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Well, 2025 starts tomorrow and there is quite a future to look forward to: 2025 will be the first full season of Six Flags We have River Racers debuting in Soak City, the first addition to Soak City since Tropical Plunge in 2016 We will probably, at some point, start seeing signs of the 2026 "family thrill attraction" Lastly, possible 2025 offseason removals. Personally, I'm counting down the days until April. I cant wait for the off season to end!

Personally, I'd love to see an S&S Scream n' Swing in the Crypt plot. Rivertown needs a high thrill flat ride and that would be perfect.

Ready to go Into The Racerverse in 2025!

So over the weekend we did Boo Blasters during Winterfest….. the lights were on… and oof. I know it’s been on a down hill slide for a while, but with the lights on, you can really see how sparse it really is.

Last time I checked The Vortex plot has been empty for 5 seasons now...

It would bother me the way they're doing some things now, like removing rides without notice so guests can get in their last rides and say goodbye.

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.

Don't kid about a thing like that.

Can’t wait for Flight of Fear to be removed so we can get a Haunt maze in there.

I was able to do the Winterfest Holiday Buffet last night at the international restaurant. I thought the food was good and the restaurant is beautiful. For $40 it was worth it. I do question if $130 for NYE is worth it or not considering that's more than you'd pay for a meal at Jeff Ruby's. Last night I was able to get rides in on Racer, FoF (lights on), Mystic Timbers, cargo loco, zephyr, and boo Blaster. My dad, sister, and I all made master blaster which is what happens when all 3 guns in your vehicle actually work.

How did KI do for Haunt 2019 in polls and attendance after Vortex closure was announced....(for those that don't know, it did very well) Sometimes companies don't want to learn from the past...

I believe the mindset is they don't want any negative sentiment going into the Halloween season, so they choose to say nothing until they have to. However, it only makes it worse by not being transparent and it gets discovered by park fans digging around.

Correct, they are moving the fence out and building a new maintenance drive for the new slides at the pumphouse. I am guessing the new easement is for a new Duke service pole and drop for the electrical service.

Also, that award goes to food quality as a whole, not just a few select spots in the park while the rest is meh. As someone who's been to Knoebels, BGW, and Dollywood, there are many parks out there that steamroll KI's food selection and quality.

I think that they should fill up where Vortex used to be first and then go over to where Timberwolf was

Adding to the Vortex spot first is my vote. Then focus on AZ.

Who the Schell is Logan? Also I like the sweater!

Even if the cost is high, whether it be the proposed motion stage or a flying theater, its not to say the programming and show couldn't change every few years similar to action theater. You could market it as an entire new ride if ridership begins to drop, and then long term it could be a worthly investment. You could even make a more extreme version for haunt, or holiday version for winterfest

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

To be honest, while Orion is a great ride I've even had non enthusiast friends tell me they thought "isn't it just another Diamondback?" Even a member of the GP can tell when two rides are similar. I get that KI took over a project that CGA abandoned but at the same time I do feel like the park needs something more unique the next time around. Don't get me wrong Orion is a great coaster and I'm not knocking it or saying it's a bad ride. I'm very glad we have it. However the next time around we need something that will please the enthusiasts crowd but also something that will get the GP excited and thinking "wow I've never seen anything like that!" Unfortunately with current communication slump the park seems to be in, the next coaster project probably will have very uninteresting teasers and promotional material. I think it's bad when you see billboard ads for Dollywood in Cincinnati and not for Kings Island...

I would agree, when compared to earlier installations- the hype wasn’t there; especially when one remembers that it was the park’s largest ride investment.

@DonHelbig what were your thoughts on the Orion project from it’s conception to its announcement?