Losantiville Mining Co.

The final day has arrived for Six Flags America. After 50 years of family fun, the Maryland amusement park will permanently close tonight at 6:00 PM. A councilmember from Prince George's County spoke with a local CBS station about the future of the site and what could come to it.

Why not try to gain some more visitors who are displeased with their local Six Flags park? Good on Dollywood for advertising themselves so far out!

I have to wonder who in SF corporate wants to get rid of the winter events because (as we've said) it's looking that way. Fall and Winter events are the prime time to bring guests back and have them spend more money. They also, notably, add a lot of value to a season pass! So many people have remarked about the perceived value that Haunt and Winterfest add to their season passes, so why take that away (genuine question)? I cannot believe that most of the winter events held on that long without making enough money. It feels like it'd be a very slippery slope to cancel even more events next year. I could more see them scaling the event down like this, first closing the areas outlined in red, then the ones in green if they need to cut even more. Cutting more than that would probably jeopardize the quality of the event too much (after already taking it down to the size of the 2005 event). As for changing up the ride lineup, I'd vote to add Woodstock Express over Adventure Express if it needs another roller coaster. Losing the most accessible indoor attraction for this year's event is sad, but I think it's well worth it for Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare. I'd love it if they could turn one of the arcades into a warming station, though moving all of the equipment into temporary storage might be too much work. Maybe I'll try to come up with my own Winterfest wish list and post it somewhere here.

Order of the Dragon was by far the best maze this year. Some of my praise might be rooted in recency bias and are further colored by the fact that the rest of the mazes are between 3-16 years old (they could never make me hate you, Slaughterhouse). I hope we can see more work from Plague Productions continue with future events.

I hope we can see the event details released on Monday because I'm so excited for Winterfest!

There might still be a decent amount of people in the park, just spread throughout it. The maze upcharge definitely helps the numbers too. I think they should keep Thursday Haunts at Kings Island.

I wonder if they will move the ice carver to the new pavilion. With the potential for a downsized Winterfest this would make a good second location. Although, if the event maintains its size or is expanded this will be a great spot to have another show. I think the stretched covers have to be removed once it starts snowing though.

I haven't been noticing the music too much this year, but I do remember wishing there were some older songs mixed in there. There are some specific tracks that used to play every night (I can't remember what they were called) that I think suited the event very well.

You'd think they could play carnival music in Coney Mall during Tricks and Treats. I'd support the move but it does need to have at least 4 hours of music on it.

I'd welcome the orchestral music back in full force any day. I wonder if there's any chance the park would play instrumental patriotic music (like they have on Main Street 1776 at SFA) next year for the Quarter Millennial? Major props as well if they can figure out how to put more than 10 songs on a playlist that's supposed to play on repeat for 12-14 hours.

Let me clarify, I think the new design would detract. The old designs looked scarier and were put out when the company was still interested in having a scarier event. The new, more cartoonish and family-friendly designs would be like having a Five Nights at Freddy's house at a horror-focused event. (The park could put the PT characters out, but I'd rather see them out for Tricks & Treats rather than out for Haunt.)

Adding it to Haunt might have detracted from the family-friendly nature of the new attraction and/or the scary nature of Haunt. If anything it might have been withheld due to the fact that it wouldn't have been able to be replicated at the other Tricks & Treats events. Corporate seems to enjoy keeping the events nearly identical (Legacy Six Flags also enjoyed keeping most of their parks near clones of each other). If they do anything with the characters outside of the ride I hope it'd be special meet & greet characters. Then again, if they need to cut down on costs I'd rather have a great ride with no walk around characters instead of a meh ride with walk around characters.

Kings Derby would actually be a new ride with a new structure to compliment the Grand Carousel's pavilion! The queue structure for Diamondback would be a recreation of the old shooting gallery/shop building and serves to bring the "town" back to Rivertown. I have another concept with Action Zone becoming a Medieval Faire area, but this one struck some inspiration yesterday.

The issue I was running into when trying to fit the boat ride in was figuring out where the most trees could be spared. The new one at Carowinds looks like it's just a big pool with a boat track in it, and I'd like this one to be set in a larger area with more trees. Maybe instead of putting the boat ride there the park could figure out another way to reduce/clean up the amount of concrete in the area. I know the park prefers to have excessive amounts of clearance for their trucks (whether it's intentional or not), but areas like that and the front of International Street are in desperate need of something (even temporary) to break up the vast swaths of open pathway.

I don't expect any new add-ons to come to Winterfest this year. Unless there were additional fees for Holiday in the Park activities that Winterfest didn't have, we probably will just get similar offerings to last year's event. I forget who said it, but the quote goes something like this: "If Kings Island's Winterfest is not profitable, it's because of bad management". Fear-mongering doesn't help anyone, but it is worth saying that everyone should go take in the sights and experiences this year because Six Flags has proven themselves to be wholly untrustworthy. If any part of Winterfest is on the chopping block in the foreseeable future, I'd bet we'd see it scaled back to the scale of the 2005 event. (I agree with you BryanJay!) Surely someone in the SFEC corporate offices is doing calculations on whether cancelling an established event is worth the bad press and potential lost customers. With the new CEO will come the potential for a shift in strategy and some changes to the event lineups as well.

That shirt is in the Emporium! It also has a Halloween version with a dead snake in the Haunt store

Continuing to ideate... One option for a non-IP family area at Kings Island is a medieval kingdom area that plays into the "Kings" part of Kings Island. This iteration recombines Planet Snoopy and Camp Snoopy into one area. No new rides or attractions for now. Linus Launchers and the log flume are "moved" back to Rivertown. If I were to immediately vote for a new attraction, I'd go with a Mack Interactive Boat Ride with theming related to King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. It could go in the center (between K, J, and F) and balance out the pathways while making the land more elliptically shaped. Additional reshaping could take place if the outer paths seem too narrow for the crowds that might inhabit them. My second vote would be to replace Woodstock's Air Rail with either a new B&M Family Invert or a Vekoma SFC (which would then be named Dragon Fyre). More could probably be done depending on what rides the park is willing to part with. I took some inspiration from the Medieval Faire area at Canada's Wonderland and more from the area of the same name at the (oft-forgotten) KECO park, Australia's Wonderland. Parts of the lore are drawn from Arthurian legend while the rest is a general Medieval Faire/Renaissance Festival mashup.

I would phrase it more like: They have shareholders to answer to, so they aren't going to pay for the extra workers or night shift wages that a park like Dollywood would. The bonus weekend will be an interesting time to see what stage of the turnover they're at. We still don't even know what will be open for Winterfest this year either. With other parks cancelling or scaling back their events, could Kings Island also see a scaled back Winterfest for 2025?

I think most of the general public (even the moronic ones) will understand that it is a ride because they will know that there used to be a ride there before with Boo Blasters. If anyone walks by and thinks it is a show, I will think they have a bad grasp on the reality of theme parks. Maybe I'll be kinder to them if we see another Phantom Theater show return next year.

I think it might take the week to let the fountain bed air out before they cover it with the platforms. There's also the matter of cleaning out all the goose droppings. I think the only way to make the turnaround quicker would be to hire more teams. I'm personally fine with it. The fact that we didn't see much Winterfest stuff up this past weekend was a lot nicer than having stuff start going up in the middle of Haunt season. My biggest wish for the turnaround is that they would find a way to add more temporary indoor heated spaces.

The Royal Fountain has been drained for the season.

Coming to the end of the Haunt season, here's my current thoughts on how I've felt about this year's event. This post will probably contain both some praises and more complaints. I'm cranky from this everlasting cold, so expect crankiness and complaining, If you don't want to read that, feel free to skip. Order of the Dragon is an awesome maze that might set the stage for more yearly improvements to KI's mazes. Alien Abyss was my personal worst maze this season. Most of the fun stuff got removed this year and what remained was a big letdown. KillMart, Slaughterhouse, and Hotel St. Michelle were good, but I think they need to do a little more to update each of these mazes. Cornered was good as well, but it could use more TLC than KM, SH, and HSM. They definitely should not up the price again next year either without adding more new stuff. Even then, it should not go up to meet the price of the other parks either. I'll be happy if all of these mazes come back next year, and really happy if there are more new mazes next year! The Conjuring: Beyond Fear was an exciting experience that was worth the price I paid, although the mid-season price hike spoiled the deal for me. It would be nice to have it be priced better if it returns next year. One big improvement the park should consider is finding a new way handle the microphone situation. Ultimately I hope it moves to a new building as well so that building can be used for a year-round attraction. I really appreciated most of the Scare Zones this year. The park has done a relatively good job of keeping the scare zones at least somewhat related to the areas that they exist in. Some of them are worn out after years of existence, some are too small, and some have lost the plot enough to become shells of their former selves. The actors are what make the scare zones special, so I hope the park chooses to keep them around and improve in the future. Pumpkin Eater took the cake for my 2025 favorite scare zone. It has been consistently staffed, uses all of the space attributed to it, and feels like a real scare zone. The Farmer's Market is a nice little walkthrough. This scare zone feels like it should be the standard. Hooked remains one of the better scare zones. Like PE it is consistently staffed and uses its space. It gets knocked out of the top spot by the fact that it is a little too compact. I'd love to see it spread out just a little more. Placing the entrance closer to International Street might help. The extra walking space would help improve the guest experience and make the whole area feel full instead of just having one little stretch of path packed with stuff. International Street Fear is a good scare zone that seems to only have monsters. When it debuted in 2019 the zone had a Harvest Festival theme, but that has now degraded down to zero props and all monsters that don't fit elsewhere. The new Mantis monster is super cool, but I can't help but feel that it would've been received better at Cedar Point because of their history with the former Mantis. I think for the event's 25th anniversary the park should have updated this scare zone and called it FearFest, as that could have served the same purpose while giving the event another "new" thing for 2025. Coney Maul has been fun, though I didn't get to go through it as much this year as I have in previous years. It might be time to change it out for another theme. Clowns are a classic scare, but this iteration of Coney Maul has existed since 2019 and is close to falling for the Haunt trope of getting worn out from staying too long. Abandoned is currently my least favorite scare zone. It really only exists between the Miami River Brewhouse and Mystic Timbers and does nothing for the rest of Rivertown. It would be nice to see either a new name, new theme, or a revamp of this area in the near future. Rivertown deserves a better scare zone that isn't just 150 feet of chainsaw guys wearing the same costume. My vote: Change up the theme and extend the scare zone further into Rivertown. The live entertainment this year left me wishing for the shows we used to have. I enjoyed Nytewalkers to an extent, but it's on the verge of overstaying its welcome. The International Showplace desperately needs another show where there are characters who are actually singing. It's a scary nighttime event, I'd like to be scared with blood and gore and vampires! Dr. Nightmare's Game Show is better than having nothing there, but worse than what's been there before. Then there's Ghouls Gone Wild. I don't enjoy the show at all because it doesn't feel like it fits the event besides having classic monsters as the cast. I'd much rather have shows like Wake the Dead!, Hot Blooded, or even The Shrieks! on the main stages. I bet Fangs After Dusk would also get a cult following at Kings Island like it does at Cedar Point. The hourly fountain shows are very good. If Kings Island is looking for a way to improve them for next year, I'd vote to add a second element for each hour. Maybe the bell could ring for each hour (instead of just at midnight) or there could be another set of lasers used each time. It might just need something to help build the shows up to midnight, which I feel to be the best fountain show. While I wish there were more places to use the interactive lantern like there were last year, I feel like there were just enough to warrant last year's price tag. The absence of Poe's Garden left a hole in the event. I'm glad the parks also allowed guests to use the 2024 lanterns again this year. Overall, I think this was an interesting year for Halloween Haunt at Kings Island. It's definitely had its ups and downs. I really wish we could've seen more emphasis put on the fact that this is the event's 25th Anniversary than just a series of shirts and magnets. The new stuff was really good and improved the event as a whole, The stuff that has been at the event for years felt stagnant. The stuff that was removed was noticeably missed. I've enjoyed my time at Kings Island's Halloween Haunt this year and look forward to my final event visits this weekend.

Quick updates on Haunt before the last weekend of the event this year: I finally completed the scavenger hunt and will have the locations in the spoiler box below. Overall I think the scavenger hunt could use a lot of work alongside making the completion "prize" something more tangible than a few digital filters (like a small custom sticker). See my comments above for what I think they should do to improve it. It very much feels like someone said "This could be something for guests to do!" and then they proceeded to put $20 into the actual implementation at each park. I'm almost certain that the clues were the same for every park as well. Much to nobody's surprise, the Fall Events map still has not been posted to Kings Island's website. It seems this is yet another simple nicety that fell through the gaps of Six Flags' famously bad quality control. The Haunted Attractions Pass looked like it generated a better profit than not charging for the mazes, and definitely contributed to lower wait times. I hope we can see a better overall event next year and in the future!

Do you think Busch Gardens should have gone with a Vekoma SFC instead of a B&M Family Invert? I keep wondering about if Kings Island were to make a third Bat, should they go with the B&M Family Invert (like BGW with Big Bad Wolf 2) or the Vekoma SFC? This feels like it will be a good second step forward for Kentucky Kingdom! I think it does add to the trend of Herschend making KK a super family-friendly park, but that might be a good thing in the long run.

As everyone else has said, I'll be upset if Maestro isn't playing the organ on his balcony in the queue line. They might even be able to put him on top of the weird indoor entrance roof if the balcony is somehow too small/unwieldy for a new Maestro. The FunTV screens should also get sent to other rides queues, but I don't have faith in Six Flags to take them out. I hope they prove me wrong! A second potential upset: I really hope they restore the old auditorium scene to its full size and glory (minus the Pepper's Ghost effect). The space was literally designed for it and probably still exists under all that plywood! I doubt we'll see a new Pepper's Ghost scene used anywhere. Maybe something could be done with screens, but nothing on the scale of what was there before. If anything is changed from the original, I think it will be the overall tone of the ride. Instead of sneaking through a haunted theater as trespassers, we'll be welcomed into a reopened theater as helpers. That tonal shift alone might be enough to sway opinions between the old and the new.