastrup in the Phantom Theater Encore lobby, I'm baffled why they didn't do the same thing for the park's founders! In fact, there's no substantiative mention of either of them ANYWHERE in the park at all this year. When you go to Carowinds, E. Pat Hall is on everything, when you go to Hersheypark, Milton Hershey is everywhere, etc. Just a really bizarre choice for Kings Island, especially for its 50th Anniversary. P.S. Bring back the waterfall!!

I arrived back home from interning this summer at Hersheypark on August 13, and I'm so glad I came back just in the nick of time! I was able to catch the 2:30 and 5:00 showings on Sunday and immensely enjoyed them. The music was catchy, the script was funny, and all the actors and actresses and dancers really put in a lot of effort. The audience was very engaged during both showings. There were lots of great references to the ride, and it's awesome to have the characters and music back in the park again in a prominent place! And of course, the lobby display was fantastic! Seeing photos and videos of the show and lobby all summer has been great, but it was even better to finally see it in person.

The two scrim portraits in the lobby are original. They were discovered in the basement of the Action Theater IIRC. As far as the stage, Garbanzo’s cannon and the mummy case are from the ride. One of the vases on stage is from the Prop Room—it was right next to the mummy. Not sure about the other stuff on the stage, but those items I know for sure are original! They were all thrown away in a dumpster, unfortunately.

Interesting—Off the Rails was previously listed as ending August 14 and Phantom Theater Encore was previously listed as ending August 21.

I’m not going crazy—the show is supposed to end August 21, correct?

Goodbye and good riddance. Even an empty plot of land would be an improvement.

Holy cow! I watched the video, and this is so much more than just a "stunt show." Really, really impressed and can't wait to see it in person. I will say I am surprised that there's no mention of the biggest dreamer in Kings Island's story, Gary Wachs. Is there mention of him in any of the 50th programming this summer? He only founded the park...

It looks beautiful, can’t wait to see it in person. I am absolutely baffled why this wonderful production is only lasting until August 21? It seems tailor-made for Haunt. And it would be great to do a Christmas version for Winterfest this year…