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Enchanted Parks has eliminated the former Six Flags dining plan and lowered the price of most food entrées by 20 to 30 percent, bringing many items back into the mid-teens after some had climbed as high as $20 to $23 under the previous pricing structure. Enchanted Parks CEO James Harhi said the decision came after reviewing more than a year’s worth of guest feedback before the acquisition closed. Food cost and food quality, he said, were among the most common complaints. Harhi concluded that menu prices had been pushed too high in part to offset heavy dining plan usage, leaving single-day guests and less-frequent season passholders to absorb much of the cost. “The math just doesn’t work long term,” Harhi said of the dining plan model at a park of this size. “While there were people who really loved it, holistically it was not the right thing for the company.”

Seeing what @BryanJay did makes me wish they went this route with the redesign:

I honestly think Festhaus as a whole needs a top-down renovation.

The Festhaus men’s restroom has been in desperate need of a refresh for several years now, The men’s near the junkyard coaster(the worst one in the entire park in my view) as well as the Soak City ones too. Its about time for an off year at this poiny.

I think I’ve said this somewhere else, but the ride would be 20/10 for me if they had kept “So you wanted to see the theater did ya?”, which could’ve easily gone where Larry’s first onboard audio message currently is since that isn’t necessary to the storyline. I say the same for the boiler men and gargoyle having their quotes. I doubt the ride is something that changes too much from where it is now, but I’d love for them to add a bit more audio if they ever wanted to return to it. But personally I love most of the changes they’ve made: I know people are upset Maestro isn’t as antagonistic, but I think the queue audio actually handles that well. I might make a thread about it in the future if I have a strong enough concept, but I’d love a haunt/winterfest overlay that actually changes some of the audio and story to the ride instead of just putting Santa hats on all the characters. I don’t think there’s any financial incentives for it though, I think people are showing up to these events and will ride the indoor ride if it’s open regardless.

I take anything Screamscape says with a grain of salt. Also idk if it would be the best idea to go with a prototype from S&S given the track record of S&S and prototypes as well as the reliability of recent S&S installations. Looking at you Maxx Force and Steel Curtain!

I have also noticed some effects not functioning. I fully believe it's kinks that will be worked out as season goes on.

I wouldn't be surprised if Invertigo closes the same year the park starts construction on whatever is replacing Vortex.

I just watched it and thought it would be an amazing Halloween overlay! He lined all of the audio up pretty well with the new scenes and overlaid some of the new audio onto the old to make it more immersive! Imagine this ride experience in addition to a re-recording of the original queue soundtrack. That would be a fantastic seasonal throwback to the original while still allowing the new version to keep its spotlight during the rest of the year. Great job @BryanJay! I hope the park takes this into consideration for some special event/festival rides!!

And I would honestly be shocked if Tony Carovillano isn't the same way. After all he was supervisor at Vortex during its first few years I believe. I'm honestly sure any park president who knows and understands the park doesn't want to lose any of their major rides especially when they still haven't replaced the one removed years prior.

We got our second ride in yesterday morning after waiting 120 minutes. The queue seemed to flow a lot faster than it did during the passholder preview. I really wish the queue line loop was a little longer than the 20-30 minutes it has now, though. All three queue line animatronics were louder and worked nicely. The portrait hall characters and Rick (the queue instructions presenter) were also louder and easier to hear. The lights during the ride were dimmer than before but I think they could be even darker. I deliberately noticed some of the behind the scenes stuff in the dark and enjoyed seeing that. We were in the front car for this ride (we were in the back car on Preview Day) and I didn't notice the repeated lines as much, but it's still very noticeable on most of the POVs I've seen. Hilda really needs at least one more line that isn't just her screaming the singular note. I think I'd prefer something more like Madam Leota's loop during the Haunted Mansion where you can't really tell where the loop begins and ends because it's constantly running and has dialogue that doesn't repeat the same thing for each car. Houdelini is also a good candidate for receiving more voice lines since his can easily be heard from both Garbonzo and Hilda's dressing rooms. Anything that sounds like a spell or magic trick could work. I'm a little fine with some of the effects not working for now since this is only the second weekend of the ride getting full-time use, but I do hope they can fix everything in a relatively short time period. The popcorn and boiler smells weren't working during our visit, nor were the screen in the first boiler or the blast of hot air. We smelled the roses at the very end, though. I've come to some more conclusions after thinking some more about doing up the ride for Haunt/Winterfest. I still think they should record a more antagonistic queue loop (closer to the original ride) for Haunt, but for Winterfest I think they should at least put up some Christmas trees and lights. Maybe change out the popcorn smell with a pine needle smell.

I was curious, so I googled this expression, which lead me to Wikipedia. It's pretty fascinating! "The phrase is thought to come from Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia, regarding the discovery of a recipe written by the Pontic king Mithridates to make someone immune to poison.[2] One of the ingredients in the recipe was a grain of salt. Threats involving poison were thus to be taken "with a grain of salt", and therefore less seriously. The phrase cum grano salis ("with a grain of salt") is not what Pliny wrote. Pliny's actual words were addito salis grano ("after having added a grain of salt"). The Latin word sal (salis is the genitive) means both "salt" and "wit", thus the Latin phrase cum grano salis could be translated to either "with a grain of salt" or "with a grain of wit", actually to "with caution"/cautiously.[3] The phrase is typically said "with a pinch of salt" in British English and said "with a grain of salt" in American English.[4]" Source: Wikipedia lol

Has anyone else noticed that the layout in the brochure for the S&S Axis coaster seems to work with the SOB station if The Bat was removed? https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/60be9a2c8c73a085920bb514/63694d27176f1e4564ae7501_Axis Brochure.pdf

Unfortunate that not everything is working 100%. Hopefully they are able to troubleshoot it and get it all functioning

First, let me get this wishful thinking out of my head: The clearing of the SoB station means that it will be the station for a multi-launch thrill coaster. This coaster will be more focused on the area where Timberwolf Amphitheater, Congo Falls, and Invertigo are now, so those will be retired before the Haunt stuff arrives. The reason this area is being prioritized over The Vortex plot is the fact that much of it is right by the entrance, and the entrance needs to be improved over what’s there now to make a better front gate impression. (/Wishfulthinking) I am traditionally a pessimist when it comes to a lot of things, and I firmly believe in the off year possibility. I’m talking about a Cedar Point 2026-level off year, where nothing is added and only some restrooms get renovated and a wall is removed between connecting buildings. I can’t see KI getting new flat rides in 2027, since Cedar Point could use them more (there are four spots now that could use one, and I’m not even considering the island). And I’m not sure there’s places that could use more restaurants (or Coke Stations or Dippin Dots) within the park (I haven’t been there outside of Halloween Haunt or WinterFest since 2020). And if a flat ride package or a Grand Pavilion-esque restaurant is in the park's future, that could push the new coaster back into 2029 or 2030.

If there's another thing I think could be changed is they should turn off the music on the pathway from I-street to Phantom Theater where the ride exit is along as well as the ride entrance area and have a spooky soundtrack or even the old wind/squawk sound effects that used to play outside the ride entrance playing there. Then transition to Vince Guaraldi music when you get into the main part of Planet Snoopy.

I can say with certainty that it’s not Larry.

Got another ride in this morning. Got to take the kid this time. Still totally love it. Wow. Seemed like everything was working well too. Only had to wait 20 minutes thanks to Fastlane. Glad to see the wait time over 100 minutes. People seem to be excited by it. Hope this sets the standard for future additions. Really special stuff. That said, the enduring mystery of the man behind the curtain between Houdilini and Hilda continues to drive me insane. You can see the feet of whoever’s back there pretty easily. That, coupled with the air blast effect makes me feel like something is definitely supposed to be there. Very odd.

Just had a change to get this together today from last Friday!

It would only be a single new train since it's still an inverted boomerang that can only run with one. I think it would be a cool touch if they did those colors for the top of the lift hills, vertical loop and the cobra roll. Depending on the budget, I think on-board audio like what's on Siren's Curse would also help add some nice theming to the attraction that you don't really have with the other coasters in the park. I don't think it's that unlikely Vekoma would bring back an inverted boomerang, considering they developed a new boomerang model like what you have with Flash at Six Flags Great Adventure. Whether or not Vekoma builds something like that depends on the demand for a new inverted boomerang model.

I think Maestro still sounds like himself, the difference is that Richard Doyle used a less antagonistic tone of voice in the new recordings. That's literally the most authentic voice acting you can get without reusing the original recordings. While I agree that I miss the heavily antagonistic and scary tone I've seen in videos of the original, I think the new version is what the park needed. The music does need to be turned back on and the audio levels fixed throughout the whole ride. I think the park and Sally Dark Rides will be making some adjustments in the upcoming weeks while the park is closed. The ride speed also felt slow, but I'm not entirely sure about that being the case. I have a theory that some things like the speed were set a certain way for the first rides (such as the decreased speed to help everyone get used to the new loading arrangements) and will be fixed.

Will reserve judgement until I go to the park, but looking at the facade, my mind goes to the turrets(?) are now part of Maestro's pipe organ.

You can thank me for making part of the extended queue line for Phantom Theater.

I don't think we've seen an opening day line this long since Orion or even Mystic. Bravo to the park for hyping everyone up for this! I can only imagine the opening day line for whenever The Vortex replacement happens if they hype it up right....

I heard the line was 3 hours...where did they put all those people?.the indoor ques for boo Blasters usually only held maybe 45 minutes of people max

I just got off a little bit ago and I must say the attention to detail was a very good . The interactive flashlights (which I was unsure how that would work) turned out very fun and kids are going to absolutely love it. All in all, I think they now have a new hit at Kings Island that will create family memories for generations to come.

Still in line…. Totally surreal. 3 hour wait. Popcorn scent in front of the “snack bar” is a nice touch!

Not sure if anyone else experienced this but they were only loading 2 buggies at a time and then skip 2 buggies then load 2 more again that would contribute too a longer wait time as well