Timchat2

Carowinds just posted information about their fall events including the new parade, which will apparently do double-duty as the Tricks and Treats Parade during the day and the Procession of Nightmares parade at night.

The new Korean (or Mongolian according to the KI Instagram) meatballs and fried rice are pretty good, grading on the Grain & Grill curve. Along with the naan it makes for a nice little meal. It's nice to see the park implicitly acknowledge that G&G hasn't been the greatest this season. Hopefully it can at least settle in like French Corner as a place for tasty (but tiny) dining credit burn-offs.

Which is all the more impressive on the part of SDC. I wonder if this will be a template for an indoor coaster at Dollywood.

This looks great! I didn't quite expect them to go the route of Monster Mansion at Six Flags Over Georgia where a classic attraction is essentially reborn with new scenery, lighting, etc.

That's encouraging to hear. We will see what form the event takes next season. Worlds of Fun seems to come up short on the seasonal events, especially if they lose Grand Carnivale after losing WinterFest.

A performer at Worlds of Fun posted a vlog where she mentions that this was the last season of Grand Carnivale at that park, so it seems possible the 2023 run was the last for the event chain-wide.

All Wheel Sports posted a casting notice for NyteWalkers in July, so it is presumably coming back to Kings Island since California's Great America no longer does Haunt.

Now that Grand Carnivale has concluded for 2023, will the event return for 2024? If it does return I'd imagine it will be very similar to this season and less like what we had in 2019 and 2021. How Kings Island specifically executes Grand Carnivale (the early parade start time, nearly all of the GC characters disappearing after the parade, etc.) will likely be tied to what the park decides to do for the regular season live entertainment.

The return of a cirque show feels like a distinct possibility. Cedar Fair still has a relationship with Les Productions Haut-Vol and their shows probably have a broader appeal than the straight singing-and-dancing shows.

I had a relatively positive experience with Grain & Grill yesterday. The pasta included beef as a welcome bit of protein and the naan was reasonably soft and fresh. Consistency of offerings and ingredients still varies greatly but this was enough to keep a little hope alive for me:

It will be interesting to see how this all manifests in Haunt and WinterFest this year. NyteWalkers appears to be returning but will the Bandstand have a show for Haunt? WinterFest is coming back but will something like the WinterFest Wonderland Parade still happen?

With the return of WinterFest to the original Grand Carnivale and then the Golden Celebration, Kings Island has really elevated the guest experience so it will be unfortunate if these "budget" seasons undermine what the park has built up recently. I hope those passionate associates can weather the times and keep pushing to make the park all it can be.

Watching video of the 2019 I was reminded of the self-contained floats, not to mention the larger scope of the parade with so many performers and three Mardi Gras bead floats at the end instead of the current single one.

During the first year of Grand Carnivale, didn't some of the floats park around the Bandstand and Eiffel Tower at the end of the parade? I remember how much that added to the party atmosphere with the extra lights, characters, photo ops, etc.

Apparently they are. The chicken enchiladas ran out for me last month at Enrique's, although now they are a regular menu item. The French Dip sandwich was also unavailable at Festhaus on my first attempt.

On Twitter (or "X" for now) Carowinds mentioned that guests "enjoyed 15,444 international tastes during Grand Carnivale this year at #Carowinds", which possibly gives a little insight into how much Grand Carnivale might bring for the parks if the average price of each item is around eight dollars.

The lighter 50th lineup at Carowinds is a little surprising given that Cedar Fair seemed rather bullish about the park's growth potential in recent years. Along with Worlds of Fun (which has a relatively robust 50th celebration for one of the "smaller" Cedar Fair parks), Carowinds' anniversary happened to land in a year with tighter live entertainment budgets. I'm still intrigued to know if any Carowinds fans mind having a Kings Island-specific song from Enchanted Voyage ("Cartoon Friends") in their anniversary show. Did the song get used somewhere at Carowinds at some point? They didn't have a Hanna-Barbera dark ride as far as I remember.

It's encouraging to hear that Mr. Koontz acknowledges how the current Grand Carnivale experience compares to previous years. Like others have said, he does seem to deeply care and truly get what makes Kings Island special. We can only hope he stays long enough to weather the current budgeting environment.

That was indeed very cool. It's a great photo op at the end of the night.

With the All Wheel Sports trampoline performers at Off the Rails this summer I was hoping Kings Island's parade would have kept the trampoline unit. The tight evening schedule is apparently a way to still have the regular daytime shows and Grand Carnivale within a 12-8 shift for nearly everyone (except RetroSpect's evening shift).

Thankfully the parade feels essentially like it did in 2021, so that core part of the event remains intact. The performers and their costumes look amazing this year so it would have been nice to spend more time with them, get photos, etc. Not having Pulse of Carnivale (the drummers and cirque performers) is unfortunate because that really added to the festive vibe of the evening. And while I do enjoy RetroSpect on its own terms, the show doesn't really have much in the way of international flavor to its music. The lack of a live band is certainly felt as well. Royal Rhythms felt like a true party with all that energy coming from the Bandstand.

Were the Grand Carnivale characters around outside of the opening ceremony and the parade? Other than the King, Queen and two jesters I didn't see any of them at the dance parties or the finale. With so many of the performers still doing their regular shows during the day the park is likely letting them go home after the parade to round out their shifts.

The garland lights were dark tonight (Saturday). Hopefully we'll see them lit up soon.

Great to have the event back! Let's kick it up up UP!

https://www.worldsoffun.com/events/haunt Worlds of Fun has posted similar information about a separate ticket Haunt.