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Thank you for reading! I'm glad you enjoyed it. It's hard to believe we are coming up on the five year anniversary of the book's release.

The fountain is filled with a large valve and outspout near the pump room located underneath the International Street Bandstand. It looks kinda like one of those old top loaded washing machines with a middle agitator where the water fills the compartment before actually running.

Its been over 4 years since anyone posted on this thread. Back in around November, I read a ebook version of the book via the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library. I try to be really economical when it comes to books I read and tend to read via the library’s truly enormous collection of both books and ebooks. It took me like 6 hours to read! I learned quite a lot of things I didnt know, one of which stood out to me in particular due to me being basically a lifelong die hard LaRosa’s fan. The fact that Kings Island is the reason theme/amusement parks have pizza. Its such a cool yet bizarre piece of information. Bizarre because youd think a different park like Disneyland Park would have pioneered that but nope, it was Kings Island(that and the fact that KI pizza didnt entirely start out as LaRosa’s). And now, LaRosa’s have been sponsors for Kings Island for longer than I can remember. It was so fascinating to read, Ive spent way more hours on Kings Island history than any other park’s history at this point, it being my home park and all. Really neat to read through this thread and see some of the makings and BTS of the book.

I agree with this, and would like to add that Kings Island was a pass heavy park for years before we "stopped" receiving interesting things. (The park is still getting good major investment, the stoppage/slowing mentioned is simply a sentiment many have shared on here and other social media sites.) I'd argue that Kings Island is the status quo that Carowinds and other parks are being told to aim for in terms of attendance and quality, while KI/SF management are firmly content with where the park is now. This is naturally leading to a feeling of stagnation since the focus has been shifted. If the park wants to think outside of the box for new events or update their current ones then they'll need to find a way to increase guest interaction without forcing them to pay $20 each time they visit the event. Unfortunately I think the company will try to use whatever they can to pay off debt, so events that change from year to year like the ones at Dollywood are out of the question for now. Most passholders will probably be fine with lower quality because KI is their home park and is a family tradition. Families feel the price of a pass is worth it, even if they only ever visit twice. If they take a year off it might be hard for the park to regain their trust, which is why it's important to at least keep the status quo. In other news, the Royal Fountain is being filled for the season. Does anyone know how they fill it? It looks like there are a few hoses being run into it, but I feel like that would be inefficient way to fill such a large basin. There was also someone working on a few fountain sprayer nozzles earlier today. I wonder if they'll reinstall the park sign after it's done being filled or wait a little longer.

I mean Music Hall looks kinda like a castle so maybe the park is going for that kind of vibe with it.

I think I got the dates for Missouri lined up- July 23 or 24-26- St Louis July 27-28- KC July 29-Aug 1- Branson I am now leaning hard for 2 days for SDC, especially upon being surprised how cheap Reds @ Cardinals tickets are. EDIT: I don't want to jinx anything, but assuming everything I plan on riding is open at the time of my visits, I will be getting to 200 coasters ridden this summer. SDC will be my last new park, so it'll happen there.

Also while ik it's hard to see it and it could just be the sun shining on it, but it looks like the facade from the metal part of the building has been painted purple instead of the greenish/greyish color from the past which would honestly be a nice touch.

There seems to be a boom truck of some kind in the Monster area

A potential spoiler of the exterior.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDie0UKOk0s Spoiler Alert! Doesn't look like much of the castle was changed just updated paint.

I like the building expansion idea, however, is a large steep hill directly behind the building. The service road on the back of the building goes down this hill and connects to the basement so I don’t know how practical expansion would be

I knew nothing about Cheers so I had to look it up. Its way before my time and not really my taste, Im not huge on sitcoms at all though at the same time, some cartoons Ive watched share similarities to sitcoms. Still, thats really cool

Universal sent out a survey to AP holders a few weeks ago asking questions to judge interest in Epic Universe AP scenarios—likelihood of expanding existing passes to include Epic, stand-alone passes and ticket packages. One of the things that surprised me was that when explaining the potential offering to add an expansion to the existing AP to include Epic it “would be roughly twice the cost.” It seems a little steep to double the cost of the existing two-park pass, but I guess they don’t want to overwhelm their already concerning capacity issues (still, in my mind I was thinking more like a 50% increase in cost to add Epic—that still puts a premium on it.) The option I rated highest was the opportunity to purchase a 3 or 5 day annual package of day tickets to Epic at the time of AP renewal that could be used over the course of the year. (It specifically said that an option like this would require advance reservations—which doesn’t bother me.) No pricing was proposed for these packages but you have to think it would be lower (or at least no higher) than the current daily discounted price for AP holders—and, if my after 4p Express benefits would apply I’d definitely be on board with that option.