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A new horror theme area at Kings Island. Guys Action Zone might be finally getting a retheme it deserved.

Which again bears to question WHY? Why charge different prices for anything other than one park silver? Now that they are touting this whole “visit all parks” idea, then charge way less for other parks, they are just asking for people to do this.

Well, sure. But that doesn't mean they are certain they know what park is getting this thing. That's a pretty "snarky" way to refuse to substantiate a claim. But doesn't that imply the chain is not yet certain where the ride will go? What seems most likely to me is that SF has a very short list of places where the ride would be a good fit and can be installed, in terms of available space, justified ROI, etc., (they wouldn't have purchased the ride without such a list, obviously) and is working down that list to confirm the best fit. In other words, they aren't yet certain where the ride will go.

That right there is why having so many parks in one chain is not a good idea. Especially a mix of very big and small parks. Under Cedar Fair now merged with Six Flags there just isn't room in budgets to invest in these smaller parks when you have these big destination parks that need investment year and year out.

I would take the Halloween themed area over anything the park could ever add, by an enormous amount. I now will never be able to enjoy the park until that happens.

Whether the coaster is relocated won't matter with time. Ask the Phoenix fans at Knoebel's.

Not gonna lie, my first thought when I heard they bought this was "With what money?" Judging by how they staffed Kings Island this weekend, it would seem like Six Flags doesn't have any room in the budget to spare. Operations across all departments felt like they were at bare bones despite it being a holiday weekend with great weather. Regarding the actual sale itself, I can't help but feel lukewarm about it. I'm glad the ride lives on, but I also can't really feel hyped about it. So much of the anticipation comes from the gradual reveal, piecing clues together, and looking forward to whatever the ride experience may be; but I feel like once we know where it's heading, that's going to be the end of the excitement. It might be nice to ride it again if it ends up nearby, but it's not something I'm itching to get on no matter where it ends up... And if it does end up at Kings Island, for me, it will always feel like a hand me down. There'd be no finer point to it not belonging to the park than it retaining its original name.

I agree, they knew where they wanted it to go before they made the purchase. No question in my mind there.

All of this right here. The chain probably still needs to get quotes for land grading, modifications to add capacity/adjust the layout to fit in a park, and look into permitting to make sure they can even install it in a park. I bet that's why the location announcement will have to wait until the end of this year and why the coaster construction may not even be finished until 2028/2029.

If I'm Epic Universe, I am calling Vekoma to install one of these in the French Harry Potter district for a flying broomstick type of experience. Or a Quidditch match!

OK - Sorry its long but it is ALL my thoughts after experiencing this personally this past Monday. For context I waited about 45 min Friday only to have a shut down in the last queue room. It was 7:45 so I'm not sure if it came back on-line as I left to go get dinner. We then waiting about 90 minutes on Monday, so this is with a "this better be worth it for this wait 2x and 60 million" review. It was not sadly. First, I REALY wanted to LOVE this attraction - I’m so disappointed that I don’t. Dollywood has so much riding on it. This is their first REAL entry into the “big leagues” of fully immersive dark ride. This is how they compete with Disney and Universal. The whole of WildWood grove in 2019 was about $36Mil, this was about $60Mil for one attraction. This is also the one that was Dolly’s finale - her last ride announcement, her last ride opening. I know there were issues with the timeline and the whole project was clearly WAY behind schedule, then there was sadly a major push to get it open regardless of being fully complete when it was clear that Dolly was leaving soon. Regardless, there are fundamental design challenges that hold it back from being GREAT. Why does this ride exist in this form? Dollywood needed a great indoor dark ride that everyone can ride together, yet they chose to go down a “mild thrill” road that still has a 39” height requirement and is advertised on billboards as an indoor immersive rollercoaster - which will instantly turn some off, even BEFORE the water aspect kicks in with some older folks refusing to ride it even if you (incorrectly) convince them “you wont really get wet”. I don’t see the metrics they are using to make growth and expansion decisions, so I can’t speak with any authority, but I don’t see why they went this route. The only other fully indoor ride is the aging Blazing Fury which also mixes coaster elements with a dark ride, so based on that, they still haven’t really filled that niche that an “its a small world”, Navi River Journey, Haunted Mansion or any other true dark ride. They have so much rich lore and history to draw on, and even their own characters of Flit and Flutter as well as Benjamin Bear, so I’m not clear why we needed to add additional characters of Jasper and Cora who, for some reason unexplained, are on a mission to Secret Lake. Secret Lake itself is based on the Cherokee legend of Lake Atagahi - An enchanted lake believed to be at the heart of the Smoky Mountains, it is said to play host to those worthy enough to find it…if they can, that is. The legend surrounding Lake Atagahi paints a picture of tranquility and nirvana. It provided an oasis and healing waters for wildlife. However, for those who dared to disrespect this pinnacle of natural beauty, only death awaited. The legend of Lake Atagahi remains an integral ancient lesson that applies even today. But while some believe it’s just that, others think it’s still somewhere in the Smoky Mountains, hidden away by the animals and rumors of ghosts that roam its lush greenery. Now THAT is the foundation for a dark ride. It doesn’t need to have external conflict that gets resolved - that just hurt re-ridability. Even at BigBearMountain we never find the bear, leading us to go on future missions to try again. As it stands in Nightflight, we find the lake… ok…now what? We go up a dark hill to the load platform and we’re done. What is this place? Is Hidden Hollow Aviation a new place, old place, mix of the two? The building is “surface aged”, which doesn’t give it any authenticity. It’s an aviation hangar. Yet there isn’t a single airplane parked outside. The inside is too perfect, too clean - which makes the wear and vandalism that the queue is already seeing only a few weeks into being open even more obvious. Why do the lights in the first room get dim and bright for no apparent reason? Why is there no way of modifying the switchbacks to accommodate shorter wait? Just this past week I saw waits of less that 10 minutes, but no way of altering the path. Why do we not walk through the open BAY 1 door into Jasper and Cora’s bay? Doing that would make the other bay doors seem legit, but instead we walk through a standard door beside the bay door, so the other bay doors are obviously tacked on set dressing. The theming is static room sets that look too perfect. where nothing happens. There seems to be a show scene in the second room that maybe isn’t working yet. The lamp randomly dims on and off and there is a blacklight above, but the other lights never dim to take advantage of any glow. There’s a gecko painted on the table leg, but it never glows. The third room “sets up” the story, yet the TimeSaver line totally bypasses it - yet it could easily have been routed into the room, in front of the set, then out along with the standby line and both routed up the stairs the same way. Even the steps up looses the build of the attraction. We’ve just seen this amazing narrative, then we walk into what looks to be outside- join with another line in an airplane hangar that again, has NO AIRPLANE or aviation propping hanging from above. We move to load and the vehicles keep moving, which should be great for capacity, but it makes loading challenging from a non-moving platform. It also makes the hosts frustrated because people keep trying to cross the boat to put things in the bins that are there. Which causes the hosts to keep literally yelling “do not put ANYTHING in the bin” so why are they there? Why have we established the operational standard of “put your stuff in a bin” only to yelled at to not. I see older people and kids tripping like crazy trying to hold everything and step into a moving, and wet, boat/car while you are standing still. It ruins any “magic” that has built to this moment. Then we're off! Wait - when did we become paintings? Yep, we board the ride and enter an illustrated world - on full view from the load platform. Only in some of the last promo materials did they hint at the art direction for the ride being more flat and presentational. In the queue we saw the Legend of Secret Lake book, but not the inside. We don’t know we are about to enter it… maybe.. did Cora paint these paintings? They whole thing is a muddled mess. Why don’t we leave load and see a realistic nighttime scene, so it seems like we are simply off on a flight through the actual mountains, then as we turn the corner and head to the projection room, something happens with light… a portal… smoke… lightning SOMETHING magical that explains why we just became painted. Then we meet a CGI Cora and Jasper, who seem way older than the set-up implies. Why do we need to see them at all in their weird, CGI way? We’ve only heard them randomly in the queue (never from crackling radio like in the teaser video) from unseen places, so why now, when they can communicate to us through the radio on the tracker vehicle, do we need to see them at all. Why for a ride all about bioluminescence does nothing seem to really glow? The whole ride feels way over-lit (giving the ability to see too much of the infrastructure and wrinkled backdrops. Why no blacklight painted sets? It feels more like Sunset Expedition as its never really dark unless its jusy pitch back nothing. It never seems truly magical. I did smile as we rode along, but wondered why am I not seeing flashes of these magical glowing animals? Where is the wonder and why are we even doing this? What’s the payoff. Finally we shine out bioluminator on a root and “Here it is!” Drop down to another CGI Jasper and Cora who made it first, we sail along through the first really magical moment and “YEA! We discover hidden lake - which again could be magical if it was so over-lit that you can see all the wires for the magical fireflies and in the center of the lake is what looks like a turned off fountain, that suddenly starts billowing smoke. Is something about to rise up from it? No… Nothing? Lights swirl underwater - it looks pretty - it goes black - we climb a dark lift hill with ALL OF THE WATER IN THE BOAT pouring to the back to soak your shoes - so much for not getting wet. I now have wetter feet that I did on River Rampage. We dock. It’s over - we get out. WHY? Why did we go through all of this to find this lake? Just to say we did? For a park that prides itself of telling authentic stories, this one seems manufactured to hit a demographic. The setting feels like it needed to have more story development, or no story at all. We need to meet Jasper and Cora out in the real world so the transition to painted world along with us makes sense - are these people who only live in a painting? Or, just take us on an amazing adventure to secret lake to see the glowing animals and plants come to life. I agree with others that it is an “only at Dollywood” story and attraction, but it misses the mark in so many places, and none of those misses are major revisions, just things that I can't believe they didn’t concept through more during development. This ride cost A LOT and it's getting fairly lackluster reviews. It was rushed because it was so far off schedule and they cared so much to have Dolly see it open, but that doesn’t address the design flaws that happened long before they got behind. Yesterday I saw wait times at 5 minutes, granted the rest of the park was dead as well, but 5 minutes for a 60 MILLION dollar investment? I guess I should be jealous as that wait might have made it feel more worth it than my 2 hour wait did.

Interesting choices they have... I confess... having a custom Vekoma tilt in The Vortex plot would be pretty scenic. And also probably way too expensive to build... With Holiday World only 3-4 hours away I think a "Halloween" themed area would not be a great idea. Also wouldn't really match the aesthetic of Kings Island's current "themed" areas... EDIT: I suppose they're referring to the Banshee area for Halloween retheme of Action Zone?

The second coaster in the survey matches the stats for ArieForce One.

They must have got one heck of a deal on it, or RMC is trying to take a loss in order for potential future gain. I'm not certain how roller coasters are "paid off" in the real world. And each manufacturer is different. Like with Orion, B&M certainly didn't charge KI $30 million. They likely got design, engineering, consult fees, etc. Then the park paid out the trades...footers, erectors, plumbing, electrical and so on. But did the park take out a loan for the projected depreciation of the coaster? Did they have $30m sitting around for the project in an interest bearing account? So with AF1, what if RMC took the balance owed from Fun spot to their assumed creditors, worked it out with Six Flags and Fun spot to make that the purchase price ( just for numbers sake, say 8m) and gave six flags a substantial discount for fees to move it and reassemble with modifications? Steele Vengeance has been an expensive coaster to maintain from what I hear. The carpenters are constantly replacing wood due to the stresses. I've heard Railblazer was problematic ( and Fiesta Texas had to close theirs for quite a while for modifications). So Cedar Fair wasn't happy with the company. AF1 is a completely steel coaster, so even with relocation, it's likely to be less problematic than those two. Hence, a good chance for RMC to attempt to work on the relationship.

One thing I don't like about the idea of changing the layout of AFO: the change of that outward banked airtime hill. That element is just so fun and different compared to almost any ride at any park.

Math.

Ryan has heard rumors that AFO can and possibly will be modified in some capacity for its new location.

From Coaster101: https://www.facebook.com/share/14xUTQxusAf/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Cedar Point is arguably the most poorly-suited park in the chain for this ride. They already have a world class RMC with capacity commensurate with their crowds. And to my knowledge they are not having any trouble whatsoever filling those resort rooms, and even if they were, they have plenty of room to lower lodging prices to get occupancy up. Not to mention they just debuted two new world record coasters in two years. Well, sure, but that is heck of lot easier/cheaper to say than to actually implement. Altering the post-lift layout is one thing. Adding block zones is another matter entirely.

You neglect to mention all the highly positive things I’ve said, the highly positive stories I’ve written since leaving my position. But that wouldn’t fit your narrative, would it?

At least you can rest assured that, if you're given incorrect information, you'll be told it was "subject to change" anyway.

I would, personally, like to see Six Flags buy one of the Coney Island entrances and relocate or rebuild at the entrance to Coney Mall... and create a replica of Moonlight Gardens at the end of the strip (near the site of The Vortex line queue) to be an indoor quick service restaurant with meeting space akin to Cedar Point's Grand Pavillion. Chance of happening? <20%.