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Kudos to KI for dealing with the dining pass tech glitch tonight in a guest positive way. Sometime around 5:30-6 they weren’t loading (at least at Enrique’s) so they were just manually tallying people who had them (and it you had the ap, asking if you could tap “pass add ons” just to verify) would’ve been easy to say “ you’ll need to pay until we can get our system back up. Also when I asked at G&G if they could check and see when or if the scans ever went in they said “you can just use it again-we aren’t checking time” again would’ve been easy to say “there’s no way we can verify if it’s been 4 hrs,so sorry” the park does a lot of dumb things, but this was the way to handle this. I’m sure if word got out, people abused it, but you sometimes take that risk with guest centered decisions.

It missed the mark. It fell well short of garnering the same level of anticipation, interest, excitement that teaser campaigns and earned media placements did for Diamondback, Banshee, Orion, and the parking tolls leading up to those announcements. Slapping posters on a wall as teasers just didn’t net the same results. It would have created more buzz had the teasers been things like boulders being placed around the front gate area and around park with steam coming out. The posters were not aligned with what planning and design had in mind for the backstory. And then on the night of the announcement, a banner was unveiled with a rendering and it had The Racer with one side running backward. So, guests were wondering if that was returning instead of talking about Orion. Plus, half the conversation on social media was is it really a Giga? The parking tolls announcement had everyone buzzing because an aerial photo from behind The Racer that showed the parking lot and tolls was used on social media with the accompanying post copy saying two things that had been at Kings Island since 1972 was going away. Naturally, everyone assumed The Racer. “What’s Kings Island doing?” stories were everywhere. New York Times. Los Angeles Times. Boston Globe. I worked with KIC on that teaser and that really helped amplify the speculation. When it was announced new parking tolls and the original parking tolls would be torn down, there was a lot of conversation on social media with people breathing a sigh of relief The Racer wasn’t being torn down. Because of all of the chatter, news of the new tolls was nation wide. Matt Ouimet, Cedar Fair’s CEO at the time, was impressed that I could take new parking tolls and get it in the New York Times, and other major papers. Orion could have had that same kind of media coverage leading up to and for its announcement. It didn’t make it much further than the park’s backyard. just a lot of misses from start to finish.

^First, the water coasters you see in water parks (not the ones made by Mack and Intamin that are actually roller coasters) are more akin to slides that just happen to have uphill sections. They're called coasters for advertising purposes. 2nd, if you're really getting pedantic about it being a coaster based on having to carry the vehicle up, most early coasters before chain lifts were common had to have the cars pushed up by hand or used pulleys.

There are 2 different ways water coasters work. The one KI is getting uses water jets and probably needs lighter loads to work. Then there are ones like Wildebeest and Mammoth which use magnets that are much heavier and require lifts. I was hoping for something slightly longer with 2-3 more uphill sections, but I'm pretty happy with it as is. Soak City was due for an update.

That makes my heart speed up just reading that! Was a very cool experience.

This feels like a question for @Captain Nemo. Apologies if I've forgotten any other former TRTR ride ops!

That was always one of my favorite areas in the park

Despite how people felt about the ride itself, marketing wasn’t stellar compared to previous additions.

Just throwing this out, KI’s model is modified layout to allow the rafts to cross the finish line besides each other. The second launch was replaced with a high speed turn and airtime drop. It’s cool to note that from all the published information, this water coaster appears to be the steepest, fastest, and have the largest drop.

HB rights are owned by Warner, I think. They also own Looney Toons and DC comics. I dont know if SIX had rights to HB and didn't use them, or if they never persued it. I'd love to see Scoob and Snoop hang out together while Velma looks for her glasses Daphne and Fred head to the Mystery Machine and Shaggy heads out to the smoking area. Maybe when they meet back up, they can take the mask off of Saleem!

It feels very nostalgic!

I've been scouring the national sites of Cedar Fair and Six Flags since the merger. Today, the LCF parks were added to the park selection section of the Six Flags national site.

Yes, and all your add ons will work as well

It is weird seeing the old pictures of Rivertown devoid of Diamondback and Mystic Timbers - feels like forever ago!

After two days at Great Adventure, I wanted to post my thoughts on the park. It was my first visit to any Six Flags branded park, so I didn't know what to expect. It's a really odd park. Once you turn into the park it's a good 5 minute drive winding around the huge property before you get to the parking tolls. The water park is completely separate, to the point where you turn off for that before you get to the parking tolls for the regular park (they have a free shuttle to get you between parks, but you have to leave the main park and walk a bit to get to the stop). The good thing is it's a nice clean park and, for the most part, very well run. They have an impressive collection of coasters (S&S 4D free spin, indoor Mack wild mouse, 5 B&Ms (hyper, standup, floorless, inverted and flying), the two famous ones (El Toro and Kingda Ka), an indoor dark ride/coaster combo (Skull Mountain), a kids coaster and a 50-year-old Arrow runaway mine train). It also has a nice selection of flat rides (carousel, bumper cars, swinging ship, etc). Staff was friendly, security was around the few rides where absolutely no loose articles are permitted to help enforce the policy, etc. Security at the entrance was excellent as well - they have metal detectors similar to the tall open ones KI has, but someone is monitoring them and you might get sent to secondary screening. If you do, you put your phone, keys, wallet and bags in a tray, and everything is sent through an airport style x-ray screener. However, the layout of the park is just odd, and it seems at times they couldn't decide what to do with it - there's a Boardwalk section with games, boardwalk-style buildings, a frontier area, a couple of DC themed areas (Metropolis, which is where the two new rides will be, plus another area with two Batman themed rides), two restaurants that look like they're straight out of a fairy tale (and both the carousel and bumper car buildings match), then random rides scattered about. There are two kids areas, which seemed nice. The swinging ship in particular confused me. It's the same model as Viking Fury, but the ride cycle is so short it's barely enjoyable (ride lasts 90 seconds at most). Then there are the SBNO rides. They're working on renovating some classic rides for the 50th anniversary this year, but none of them were ready yet (though it appears the giant wheel will be open soon - a sign nearby says they're waiting on the state to finish certifying it). There was no sign of any progress at the sky ride or log flume, nor at the site of the new coaster and flat ride which are still being advertised as "opening in summer 2024". Twister, their HUSS Top Spin, was SBNO both days, with no sign explaining why (though I wouldn't have been able to ride it anyway as a sign at the ride says they don't allow sandals or any other open toed shoes). Wonder Woman Lasso of Truth (similar to Delirium) is closed for manufacturer required maintenance. Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom is closed for the same reason and so they can get the state to certify it again. There's also a large empty structure near El Toro that appears to have been a stadium of some sort at one time. The prices seemed to be on par with typical amusement park prices, though there's that famous "surcharge" they add on to every purchase ($1.30 to combat rising costs supposedly). Overall I had a great time (not a bad coaster in the park - I'd even venture to say that Batman: The Ride is better than Banshee), but it just seemed a bit neglected, and navigating the park was challenging at times (the navigation feature in the app is all but useless). I didn't venture over to Hurricane Harbor or do the safari (it was closed today and I was focused on getting coaster credits yesterday, especially after a storm rolled through and shut down rides for a good hour due to lightning in the area after the storm passed), so I can't comment on that part. The park could be a lot better if Six Flags put more effort into it. I was particularly surprised that the new rides for 2024 weren't even open yet (and they still have a construction fence around them).

I love it, and moving BLSC to Action Zone would be great.