befat

Here’s a quick review of Camp Snoopy from yesterday. We rode Woodstock’s Air Rail and quickly moved on to Adventure Express so this is centered around what I could see from that queue line. The good: Woodstock’s Air Rail’s paint job looks fantastic! It’s my favorite color scheme that this coaster has had. The station and fencing has been painted as well and had been the same since the Reptar days. The ride signage has been updated with a Camp Snoopy theme. The photo booth for Snoopy’s Soap Box Racers provides a nice near miss element on Woodstock’s Air Rail. Love the yellow train. The new paint jobs on the Camp Snoopy flat rides look good from what I could see from afar. The ride signage here has also been updated. The new paint job on the log flume station looks great! It had been the same since the Wild Thornberries days. The not so good: The sign for Woodstock’s Air Rail is tiny. We went from a giant 3D Reptar to a small circular sign over the years. The walkway between Woodstock’s Air Rail and Linus Launcher still has a purple fence and a Planet Snoopy sign. Hopefully this will change before the park opens for weekdays. Just a note: Pig Pen’s Mess Hall looks very small. I wonder what the menu will be. It looks to be a replacement for the cotton candy shop that Snoopy’s Soap Box Racers took the place of. And that location was already made redundant when the Snack Shack was added when Kite Eating Tree opened (as Plankton’s Plunge).

Yeah, this is the circle that I was referring to. I agree that this is for the grassy hill part of the playground. I'm interested to see how they handle the elevation difference from the midway to the theater floor.

Like Hawaiian Coasters 325 said above, it's hard to tell. But it looks like the snack shack and seating area shade structure are gone. The circle in front of the theater is new.

I could definitely see the park doing this if just one side of the Crypt building needed to be expanded. Probably not feasible if two sides need to be extended. Or use the preshow rooms for the queue line and remove the old show building. 2025 would be 8 years after Mystic Timbers so I think that makes it even more possible!

I think someone mentioned a while back that the new paint looked too fresh. The pictures on this page of Enrique’s and the Coca-Cola Building show that they went back and did some distressing. The whole area is looking really good and can’t wait to see the final product.

I’d love to hear some speculation on where the queue line might go. I think it’s clear that it won’t be in the mid field since that area was totally cleared. If CP decided to do some sort of extended layout, they have almost unlimited space between the mid field, under/over Iron Dragon, Millennium Force island, and/or over the midway. But where does the (massive) queue line go?

https://local12.com/amp/news/local/former-beach-waterpark-property-build-apartments-mason-cincinnati-milhaus-brad-vogelsmeier I wonder where exactly this apartment complex will be.

My earliest memories of this area of the park have Skylab still operating but I don't remember Der Spinnen Keggers, Flying Dutchman, or Ferris Wheel. So I started doing some research (the KICentral History Page is so helpful!) and I hope some of you will be able to answer my lingering questions. The picture below was posted on the Kings Island Season Pass Holders page and has some great details if you look closely. First, some background starting with Adventure Express opening in 1991. Skylab operated from 1986 to 1997 so it co-existed with Adventure Express for a long time. Fun fact, just out of view of the Facebook picture is the queue for Skylab which still exists as a games storage building. (Circled in yellow in google maps screen-cap) The rope climb game sits on part of the concrete pad that Skylab sat on. I find it interested that this concrete will probably be replaced for Adventure Express's new entrance so that Skylab's successor can go where AE's original entrance was. Flying Dutchman operated from 1973 to 1990. What I find most interesting is that it appears Adventure Express's entrance was built around the pad for Flying Dutchman. You can see clearly how AE's entrance is curved and you can make out the rest of the circle just outside of AE's exit. Is this another case of a ride being removed for future expansion when it clearly didn't need to be, like Flying Eagles? Credit to Pinterest for an image of Flying Dutchman. It appears that the pathway that became AE's entrance, existed before AE was built. Anyone know what this was for? In looking at the concept art, it looks like Sol Spin will sit exactly where Flying Dutchman once was and AE's old entrance will become the entrance to Sol Spin.

You win! Pleasure bantering with you, haha.

Drop Tower is still listed on the main web page but not the Haunt web page. This leads me to believe that even if it does reopen this season, it will be closed during Haunt hours. Drop Tower’s lights ruined the atmosphere the last time they tried putting a corn maze in Timberwolf. I experienced it myself. Just a theory.

Can confirm it has been there in the past. Problem was, Drop Tower’s lights made it too bright in the maze. Could explain the closure of said ride during Haunt.

Wow, what a cool concept! I love the idea of utilizing the wasted space around Backlot. The way you positioned the spike, it looks like it would hide behind the Eiffel Tower when viewed from the front of the park, the same way WindSeeker does. Imagine walking past the Eiffel Tower and seeing something like VelociCoaster. Well done!

Nice tip! That makes sense. Michelle seemed so random to me. Clever.

With the number of mazes being cut in recent years, management is probably wishing it had been torn down with Son of Beast. Probably would have added little cost to the overall demolition budget. Now it would be hard to justify the cost of tearing it down as a stand alone project.

Looks like the park map is missing from the Haunt website. The maze description lists the location though. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/events/haunt/attractions?category=mazes Cornered is listed as being in Action Zone but I would assume it's staying in Tower Gardens. Hotel St. Michelle is listed as being in Coney Mall. So I would guess it's going in Action Theater. It'll take some creativity to make it look like a hotel on the outside! (Anyone know why they chose the name "Michelle"?) That means nothing is going the Blackout building. I guess it makes sense to put the hotel in Action Theater vs. the Blackout building. Urgent Scare was set up with different rooms to move through while Blackout/Club Blood was mainly narrow hallways from what I remember.

New for 2022, expanded bike rack storage! In all seriousness, did Kings Island say at one point that they were going to be doing parking lot improvements in phases over the next few years? My guess is that they are working to clean that area up in general because of the concerts and that area getting more foot traffic after the toll booths were moved. The markings are probably for digging for new drainage systems and new pavement. 50 years of parking lot run off has definitely taken a toll on that area. The area closest to the park entrance is also kind of unsightly with old Columbia Road just disintegrating away down there. Probably time to do something with it after 50 years!

I played a crazy game of connect the dots with plots that are under used/vacant. I’ve thought for a while that the area behind the Eiffel Tower is under used and unimpressive compared to the rest of the park. We have Backlot which detracts from the area around it with its shipping containers and faded billboards which face away from the midway. We have the old dolphin stadium plot and a tiny random drink shop that’s never open. We have an over sized dining area for Skyline, outdated Tower Gardens, and an old air brush shop. Expand that to Vortex and Crypt (I know that’s a stretch) and the possibilities are definitely endless. Room for multiple flat rides and coasters. I would want to give the Carousel plenty of room to breath though to keep the area quiet and peaceful. If Backlot stays, I’d really love for it to be rethemed/refreshed to interact better with the area around it.

Six Flags unveils The Riddler Mindbender roller coaster It's pretty cool to see a park invest in an old steel coaster.

I also hope the Son of Beast station finally comes down. It's interesting that one of the two purpose-built maze buildings isn't being used this year (Blackout, the other being Slaughterhouse). Also interesting that Action Zone has no haunted houses this year at all. If I remember correctly, there there was a time that there were three mazes in that area at the same time (Club Blood, Wolf Pack, original Slaughterhouse).

This thread is "off the rails" so maybe try to get back "on track" by bringing back some rides that had just that. Delirium - King Cobra Mostly vacant land - Baba Looey's Buggies Snoopy vs. Red Baron - Boo Boo's Baggage Claim (Snoopy vs. Red Baron would be relocated somewhere else.)

Backlot Stunt Coaster was placed in the perfect spot in the park. So glad it replaced the original Antique Cars.

It’s wild that the model outlasted the ride itself, in its original form at least.

Best of both worlds idea: Peanuts in Boo Blasters and Phantom Theater in the old Crypt building.

Interestingly, Space Buggies is the only ride with a space themed name. And the cars could be rethemed with a simple paint job. The names of most of the rides actually fit the camp theme better than the space theme. Joe Cool's Dodgem School still has space ship themed cars as a hold over from Nickelodeon Universe. Those could be rethemed easily as well. Having spent a day in Planet Snoopy this year, the paint jobs and signage are looking pretty worn. My guess is that we'll see a refresh of the entire area in the next few years since we're not really seeing them repainting the rides one by one. It would make sense to add a ride or 2 at the same time but I don't see us getting another roller coaster in that area. My vote would be to retheme Boo Blasters instead of adding a ride though.

recaR was used widely on this forum. The park never used that officially, as far as I know. For the Ride Ops, it was and still is Racer North and Racer South. When I was a kid, we simply called it backwards Racer. The only place I can think of where the backwards side would have been addressed would be the signage where the queue was split at the entrance. Anyone remember what those signs said? I think it was just "forwards" and "backwards."