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Don, I have a ton of respect for you and generally agree with your statements. That being said, why is it bad to get enthusiasts talking about an overall positive purchase? Didn’t you know “what was in the shed” for a year and had park fans talk about it? What is the difference here? It’s fair to be harsh on SF when it is warranted but this does not seem like one of those situations. Would you rather these forums just be silent? Isn’t that the whole point of this website? When people are unjustly harsh it makes statements that are warranted hold less weight.

If we can't get an RMC any other way, then I want it for KI. Maybe that's me being selfish for our park.

From Amusement Today: Kings Island’s Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare scored with fans and snagged the prize for the first time in the category of BEST NEW FAMILY ATTRACTION. Kings Island Central wants to congratulate Kings Island on its well-deserved latest Golden Ticket Award. Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare has revived a beloved dark ride, which includes new technology and a storyline that features a fresh way to interact with the characters The original Phantom Theater opened in April 1992 as the third incarnation of Kings Island's dark ride in that building, which included Enchanted Voyage and Smurf’s Enchanted Voyage. Learn more about the original Phantom Theater on our past attractions page here: https://kicentral.com/parkhistory/past-attractions/phantom-theater/

Thanks beastfan. It's been a rough two years. I lost my dad a year and a half ago to liver cirrhosis... It was a very long and painful process, and I think I'm still dealing with the grief and coming to terms. He was the one who got me into my love for amusement parks and roller coasters. Been dealing with a lot of financial trouble too lately. Things just keep snowballing, but I'm trying to be strong for my family. This website helps me from completely losing it.

I for one am glad they bought it. It could have just been demolished and that be that. Parks do stuff like that all the time. The fact that it has been bought and has a chance at living on somewhere else is great. While a ground up RMC has always been a dream for a lot of us, if this ends up at our park, I know I for one wouldn't be upset in the slightest. In fact, quite the opposite. I never got a chance to go down and ride AF1 and with all the hype about how great it is, having something of this caliber have the potential to take up residence at our park would be a great thing. Something that people have raved about having a second chance at life at a well traversed park wouldn't be a bad thing. It would strir up a lot of hype and give KI something that truly packs a punch and fills a void in our already great line-up. Imagine being able to ride 3 RMCs in just a few hours of each other. Steel Vengeance at CP, Wind Chaser down at KK and if AF1 ends up at KI, we'd have that as well. I see no negatives here if we get it.

I’d much rather have Kings Island build its own RMC from the ground up.

A Tilt Coaster would make for a great replacement for Inveritgo. A big ominous tilt drop that can been seen from patrons walking into the main gate. Without the tacky flyover that ruins the ambience.

To add on what KI Guy said above, Mystic Timbers provides a different experience than The Racer and The Beast. The Racer is the classic out and back racing coaster with floater airtime (PTC was good at this), The Beast is a terrain hugging wooden coaster built like a monster prowling through the forest and designed in house, and Mystic Timbers provides a more snappy ride experience. All three built by different manufacturers. I don't think the same can be said for two RMC I-Box coasters with similar enough experiences to be compared. People already do that with Diamondback and Orion despite their differences in the ride experience.

This is definitely feasible for KI to accept its relocation. The ending of it can be changed, much in the same manner that Wildcat's Revenge was changed. I also think it was stated that it can be altered. Now, to what extent, I'm not sure. Since it won't be installed until 2028 at the earliest, I'm not even sure where it will be re-located to. I would not mind this being moved to KI for sure. IDC if it's not a ground up RMC. It seems to be considered a great coaster widely by the public, so I'm all for it being moved to KI.

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

The entire point of… well, all of this fandom, is escapism. At least in my opinion. Sorry things are tough for you right now. Mean that. You don’t deserve to feel like that way. And I’m also sorry some on this site (and beyond) feel the need to use their faux-insider knowledge as a way to gate keep actual discussion about the park. Being realistic and knowledgeable is one thing, even if it comes across as harsh. But when you’re shooting fish in a barrel (like all of us here) and still missing, it’s a bad reflection on the fandom when that type of attitude is put out on display. Appreciate you continuing to share your opinions on the matter. That’s what makes this fun.

I think Six Flags very well bought it with a handful of parks in mind as to where it could go, but I also think the decision hasn't yet been made. That will depend on permitting, land surveying, and cost to construct new supports/level the land needed for it. In my opinion, if AFO is going to be shipped nearly wholesale and as-is to a park then it should not go to Kings Island. I also don't really like that they've said they're keeping the name Arieforce when it's named after the Arie family who owns FunSpot. I'd probably like it more if they were able to turn it into something new at Kings Island (while retaining the elements in between new track) and change the name/colors. It very well could fit in Area 72 with some demolition and help beyond just modifications for a third train. All of this said, I'm being very selfish because I'd much rather Kings Island get a hybrid with a custom layout and a good theme that fits with other areas of the park. I'd also really like to see The Vortex plot filled with a non-hybrid coaster first as well. Marcus Leshock is a Chicago-area newscaster who covers a lot of amusement/theme park industry news for his station. He does a lot of stuff up at Chicago's Great America and is kind of like John Matereese is with Kings Island. I think he gets some of these news stories before a lot of other people because he and his team are very diligent and have an eye out everywhere for this kind of thing.

I guess you forgot about the events leading up to 2009? How many pages and pages did we go through of speculation? I mean its always been our M.O. And then I see you made a post on Facebook promoting discussion on where AFO will end up...

As much as they’re cutting costs — and it shows around the park — I don’t believe this is a cost-cutting measure. There has to be an issue with the train for them not to be running all three trains. Same at The Bat with a train issue seeing them operate with only one train in recent weeks. Restaurants and drink locations closed, theaters dark, not having the staffing scheduled to keep ice machines stocked, trash can overflowing? That’s a result of cost-savings efforts.

Maybe I'm biased, but I don't see Flight of Fear going anywhere. The building is in good shape and would be expensive to tear down (just look at Tomb Raider), there is also a whole crane system in the ceiling for assembly of the ride. It's very integrated into Area 72, removing it would mean reshaping the whole area. FOF is also for the most part a crowd pleaser, I've seen a lot of people get off the ride laughing and saying it was worth the wait. The long line can be attributed to its poor capacity, but people still wait for it. People also go wild for the launch out of the station. I believe when FOF's time has come, it will get new track, supports, new more accommodating trains, and an updated launch. Maybe we could see a layout change, but for the most part I think the building and all the infastructure will stay.

The last time I checked, this was not a junior high school hallway. Since you guys want to air your grievances with each other on every thread (and I thought my message was clear the other day about treating everyone with respect here), either cut it out, or you can find somewhere else to argue with each other besides KIC, for I have had enough. This is a place to have fun and forget about the outside world for a bit.

What I find sad in all of this is we lost Cedar Fair as a company. Before purchasing SIX, they had a good reputation. Sure the purchase of the Paramount Parks in hindsight wasn’t the best decision for them at that time, yet they made it out in the late 2010’s looking good. Matt Ouimet as CEO got Cedar Fair back on its feet enough to the point Zimmerman could take over in 2018. Maybe that optimism the takeover team was feeling led to the SIX purchase. A lot influenced that choice. In the end Zimmerman is the one that made the handshake with Selim. I’m not going to bother having to explain what has happened since, the sentiment is very loud among the enthusiasts, general public, and stockholders.

I’m on the boat that would totally jump onboard the idea of Premier doing a total retrack, trains, support treatment so we can have this ride around 30+ more years!

I think there are MUCH MUCH bigger issues in the world right now than lack of ice at an amusement park...just sayin'

I am very surprised to see SIX buy this coaster. It seems Carowinds or Kings Island is the good top tier park for this coaster. I don't want to rule out a lower tier park for it, for they might get a bigger ROI.

I think I got the scaling right on this. I put it together pretty quickly so it might be a little off. Would require changes to the service road, and require removing timberwolf, and possibly removing Congo Falls. But it goes behind Invertigo, next to the storage building and the haunt. Would require a new entrance for The Bat as well, but a lot of people have been asking for a shorter queue for years.

Sorry for being unoriginal? Sometimes I like to come here just to escape my awful life, and often that means just a little taste of some mindless talk and speculation. Rare are the days where I feel hope again, so when something... anything positive about this park... even a mere whisper... I'll cling to it. The speculation part is fun to me. The varying opinions is fun to me...

I think adding the minimal upcharge with the Haunted Attractions Pass is doing wonders. Some folks will continue to refuse to pay for something that they used to get for free, but I can't imagine Haunt would be doing any better continuing down the path it had been on.

I know some people never have a good word to say about the park since the Six Flags merger, but they are improving the Haunt at a stunning rate. Last year, I may have thought Dragon was better than the Conjuring House and both were absolute top tier houses. If Metal Massacre and the Jason house both deliver, it will be unbelievable what they have done since taking over.

An important thing to note too, is that it is inside. That's a huge plus of bad weather days.

The new 2026 Halloween Haunt map has been posted! I'm happy to see that it finally only includes Haunt stuff again. From what I can see there is only one issue on it where the icon for Outpost Frozen Cocktails is in the wrong spot, but other than that it's just the gray vs green grass areas that look weird. It's too bad that Phantom Theater will be closed during Haunt and won't have an overlay. Kudos to the KI team for posting it more than 36 hours before the start of the event! Link to the map: https://qr1.be/AS58UZ

A small sample size for sure, and it's anecdotal - not published. Family, friends, coworkers etc constantly question me about Kentucky Kingdom and my patronage it. They still call it Six Flags and it's close to 20 years since they operated the park.

Congratulations to Kings Island, Sally Dark Rides, and Plague Productions for their parts in bringing this dark ride back to life so wonderfully! It's very well deserving of the Best New Family Attraction award in my eyes, and I hope we can see Kings Island bring some more Golden Tickets home in the near future.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this coaster stays SBNO for a while. All these new announcements from Six Flags this past week has led to about an 18% drop in the company’s value. Big changes need to happen immediately.

I was assigned to be a ride operations team lead at Flight of Fear this season; I wanted to celebrate its 30th Anniversary so I built the new alien at the end of the ride. The two (then one) old aliens that sat there were very crusty and old, basically falling apart as they sat there. The new alien is entirely 3D printed, I didn't model the alien itself, but I made modifications to make the head turn left and right. The head turning is very subtle as you ride by, but I can assure you it does move. Flight of Fear Alien Animated Figure If you're wondering about the old aliens, I kept them around in backstage areas of FOF for a few weeks before people above me took them and threw them out (to be fair we were wasting time messing around with them).

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.

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

It shouldn’t be this hard. They need to put themselves in the shoes of the guest before rolling things out. They’d eliminate a lot of the questions, confusion, frustrations if they did.

Literally nothing to struggle over. Just noting that sometimes park people sound ultra-tone deaf to be able to complain about miniscule stuff when that energy could be used for more important things besides complaining on a forum about ice. I love this hobby, I love this park. But sometimes I just can't with folks. Also I'll take a 10-piece spicy nugget and an apple frosty if you're offering.

A lot of what Don says feels like sour grapes anymore. We get it. Everything KI and Six Flags does is bad now. Talk about being a broken record saying the same things over and over again.

Although this is mostly a criticism of Six Flags, it comes off as a criticism of us at KICentral. I think it's nice to have something exciting to talk about. The lifeblood of this place is talking about changes and potential changes to Kings Island. I do definitely agree with you that they know exactly where this coaster is going regarding park and location within that park. I've noticed that wood coasters are the exception to the rule for coaster redundancy. I've been to several parks with three full-sized wood coasters and no one bats an eye. Perhaps this is because wood used to be all there were and people got used to seeing more than one wood coaster long ago—or it's just that each wood coaster has more character. I've never been to a park with two RMC I-boxes, two dive coasters, Arrow loopers, mine trains, stand ups, or inverts (from same manufacturer), etc.

They know where it’s going. Delaying saying where it’s going keeps people talking about this instead of the issues they’ve experienced at the parks this year.

Also the fact they're also saying 2029 is there's likely a lot of unknowns about permitting and the timeline of dismantling the ride and shipping it to its new home. In fact didn't ArieForce originally get delayed a year bc of permitting issues down there? However, I feel if it ends up at KI or Carowinds they shouldn't have much in terms of problems of permitting. I also think since they said they plan to announce the new home later this year that we'll start seeing parts showing up at its new home later this year and they may want to announce it before it becomes obvious. May want to keep our eyes out and look for survey markings/land prep later this fall to see if we find any potential clues.

Who is this guy and why is he the only one who seems to have this information?

I think it goes into Area 72 behind Orion using the leftover Firehawk and Dinos area and goes towards the storage area towards the river if it comes to KI. The new Six Flags is big into making their new major rides fit a themed area. AF1 would fit the theme of Area 72 perfectly. That's part of why I think KI and Carowinds are the front runners right now for this.

Take this with a heavy grain of salt, but ElToroRyan on YouTube stated that he's heard recent rumors of Kings Island being the park that bought ArieForce One. I do consider him a credible source, as he previously was the first to report about Top Thrill Dragster being redone by Zamperla and Kingda Ka being retired after 2024. This is unconfirmed, so it's entirely possible that this could be false or there could be a change of plans, so please don't take this as fact until we hear otherwise.

I used the FAQ feature in the app to ask if PT:ON will be open during Halloween Haunt and it encouraged me to reach out to Enchanted Parks. 🤙🏻 Great job, chain! Appreciate the Mid-Answer.

I didn't like the merger when it happened, and I still don't like it today. I think it's possibly the worst thing to happen for our specific park.

Light/vague Haunt Spoilers for those who may care

Pulling a train on one of your busiest rides during the busiest part of the season to "cut costs" is a terrible way to cut costs. If there's a time you need all your trains it's now! I saw reports of the Fast Lane line being longer than the standby line which is an absolute waste of money! So either they found something wrong with the train and it needs fixed which is understandable or those on the board disagree with John Reilly's vision of maximizing guest throughput! If it's the latter no wonder Jana is pushing for more changes!

Coasterstock on paper may have looked copy & paste year-after-year but the itinerary wasn’t the purpose of the event. It was designed to create camaraderie, unity amongst the different clubs, and to be a gathering of like-minded people where new friends were made every year. It was designed to feel like a big family reunion for returners. That was the purpose of the event. And it worked as intended.

There is definitely a need for a launch coaster, but I'm not so sure that Flight of Fear isn't also on borrowed time. I know it's an energy hog and it's quite old. I wouldn't be shocked to see it gone within the next 6 or 7 years. I'm all for ArieForce One because most of what Cedar Fair / Six Flags have put out lately has just been ok rather than outstanding. AF1 is a surefire top 10 coaster. Also, I don't think that getting AF1 necessarily means that KI doesn't get another (launch) coaster 3 years later on The Vortex plot. AF1 might just be the odd one off.

It’s tough to see someone lose their livelihood, but I’m not disappointed with Tony Clark being let go. Coasterstock and Mother’s Day brunch were axed because of him, with no replacement to follow. Also, his “Morning Flush” event did not go over well and was, quite literally, flushed down the drain. This company badly needs fresh minds in more positions of power. The old guard is stuck in their ways, and holding up progress. Six Flags needs to pivot to current trends with guest experience being at the forefront. As Bob Iger at Disney once said. “Innovate or die.”

Kings Island just released this awesome video on social media showing the 30th Anniversary Of Flight of Fear! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17heZ1mLr1/