Losantiville Mining Co.

I think the small show in Rivertown was called Busker Jam. Those little shows gave the park some more kinetic energy and it would be nice to have them back.

The renovation looks awesome! I was pleased to see that the character of International Street was kept and that the interior is now laid out much better with the three counters being consolidated into one. I was not phased by the new Six Flags tags on everything, but I did see a bubble blower that had the new corporate Six Flags logo prominently displayed on the packaging. The associates still have Cedar Fair on their uniforms as well. I wonder how long we'll see those around. I will say that I keep seeing comments from people saying some form of "Six Flags is coming in and ruining everything already!" (ok that might have a little exaggeration, but it's still pretty close) which is simply not true. It might say something about the decision to keep the Six Flags name. Give it some time. Cedar Fair is showing up a lot more than the legacy Six Flags across the new chain. A number of the things people are upset about may have happened without the merger, and are only being amplified by it. Thank you for coming to my rant

I rode the KI&MV RR today and saw that Soak City appears to have replaced all of their wood fencing (bye bye fun koala paint : ( you will be missed). There is also new paint on the First Aid building with lots of work happening just beyond the Soak City train station. The River Racers logo was also playing on an ad loop on the TVs above the front gate turnstiles, and it looked real nice!

Miami River Brewhouse Review 4/18/2025: Note: We were probably within one of the first 100-200 orders of the season at the Brewhouse, so keep that in mind. Got in the building and ordered around 12:30 or 1:00pm. There seemed to be a few hiccups for people who ordered before us, but it's the first day of operations and within the first 100 orders and is completely understandable. We ordered three meals with drinks (thank goodness for the meal plan and drink plan). The Coke machines were full of ice and the pop syrup mixtures were much better than normal. After finding our seats we noticed a few odd things about our receipt. It said "King's Island" at the top of the receipt. It listed three drink plan orders and one meal, despite us having ordered three drinks and three meals. The listed price-per-meal for the meal plan is now $11.00, as opposed to last season's $12.25 The listed price-per-drink for the standard drink plan is now $2.50, as opposed to last season's $2.75 We got all three meals when our order came, but it was odd that two of them didn't get listed on the receipt. I got the Big Dog & Potato Barrels (menu price of $16.29) and it was great! It was a lot of food, but I finished most of it and enjoyed all of it. As a whole I'd rate the experience at 4/5 Stars. The only things that could've given it that last star would be if the receipt was correct and if there was a little more airflow in the restaurant.

How about a mythical creature/cryptid theme? Show some love for the Loveland Frog Man while keeping Banshee and The Bat as they are. It would be a fun theme that couldn't really be seen as a thematic copy of Dark Universe at Epic Universe.

I love the changes! Some more fresh paint would do wonders for QCSC, especially around the station and the shipping containers.

The changes look really nice, although I wonder what would make it look better that isn't a full retheme. Some trees/foliage in front of the fences and more paint on the shipping containers would probably help out.

I really like this line of merch! I don't know what it would be considered besides varsity vintage, but the colors are really nice and go well together.

The 2025 Kings Island Park Map has been released! See it here: https://www.visitkingsisland.com/directions https://qr1.be/SX1M

Oops! I jumbled my thoughts, sorry about that. The guests being on the other side of the counter in this specific location was what I found questionable. The former Skyline on International Street (in all of its glory) seemed to work very well, I just think the building in question would need too many modifications to become cafeteria-style. The park would be better served starting from scratch if they wanted to change this building's service style IMO. Also, which location is this picture from? I really like how it looks!

Part of me wonders if Snake River Expedition (and everything on Adventure Island) didn't last because they were kinda hidden from guest view/were a trek to get to. Carowinds could use a calm family attraction since they don't have anything like an Antique Autos or a railroad, and since Boo Blasters and the Carousel are the only slow-moving/calm family (non-coaster) attractions outside of Camp Snoopy. The park could still put a coaster over the island, the station would probably just need to go where Ripcord is. This, an antique cars attraction in their Dinosaurs Alive! plot, next year's water attraction, and a coaster in the Ripcord/Nighthawk plots would all fill out the empty parts of Carowinds really nicely. I'm not terribly hopeful for the paddleboat's return, but it would be really nice. In this same spirit, I think Kings Dominion could do well with a train attraction — especially if they find a way to connect it to their Soak City and have two stations. Put the station where the go karts were and have it run back through the woods. These dreams would be better suited in another chain, but I'll keep on hoping.

I don't know how well the cafeteria-style line (like at Enrique's) generally works out for Skyline, but I think it might be a little too much for this particular building since it's laid out to only have order/serving windows on the front/back sides. That setup might also drastically reduce the kitchen space. A good short-term solution would be to place a ton of benches near the pick-up window and remove the fence that blocks said pick-up window. The gate can move and still block guests from entering the line, but people would be free to step away from the window for a moment. As for long term (in this building), I'd vote to keep the line and counter service layout, but have it set up more like Potato Works is. Keep the line as it currently exists, the order window is where your green is, move the pick-up window to the top side on the right (your red), put a TV displaying order numbers/status next to it, and place a ton of benches along the path next to Scrambler. Have associates pour drinks after ordering like at Potato Works (issues with ice/syrup/carbonation are something that needs to be fixed throughout the park, so don't worry about it). Moving the order pick-up to that side of the building better directs guests toward the Skyline Pavilion and its beautiful covered seating while getting the window itself out of the sun and taking guests away from Dodgem's exit pathway. Now, move Skyline into the KillMart building (which is slightly smaller than the Brewhouse building) with another restaurant and maybe you'll have a better cafeteria style setup. In there it would be more like a small food court and could have some tables inside and outside.

The restroom renovations will be very welcome, whether there were really any "upgrades" or not. I'll personally be using them just because that is probably the newest and cleanest they'll be. I watched some finishing paint going on the KI Trading Company yesterday, and now that the trucks have moved I can officially say the little part I can see from the webcams looks really good. I'm glad to see that the tree between the Trading Co. and Build-A-Bear appears to have survived the renovation as well! There looks to be a little desk table or something next to a planter sign (across from the Trading Co.), would anyone like to guess what that is? It could just be a little work table for the crews out there today, but the sign next to it makes me think it has another purpose. I wonder how the crowds will be at noon since it'll be Good Friday. I think I'll have fun either way! edit: It was plywood on top of two trash cans (probably to make it a work surface)!

I was just wondering about the ordering kiosks. They seem like they would help with the order customization issues, but maybe not the speed issues. The kitchen optimization definitely needs to be fixed, as @silver2005 described. That stand could do with a good re-working either way. I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Order Window restaurants (Skyline, Potato Works, Tom+Chee) need to implement order numbers with a screen by the pick-up window that displays what orders are ready. The "platter menu" system has worked wonders for Coney Bar-B-Que and Jukebox Diner and I think order numbers would do just as much good for Skyline and stands like it. The park also already uses a form of order numbering in the Brewhouse, so I think the POS system should be able to support something like it.

The Eiffel Tower elevator is running! Hoping for lots of tower views this season

I've been seeing some of the pictures and videos looking at the Nighthawk plot, and it looks like the land bridge from the Thunder Road area (across from Thunder Striker) to the Nighthawk pathway has been completely removed. This could either be a good sign for those of us wanting the Carolina Sternwheeler to make a return, or it could just be for something else that would require the removal of the pathway.

The wood fence looks much nicer IMO. Definitely better than the chain link fences I've seen surrounding the Nighthawk plot at Carowinds.

Just re-read this and had a thought: a better system would be to stagger the start of half of the shows 2yr runs. That would at least change things up from year to year. Maybe we'll see some better variety once we're further out of the post-merger shake up. I'd personally welcome an expanded run of Phantom Theater Encore, Country Crossroads, and Hot Blooded. The decades shows (Motown, 70s On Demand, and Totally '80s) always felt like a nice and easy way to entertain everyone too.

That description is remarkably blunt! I thought it was another fabrication when I first saw it, but now I can see it's real. Very interesting to see this considering the lack of other communications from the park. Link to the park website below for the source. https://www.visitkingsisland.com/rides-experiences/monster

I would've thought the permit for that would be filed with all of the other permits for the area. It's something that can be easily assembled, but the permitting seems like a step that should've taken place sooner than now. On the note of purchasing meal plans, it's cheapest to buy online. I wish there weren't extra fees for doing so in person, but that just seems to be how it is. Don't get me started on cashless systems either — they're easier for businesses that use them but that's about it.

I think they could almost certainly fill out the International Showplace

To expand on this, I think it's somewhat fine for the park to be putting some things out through the Facebook groups, but that number is small and the circumstances are super specific. Proxy-posting to generate hype among passholders and park enthusiasts? That's fine (although anyone doing so should be paid in some way). Proxy-posting to communicate official changes? Bad. Very bad. That's how you end up with situations like this. I really appreciate and commend Jim's FAQ and hype posts, but there's a reason why official accounts exist. The lack of official information about policy changes, height requirement adjustments, and ride removals are a massive sign of a poorly operated PR team. Speaking from my (frankly limited compared to some, but still substantial compared to most) PR experience, there are a number of massive issues that would benefit the park if they got resolved. I mentioned the big three, but misinformation (like this) spreading showcases how the lack of communication can/does hurt the park's image. Nobody necessarily needs to generate buzz around planting new grass these days, but it does not take much time or effort to snap a few good pictures of something, choose one or two, caption them, and make the post. It takes 30 minutes max. to make a one-off post — excluding time for anything that needs to be approved or checked by others. Blog posts posted to the park website should probably take about an hour, but that is more because of the amount of information most people would like to communicate through that medium. If anyone else has PR experience or opinions on the matter, I'd be interested to hear your takes.

Ah, so that's what I was missing in my process of wondering. I hadn't paid much attention to any of his other work before this post so I hadn't noticed. Thanks for the (correct) info!

Maybe not an Easter event, but I think there are other holidays Kings Island could get a small event sponsor for! If Carowinds Spring Break days can be "Sweetened by PEEPS", maybe the Food & Wine Festival can be "Savored by [cheese producer]"

It's kinda easy to copy/paste an email with its signature, I don't know a good reason to do that though. I don't think the park really needs to respond, but it would be nice to put something up IMO. It would at least answer the question of why there are some fences up around it. One big shrug from me right now