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Divesting themselves from in-house food service is not something I think the current Six Flags is going to do. They've spent a good amount of money already to improve food quality at Legacy Six Flags parks and hired new Executive Chefs at parks while removing a ton of other positions. The chain has also actively been in the process of renovating the larger dining locations at the Legacy SF parks where they see future growth. I don't think it would be smart at all to rely almost entirely on local/mom & pop restaurants/restauranteurs as a park's main dining services provider. Adding to what DispatchMaster said above, most local establishments don't often have the resources to open and close seasonally, especially on the scale of a park like Kings Island. Ice cream stands are one of the only business models that seasonal operations seems to work for. If the parks want to rid themselves of needing to worry about food then they should look into hiring an independent dining services provider like some universities and stadiums do (although I've consistently had much worse experiences with those than I've had with any food at KI). Kings Island and Cedar Point, for the most part, have good and decent food for what they are. Out of nearly 30 meals at Six Flags parks this season, I can count the number of poor experiences I've had on one hand.

Maybe Six Flags can save some money by moving the Boo Blasters props up to Cedar Point and giving them their own Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. They need an indoor dark ride anyways.

The Boo Blaster cars have been moved to the Timberwolf stage, presumably to be packaged and sent to wherever is redoing them for PT:ON.

The fabulous MVP sale has now ended, and it seems the "value" and/or "sale" part of the promotion only applied to how long the price stayed a little lower than normal. A Kings Island Gold Pass is now $125 and the Prestige Pass is now $225. Both still seem to include access to all Six Flags parks and access to Haunt and Winterfest — still about $40 below the pass+APP price from last year. Six Flags is not done giving away the gate and if they're not careful, they'll only further forfeit their ability to raise prices when they actually need to do it. For now, it looks like the concept of a separate All Park Passport is dead. To nobody's surprise, the webpage still shows the MVP Sale while a bunch of other park websites still show the MVP Sale front and center. I can understand keeping them up if the new websites were going to be released tomorrow, but there is no sign of that and rumor says they might be published in November. Is there really not a photo they could go back to using on each home page that at least doesn't include the MVP Sale? I know my expectations should be low at this point, but is it too much to expect a "limited time offer" to be removed from a website soon after the sale ends? It isn't even consistent between parks/legacy chains. Some parks automatically moved onto the AI generated Haunt/Fright Fest promotion at 12:02 this morning, while Magic Mountain is still fully promoting the MVP sale.

Even a short line at most mazes will mean more money made compared to last year! Let's hope the quality has transferred to the other parks.

The new version in the Six Flags app still shows everything that has been open this year, except for Batwing and the railroad. I suspect we might see some more early permanent closures before November arrives, but hopefully there will be some light at the end of this tunnel.

New maps have been uploaded to the Six Flags app for all Legacy Six Flags parks! They look just like the newer Legacy Cedar Fair maps, though a couple of them look like they have a lot of production errors and aren't up to snuff with the rest of the maps. We saw some errors on the first versions of the new Cedar Fair maps (including that long-running gag of Viking Fury's queue/exit being placed wrong). Six Flags Over Texas and Six Flags America appear to be the two worst offenders when it comes to errors. I personally also have an issue with how the icons are set up on the Six Flags app compared to the Cedar Fair apps. On the SF app they have it so the icons/list view take up most of the screen, and it is very clear that they just switched the map client on that app until they can release their new websites and app(s) later this year (I believe I heard someone say November?). Whenever those all come online I think I'll be a much happier camper. Everything looks even more jumbled and mismatched now than before, and I wish they could have at least found a way to make the Fright Fest event websites look more like the Haunt/HalloWeekends/SCarowinds/ValleyScare websites. I don't know how possible it would be to have copied/pasted most of the code over (or if that would mess with other things), but it's very noticeable if you go between the websites.

Six Flags America got to have their map updated one last time before they close later this year via their 2025 Fall Event Guide for their Kids Boo Fest. It doesn't appear to be as developed as the rest of the new Six Flags maps, however it's nice to see they didn't just cheap out on it entirely. Link: https://qr1.be/Q35W

That would be cool, although I don't entirely see how it could be a never-before-seen/new take on an attraction.

I've been reading some very good reports out of Carowinds and Cedar Point about the new scream-ium experience, The Conjuring: Beyond Fear. Carowinds had their Media Night last night and Cedar Point was open to the public. Something to note is that the Express Pass doesn't get you to the front of the line for TC:BF, it just gets you in the line. It didn't sound like the regular mazes had improved, but it was also both a Thursday night and the first night of HalloWeekends. I didn't see much from SCarowinds besides the people raving about TC:BF. Facebook user Ryan Donahue was kind enough to share his experience with getting the wristband for the All-Season Haunted Attractions Express Pass. They work similarly to Fast Lane with the QR codes and how you go to a HAP/HAEP booth to scan your pass and get your wristband. It looks like you have to get the wristband and cannot scan your phone at each maze. He said it's about a 30 second process (although wait times may vary depending on the night). I haven't seen anything about the regular pass or the one-time tickets for The Conjuring, but I'd assume the HAP wristband looks similar and TC:BF ticket might just be on your phone. Photos: Ryan Donahue Allegedly the Axe Axe Baby location is going to be used for a new Conjuring bar area. Someone else also shared that the Antique Photos building has been cleared out, and speculation said that it might be a store for The Conjuring. Cedar Point's versions are called the "Mullins Workshop Bar" and "The Conjuring Universe: Archive of Artifacts". Fun Fact: both Canada's Wonderland and Carowinds have their Mullins Workshop Bar as specialty food location "G" on their map. It's not much, but it's weird that it happened twice. There are only seven parks left who haven't released their Halloween Haunt/Fright Fest maps, including Darien Lake, Discovery Kingdom, Great Escape, Kings Island, La Ronde, Magic Mountain, and Six Flags Mexico.

There might also be a case to say that Legacy Six Flags didn't take as good care of their coasters than Legacy Cedar Fair did. Over at Carowinds we saw Stealth Borg Assimilator Nighthawk stay open longer than Batwing despite being the model prototype. At Great Adventure we saw Kingda Ka running at least a little worse than Top Thrill Dragster. Those probably aren't the best comparisons, and my perceptions are probably tinted, but I have to wonder what Great Adventure would look like if Ka had started the TT2 treatment instead of total demolition. If only they'd let it sit SBNO until Cedar Point and Zamperla could work out the final issues with TT2. I don't think the L-SF rides were unsafe, but it seems that their maintenance work generally followed a course that led to more long-term wear and tear than coasters at L-CF parks.

About $40-$80 per pass that would've gotten it anyways. I'd bet the low price points across the board are what made them all so attractive to guests — even to those who claim that season passes are still too expensive. Add "less euphemisms" to the list of hopes and dreams for the new CEO. They can keep doing it for some things, but there's a line after which they're overdoing it. I think the price might have gone up at some Legacy Six Flags parks, especially those who offered a Silver Pass for 2025 and now only offer Gold/Prestige for 2026. With G/P passes being the new norm instead of S/G or S/G/P, I can entirely understand how they can claim that 3% increase in prices.

I mean, there would need to be some reconfiguring of the parking lot done whether they're brought back or not. KI's parking lot needs a lot of work as it is beyond just repaving. The easiest solution would just be to have them go up and down the old Columbia Road between the main entrance and Soak City entrance. That would at least provide service to 2-3 stops along the southern part of the parking lot. Doing that much may only require the installation of the station platforms. Up until this year there were still a few Six Flags parks that still had trams, including Magic Mountain and Over Texas. Parking lot trams would be another good way to improve guest experience at the bigger parks (even if they only ran on weekends) for less money than a coaster or a few new flat rides. They could even be electric if some investments were made to cover part of the parking lot in solar panels (a project that could also be sponsored).

It'd be nice if Kings Island could get a sponsor and bring back the trams. Maybe some day in the future.

I fully believe the plan to close SFA was not in the works until early this year once the Cedar Fair people saw just how bad of shape everything from Six Flags was in. They might've been eyeing it for eventual closure, but not this fast. Batwing being past the end of its service life was likely another nail in the coffin for the park.