Losantiville Mining Co.

Double post for my fellow webcam watchers: It looks like the ATLA/waves scrim wraps on Surf Dog have been removed. I'd love to see new scrims go up to make the ride look better. There's also a small crane between Franklin's Flyers and Beagle Scout Acres (it looks like the same crane that was next to Monster a few days ago). If there used to be a tree/bush to the left of the PS restrooms like I thought there was, it's gone now. I haven't seen much movement by Phantom Theater this week so I think they're done painting. There look to be little posts for a fence near the new concrete pad but I can't tell for certain. All of the Winterfest sheds were removed from International Street on Monday. I think the Scrooge's Sausage Haus sign is still up on Grain & Grill. The Royal Fountain looks like it's being prepped for filling. The main park sign has not yet been put back up. WindSeeker tested earlier today with the gondola sitting at the top of the tower for about 10 minutes. Zephyr's central steel tower has been reinstalled, though the rest of the ride must still be backstage. Monster's fence remains in place and will probably continue to stand until the park knows for certain that it'll be up and running. The Kings Island park map is still the 2025 version. I don't expect to see the 2026 map released until either April 10th or Opening Day. The events calendar hasn't seen any more surprise changes since yesterday's Star-Spangled Night change. No live entertainment offerings are listed, but I think it's been confirmed that HiFi Honey will be performing in the park for a few days again this season.

Do you think having a second FL Reserve scanner at the entrance to the Fast Lane queue would have helped avoid people coming in before their timer expired?

Fixing the lights would help with the ride's atmosphere a lot! I hope those come back. Does anyone know if they use a crane to assemble the arms and cars onto the rotor or if it's more of a manpower job?

I believe the reasoning for tying the new Fast Lane system to a website instead of the Six Flags app is because the website(s) can communicate with whatever server(s) better than the app. It's a bad system, but I think it's still early in development. I would much prefer it if they made FL Ultimate a wristband-based pass and gave guests a way to use FL Reserve from their phone or a kiosk (also using a wristband). Anything to get guests off of their phones where possible.

If they keep selling passes for such cheap prices in August then it'll be hard to wait until April when the price goes up $40+. I'm hoping that Six Flags (hopefully well under Reilly's leadership at that point) will make an effort to fix their season pass program and prices as a part of their efforts to right the ship after years of mismanagement.

I agree that Kings Island's hands might be tied by Six Flags corporate when it comes to seasonal events and such. They see the status quo at KI as fine enough and what other parks should be living up to, so investment will be put into the parks that "need it". (Kings Island definitely needs to continue to be invested in, but it's unfortunately not near the top of the list IMO.) I think the lack of event and ride upkeep is some of what JANA Partners was talking about in their letter when they said that Six Flags (and honestly Cedar Fair to an extent as well) have been mismanaged for years. The company likes the status quo too much and are too scared to change or fix things the "right" way, which manifests itself in the ways we've posted about. It's also what has led to the chain having less investment money compared to its competitors, also leading to what we've seen. Around the same time today that Kings Island quietly changed Star-Spangled Nights to a one night celebration, Cedar Point added their own version of the Food & Wine Festival in the new Barrels and Bites. This could be another addition to offset the fact that they're not receiving a new ride, but it still stings. To me the likelihood that a sizeable number of guests stop purchasing season passes is low. There would need to be a more-than-major dive in quality for guests to abandon the regional park their family has grown up at, at which point I don't know if the park would be able to easily recover.

The two arches on the left have been uncovered now that the park is working to de-winterize the fountain. I think one reason they're covered in the Winter is to block them off from the ice skating rink, but I'm not certain. The rest of the fountain appears to have been partially cleaned as well. Another thing I noticed on the webcam is that they've finally removed all of the artisan sheds from around the Eiffel Tower. I wonder why it took so long to remove them? Maybe they were using their normal "home" space for something else. On my recent trip to Kings Dominion for their Opening Day, I saw that they might actually have a space that is the closest you can get to the Royal Fountain out of the three parks that have one. I think it was at most 1.5ft from the rim of the fountain to the curb of the path where those tables are. The 2019 jut-outs at Kings Island might get that close, but it looked like the KD one got closer.

The crane that was parked in front of Monster is now gone, even though none of the arms have been put on. I wonder why it was there?

I was thinking this as well. A lot of seasonal events at those parks have been going for 10+ years with some barely seeing big changes since 2020. While those events change up their menu items and entertainment offerings, I don't think Cedar Fair/Six Flags have seen much reason to change up event offerings like that — especially under their "the status-quo is fine" era. This will be Grand Carnivale's 6th year (skipping 2020 and 2022), the Food & Wine Festival's 3rd year, and Star Spangled Nights is being made into a week-long celebration. Carnivale definitely needs something to revitalize it, but if this is indeed the event's last year then I hope we'll get something new and improved in 2027 that isn't just a cookie cutter event already found at other parks. The fact that Halloween Haunt, Tricks and Treats, and Winterfest are not yet shown on the events list does worry me. Carowinds and Cedar Point both posted their entire 2026 festival calendar while some other parks are in similar situations to Kings Island. I don't think this is a sign that those events are cancelled, it just upsetting that the park hasn't released the information in (what I'd consider to be) a timely manner. Comparing the 2026 events list to the 2016 list, then yes it is indeed smaller. On this day in 2016 Kings Island had the following events posted to their website: (* exclusive to Gold or Platinum Passholders; ** exclusive to enthusiast club members) Opening Day (4/16) Banshee Brew Festival (5/06, 5/07, 5/13, 5/14) Exclusive Night Rides for Banshee, The Bat, and the Blackout maze* (5/13) Coasterstock** (5/20-5/22) Soak City Gold Pass Preview* (5/21, 5/22) Memorial Day Weekend Free Military Admission (5/27-5/30) Food Truck Festival (6/03-6/05) Dive-In Movies (6/03, 6/10, 6/17, 6/24) JDRF One Walk (6/04) Exclusive Night Rides for Diamondback, Woodstock Gliders, and Woodstock Express* (6/16) SpiritSong (6/23-6/25) Fourth of July Holiday Free Military Admission (7/02-7/04) Sundaes & Slides* (7/03, 7/10, 7/17, 7/24, 7/31) Exclusive Night Rides for Racer, Monster, Scrambler, and the Grand Carousel* (8/11) National Roller Coaster Day (8/16) Fire and Safety Days Free Admission for Active Fire and Police (8/26-8/28) Glow Run 5k (10/21) Run & Ride (10/21, 10/23) Compared to the current 2026 Events calendar: Perks & Play Season Passholder Preview* (4/17) Opening Day (4/18) Soak City Opening Weekend (5/23) Food & Wine Festival (Fri-Sun 5/29-6/21) Star-Spangled Night (7/4) Grand Carnivale (7/18-8/02) Something I just noticed while typing this up is that the week-long Star-Spangled Nights event has been quietly updated to only be one night long on July 4th. I thought that kind of thing would've been important to get right before publishing to the website, but apparently not.

I think the only ones who could have had a chance at stopping the merger would have been the stockholders. It felt like the higher-ups from both companies wanted the merger to happen. If they hadn't merged I think there's a world where some of the lower-tier legacy Six Flags parks would've been in danger of closing instead of being purchased by a chain or operating independently. Either way, the merger is already done and we're beating a dead horse. (I also think the Cracker Barrel rebrand was always planned to be reversed in some way, but that's neither here nor there.) After my last post I watched a Green Tagged video about this letter from JANA Partners and they mentioned a few things that I hadn't remembered hearing. It was said that they want the board to replace Marylin Speigel as Chairman and to reorganize/replace other board members either in an effort to bring in fresh ideas and move away from the old guard or to replace them with board members who align more with JANA's goals. Allegedly the Travis Kelce x Six Flags brand partnership might not have paid off like they wanted so this letter was the next move. It was also mentioned in the letter that they like John Reilly and what he's trying to do for Six Flags. Generally it seemed like they might see certain board members as road blocks to making this vision a reality so I'm inclined to agree with JANA if this is the case. That said, there is a chance that they want to replace board members in a private equity-esque manner. Going back to the use of legacy branding (especially on social media) I'm convinced that this is still used because of some board members trying to hold onto that brand despite it being synonymous with poor quality. If I had my way I'd try replacing board members with non-Cedar Fair or Six Flags veterans (but still amusement/theme park company veterans), and see how that goes before thinking more about splitting the company. If that doesn't work then I'd split the company into two independent operators based on location and what I think they'd be best suited for. I've written about my wishes for a new KECO on here before so I'll keep this to just my lists for now. You may not agree with my choices but I think they could work well. Company 1 (Thrilling Theme Parks): Kings Island, Kings Dominion, Canada's Wonderland, Carowinds, SF New England (renamed Riverside Wonderland), Great Adventure, Fiesta Texas, Knott's Berry Farm, Darien Lake, and Chicago's Great America Company 2 (Themed Amusement Parks): Cedar Point, Discovery Kingdom, Frontier City, Six Flags Over Texas, Six Flags Over Georgia, Dorney Park, Magic Mountain, SF Mexico, SF Qiddiya City, and the park-independent Hurricane Harbor locations

Yes! I'm not entirely a "This merger was a mistake and should never have happened" guys, but I do think splitting the company up would help in the long run. The fact that they took on the Six Flags name still baffles me. They chose brand recognition for a bad brand over making up a new name and trying to start somewhat fresh. Six Flags also still uses the legacy branding on their social media accounts despite having a new logo and a whole other set of branding conventions that they could use from the Cedar Fair side of the company.

I think they could even get by with adding a big temporary planter or two and putting up some standing decorations like they had at the back of International Street in 2011. Anything that would give the area something to look at without being terribly permanent. I still think Kings Island should straighten out the end of Coney Mall to align with the rest of the midway. That could refresh the land while they wait for the new coaster. A (second) new vine tunnel would be nice to have, just not on the path between Rivertown and Coney Mall. That's one of the last areas of the park with a big tree canopy and I'd hate to lose it. I would much rather see the park demolish and replace the Planet Snoopy Grill in a manner that would allow for a new tunnel to go right where the original was. Most of the path is still there, albeit covered in tables and a service area for the Planet Snoopy Grill.

I think I'd rather lose an event than lose the nightly fireworks, but that's just me. It wouldn't surprise me if they were sending the fireworks and drone show money up to Cedar Point since they're allegedly getting a big nighttime spectacular for their America 250 event. Since we don't have a 2026 KI Dining topic yet, I'll post this here: A mobile ordering tag has been added to the following dining locations on Kings Island's website Auntie Anne's Coconut Cove Cafe Jukebox Diner Potato Works Sand Bar The Mercado The mobile ordering button was put in the new Six Flags app back in November, but wasn't usable since there were no locations that accepted it. To use it you'll need to be in the park (with location services turned on). I don't know how it'll work with dining plans, but I hope that's something they're including functionality for. I really wish Six Flags would update their "All Park Location" feature to also include the names of each area of the park like they do for some legacy SF parks. Right now the only options are "Kings Island" and "Soak City Water Park".

I suspect some of the blaster effects were turned off to cut down on the maintenance and make it one less thing to fix on each blaster. The ride at Kings Dominion still has the sound effects and has laser pointers to show where you're aiming. Kings Island probably didn't ever get the lasers because how how the ride cars were set up (nobody wants a laser pointed at them from another ride vehicle). Maybe they're being given to those folks who won the giveaway (I keep reading that they only ever received one email about it and nothing else after the old social media team left.) More likely, I think they might be used as spare parts for the other Boo Blasters.

It's also looking like Ragin' Cajun and the other relocations are getting at least a little bit of a refurbishment before fully arriving at Great Adventure. The track is certainly being painted and some parts were spotted heading to the Zamperla (?) location in New Jersey. I don't know what they could do for any of the rides they didn't manufacture, but that's just what I've heard from people in NJ. I've been thinking that Great Adventure needed a wave swinger and flying scooters for a while so I'm glad they're getting some basically for free. As for if KI should've gotten RC: I don't think we need it. The ride would've been nice to see occupy the Xtreme Skyflyer plot, but I feel like it would just hinder whatever revitalization/reorganization Action Zone desperately needs. If anything, I wish they would at least find a way to reroute The Bat's entrance to go through Skyflyer's plot.