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Ok this is the moment I've been waiting for - My review of Phantom Theater Opening Nightmare! So most of you probably know I relocated to Seattle last year and I was traveling through the area this past weekend and stopped by the park last Saturday and got two rides on Phantom Theater Opening Nightmare. The first ride I just rode through taking in the details and the second ride I used the flashlight to play the game with the ghost notes. First of all the entrance - I don't love the repurposed castle. I feel like they could have done better with that and made it more unique and different however I appreciate that most of the budget clearly went into the ride interior vs a fancy exterior. The que was fantastic. The darkness and the lightning effects were great and really set the tone of an abandoned theater. I was worried the purple wallpaper would be almost Dr Seuss like but the dark lighting makes it look really really good. The audio in the que was loud enough to hear it over all the talking so I was able to hear all the preshow dialogue. The hallway portraits were a nice touch considering that they were a stable of the older version of the ride and are absent from the current version. They actually look much more like paintings in person vs in photos you can obviously tell they are screens. Enjoyed the dialogue loop here as well and it was also loud enough that I could understand what each character was saying The shooting element of the ride I personally found to be distracting. I played the game the second ride through but in a way every target looks the same and I actually found it distracting and hard to take in the actual rooms and characters while chasing ghost notes. I think it's a nice feature for kids who don't appreciate the artistry of a classic dark ride but I personally would probably not play the shooting game on future rides. The sets and scenes were all great and some of the little details are fun - for example I got stopped in front of Hilda's dressing room and noticed all the little fan cards on her mirror (details you miss when just riding past the scene). The did think the stage scene seemed a bit small but loved they payed homage to Phantom Theater Encore. Also, the boiler room was working full force and I love the roses scent at the end of the ride. Hopefully the park will continue to keep all these effects working. Also the original bust on the left after Sir Pretzel was really cool. Glad they were able to incorporate that into the new version of the ride. All in all I really enjoyed the ride and I'd definitely ride it every visit if I still lived in the area. Sounds like I'll have another opportunity to ride it May 2 as my sister is getting married on May 1 this year so I'll be traveling back to Cincinnati then.

The day we had been waiting for finally arrived! Both of my kids were tall enough to ride most of the rides at Holiday World. And so, one very early cloudy morning in July we were off for their first ever visit! We're about 3 hours away from the park, which is of course a big difference compared to Kings Island but still not too bad. The time change really helps for the drive down. We arrived right at opening, and immediately went to Thanksgiving. My kids have been wanting to ride Good Gravy! for a while and to be honest I was equally excited to get my first ride. We were immediately blown away by the area as we walked to the entrance. Theming was on point. Plenty of space for kids to run around and play, plenty of seating for the adults to rest and watch the coaster. We appreciated the shade and all the little details. Another thing that surprised us was having the entire queue inside a grandma's house. With air conditioning! Absolutely genius, Holiday World! We barely paid attention to the wait time as we inspected every inch of all the decorations and rooms. Before we knew it, we were already in the main station. This was a huge contrast to Soap Box Racers, which felt like an eternity to wait in line for. The station team was on point. Super fast, super efficient. They didn't waste a second of time. Not bad for a single train operation! As for the ride itself? Good Gravy! is just such a fun and wonderful experience. Just a joy from start to finish. The ride layout is great, the spike is just steep enough for a bit of thrill and of course the scenery is hilarious. And the smoothness. My goodness... It was so buttery smooth. Like the smoothest I've ever experienced on a roller coaster in my life. With the line moving so fast, we went back for more gravy again and again. Needless to say, my kids are now properly hooked on roller coasters! Despite my kid's love of roller coasters, they were simply not ready yet to handle Voyage and Thunderbird. Luckily for them, my wife loves spinning flat rides. So as they did the Turkey Whirl and the indoor Gobbler dark ride, I said hello to my old friends. Voyage as always was world class. Relentless, high octane yet surprisingly pretty smooth. These people know how to properly retrack their rides!! Thunderbird: smooth, forceful and classic. The Thanksgiving area has really developed since the last time I visited. We knew there were some big rides we wanted to hit up for Splashin' Safari, so we made our way to the Alamo (after all these years still has some of the best queso!) for a quick lunch and then went to the waterpark. And this is where some trouble happened, though we wouldn't realize it at the time... The lockers... So we get into Splashin' Safari, get changed and then find a locker. I noticed right away that a significant portion weren't working for the day, but no matter as there were still plenty that had the green light on. So we merrily find an open locker, and I noticed that the interactive screen was being a bit buggy. I tried to choose new locker, but it just sat there... Now here's where I screwed up: I should've just walked away to find another set of lockers. But no, I foolishly scan my Apple Pay and magically a locker opened. Again, not really thinking much of it, we put our stuff inside and hurry to Cheetah Chase. More on the lockers later! So Cheetah Chase. We could not get how slow the queue line is. It took us a very long time to get to the station, and we quickly learned why the capacity was struggling: people just weren't good a following directions in terms of standing on the scale for weight measurement. Ride ops had to constantly correct guests who seemed to just start wandering around the station... Facepalm... We finally get to our turn to load... and then the announcement blares all over the park... Lightning reported in a storm headed to Holiday World... UGH... A lot of people sat down and planned to wait out the storm, but by luck a gentleman behind us had his phone out with radar. It was a huge complex of storms. I knew immediately this wasn't going to be some 40 minute delay... So we begrudgingly left to find shelter before the storms hit. As it would turn out, that would be the end of our waterpark experience for the day. Lightning and storms for hours... We did manage to get some food at the Wildebeestro which was pretty good though a bit pricey. As the rain continued to pour, we decided to change back into our normal clothes and made our way to the shops to kill time. Found some really cool merchandise advertising Cannonball! Finally around 6 the storms passed and all the rides reopened. With all of the rain a good amount of people had left by this point so away we went to ride pretty much every flat ride offered. Eagles, Antique Cars (way better layout compared to KI), bumper cars (one way is lame...), kids were too afraid of Liberty Launch (and I was honestly okay with that, it usually gives me a headache for some reason), did the chair swings, the crow's nest (what an amazing view!) and then the kids went back for some more gravy! Kids and wife did the scrambler while I rode Raven (so much fun, it's still got it!) and I ended my night on Legend. Holy heck... they had Legend straight up hauling! What a ride! We got some ice cream from Udderly Blue and headed home. While the waterpark experience was a bummer, pretty much everything else was great as always with Holiday World. My kids were blown away by the free drink stations everywhere haha. My daughter kept asking if it was legit. This park just continues to be one of my all time favorites. And with Cannonball coming next year, I think they're just getting better with age. Having the worry free weather guarantee was also amazing. One of the greatest ideas for a theme park. We returned a few weeks later and got to finally experience the waterpark in all it's glory. Only thing we still haven't done was Cheetah Chase lol... After the first fiasco I decided for us to skip that long line and just do all of the other slides and rides. Maybe next year!

So glad to hear that it ended up being a good experience, @RollerColt and really enjoyed the trip report overall!

Very smart to screenshot it.

I meant to post it here right after I saw it, but sometime last week the Fast Lane line was chained off with a sign directing guests to go through the exit for FL. Once I got inside I was able to see that there were multiple ceiling tiles missing in the corner closest to the entrance. There were a few buckets and some water barriers around the area directly under that in front of the queue's western emergency exit door. It was back open both times I went this week. From what I can remember all of the animatronics and effects were working well. The music was missing, but I'd rather the rest of the ride stay in working order before they worry about that. I'll be interested to see whether or not the ride ends up operating or not during Haunt as well. I think it could go either way.

Hahaha goodness me I can't believe I forgot the ending to that part of the story! So it's raining pretty hard, quite windy, but we don't mind too much since we're still in our swimsuits. We get to the locker and I select the option to open... and then I stare at the screen for a long moment. My wife, puzzled, asks what's wrong and I just point to the screen: It's asking for a PIN. Standard procedure right? Completely normal. Only problem was, I didn't recall the darned thing asking for me to create a PIN... Uh oh... I start putting in stuff like phone numbers and birthdates... nothing worked. A staff member happened to walk by and must've immediately noticed the looks of dread on our soaked faces hahaha... Within minutes she's got guest relations talking with us and after we explained our situation they got one of the service support staff to come unlock the locker for us. And this guy was fantastic. Very humorous, light hearted and smart. He asked us a few questions about what was in the locker: we tell him the exact brand of backpack and color, even the make and model of the vehicle we were driving. He told us this stuff happened all the time and most likely someone before us initiated the locker rental process but stopped just short of paying. He said a lot of people see the price, not realizing lockers aren't free so they just walk away when it asks for payment. It went from a very stressful experience to one we've been laughing about for weeks now. And when we came back the second time for our worry free weather day, I made sure to check the screen asked for a PIN before paying! Live and learn!

I did not read that the same as everyone else here. I read it as we were able to turn off the sprinkler system, and it will stay there until we are good and ready to do something with it. Structures are condemned all the time and still remain standing.