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Im going to stick with my gut and say park improvements and enhanced live entertainment and maybe a more stacked special event calendar with some pop up events like 5ks, food truck festivals, pass holder ride nights, maybe a concert or 2? Think 2008 or 2022. Best case scenario for a new attraction we see a new flat ride or another expansion/renovation to the kids area or Soak City. I mean KD during their 2010-18 coaster drought got 2 Planet Snoopy expansions in 3 seasons.

I've been having really good experiences with my dining/drink plans this season. Most meals have been hot, fresh, and of good quality with visits being at different times of day and different days of the week. To be fair, I am one of those people who've gotten their money's worth (currently sitting at $8.25/meal and $1.30/drink). The worst drink experience I've had was actually today when the Boathouse refresh station was completely out of Coca-Cola. There are examples of good dining plans at the Disney parks and there was a time when KI's dining plan food was top notch. I won't comment on what the meal plans do to the food quality at the park beyond that right now. My visit this evening was, admittedly, not as nice as I expected to be. There are a variety of things that factored into that, and not all of them had to do with the park. I barely waited 35 minutes for Phantom Theater with a full indoor queue. After that I decided it was a good day to ride the train over to Soak City. It took quite a while for the green #19 to make its way back to Rivertown, but when it did it was pulling a full six car compliment. I thought it was busy enough to get both engines out, but it was fine for a random Tuesday. Soak City was nice and clean with some freshly updated stores and restaurants. I'm still amazed at the amount of real estate in the middle of the waterpark that is blocked by the high voltage lines. That would be a great spot for another water coaster. I managed to make it back to the Soak City train station right as #19 was pulling up. On our journey back to Rivertown I got to see a groundhog. I also noticed that the model town looks very slightly cleaned up, though it really needs work to bring it back to looking good. There were quite a few refresh stations that were closed, but most dining locations were open and had short lines. I got a quick (and tasty) dinner from Jukebox and ended my night with a ride on The Bat. I had a fine time considering I'd done more than I'd gone to do. Generally, my visit to the waterpark today only furthered my belief that Soak City needs another major update. RiverRacers and Splash River Junction felt like a start, but it needs more updates overall. One more thing: As sections of the parking lot get repaved and repainted it would be awesome if KI would angle the parking spots. I don't think I'm particularly good or bad at parking, but I can't even describe how difficult it is do get into some of the spots when everyone is sticking 2-3 feet into the lane. Angled spaces would probably help that a lot since it'd be easier to park a big vehicle. There's also a major issue with people parking in the roadway around the middle of the north lot. It looks like they could be parking spots but in reality it's one row, then a buffer, then a driving lane. Some of those green plastic Jersey barriers might help.

I have to say, one underrated part of the CP layout is when you're circling clockwise on the loop, as you pass the Magnun station, there's that added sense of busyness after the quiet walk through Frontiertown that's underrated.

I miss the meet & greets with the Hanna-Barbera characters and especially the Hanna-Barbera carousel! 🎠

Even the Disney folks that visit the parks weekly notice imperfections. Although Disney will tend to the issue a lot faster in most cases because they have a bigger set of cast members to tend to these things.

Six Flags or not, seasonal park or not, realism or not: Nemo is correct that a ride of this caliber requires significant maintenance and attention to detail day by day. A story-based attraction has to tell the same story at the same high level no matter what time of day or season, and anything less will not tell the right story. The park has already learned the impact of poor (and positive) SFX investment over the years. Adventure Express, Flight of Fear, Tomb Raider, The Crypt, Phantom Theater, and of course Boo Blasters have all taught valuable lessons for what theming can do to an attraction. The park chose to add this type of ride for this year knowing what it would take to put it at the top. What is conceivable to me is that they may not have the right people caring that those details are missed, or those people are limited by higher ups on what they can and can't do. While not a 1:1 example, I do think it represents the issue well. Take a look at how many burned out lightbulbs are around the park. Nearly every attraction, shop, menu, or roofline has something simple like this burned out, and they will go months at a time without fixing them. There's a park-wide permissiveness to let some things go. I think that's more of what we're seeing here.

As a technician who worked in shows just like our phantom friends, I have to strongly disagree with this particular point. All departments have a duty to make sure that each presentation of the show is like the last and we do that fairly regularly.