johnjniehaus

Anton Schwarzkopf would beg to differ!

It's now or never! Let's face it Kings Island always seems to do one thing well which is disappoint the die hard fans. Whatever goes in the boo Blaster building will have the GP in mind more than the handful of phantom theater thoosies - however I do still hope it comes back. I think the phantom theater encore attendance numbers could be a good indicator of how many members of the GP actually want to see that ride back

Phantom Theater haunt maze?

Out of curiosity has there been anything said about pass holders having to pay for haunts? I'd assume they'd have to pay $10 for regular pass and then additional $15 for conjuring

Agree...hope they can get one or two more years out of Invertigo. If they successfully open the new dark ride next year and get monster working again I see no reason they wouldn't pull the plug on Invertigo and Congo next fall in preparation for 2028 investment. I'm thinking 2027 is probably an off year but who knows lol

The enquirer said more information would be released concerning plans for the building in the coming weeks https://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2025/08/11/kings-island-announces-impeding-closure-boo-blasters-boo-hill/85610698007/

I do agree there is no reason to close this before haunt & winterfest if they just plan to let the building sit. They are planning something in there for 2026. Of course the project could get behind or delayed but I think this closure date does give off the intention of opening whatever comes next in 2026. I personally am team Phantom Theater, however, I think it will most likely be something themed to peanuts or looney tunes since it's more or less in the kids area. (I know it's supposed to be I-Street but the entrance is literally right next to a kiddy swing ride themed to Snoopy). I'm genuinely curious if they will keep the Omni mover ride system or if this will be a complete gut of the existing ride system and theming?

Looks like it's Boo Blaster that is the next to go! (To be fair, I can't see Invertigo lasting into the 2030s. Once they get the boo Blaster replacement done, I think they are going to be looking into an Action Zone refresh)

It's a fantastic park. Very well run. Don't remember if I've mentioned that I am involved with ACE Northwest since moving out here and there's whispers of a possible event getting planned there next year. If you are an ACEr keep an eye on the events calendar

My partner and I drove out to Silverwood last weekend for his birthday and had such a a wonderful time! I will go through our day in chronological order as to the rides, shows, and food we experienced. On the way home we took a pit stop at Riverfront Park in Spokane to ride the Looff Carousel which I'll also provide a review for. Silverwood When we arrived at the park we sprinted to the log Flume which often gets a rather lengthy line. This log Flume isn't particularly tall but has a fun layout that includes a shed/tunnel and winds through the foliage. Not a super soaker but a refreshing amount of splash on the drop. Next we hit the paratrooper. This is the carnival model that doesn't automatically lower so they load one car at a time. This results in super bad capacity and lengthy waits. It took us 45 minutes to experience this ride which ended up being the longest we waited for anything the entire day! Still a very nice breezy ride over the bumper boats Up next was the first coaster of our visit, Stunt Pilot. This RMC raptor is smaller than the Six Flags ones but is still whippy and fun. We rode it again later in the day when they project lights onto the track. Next we rode Tremors which has been completely retracked with metal track now and runs GCI trains. This ride still runs as great as ever and has higher capacity than ever with the addition of a second train. This coaster is my favorite in the park and is solidly in my top 10 woodies list. It also gives fantastic night rides. We rode this 4 times - twice at night! Timber Terror was up next and is the other wooden coaster at the park. This one is more of an out and back layout. This ride also runs fantastic and gives some good airtime in the classic PTC trains with ratchet bars. We rode this once during the day and once at night. While not as good as tremors, still a ride you can't miss! Aftershock is the only giant invented Vekoma Boomerang left in the USA and it is definitely a beast! I would recommend riding on the inside rows for a slightly smoother ride experience. Last year this was my 300th credit so it'll always hold a special place for me. We are at the Chuck Wagon buffet which was unlimited all day food for $29.99. this was a great deal and we filled up once around lunch and again around 7pm. They had pulled pork, hot dogs, chicken, and all the fixings. 100% worth it! The other water ride in the park is Thunder Canyon which is a wonderful rapids ride though a wooded section in the center of the park. This rapids also has a tunnel full of splashes and rapids sure to drench you if the geyser and waterfall didn't soak you first! The train ride at Silverwood is a classic experience with live actors including a train robbery. This ride is about 35 minutes long as it stops at various show scenes. Beware of the Sasquatch! We then went to see that Magic Show put on at the park pizza place. It included numerous card tricks and disappearing acts. One of my favorite tricks performed was the floating table. All in all a wonderful show. Reminded me of the old magic show at Kings Island when I was a kid. Before the evening set in, we grabbed a ride on the Corkscrew which is the oldest operating Arrow looper/modern looping coaster. It still rides fairly well for its age. We also rode their round-trip ride and scrambler which are both classic flats. Finally we grabbed a couple more night rides on the coasters and called it a night. Riverfront Park Looff Carousel (Spokane, WA) The next morning, we stopped in at Riverfront Park in Spokane, WA to ride the 1909 Looff Carousel. This park also has a sky ride but we didn't end up and ride it. We bought the all day wristband for the carousel which was around $10 vs a single ride for $4. This carousel is very beautiful and also moved at a decent clip. The ride had a ring dispenser and the garbage goat target to throw unwanted rings at. They used plastic rings on this carousel as compared to steel ones like they do at Knoebels with one yellow ring representing the brass ring which you can redeem for a free ride. We rode probably a dozen or so times and I did manage to catch the brass ring once. My partner would have also gotten one had I not missed a ring grab. I'd definitely recommend anyone traveling through the area to stop in and check out this amazing piece of history! PXL_20250802_193511312.TS.mp4

My 3 favorites so far are as follows - 1. Knoebels Grand Carousel: such a beautiful ride and still has the brass rings! My sister and I rode this togetheron 2023 and had an absolute blast! She only caught one ring and I got maybe 4-5 rings. Besides the rings actually being real metal, the craftsmanship is impeccable. My only slight complaint with this one is that the outside horses are stationary. 2. The Looff Carousel at Riverfront Park, Spokane WA: I just got to ride this beauty last weekend and it gave Knoebels a run for their money. This carousel while not as gaudy as some others is beautiful in its own way and also still has a ring dispenser! Unfortunately due to the cost of replacing many stolen metal/brass rings, the park decided to switch to plastic rings. The outer row of horses on this carousel are jumpers and provide arguably a better ride than the Knoebels carousel, however the fact Knoebels still uses real metal and brass rings gives them the slightest edge. 3. Bella Musica at Kentucky Kingdom: I'm not sure why but I've always LOVED the way this carousel looks. I've done some research and there's a chance that it was built by guess who? --Chance Rides but the history on it is inconclusive and it sort of remains a mystery as to who built it, when, and where did it operate before opening at KY Kingdom in the 1990s. Fortunately or Unfortunately it has been repainted to a more forest color pattern in the new makeover of that section of the park. I personally prefer the old color scheme but the design still is very beautiful to me. I'm not sure if this one is truly hand carved like the park often claims (some sources suggest the horses are resin). However, still one of the most overlooked beauties to me. ***I will be visiting Santa Cruz Boardwalk on Labor Day in hopes of riding their Looff Carousel which has brass rings as well. Considering that the outside row of horses are jumpers and they supposedly still use metal rings, this one might have the potential to take over my top spot!***

I didn't realize WoF had the one from geauga lake. Such a cool piece of history! I hope to visit that park next year. From pictures I found online it is such a beautiful carousel!

Is this the same layout as SSBR at KI?

I'm not sure if this is the proper place for this forum so if not, please do me the favor of moving it to the appropriate place. Having traveled to more parks over the past few seasons and having made some friends in ACE around the country, there has become this unofficial thing amongst my friends of always riding the carousel at a park when we visit it. I had never much cared about the carousels at parks and I don't think any of my friends did either until it sort of became this random thing we have started doing for no reason. So with that, we have taken a greater interest in Carousels and I thought it would be nice to have a forum to highlight any unique or exceptionally beautiful carousels anyone has ridden or wants to experience. Does anyone have a favorite carousel based on ride experience or craftsmanship? Maybe someone would like to rank their top 5 carousels? Hopefully this thread is engaging and fun for all of us to celebrate these beautiful machines that in most cases have and astounding amounts of history behind them

The one at Valleyfair still has it! It gives you a pretty good jolt if you aren't expecting it

If The Bat ever goes, it would be nice to reuse the SOB station since it's closer to the main main pathway

Did you ride some of the rare Heinz Fahtz flats while you were there?

Sorry that I am behind on posting this update on my visits to parks here in the PNW. ACE had a small event a few weeks ago down at the enchanted forest and my partner and I drove down for it and also stopped by Oaks Park in Portland before heading home. I'll give you all a decent review and I recommend both parks but especially enchanted forest Let's start with Oaks. This is a small riverfront park much like the 2000s Coney Island of my childhood. Two coasters (EFMiler and a Eurofighter). The Eurofighter is pretty tame to be honest and the kiddy coaster was surprisingly intense for a Miler. Anyway, where this park excels is flats! They have two old school Eyerly flats - Rocco Plane and Spider. They also had tilta whirl, round up, dogems, scrambler, Eli Ferris wheel, and a beautiful carousel. Over all the park was clean and employees were friendly. If I had one gripe it would be that this park doesn't have much shade outside of the picnic grove. The main midway section is very sunny so bring your hats and sunscreen. Enchanted Forest is such a gem of a park. Located near Salem, OR this park was hand built and is still very much family owned and operated. ACE donated around $20k to this park during the pandemic and as a thank you, the park hosted a free event that included admission and free tickets for rides on their top there attractions. Enchanted Forest doesn't have very many rides but the ones they do have are exceptionally well executed. You begin by wondering through many walk through attractions of classic fairy tales before coming to the Western Town which is home to the Haunted House walk through which is ticketed and is much longer and more themed than the other walk throughs. The Western Town is also home to the Log Flume ride which is a rare EFMiler flume that is technically a coaster credit depending on how you count coasters. It has a small track section that includes two turns and a drop. This ride absolutely drenched our ACE group and was a beautiful journey along the mountain side before the final plunge. The next area is a German village which is home to the ice mountain bobsled rollercoaster and the dark ride challenge of mondor. Ice Mountain Bobsled was actually closed to the public as they were having some breaking issues on it resulting in only being able to run one train. They did allow the ACE group to ride it had some really good whip in the back especially considering that some of the mid course and trims were probably not functioning 100%. (I will assure you all that the ride was perfectly safe the issue they explained was an issue with the mid course block zone which if two trains were running would cause a risk of a collision hence one train ops). Great coaster and one I would argue is ACE Landmark Material. Challenge of Mondor was a unique Sally style dark ride that follows a wizard through the dark forest to free the gnome looking creatures from the monsters oppressive rule. Such a wonderful custom layout and story on the ride. The park also had great live entertainment including a water show and a music show known as Possibly Irish. We had a q&a session with a few of the Tofte Family Members. (Rodger Toft who was the park founder was unable to be there as he is 95 now and spends most of his days at home resting). We did talk to two of his daughters and a grandson about the challenges the park faced during the pandemic shutdowns and also their plans for future attractions and improvements to the park. The enchanted forest was beautiful, had more trees than BGW if that is possible, and was incredibly clean! Absolutely loved this quirky but charming park and everyone should visit it at least once!

Alpen Fury looks pretty good. I thought in the POV it looked slower than I thought it would be. Does anyone know if it's more hang time focused like copperhead strike?

Are you kidding me? Everyone on this forum should write a complaint to the park about that one lol. People can say whatever they want to say about how CF has the controlling interest in the merger but from what I'm seeing, most of the parks are getting downgraded to six flags standards not pulled up to CF standards which is most unfortunate

I have actually always loved going on July 4th. Crowd can be unpredictable but I've never seen it slammed that day. Alot of people still have family functions or other activities to go to. With it being a Friday the crowd could be higher this year but in general I've never had a bad experience on July 4th at Kings Island

I think of it as Cedar Point is the favorite child - CP is that kid who has so much potential that they are the favorite but they in fact back it up. They are that kid who has always been good and continues to get special treatment. They are that child who is just bound to be on the Bengals and the parents sacrifice everything to make that happen. Kings Island is that middle child who is successful. The parents invest in this child because they have a good future and pay for their college but often neglect them in favor of their future Bengals player child Six Flags St Louis is that middle child who gets totally ignored but still manages to be halfway decent. They just kind of fend for themselves Then you have the totally neglected children (parks) that are in a world of hurt and trouble. So Kings Island is a middle child who gets some investment but we aren't the next Bengals player child who gets all the attention

Blue Racer: historically it won more often when I was at the park because the trim doesn't hit as hard. However the retracking I think has slowed it down a bit until it wears in the new wood. So right now red is definitely running better. However, over the years blue has been consistently the better ride for me. Faster on the return and the views of Orion enhanced the previously boring views. Blue Streak can be super rough depending where you sit. It feels like it wants to kill you. Small but mighty. My biggest beef with blue streak is people act like it's a good ride and not that rough (when in fact it beats the heck out of you in some seats). These same people were the ones who said Mean Streak was too rough and I personally never thought mean streak was bad during any of my rides in 2013 or 2016. I actually still have mean Streak in my top 10 woodies because I thought it had an interesting layout despite not having the best airtime. Regardless, all the blue streak lovers I've met seemed to be the reason Mean Streak got the RMC treatment because all they did was criticize it for roughness and lack of airtime. So naturally considering I was a mean streak fan, I am not a blue streak fan. While steel vengeance is great, I'd still prefer to ride mean streak 10x in 90min vs riding SteVe once in that same window of time

Did you survive the SuperDuperLooper?

Those cicadas live it up at the park for the few weeks they are out. You're not telling me they don't ride some of the flats by themselves without human intervention