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With the holiday madness behind us, I finally had the chance to pour over the plans. Put some thoughts/predictions/observations together. Spoilers Ahead! Hoping to have some more time to get into the effects listed in the plans, because I feel like this could give us a better idea of what these scenes could include. Same with the super blurry concept art storyboard that's been posted here a few times. Anyway. Time for me to go touch grass.

The 2025 season has officially come to a close for Kings Island and 2026 is starting off strong with a new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare update episode from the park. Some notes about the upcoming season are as follows: 2026 will be the second full season under the new Six Flags Entertainment Corporation, with all-park add-ons now working across every North American park in the chain. Kings Island will open for the season on Saturday, April 18th, 2026. A Passholder Preview event may be held on 4/17, but I haven't seen anything official on that matter. Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare is set to debut this Spring as a revival of the classic Kings Island attraction that occupied the same building from 1992-2002. There is hope that Monster will reopen after being down for all of 2025 while a little further north Invertigo has received a new lift chain, hopefully to also reopen in 2026. The 1926 Grand Carousel will celebrate its 100th birthday this season. Similar carousels at Carowinds and Kings Dominion received informational plaques and an anniversary horse design for their 100th anniversary. No plans have been released about other park projects, but we may see survey markers and site clearing for a potential 2027 or 2028 attraction. I believe we might also see some upgrades elsewhere in the park like we have in previous years with the Festival/Carousel Pavilion and other retail location renovations. With new leadership at the helm of Six Flags and changes being made across the board, I will be very curious to see how this year turns out for Kings Island.

Are they removing the FunTVs from the que? I'd really hope so, honestly it took away the haunted house vibe that Boo Blasters tried to have, I'd be 100% fine with just hearing the Maestro and No Legs Larry talk in the que as well as the eerie music being played. Boo Blasters used to do that in the early 2010s but it was replaced by the FunTVs for some odd reason. I'm hoping its a little darker in the que too.

I really wonder if we’ll see any “construction/prep work” before the decade ends. The park hasn’t gotten a thrill roller coaster since 2020 which has not necessarily been part of 3-5 year formula (technically it is if you include the kiddie coaster.) With new chain however, I’m sure that formula has more or less been thrown out the window, but nevertheless as one of their most highly attended parks in the Cedar Fair legacy chain, it’s somewhat shocking that we haven’t heard a whisper of anything large coming down the road.

The front half of the park will obviously undergo an overhaul and retheme over the next two years. For 2026, there's not only the new Flying Fox coaster, but the restaurant (Casa Mia) at the front of the park is getting a massive overhaul. For 2027, the current 4D theater will be repurposed as an indoor coaster/dark ride that I've heard has yet to be chosen. The area around it will no doubt be overhauled - ala what they did with Discovery Cove. There's also a floating rumor that the giant swing ride (Skycatcher) may be relocated to the front half of the park. I'm sure the focus will then turn to the back half of the park for 2028 and beyond. I have also heard that the park has been eyeing what to do with the rogue/poor placement of Kentucky Flyer. This is due to the fact that its often "missed" by guests who don't know how to find it, or even know its there. If the rumor of moving Sky Catcher to the front of the park holds true, that will leave it as the only dry ride in that back side of the park. It would also be the only attraction negating waterpark expansion into that land area. It will be interesting to see its eventual fate. Finally, the Fairground's West Wing and West Wing Pavilion - adjacent to the park's entrance - are being demolished in the coming year or two. New wings are being built to replace them. That will affect the entire lot directly in front of the main entrance and will likely prompt a major overhaul to KK's entry plaza. BTW - I was at the fairground this week and got to see the Flying Fox construction site up close. Probably only about 1/4 of the footers are poured. The station foundation is present, Once the park closes their Holiday event this week, I'm sure they will begin tearing up the midway for the underground tunnel. There's lots of prep work still left, so I'm sure it will be a month or two before any sort of track arrival/vertical construction will begin.

I believe the inverted busts are being removed and replaced with screens for PT:ON. All of the screens (monitors) and projectors are labeled in the plans, and those boxes are labeled as being used for monitors — likely because the inverted bust illusion might not work as well when guests are standing next to them for more than 30 seconds. There will be a lot of digital elements mixed in with the 33 animatronics. The Grand Rotunda will hopefully return to this level of grandeur, though I didn't see anything in those electrical plans about the chandeliers or overhead curtains returning. I think anything will be better than how Boo Blasters felt toward the end.

I mean in 2027, it's Vortex's 40th birthday. So maybe we can see a record breaking inversion base coaster. Feel Free to suggest any ideas of what Vortex 2.0 will be like.

I've not seen anything on the boards about the "New way to play" for the midway arcade. This was taken from the (several) digital ad boards thorughout the park. The 2 things I didn't capture was the claw pulling up a fastlane pass and a 2026 Gold Pass. Something is coming to the Midway Arcade, didn't know if anyone has any further information on this. (Pics by me).

That space is useful during WinterFest. Especially since they brought back What the Dickens! They essentially had two indoor shows there, which helped on nights where it was brutally cold.

There do not appear to be connections for the FunTV screens listed in the plans so I think it's safe to say they will be removed. I'd really like to see some of the lines from the original return to the ride, especially in the queue room. The dialogue we saw at IAAPA is probably what will all go in there, but a little antagonism sprinkled in here and there might help with any guests who are so far wary of PT:ON because of its "goofy" nature. The electrician is still named Gus in these plans, though I assume it would be easy enough to sew a new name tag onto any of the animatronics costumes.

I wish. But it honestly looks like it’s listed specifically as “Boiler Blast” with nothing referring to Garbonzo.

Could the explosion/blast in scene 24 be what Rick pitched back in 2022 during that Q&A at the park?

I mean Carowinds and Knott's have been waiting longer. Knott's I understand as space is so limited there, but Carowinds was under a rapid expansion plan up until Covid that included Intimidator, Fury 325, and Copperhead Strike. Also not to mention Orion didn't perform the way they expected and we're likely in the "coaster penalty box" bc of that. The merger just made it longer. Ik it opened during a pandemic, but the park didn't see as big of a bounceback in 2021/22 as you would expect for a giga with more people being able to come check it out. The last time legacy CF invested in a giga and didn't get a good ROI (I-305 at KD) the park went 8 years without a coaster and ended that drought with an inexpensive conversion of Hurler (Twisted Timbers). It wouldn't shock me one bit if KD is about to see another major coaster drought as Rapterra didn't seem to bring the ROI they wanted with it. I think we were lucky to get at least a family coaster as KD didn't even get that between 305 and TT. I also think KI fans took the every 3 year timeline for granted so I think it was time for us to sit back a bit longer and enjoy the current lineup. Even before covid happened I suspected it would be a while before we got another major coaster after Orion as it was such a big investment for the park and CP was the only legacy CF park that didn't have to wait 4+ years for the next big thing post giga addition.

We finally made it to Christmas at Kentucky Kingdom. While the event is modest in scale, we had a very pleasant evening. It was a bit surreal to have Dollywood-style cinnamon bread but nice to have a seasonal variation like cranberry cinnamon bread with cranberry icing. The snow tubing hill set up in the wave pool was quite steep and fast, which was a contrast to the one at Kings Island's WinterFest (which might be limited by the available space in Action Zone). The light coverage on a number of the buildings was impressive to go with the "house style" of the Herschend parks even if it perhaps lacked some of the precision of Dollywood or Silver Dollar City. Still though, the amount of photos being taken made it clear guests liked what they were seeing. It's nice to have another holiday park event relatively close to the Greater Cincinnati area. Hopefully it will stick around and flourish in the years to come.

I stumbled upon this video and thought I'd share.

How many daycare centers serve German food

IMO, this would be a great location for a few things: VIP Lounge PT Gift Shop A museum Relocate Great Pumpkin Coaster indoors (silly I know but it could be another indoor attraction that isn’t dictated by the weather and could open up some space outside)

This shows how much space the enchanted theater wastes that could be used for something else.

That costs money they don’t have right now.