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I think WinterFest 2025 was great! As far as rides, pretty decent lineup. I had a rare opportunity to marathon FoF a few times on slow nights. Because of that, I've ridden FoF more times during this WinterFest than at any other point period. Racer being open is an absolute win. Some of my best rides on Racer have been taken during WinterFest. And it runs amazing! Mystic Timbers is always a blast. I absolutely love our train, but going with what @SonofBaconator said, they really either need to retheme the experience or add , like, a lot more lights. As far as food, I was able to get quite a bit of the seasonal meals. Per the advise of @DonHelbig, I was finally able to try the much acclaimed Holiday Meatloaf Burger. And it really did live up to the hype! The Meatloaf Burger is a top 10 food item at Kings Island. I also tried the Honey Ham & Cheese fries from Potato Works and they were pretty good. The Mac & Cheese bar at Enrique's is always awesome and hope it sticks around. As far as lights, the park looked amazing as it always does! Kudos to everyone involved with setting up all the lights and decorations. On the subject of the Holly Jolly Trolly, good riddance! Yes it was something to do. But on busy nights it would crazy walking through Coney Mall and trying to avoid the path of the trolly. Overall, WinterFest was great and I can't wait for April!

Had a dream last night that Food and Wine festival was held in Soak City

Update this year I did ride The Bat for the first time and I have to say I quite enjoyed it!

For a bit of background, an old employee who worked at the park in the 70s as some of the Hanna-Barbera characters has a pair of gloves of Bingo from The Banana Splits that he kept after all these years. I’ve been trying to help him find out how much they’d potentially be worth. I’ve a contacted the former employee who fabricated the Hanna-Barbera costumes, including the gloves in 1974/1975, and a few other Kings Island collectors, though we all agree that an estimate on what they’d be worth is near impossible. Thoughts?

Sorry y'all I've been busy and haven't been able to get a trip report in for when I went to Magic Mountain Holiday in the Park with my partner on black Friday. So here it goes - Started the day with an awesome ride on Viper after seeing that X2 and Revolution were both at an hour wait due to one train ops. Viper is still kicking butt after all these years and I have never found it to be that rough. It desperately needs a paint job but I did hear they recently replaced the lift chain so at least it seems they plan to keep it around a while longer. Probably the last big arrow looper left along with TN Tornado at Dollywood. Loch Ness and Viper at Darien Lake are good rides but they don't hit those high speeds and have the twisting layout of multiple odd types of inversions. Viper is the only arrow looper that actually reminds me of Vortex. We hit the magic mover up the hill and grabbed a ride on tastu which is still my favorite flying coaster. Then we headed to Ninja and rode once in the front and once in the back. Next was my #400th credit Apocalypse which I did find somewhat enjoyable after hearing lots of complaints about the roughness from other friends and enthusiasts. We then went to Gotham City and rode Riddler's Revenge, the bumper cars, the round up flat, Batman, and the new wonder woman coaster. At this point it got darker and the Christmas lights came on. We snagged a ride on Goliath and then did the buccaneer and swashbuckler flats. We knew we didn't have enough time to brave the long lines for Twisted Colossus, Full Throttle, or West Coast Racers seeing as they were all definitely over an hour or possibly even two hours. We went back to the front and revolution was walk on so we rode it and it's a surprisingly good night ride. We also did the carousel, two night rides on ninja, one night ride on Viper, and then waited 90 minutes for X2 at the end of the night (still with one train ops). Overall it was a good day at the park and we got to hit a lot of the flats that I ignored on my previous visit in 2022. We ended up riding Ninja a total of 4 times because it might be the last time I get to ride it seeing as it's definitely showing age and they are building the new Vekoma prototype suspended coaster. Ninja is my second favorite arrow suspended after The Bat at KI and it's going to be sad when they eventually decide to remove it. I think when we go down to LA for the holidays next year we're hoping to go to Knott's. I'm unofficially boycotting them until they get Montezuma's Revenge open so I'm hopeful that we see more progress on that project now that track is reportedly going vertical. Hope everyone is having a great start to 2026 and looking forward to many more exciting trips and coaster riding this year!

Great TR! I adore both MM and Knott's and can't wait to get back to them. No plans made yet, but I want to!

Maybe KI is getting their own event? Like Cedar Point with Boardwalk Nights and Knott's with Summer Nights. I wouldn't mind seeing something specifically for KI over some copy and paste event from other parks.

i've never been on WindSeeker, Drop Tower or Delirium.. also orion, Banshee and Diamondback lol

King Cobra eluded me by a year. After not having been at the park since 1997/1998, I got a Gold Pass in 2002 and on my first visit in May, headed up the Eiffel Tower before leaving and got to see an empty space of dirt. I hadn't been aware of the removal until that moment.

I collect Kings Island memorabilia...and with that said, I don't personally think you are looking at any kind of a gold mine with these. If you had something more interesting like the head, or even the vest it would be something that someone could display in their home...but a couple of gloves are not that interesting to look at. (imho) eBay will always be the final say on what someone is willing to spend on them...but my guess is at the max these would sell for about $350.00.

Interesting because in my experience the CP one tasted better. But I think we can all agree panda express is better portions and flavors outside the park. KI just has so many better options these days. The food has come a very long way in the park even from when I started going regularly in 2011

Time will determine whether this debt refinancing announcement by Six Flags is remembered as smart financial housekeeping or as a missed opportunity. http://www.interthemepark.com/observationsixflagsdebt.html

Six Flags will probably opt to renew or extend the the Texas Partnership and still has majority ownership of the Texas partnership. By declining the buyout, they can avoid taking on another $344.2 million in debt to pay for the buyout. The End-of Term Option from the last quarterly report: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001999001/6109e747-0c95-451d-91e6-6687f18de9f3.pdf

This picture is from around 6 years ago but everytime I go to Kings Island I enjoy talking to Pops! This year I spotted him working at the Grand Carousel, I hope to see him again in the 2026 season!

I'm almost 30 years old, been going to KI my whole life and I've never ridden Backlot Stunt Coaster. (Or now known as Queen City Stunt Coaster.)