johnjniehaus

I had that Meatloaf Burger on Saturday and they should have that all year long. It was really good!

Really really good visit this evening at Winterfest. Got to see two shows and got most of the rides as well. In terms of shows, I saw tinker's toy factory which is my favorite show at the park. Also did peanuts Guide to Christmas. Might try and get a few others in the coming weeks but as others have pointed out, all the shows start at the same times making it difficult to get them all in during one evening at the park especially considering that on Sat the final showing of most of them is 7:30. At least Fri has that 9:30 show. Ate at the brewhouse and that holiday meatloaf burger with the muenster cheese was amazing. They should have that all the time! Also picked up a couple cookies at the sweet spot. Ride Count of the night was as follows - Flight of Cheer: 2x Racer (Blue): 2x Racer (Red): 1x Mystic Timbers: 1x Snoopy's Soap Box Racers: 1x Franklin's Flyers: 1x Shake Rattle & Roll: 1x Scrambler: 1x Sol Spin: 1x Cargo Loco: 1x Dogem: 1x Zephyr: 1x Grand Carousel: 1x Boo Blaster: 1x Holly Jolly Trolley: 1x

I'm going up there tonight... unfortunately probably no racer rides but I'll let you all know what I get to do and what my experience is

I never realized you could ride it. Where do you get on/off?

Best element on each Kings Island Coaster Diamondback: first drop in back row The Beast: double helix Orion: first drop Banshee: zero G roll Racer: airtime hill right before the turnaround (front row) Bat: turn at the bottom of the second drop Adventure Express: the drop/turn mid ride right before the helix near the abandoned mine cart Mystic Timbers: First drop Flight of Fear: final corkscrew Backlot: the tunnel Invertigo: second lift when in front row facing the sky getting ready to drop backwards Woodstock Express: first drop (back row) Woodstock Air Rail: helix/first drop Great Pumpkin: first drop Snoopy's Soap Box Racers: First drop back row Honorable Mentions Firehawk: the loop Vortex: the first drop (but I also loved the batwing finale by the walkway)

I enjoy all of winterfest and usually end up going more times than I go to haunt. However, I think the rides are a big factor. If I want to look at Christmas lights, the Cincinnati zoo is much closer to where I live but they don't have any rollercoasters or as many shows. I was curious about the temps seeing as I'm really excited about riding The Racer with all the Christmas lights along Coney Mall and was curious if anyone knew at what point they start closing rides because it's just too cold to run them?

I'm planning to go to winterfest on Saturday but the temperature high of 32 is making me worried most of the rides will be closed.... anyone know the minimum temps they will run the coasters and flats? I'm assuming boo Blaster and FoF will be up seeing as they are indoors.

To be fair, top Thrill Dragster probably seldom if ever operated with a single train but when I went to Great Adventure in 2022, Ka was one train ops and opened late. When Kingda Ka most likely was one train ops on a regular basis and considering was down for half the season on multiple occasions, that can really hurt the annual ridership.

The gold standard in the amusement park industry to me personally is Knoebels. Fully staffed and everyone acts like they love their job. Rides are always open unless they have maintenance going on and the food/games/merch is very affordable. Also love that they are a family park and non riders don't have to pay. I know Kings Island is not that type of park but I hate to see one up on the Dogem and two in the monster when they had more ops at one time making the dispatches more timely. Knoebels has lots of ops and great efficiency. Heck they have so many employees some of them sit in a booth and sell tickets all day and others take tickets all day. There is a person at the entrance to each rollercoaster who's job is not to sell tickets or check restraints but they are there for one purpose which is to take tickets. That's all they do. Kings Island would never have a surplus of employees like that. All parks in the Cedar Fair chain whine about being "short staffed" but parks like Kings Island are near two major cities while Knoebels is in the middle of nowhere and never seems to be "short staffed"

It's sad when the former PR guy conveys more information than the current PR people do. Last winter I found out about the Kings Island show auditions from Theme Parks by Don and told my sister and her boyfriend who are music majors about it and my sister told me she couldn't find anything from Kings Island about having auditions. I told her to trust me that I had a source better than the Kings Island communications and about a week before the audition was scheduled was when the actual PR made an announcement. My sister said that a lot of people they go to college with said they would have auditioned but were unaware about the date and time or didn't feel they had enough time to prepare. All I'm saying is that I don't even bother reading the KI blog articles or reading their press releases anymore because I'm not going to get any information I'm interested in or want to know anyway. Tower Topics and KIC have been much better sources of information since the public relations changed at KI

I'm always the first person to say that Cedar Point is my favorite amusement park I've ever been to. Absolutely love that place but it is true that they are the golden child and anything the chain ever does is always going to revolve around making and keeping Cedar Point as THE BEST park in the USA even if it's to the detriment of other parks. It's not fair, it's not right, but there's nothing anymore can really do about it necessarily. Do I think they removed Kingda Ka purposely to make TT2 the king of American Coasters? No I think there's other factors as well but you better believe if Kingda Ka was at Cedar Point they'd dump millions and millions into keeping it around.

I understand why they did it but it's borderline dishonest in my book to have people renew their passes or buy passes as Christmas gifts and then silently close 2 major coasters and 3 rides and only make a small announcement AFTER you already have most people's money and nobody can get any last rides. The entire situation is ridiculous and unless the 2026 coaster is to die for, I don't see myself going to great adventure in the near future partly because they have closed so many of their unique rides that gave me incentive to travel 9 hours to the park and secondly out of principle because they did everyone so dirty when they failed to communicate their intentions to close rides They only thought of their own wallet and never took the guest into consideration period.

Hopefully just some routine maintenance

Unfortunately you are 100% right about that. I don't love it but I have to remind myself that Kings Island is much much better than most of the other parks in the chain despite the obvious holes, shortcomings, and disappointments of not getting a Vortex replacement year after year after year. I can't believe that I wasn't even driving when Vortex closed...it seems like yesterday that it was there but the time that field has been empty feels like an eternity

Yes I guess it is seeing as the current news is that Kingda Ka will be torn down and a totally new launch coaster will be coming in 2026

Even more disappointing that they made no announcement about it. I will be writing their president a letter and will be mailing it to their postal address. Not that it'll change anything but that management of that park the past few years and the fact they had an abomination of a 50th anniversary is absolutely unfathomable

Because it's Mike Koontz and every single ride they build is marketed as a family attraction

Totally agree here. We got sort of spoiled under Cedar Fair being one of the top 3 flagship parks but with magic mountain and great adventure joining the chain, you can definitely expect us to get less exciting additions in the future. I think that rapterra is going to be the last big thing at Kings Dominion for quite some time as well unfortunately. Yes he definitely did say that and in some ways Orion is more family friendly than other giga coasters (looking at you I-305 ). However, I think it's hard to say that only families benefited from that addition because many thrill seekers do enjoy Orion even if it wasn't a clone of Fury 325 In all reality isn't millennium Force actually the "family giga" because it's the only one with a 48" height requirement?

Update: The Skyway is being retired at Great Adventure along with Kingda Ka, Green Lantern, and Twister. The parachute ride which closed awhile back is also slated for demolition.

I think Orion is plenty thrilling enough but the park hasn't replaced Firehawk in terms of having a ride that unique. Losing Vortex was also a hard blow seeing as we are now short on inversion focused coasters and I'm sad to say I don't think Invertigo is going to survive the decade

Same here. I thought Intamin should have been involved in the TT2 project from the beginning. I do think it's probable that we will see a similar conversion of Kingda Ka seeing as there's not any demolition permit filed for it like there is for greenlantern, parachute ride, and twister. Also, it is official now that they are removing their skyride. Happy 50th anniversary Great Adventure! Your new coaster didn't open, your log Flume refurbishment got WAY behind schedule, and they just closed two of your major coasters, your top spin, and your skyride. As for six flags over Texas, la vibora and El Diablo getting removed was predictable but I'm still saddened by the fact that it was the last Intamin bobsled still in operation meaning that coaster model is now extinct. I do think the new dive coaster is a great addition for that park though and I hope to get back down there soon especially considering that I love shockwave and with the current trend of closures, I frankly don't trust the new six flags chain to keep maintaining classics like that. Also I'm very interested what we'll see going to magic mountain in 2026...

I'm sorry but park presidents/executives are full of crap when they talk about understanding that saying goodbye to beloved rides can be difficult. If they truly understood how it felt, they would not have been borderline deceptive about the pending closure/removal and would have made an announcement allowing people to get their last rides and have those final moments and memories. All I have to say to Mr Brian Bacica is that he's full of it!

I would agree that I think they have done a lot to improve our dining options. I would have never invested in a meal plan before coney BBQ and grain and grill were added. In terms of housekeeping, I still don't wanna know what is living in some of those bathrooms...

Regardless of what goes on the tomb raider building - top spin, mad house, rollercoaster, etc I'm looking at it as it'll be better than only using the building for a haunt maze that has seen better days

I personally think the antique autos was really solid but we all know Orion was a project we took from CGA and that adventure port was last minute and camp Snoopy while fun, just didn't deliver how most people had hoped it would.