Losantiville Mining Co.

Here's a photo of the new Fool the Guesser (Age & Weight) game set up in the Rivertown gazebo. I'm not that upset about this structure being used as a game stand since it's only had a bench and/or an activation point in it for the last few years. The game equipment may be the same from its former location Rivertown across from LaRosa's. It looks nice enough and the name signs are 3D (not printed), so it gets bonus points from that alone. It's clear to me that the maintenance team is doing what they can with the resources they have, though I suspect that almost every budget across the board has been severely tightened in an effort to help pay off Six Flags' debt. Effects and issues in Phantom Theater have been repeatedly fixed (minus the first boiler TV), rides like Invertigo and Congo Falls have been repaired, and some park leadership have been spotted all over the park. Just today I repeatedly saw a group of people who I believe to be the top Food & Beverage leadership making their way from restaurant to restaurant. The issues with guests are more noticeable in our post-merger world. There's definitely also an issue with some associates not cleaning the spaces around them, but that can be fixed with better training and heightened awareness. We knew that 2025-2028 would be a rough patch for parks like Kings Island as the company figures itself out and pays off debt. There are a ton of little changes that can happen at the local level and I hope those can start to happen sooner rather than later. I'm not going to shill for KI/SF, but I do think there is still a light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm saving my opinions on this park until some more full-length videos of this park are released, but I don't think I've read many good reviews at all. While it is a park completely dedicated to children I can already tell that they leaned a little too far into that prompt and didn't leave much for the parents to enjoy.

The amount of ride vehicles (27) is the same as it was during Scooby-Doo and the Haunted Castle and Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. Where the original Phantom Theater had 55 vehicles, 28 were removed for SDatHC and BBoBH, and then half of those were moved up one space for PT:ON. There is one lone vehicle (I believe it's opera box #1) for those who are lucky enough to be placed in it. Honestly I'm shocked at how fast this queue goes when I remember waiting a lot longer for Boo Blasters. As for the lack of a pepper's ghost scene, my complaint lies more in the fact that they went with two "small" scenes instead of either one large auditorium scene or one turntable scene and a more zoomed out stage scene. The old library looked a lot bigger because it had more depth and didn't have all of the stage wings on either side. Fun Fact: if you look in the background of the stage scene, you'll see the Boo Blasters castle painted as the background with the entrance gate and fence as a physical set piece in front of it.

Is the complexity/unfairness that you have to pay the initiation fee again if you want to upgrade between memberships? Is it that if you're already paying for a pass and upgrade to a membership then you'll lose out on any money you've already paid? Something isn't making sense to me with this scenario.

Something I've noticed recently is that whenever there's an event logo used across different parks, Kings Island has started using the generic version instead of adding the park name over it. For example, Carowinds, Kings Dominion, SFNE, SFOT, both California's Great America and Chicago's Great America, Magic Mountain, Frontier City, and Knott's Berry Farm all have their park names integrated into the Celebrate America's 250th logo — Kings Island just uses the one with the Six Flags logo. I've also seen it with the Star Spangled Nights logo (even after it was updated from the singular night logo) and the Food & Wine Festival logo. I can excuse the Grand Carnivale logo missing the park name since KI is the only park it's at. Is that something that the local PR folks are in charge of or is it more of a corporate thing? All of that said, I'll be very curious to find out just exactly what this event will look like at Kings Island. The press release lists a ton of cool stuff, but I can imagine a world where only half of the stuff gets implemented depending on the park. It's also interesting how late the information for this celebration was released considering we're about two weeks away from the actual 250th anniversary.

During my recent visit to Soak City I noticed that there's either very little or no Soak City branded merch. It may not be a standard practice for waterparks to have specialized merchandise, but I think it would be cool to have some specific stuff beyond the name-brand swimwear and the generic tropical print items. It would be especially nice to have if Soak City ever gets a Carolina Harbor-style rebrand (insert another Wildwater Junction pitch).

Or if you're like me and know the illusion a little too well, so it doesn't work. It's like when you know how a magic trick works. IMO the bust is not in the best setting since you can tell it's a box on a pedestal.

Not to mention that the price of B&Ms might go up even more now that they're no longer being manufactured 30-ish minutes away... No AlpenFury clones, but I could get behind a good AlpenFury successor. The capacity would be bad, but it would be very thrilling. As for the color I've been thinking about some dark green supports and yellow/gold track a lot recently.

Six Flags set him up with a merch package and released a PR video around late May, but I haven't seen much of anything after that. It was introductory and felt very "Look at this guy! He's working with us! Hey he's got a Raptor shirt and some new chains now!" while not really saying anything about what his future as a brand ambassador would be.

Tonight's ride on Phantom Theater was a good one. Most of the effects were working, with only the toppling crates staying upright and the first boiler screen being off. (How long until the park replaces that screen/replaces that screen with a practical effect?) The queue line moved really fast, as always, though it might need a big fan placed in one corner on hotter days to get air flowing more. I noticed that there is a small black curtain blocking the view of a projector in the last scene, which seemed really funny. Today's adjustment idea is that some of the blank walls should be repainted to closer match the original Phantom Theater as an easter egg that fills blank space in the building. Also, there need to be less curtains in the Usher Instructions scene and more in the turntable station room.

I've been having really good experiences with my dining/drink plans this season. Most meals have been hot, fresh, and of good quality with visits being at different times of day and different days of the week. To be fair, I am one of those people who've gotten their money's worth (currently sitting at $8.25/meal and $1.30/drink). The worst drink experience I've had was actually today when the Boathouse refresh station was completely out of Coca-Cola. There are examples of good dining plans at the Disney parks and there was a time when KI's dining plan food was top notch. I won't comment on what the meal plans do to the food quality at the park beyond that right now. My visit this evening was, admittedly, not as nice as I expected to be. There are a variety of things that factored into that, and not all of them had to do with the park. I barely waited 35 minutes for Phantom Theater with a full indoor queue. After that I decided it was a good day to ride the train over to Soak City. It took quite a while for the green #19 to make its way back to Rivertown, but when it did it was pulling a full six car compliment. I thought it was busy enough to get both engines out, but it was fine for a random Tuesday. Soak City was nice and clean with some freshly updated stores and restaurants. I'm still amazed at the amount of real estate in the middle of the waterpark that is blocked by the high voltage lines. That would be a great spot for another water coaster. I managed to make it back to the Soak City train station right as #19 was pulling up. On our journey back to Rivertown I got to see a groundhog. I also noticed that the model town looks very slightly cleaned up, though it really needs work to bring it back to looking good. There were quite a few refresh stations that were closed, but most dining locations were open and had short lines. I got a quick (and tasty) dinner from Jukebox and ended my night with a ride on The Bat. I had a fine time considering I'd done more than I'd gone to do. Generally, my visit to the waterpark today only furthered my belief that Soak City needs another major update. RiverRacers and Splash River Junction felt like a start, but it needs more updates overall. One more thing: As sections of the parking lot get repaved and repainted it would be awesome if KI would angle the parking spots. I don't think I'm particularly good or bad at parking, but I can't even describe how difficult it is do get into some of the spots when everyone is sticking 2-3 feet into the lane. Angled spaces would probably help that a lot since it'd be easier to park a big vehicle. There's also a major issue with people parking in the roadway around the middle of the north lot. It looks like they could be parking spots but in reality it's one row, then a buffer, then a driving lane. Some of those green plastic Jersey barriers might help.

Thank you all for working on it!

That's refreshing to read! Honestly if the park would like to complete a little renovation to help the Festhaus' A/C, I think all they would need to do is build a small vestibule in the rear entrance. Keeping the doors closed would also help. On my last visit I noticed that, despite the high heat, a lot of doors around the park were propped open instead of being closed with "Cool off inside!" signs on them.

How clean does the park feel overall? I don't think it'd be very dirty since you said it was a light crowd day, but you never know. As for the new track of Shivering Timbers, I'd love to know how far in advance Six Flags ordered that prior to selling the park. I can't believe Enchanted would've had the time to order/install it when they've only officially managed the park for about two months.

That is correct! I successfully used all of my add-ons at Kings Dominion back in March. The only hiccup I've read about is with some of the legacy Six Flags parks where people have needed to visit Guest Services because their add-ons wouldn't come up at a restaurant.