Losantiville Mining Co.

So much for those big entertainment "cuts" that were doomed about. Even if there is a decrease in midway characters the event is still full of entertainment. sixflags.com/kingsisland/events/winterfest

If anything is going to be cut from Winterfest, I wouldn't be mad to see all of Action Zone closed off. It would also be nice to see something happen either in the left side of Action Theater. Large vinyl "curtains" can hide the Haunt stuff on the right side (like CGA has on their Action Theater) and the signage leading to it is all easily interchangeable. The vinyl shades would probably stay down during the regular season too to hide the decorations from the view of The Racer and the Eiffel Tower. Just a thought. I really appreciated the fact that the park waited until after Haunt ended to start putting up the larger Winterfest decorations. Kings Island doesn't need to set it all up in one night like other parks do, but they seem to be setting everything up very efficiently right now.

Only the B&M hypers and gigas at Six Flags parks are closed at this point. The three that Rustbucket listed are back open (without seatbelts by the way) and were only closed for a couple of weeks IIRC. If the Six Flags coasters are still closed by the start of next season, then I think it would be because they are taking extra time with the maintenance. I don't know what kind of timeline the independent investigators will be working on, but I doubt it'd take more than 5-6 months, especially if this was indeed a freak accident. I think the cause will be determined within the next month (if it hasn't already) and official findings will be released after the final reports are made. Fury 325 and Thunder Striker could reopen for WinterFest as long as their trains are deemed safe and in working order.

I'm hoping that the "new" logos for Worlds of Fun and Valleyfair are at least somewhat like their classic logos. I'm not a fan of everything being sans-serif, but it seems to be the direction Enchanted wants to go in. I predict that WoF's logo will include the hot air balloon, but I can't imagine what they would put for VF or MIA since those two parks don't entirely have an iconic image like the St. Louis Arch or the mountains for Great Escape.

I've been using my new Unlimited dining plan (that was a big ouchie to my bank account since it all came out at once) to the fullest extent I can since I know Six Flags' track record of changing benefits. If nothing changes then it will be really nice to have throughout next season since I'll be able to use it at the parks we plan to visit. This is definitely going to sting for the company right now, but I hope someone there has the foresight that this may end up being better overall in the long term.

For anyone wondering, the prices of the dining plans have once again increased. Through a park like Kings Island, the Unlimited plan now costs about $600 while the 20-meal and 30-meal plans cost $160 and $210 respectively. To me, this is very obviously a way for the parks to curb dining plan purchasing* and possibly prepare guests for a future without dining plans as they had existed post-2014. If a company like Herschend takes over KI, you can bet that the most food you can get in a singular bundle is 5 meals on a festival tasting card. *Note: If you are like me and are determined to at least get the standard value out of your dining plan, then you are likely still going to exceed whatever you paid for it. This is why I chose to use the word "purchasing" instead of "usage" since I felt usage will be high no matter what. I think this is a smart move on Six Flags' behalf because they were very likely losing money from the overabundance of dining plan users. This is the kind of product that most guests can find a way around (bringing food in a cooler and eating in the parking lot or going down the street to McDonald's or Wendy's), and might actually help to bring meal prices in the park down a little. That didn't seem to work for Enchanted Parks though so far. They were only able to lower prices by about $1-$2, which doesn't help when the meal is still double the price of fast food.

Big post incoming because I have lots of thoughts. According to my Haunt wristbands I visited Kings Island's Halloween Haunt 9 times this season, with one additional visit to Cedar Point's HalloWeekends. I thoroughly enjoyed having a Haunted Attractions Express Pass, and am happy that I was able to get one this season — especially considering the fact that I might not be able to get it again next season. I saw a ton of packed maze queues and hope it continues so Kings Island can keep upgrading the event. Maze Rankings: Jason: Blood Reign Order of the Dragon Metal Massacre Slaughterhouse KillMart Alien Abyss Jason: Blood Reign is by far my favorite. The sets and scenic design alone brought it to the top, but the actors only added to it. Order of the Dragon remained high on my list in its second year, though I would've liked to see the sewer fog/laser effect working more often. Metal Massacre has so much potential. It really just needs to be packed full of scare actors for it to work better IMO. I think Slaughterhouse is a classic that can keep sticking around. There needs to be one more maze on the right side of the park that isn't The Conjuring, but I also think that TC:BF is a nice thing to have. KillMart was definitely hit or miss this season, but I will say I enjoyed it more than in previous years. Alien Abyss is my least favorite for the same reason J:BR is my #1. The sets and scenic design were good in its previous iterations, but didn't do much at all for me this year. I would like to see Alien Abyss and/or KillMart rethemed next year to original (non-IP) themes. Shoutout to Diablo: The Infernal Path at Cedar Point for being another really cool maze. I only had two complaints about it, with one being a hallway that I found repetitive and the other being something at the very end that took me out of the immersion. Some of the other mazes also had bad things. Jason's queue situation is by far the worst in my opinion. The park needs to either completely re-do the queue in front of Action Theater or just eliminate/close off one side (or shorten it and use it for Express). They used WindSeeker's queue for particularly busy nights, but there should've been a sign directing guests on where to enter. All of those A-frame signs the park uses are quite easy to change out from night to night. Order of the Dragon also had a flexible queue entrance, but it was for Express instead of being for Standby. That one really needed a sign because you had to walk all the way around toward The Bat's entrance depending on the night. Any of the mazes with the yellow rope queue also need either more yellow rope or some kind of barrier to prevent guests from ducking under to get further in the queue. The various Interactive Lantern points continued to be good. I wish they would bring back the Poe's Garden experience in Tower Gardens. Our friend in the electric chair could use some more touching up before next season, but he's always one of my favorites. The troll (Everest the Elf) has also been missed in recent years. I can understand if he broke and was too expensive at the time to repair or replace, but I'd like to see him return to KI. All of the people who get speculative over the Son of Beast tribute interaction point are always very fun to see. That area with the ride graveyard is in desperate need of fencing to keep guests out. It might make bringing the decorations in/out harder to accomplish, but it's better to keep guests out than let them where they shouldn't be. I've been going back and forth on the lack of a bag policy this season. On one hand it makes security move faster, yet on the other hand it was a good way to keep people from bringing various items into the park. If there was a way to both not have a bag policy while also ensuring the park isn't stroller/wagon central during Haunt then I'd be okay with its absence. The area in which KI's Halloween Haunt is lacking the most is its entertainment. The park only had two regular shows, a set of fountain shows (always welcome), an opening ceremony, and a trivia game. I enjoyed Ghouls Gone Wild a lot more this year than in previous years. It does a nice job at bridging the gap between daytime/nighttime entertainment, though it suffers from the same ailments every show in the Festhaus has to contend with. Nytewalkers has gotten stale — even with the songs being changed from year to year. This is not a dig at the AllWheelSports folks (y'all do a great job), I just wish there was a newer, better show in the International Showplace. It doesn't have to be all blood, sex, and rock n' roll (I miss you Hot Blooded), but the event is in desperate need of a show that's a mix between Hot Blooded and Fangs After Dusk. It will probably return next year as part of the standard 2-year entertainment contracts, but I'd prefer to see it relocated within the park. You all probably know my thoughts on the trivia show if you've read my other posts that included the matter. The fountain shows remained a wonderful addition to the event even with the Royal Fountain's issues this Fall season. Lastly, the fact that the Kings Island Theater is still remaining empty during the Fall is a travesty. The park's premiere entertainment venue has nothing in it for half of the operating calendar? That's probably one of my biggest gripes about Haunt. Despite all of the complaining I've done in the above paragraphs, I really did enjoy this year's Halloween Haunt. While it generally needs more elements to change I understand that this has to be an incremental process. Not every park can be HHN and put on a totally new event every year. I didn't hate the removal of the International Street Fear scare zone this year since I was tired of people asking how to get through the park without going past scare actors. That said, I don't think it would be a good idea to remove the scare zones entirely and put those actors in the mazes. If the company is going to charge for maze access then there need to be good scares that are included with the price of a guest ticket/season pass/membership. $15-$25 isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but when people are already complaining about being priced out then it becomes a big deal.

I could believe it is because those two coasters already have their seatbelts installed from the Cedar Fair days and probably have some new restraint/guest fit parameters like we've seen with a few coasters at Kings Island. If they end up staying closed then I think we won't see any of the closed rides reopening until at least March 2027.

So, now that all of the Enchanted Parks various Fall events are over and those parks are closed for the season, how long until we see the rest of the Cedar Fair/Six Flags branding removed? Mid America Adventure and Great Escape have had their logos changed, but Worlds of Fun, Valleyfair, Michigan's Adventure, and Schlitterbahn Galveston all still have their Cedar Fair logos. Allegedly we'll be seeing the new names and logos for both Hurricane Harbor waterparks later this year. I don't think Six Flags would've required a hard deadline of November 2nd for the brand licensing to end, but rather sometime closer to or by December 31st. The Peanuts/DC/Looney Tunes might definitely be a 12/31 deadline to at least remove the licensed names from the websites and promotional materials. We haven't heard anything about if a specific IP is set to replace the ones being lost or if they will have to use generic themes for a few years. Justice League at Mid America Adventure is supposed to undergo a massive renovation and retheme before next year anyway since that ride was deemed one of the hardest to de-IP. Batman: The Ride had its facades demolished as well. Also, for what it's worth, Enchanted Parks has now finally switched over to a non-AI corporate logo.

Was that record for a single day or the entire season? I thought it was a single day — especially since I remember a specific date being attached to it — but I can't remember right now. If Six Flags is about to start selling off more parks (particularly big parks), then I hope it's to companies that either have a ton of extra cash or to a "new" company similar to what happened with Enchanted Parks; although hopefully without the sale of the land under the parks to a different company. I was going to mention this in another discussion, but the guys over at Theme Park Insider were recently discussing Six Flags' path forward and talked about a few ways they could handle their properties. One option was to keep offloading parks and using that money to pay down debt. Another option was to basically split the company apart, sending the debt/bad reputation/etc. off into whatever keeps the Six Flags corporate entity. I didn't understand this one as much, but it was described as something that chemical companies (for example) have done before. As for my thoughts on Arieforce One going to Magic Mountain, I think it's a very puzzling decision. This could entirely be a Top Thrill 2/Siren's Curse situation where the company is hoping to take eyes off of X2 closing. Either way, I don't think Magic Mountain needs it like the other parks without RMCs do. I wouldn't be shocked if this was redirected after X2 was officially retired. I'm waiting to hear how the permitting works out for this considering the total mess that was made with Thrill Glider's permits. Six Flags wants to increase MM's attendance numbers and I'm sure this is now going to play into that. This would be a great opportunity to dump the legacy Six Flags brand from Magic Mountain. The park has already taken the SF name off of their parking tolls and replaced the big park sign at the front. The SF name is also tiny on the marquee sign that faces I-5, and could be easily removed if desired. I think the best place for it would be in X2's plot. It could either sit with the second half going up toward Great American Revolution (as suggested by ElToroRyan and Christian G Coasters) or have some part of it arching over the parking tolls (depending on what land the park owns). There will have to be lots of support work and land grading wherever it goes at Magic Mountain.

I would love to see what kind of soundproofing that building is going to have and where it would be. I know indoor coasters aren't at all a new thing, but it just feels like it will be super loud in there. Hopefully the building will receive a nice paint scheme as well either to help it blend into the skyline or to show off what the park is about. There's a specific painting of horses galloping that I'm thinking of that would fit really well, but I can't recall the name. Hopefully Six Flags will see and understand what is happening at the parks around Kings Island. Holiday World is rapidly assembling a brand new coaster. Kentucky Kingdom is preparing to announce their second new coaster in two years. Both parks are clean, have friendly employees, and seem to be improving their respective attraction lineups year over year. I don't think the Koch family or Herschend should buy/save KI (you've all read enough of my thoughts on that matter), but they are examples of a bare minimum that Six Flags is struggling to keep up. Families are going to see "better" options for roughly the same price as Kings Island and have to make a choice.

Last year I would've said you were more perceptive because of the Six Flags label. This year I still think people are far too reliant on blaming everything on Six Flags, but there does seem to be a tightening of the belt going on with everything around the park. It's not surprising considering almost every penny the company earns is going toward paying down their debt. I also don't believe the hullabaloo of a restraint failing on Beast's lifthill: I probably will continue to be skeptic about it until real evidence comes out or it gets reported on by reputable sources. As disco2000 said, maintenance has been getting the rides/trains back up after they go down. Drop Tower staying down after Labor Day feels like an anomaly. I still have faith in the park's maintenance team and hope they can continue to operate wonderfully despite the company's financial challenges. Something that's been bugging me recently is the idea that Kings Island could be the next Kings Dominion/Dorney Park/Worlds of Fun of the Six Flags chain. Today's release of the 2025 Themed Entertainment Association (TEA)'s Global Experience Index and its park attendance helped assuage my fears since Kings Island was ranked #18 overall, #8 outside of Disney/Universal parks, and #4 among Six Flags parks. I can also keep reminding myself that the company is in a general slump right now. Will we see a new major attraction before 2030? Is the park going to be sold before then? Am I saying this just to put it out into the world? Only time will tell. Second side note: On the announcement of the blasters and targets from Boo Blasters, I noticed that the plaques and certificates attached to each item said "Kings Island Amusement Park". I wish they would've just left the "Amusement Park" part off of it. It made it look tackier than it needed to be and did not play into my personal headcanon that KI needs to be more of a thrilling theme park than a themed amusement park. (This is partially satire. Rant over, LMC out.)

I imagine the fact that most of them only had about 2-3 weekends left in operation this season had something to do with why they're still closed. The parks have performed periodic testing just in case they're told to reopen, but it looks more like they'll just reopen in 2027 — well, at least the Cedar Fair clamshell coasters that is. After the investigation is finished I would expect rigorous inspections of the rest of the rides in Six Flags Over Georgia. Whatever plans John Reilly had in place are going to be thrown to the sideline until him and the rest of the corporate team can figure out what they're going to do about the deferred maintenance across half of their parks. At this point I expect more park sales sometime in 2027 and more money being diverted to maintenance no matter what.

Theoretically there should be about 81 blasters, yes?

I'm curious why you think some of this is being taken out of Kings Island's Winterfest budget and not, for example, some of it being reused props from Kings Dominion? (genuine question) I can believe that Six Flags would do that, though I feel like they would redirect money from a lesser-performing holiday event instead of taking it from last year's #2 ranked holiday event from the USA Today awards. There have been rumblings that stuff has already been cut, but I remember when people said that Tinker's wouldn't be returning for 2025 only to see it reimagined into a better show.

I suspect that the message from Arlington was given to every park to ensure that SF corporate could control their side of the narrative. You can't argue that different parks said different things when it's all one message coming from the top. There is still a broad lack of communication between each park, so everyone putting out the same message at the very least helps the corporate legal team who have a long road ahead. (I'm not trying to excuse the practice, I just wanted to point out the possible reasoning.) Some SFOG visitors this weekend have noted that the park is, understandably, very locked in at every operating attraction. No more trying to make guests fit, tighter seat tolerances where applicable, no phones in the station, and a very serious attitude. Also, the issue with personal phones in the station is a management/training/enforcement problem. A lot of loud voices online seem to think it's an issue of "nobody wants to work anymore" and not the fact that younger workers are being failed by the system. I can confirm that Millennium Force reopened last night after seeing it with my own two eyes. Cedar Point's associates are giving more information on how you have to fit in a test seat now as well. Shoutout to the associate at Maverick's test seat last night! More thoughts overall to come after I head to Kings Island tonight.

Just what Kings Island needs, another "racing" attraction (this is mostly sarcasm and a joke). I wonder if I can take my Kings Dominion BSC sketch and easily draw over it for my Kings Island QCSC idea... Every time I repeat the name Firefall Safari I keep thinking it needs another word in the name to make it sound better. It shouldn't be "Coaster" or any word with a suffix like they've been doing for the rest of the Jungle X rides, but I also feel like "Expedition" is too generic. Maybe "Adventure" could work? That feels a little weird to me for some reason. For a Queen City Stunt Coaster firefighter retheme, I think I'd like to go with something that sounds like Blazing Fury or Fire in the Hole. Neither of those rides are the standard definition of a coaster, but their names fit the bill well enough. Right now I'm between "Raging Inferno" (too harsh), "Inferno" (meh), and "Firebreak" (I'm hesitant toward anything that could be too simple or too close to Firehawk). I'll keep thinking

If we see more budget cuts stemming from these lawsuits, I believe they will be in the events and entertainment departments first. Then after that I'd expect more cuts to food & beverage. Ride maintenance budgets could go up so the company can claim/show increased ride safety at the legacy Six Flags parks. That would at least bring something to help them deal with their insurance costs. If this accident causes the chain to fall even closer to bankruptcy then I can see at least one major park closure and/or some major park sell-offs. This is already a bad economy for most things, so I don't want to imagine how a sell-off would go. I don't want private equity, I don't want Herschend, and I don't really want Six Flags anymore. Bad times had by all right now. I wonder how much a total rebrand would help at this point considering all eyes are now intently focused on Six Flags. The media outlets reporting on these recent situations would have the ability to spin it as "Six Flags rebranding after fatal accident" with a negative tone. Maybe a sale or total replacement of the CEO/C-suite/most of the Board could help avoid that? I just don't think they have an easy path ahead no matter which way they go. It would be a good start to remove the SF brand from the rest of their legacy parks, but changing the whole company right now seems like an invitation for more bad press.

I had a concept for KD's version where it turned into a safari-themed version (named Firefall Safari as a callback to former KD attractions), but I've been struggling with what to do with KI's version. Someone here on KIC shared an idea for a firefigter/firefighting based theme to match Cincinnati's first public fire company. I really liked that idea and think it'd be a great theme to be Kings Island's firefighter-themed ride like how Dollywood has Blazing Fury and SDC has Fire In The Hole. It could incorporate a flameless fire effect alongside a revamp of the scene around it. Lights, fans, and scrim don't need a ton of propane to keep working.

I don't think I updated on what I saw Friday night so I'll do it now. On our way into the park I noticed that the associates were using barcode scanners (blaster/horizontal phaser) instead of a QR code scanners (palm beacon) or the phones (PADD). (Star Trek doesn't have a great comparison to a smartphone scanner IMO.) The park was relatively busy and I had to park in the north section of the Preferred lot, and only got busier throughout the night. We saw a group of kids being ejected from the park with their security escort taking them out of Coney Mall. I didn't realize that the stack of skulls by WindSeeker was an interaction point until we walked up to it with our lantern and shoulder sitter. We ended up leaving the park after the 10PM fountain show since we were tired. I can now say that the center squiggle of fountains are definitely broken/off, while the rest of the effects (pyrotechnics, lasers, and other fountain nozzles) were mostly working as intended. If I had to guess, I think the center squiggle either has a broken/faulty flow regulator or a broken pipe. Either is a thing that would be better to repair during the off-season.

This is a particularly awful tragedy and I wish the best for all involved. I've read that the guest's larger size might've interfered with the restraint locking/not locking, in which case (as a chunkier park-goer myself) I can imagine how it might've failed. If Six Flags is determined to be at fault then I believe it will either be for allowing someone to ride who didn't fit (operator error) or for a broken piece of equipment (mechanical fault). The only way I can see the guest being at fault is if it's found that he either held the restraint up or if it's determined that he broke something. That's enough speculation from me. I don't think this was due to budget cuts or SF generally making bad business decisions. If Imperial79 is right then parks like SFOG could still be working under the legacy SF maintenance schedule where they don't do annual teardown/reassembly for every ride. Looking to the future, in the event that Six Flags makes it out of this situation then this would be a great time to start rebranding away from the legacy Six Flags brand. This is the exact kind of incident where guests across the country will think "I heard someone died on Goliath over at Six Flags" and could be referring to any of (at least) 3 different roller coasters. That looks bad and will certainly affect guest perception on top of everything that's happening now. All of this on top of the incidents that closed X2 worry me about the future of Six Flags and its parks. Correct, that is generally used as a derogatory term. I've never had an issue with seatbelts on roller coasters, but I believe the issue a lot of people have with them is the fact that they increase load/unload times while also (possibly) restricting airtime. Some enthusiasts even like to hold their restraint a up a little/manipulate their sitting position when it's being locked to make sure they have more room for airtime to take them out of the seat. It actively lessens the effectiveness of the restraint which is why the seatbelt is there as a secondary restraint. As others have said, if Goliath (SFOG) had seatbelts then that guest might've made it back to the station alive.

[@]SixFlags, please send Kings Island's junkyard coaster to Darien Lake! Don't even worry about sending any of the theming with it, just send the track, supports, and trains. Although, at this rate, by the time Kings Island is able to replace QCSC I think it'd be about 30-35 years old.

Quick review of my food and beverage experience tonight. Location 1: Kings Island Prestige Lounge Very polite associate dealing with a long line of guests trying to either scan in or get their free snack. The current specialty snack (a 5.5oz bag of caramel M&M's pop'd) is nice and lists 5 servings per bag. I would say one bag is quite enough to feed each member of a family for a snack. Location 2: Coney Bar-B-Que I ordered a 3-Sides Platter with the bowl of mac & cheese, three hush puppies, and fries as my aforementioned three sides. Without a dining plan it would have been $19.99. While I had never expected to want anything from Coney Bar-B-Que before tonight, I have to say this was quite a nice meal. I thought that the mac & cheese was really good and that the hush puppies were good. They could have used a thinner coating of breading, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. The fries were seasoned a little too well for my taste. I didn't try to put any condiments on them since I was getting full by that point. The checkout process was a little odd since there were two registers open with one associate helping the other at some points. While we were eating I even saw an associate coming around to sweep the ground and clean tables. The biggest hindrance to my night was with my drink plan that is included with my Prestige Membership. Both times I went to get a drink I was told that it was not showing up. I ended up being able to get a drink anyway (with plenty of ice) and enjoyed it with my meal. This is possibly an issue with the park's POS system not loading the included drink plan since it technically isn't an add-on. It was a little frustrating in the moment, but is definitely an issue with an easy solution. Overall this was a nice night for F&B at Kings Island. Shoutout to Chef Gibson for helping make sure that at least some ice was available in the park tonight: hopefully this is a trend that will only improve from here. I even bore witness to an ice restock in Coney Bar-B-Que as I was standing in line. Contrary to popular belief (and what people say on Facebook), some folks actually are trying to improve conditions around the park. It isn't easy to do when your parent company is still $5 billion in debt.

The moving flame throwers have been cut, but there were definitely fountain show flames the first two weekends and working fountains during the hourly fountain shows the first weekend. I wasn't able to make it to Haunt this past weekend to see if anything was fixed.

After a long weekend at work, we visited the park on Sunday for some Tricks and Treats and Relaxation — and I have some notes. I had heard that Saturday was going to be a busy day due to Amazon hosting their Family Day, and it turned out that they were hosting it on Sunday as well. Our visit wasn't terribly crowded by any means, but service was still a little slow. I enjoyed being able to ride the train with my group again and seeing the decorations. The use of only one engine with a three car compliment confused me. The crowd in the station wasn't that large though and all fit on the train. Our visit to the Miami River Brewhouse provided some friction; although I've seen much worse. There were only two registers open on one side while the other side was closed. I would rather have one register open on each side of the queue, but this worked well enough. It took about a half hour to receive our order of 5 meals. When our food arrived they were super hot and fresh! We also got plenty of ice in our drinks. I don't think any of these operational inefficiencies are entirely due to the park "not prioritizing" things like restocking ice/drinks. For things like cleaning tables it's more an issue with the current culture of the associates — who aren't paid enough for what they need to be doing — and a probable lack of upper management putting their managerial foot down. It's not "young people don't want to work anymore" either. Six Flags is still very deep in debt. They seem to be doing a lot of things to pay off their debt while also attempting to improve their image (*cough* get rid of the legacy SF branding *cough*) but it will still take a while to fix. This isn't all corporate greed or making the parks comfortably crowded. I think Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, and Holiday World can afford a lot more niceties than Six Flags can right now.