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They also stated that it will be replaced with a different show.  I don't believe Winterfest is going anywhere.  People spend plenty of money there.  I see several boxes of cookies being carried around, plenty of people skating, buying the specialty hot chocolates and pulling out credit cards at restraunts.  There seems to have been several misses this year.  At the beginning of the year people were talking about cutting hours and or days and instead we got extended hours (sundays till 11 for haunt) added days (thursdays) and an additional weekend after Haunt.  (strange that if you are expecting anyone to admit missing those points you'll only hear crickets...) We are fortunate enough to have enough of a population around the park to keep it going with little to no competition.  Kings Dominion competes Bush Garden Williamsburg an hour away. We have no major park that close to us. We compete against animals inside their shelters in a zoo and drive-through attractions.  People during the winter tend not to drive too far away from home. If you want a sign of Winterfest going away I believe the first sign will be when Ice Skating is not offered one year.  It takes ALOT of money to do that and since they have already seemed to drain the fountain in preparation for Winterfest, I think it's safe to say Winterfest is safe for the foreseeable future. 

The issue I was running into when trying to fit the boat ride in was figuring out where the most trees could be spared. The new one at Carowinds looks like it's just a big pool with a boat track in it, and I'd like this one to be set in a larger area with more trees. Maybe instead of putting the boat ride there the park could figure out another way to reduce/clean up the amount of concrete in the area. I know the park prefers to have excessive amounts of clearance for their trucks (whether it's intentional or not), but areas like that and the front of International Street are in desperate need of something (even temporary) to break up the vast swaths of open pathway.

I don't expect any new add-ons to come to Winterfest this year. Unless there were additional fees for Holiday in the Park activities that Winterfest didn't have, we probably will just get similar offerings to last year's event. I forget who said it, but the quote goes something like this: "If Kings Island's Winterfest is not profitable, it's because of bad management". Fear-mongering doesn't help anyone, but it is worth saying that everyone should go take in the sights and experiences this year because Six Flags has proven themselves to be wholly untrustworthy. If any part of Winterfest is on the chopping block in the foreseeable future, I'd bet we'd see it scaled back to the scale of the 2005 event. (I agree with you BryanJay!) Surely someone in the SFEC corporate offices is doing calculations on whether cancelling an established event is worth the bad press and potential lost customers. With the new CEO will come the potential for a shift in strategy and some changes to the event lineups as well.

That shirt is in the Emporium! It also has a Halloween version with a dead snake in the Haunt store

I'm disappointed that they did nothing with Phantom Theater for Haunt this year. It would have been so easy to have Maestro open up Haunt every night or have the characters roaming around during Tricks and Treats, promoting the new ride. It would have been the perfect seasonal tie-in and help promote and build interest for the new ride. It's not surprising, but still disappointing that the park doesn't do any creative in-park marketing anymore.