WoodVengeance

I brought this up in a previous online discussion, and something I've been told was that most holiday events at amusement parks need to draw more attention from their local passholders since not as many people are willing to travel out-of-state for holiday events. Of course there are exceptions to this like Dollywood and Silver Dollar City, but that's mainly because those parks have the budget to go all-out for their holiday events that no other park in the region can compete with. Because of Holiday World's location being quite out-of-the-way for a lot of people, they wouldn't be able to draw in as much of a local crowd compared to parks like Kentucky Kingdom and Kings Island that reside in larger metro areas. Personally I don't agree with this, as I think it's close enough to Louisville that people would still drive an hour to go to Holiday World regardless, but that depends on how a HW holiday event would compare to Christmas at Kentucky Kingdom. Not saying they would need to go all-out like Dollywood, but just enough to grab attention outside of Indiana.

It makes sense for Invertigo to get the axe. Like the Flying Dutchman, the standard Inverted Boomerang is an old and rare Vekoma model (though not as much of a maintenance nightmare) and isn't really that popular of a ride at Kings Island. Right now Invertigo is the last of its kind in North America and is being kept operational due to receiving spare parts from Stinger at Dorney Park, which closed 7 years ago so who knows how long those spare parts will last.

I looked back at the passholder survey Kentucky Kingdom put out a while ago. In their Fireman's Landing artwork, it showed the Drop Tower being located near Mile High Falls as well as some other new flat rides.

I'm sure the Son of Beast station will just sit there until the park needs the land for something. Probably not anytime soon.

I mean, an indoor family attraction can be a great addition if something like Fire in the Hole is anything to go by. It would be a better use for that building than what it's currently being used for.

Kings Island's primarily role in the chain right now is to be a cash cow for the local family demographic, who is the demographic most likely to spend the most money at the park. The park knows it can get away with not installing major new additions because the local demographic will renew their season passes regardless as there's not much competition within the immediate area. Kentucky Kingdom and Holiday World are somewhat close by, but if you're a KI local, you're looking anywhere between 1.5 hours and 3 hours to get to those parks and neither of them are nearly to the same scale as Kings Island. Cedar Point's role will always be to be "the roller coaster capital of the world", building up an elite collection of coasters and rides to attract people from around the world, and that includes Kings Island's local demographic. Cedar Fair/Six Flags wants to keep the elite record-breaking coasters exclusive to Cedar Point so passholders of Kings Island who want to experience that stuff will need to travel north to do so. (and gives them more incentive to buy the all-park passport which is also very important) I do think there will come a time when Kings Island will add a new thrill coaster to the park. Likewise, I think there will come a time when Cedar Point will add a new family attraction similar to how they just added Wild Mouse. Just because these parks focus on different demographics doesn't mean they will exclusively add attractions to cater to those different demographics. With the families being the main priority for Kings Island right now, it may be some time before we see that thrill coaster come. In addition, don't expect the coaster to be an elite coaster that outdoes something at Cedar Point.

They'd likely only sell it inside the park, so that would be a 9-10 hour drive assuming you're from the Kings Island area.

That wouldn't be the worst thing. At least that would make a B&M Dive Coaster a realistic possibility unlike right now.

That seems to suggest we're going to be looking at another situation like when Cedar Fair acquired the Paramount Parks. Where the newly-acquired parks get the most investments (Canada's Wonderland, Kings Island, Carowinds), while less attention is spent on the older parks (Valleyfair, Dorney, Worlds of Fun)

Yes,

Six Flags has stated that the launch coaster for 2026 will be "completely new", so it doesn't seem like it's going to be a reimagining.

I don't get how anyone can look at a coaster with a 300ft drop, goes 91mph and a 54" height requirement, then consider it a "family coaster".

Seems that's the case from what I've heard, but it's worth noting that some of the companies on here, like GCI and Zamperla, are holdovers from previous projects.

Since 2026 isn't on this one, I assume this is probably just for the Soak City expansion. However, I am curious as to why we didn't see a Notice of Commencement for 2023-2024 with the addition of Camp Snoopy. If Vekoma was on this Notice, I'd assume it would've been because of Snoopy's Soap Box Racers, but nothing on here seems to related to Camp Snoopy in any way.

I second this. The only legacy Six Flags park I've been to is Great America and I was very impressed with the theming in the queue area for Batman the Ride. I didn't get to ride Dark Knight, but I imagine the theming was good in there too. However, it does make me wonder why Batman in particular seems to get more attention in regards to theming compared to the other DC characters. Superman was pretty much just a parking lot coaster and Flash didn't really have much theming at all other than an image of him at the ride entrance. I personally wouldn't mind if we saw DC come to our park if the theming was consistent of that from what I saw of Batman at Great America, but not so much if there's not a lot of effort put into the other characters.

Yes, but Valravn has white paint on the bottom of the track. For a 1:1 paint job to Vortex, both the track and supports would be painted dark blue, with just the rails on the track painted orange.

I agree. Personally, I don't really understand the hype for a Vekoma Madhouse when it doesn't really look like that impressive of a ride to begin with. To me it just looks like a room with a rotating wall, that's it. Might be a unique experience for one ride, but not one I could see myself riding more than once.

Yeah, I was mainly talking about the model itself. I highly doubt we would see nearly the amount of theming and effects that are present on Voltron Nevera.

It is starting to look like 2026 will probably be the year for The Vortex replacement, but we've talked about it ad nauseam for the past five years. So, I wish to bring up some stuff the park could do in the years afterwards: Address the dead area of the park between the Eiffel Tower and Rivertown. I was thinking of a restaurant similar to The Farmhouse Kitchen and Grill at Cedar Point with outdoor seating and a band stage for live entertainment while eating. Bonus if they locate the restaurant across from the Rivertown bathrooms, that way you get a really good view of Diamondback's splashdown while eating. Unpopular take, but I wouldn't mind seeing the Planet Snoopy part of our kids section rethemed to DC or Looney Tunes. It would help add some variety to that section of the park, while also keeping Camp Snoopy intact so the Peanuts IP still has a place at the park. A multi-year expansion project for Action Zone, similar to what Kings Dominion is currently doing with Jungle Xpedition. The first phase involving a new flat ride like an S&S Screamin' Swing, then the second phase introducing a new coaster that also includes a renovation to the front gate of the park. Either put in a new dark ride or a hybrid between an indoor/outdoor ride using the Crypt building.

It's a new model Mack Rides has put out. There's only one currently at Europa Park called Voltron Nevera. Think of it kind of like Mack Ride's take on a Gerstlauer Infinity.

I compared those two specifically because they're arguably the most popular/famous rides in their respective parks.

Imagine if Kings Island was planning to close The Beast after 2024 and kept it a secret from the general public. Then imagine walking into Rivertown at the start of the 2025 season and The Beast is completely gone. The pathway to The Beast is completely blocked off and you didn't get a chance to get a final ride in 2024 because you assumed it was still going to be there and thought "it's the park's most famous ride, so why would they get rid of it?" Could you imagine the immense backlash that would occur on social media and on this very forum if the park did something like that? That's what the general public at Great Adventure are currently dealing with. Kingda Ka, arguably their most famous ride, as well as Green Lantern are getting removed without a peep from the park. Again, I understand that rides will eventually close for one reason or another, but why on earth would you keep that a secret and not let people know to get their last rides in? There have been influencers and YouTube creators that have went through the effort of spreading the word about the recent ride removals, but not everyone who goes to parks like Great Adventure or Over Texas will watch those videos.

Here's an overlay of the land that's being opened up near Frontier Town due to recent ride removals. Orange being the land left over by Snake River Falls and Frontier Fling, while purple being if they wanted to expand out towards the former Forbidden Frontier area. I do 100% believe Cedar Point already has something planned given their repeated use of the term "future expansion" and my guess is it will primarily reside in the orange area, though some of it could go out into the purple area if the park really wanted to. For what type of attraction(s) this will be or when it will open, only time will tell.

Probably would've been more convenient to remove it now since they already have the demolition crew there to take down Snake River Falls.

Interesting. Frontier Fling is located right next to Snake River Falls, which the park already announced was being removed for "future expansion". It seems the Snake River Falls replacement will also require Frontier Fling to be removed as well. As for Kings Island, I think Xtreme Skyflyer will stay at the park until they have something planned for its plot of land. All of the upcharge attractions that were removed in the chain recently, including our own Slingshot, were done to make way for some sort of future expansion. With The Vortex replacement rumored to be built for 2026, I think it'll be a few years before we see a major renovation to Action Zone. There are multiple attractions in that area that I could realistically see getting axe'd, and that includes EXtreme Skyflyer. Also, here's an image of Frontier Fling getting removed for those who don't want to join the Cedar Point Passholder's group.