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Turkey Ball in Grain & Grill > then the Meatloaf Burger outside Juke Box Diner in the cold.

Went for my likely last visit to Winterfest for the year last night. I had a great time in all honesty. The weather was great and the crowds were light. First thing was dinner at Coney BBQ. The Turkey and Corn Soufflé tasted great especially with the Cranberry BBQ sauce (turkey). I did not go to any shows during this visit, but did catch several midway merriment characters and part of the parade. Took a ride on the 12 Days of Christmas train. This time, they actually played the song, though by the 5th Day display, we were on the 9th day of Christmas. Of course, there were lights out including the number 12, but it's okay because the song was already over and we were on some weird version of another Christmas song. Some displays were missing their heads, some of them were lit well. I still don't know why they can't send them to the manufacturer (I think it's a business in the Pigeon Forge area) to get refurbished in the "off season." This was my first visit to the park with snow on the ground (even if most of it was in piles) and some on the rides too. It made the event more magical to me. I ended up buying a print from Theme Park Art and it's one of Vortex. It was fairly priced and a gorgeous piece. The highlight of the night honestly was the food. I got the turkey ball at the end of the night and wow, I'm sad I hadn't had it before.

Even without those walls, it was super bottlenecked in that area

Christmas overlay is epic, the choke point due to broken concrete isn’t.

Currently working on an Old Coney redesign for Coney Mall and am looking for some suggestions. So far I'm looking for a good way to make this path junction less awkward. One of my ideas was to remove Jukebox Diner (moving any restaurant needs into an expanded/replaced KillMart building) and create a new small area with something in the center. The largest issue that I'm finding with that is that it doesn't address the fact that a two-path midway is jarringly cut into a one-path midway between the game building and KMAA. Unfortunately, I think the best option would be to realign the midway to have it continue the trajectory of the rest of Coney Mall (outlined in white). This would fix most of my issues but would also require so many large trees to be removed. I'm slowly talking myself into the latter option more and more. The park has already lost so much of its natural shade. Part of the charm of the older sections of Coney Mall and all of Candy Apple Grove comes from the trees and all of the stuff they have along the midway. The current (peach) and former (green) pathways of this area. My initial redesign, leaving the trees while requiring the demolition of Jukebox Diner. The "perfect alignment" option, requiring the removal of Jukebox Diner and the large trees while fixing the path issues. Shake, Rattle & Roll would become the new southern viewpoint — a role formerly occupied by the Action Theater plaza and WindSeeker until the pathway was bottle-necked. A new dining location would take the place of Kill Mart and the functionality of Jukebox Diner. This might even be a good spot for my Moonlite Gardens dream with its nearly 15,000 square feet of available space. The games building would be moved to be in the middle of the new alignment. A new activity (maybe a stage?) would be built in the remaining area left by JbD's demolition and new restrooms would be built between the 3-Point shot and the new activity. Vortex's plot would be filled with a Vekoma Ghostrider launch coaster sporting a more 1980s-ish "classic" theme as opposed to anything like the cyber-themed thrill glider coming to Magic Mountain or Siren's Curse at Cedar Point. I'd like it to have a launched lift hill (like Maverick) with chaser lights to pay homage to Vortex. The pink is an existing associate break area for anyone wondering.

Monday 12/15 was a great night to see the Christmas lights with snow completely covering the ground. The crowd however was very low but park management did a great job tonight. They kept the park opened for the advertised hours. Racer and Flight of Fear were operating all night. Racer was just operating the red side and the blue side still has snow on the tracks. Mystic Timbers, Soap Box and Sol Spin were closed. The train and Shake Rattle and Roll closed early and most of the outdoor entertainment was canceled. They also quietly closed down the duplicate restaurants earlier in the night (pizza, burgers). But there were rides open until Park close and restaurants open until at least 930.

Yes, @malem was able to find the cause on the back end and get that fixed. After applying updates, instead of rebooting and coming back up it was just shutting off. We are going to work on getting the forums and database updated in the coming days.

The blast of the cool air on a hot summers day walking into the Festhaus with the smell of pizza.....