Hi, I'm a fairly new user. As far as Six Flags parks, there's always been pretty distinct tiers where the parks place. You have the high-tier parks like CP and Magic Mountain, the more mid-tier parks like Knotts and Six Flags Over Georgia, and then you have the lowest parks that barely get any additions. Kings Island has always felt like one of the highest ranking parks, but I honestly wonder if it's falling down on the totem pole. I feel like the park has been choosing quantity over quality in their latest additions, and Mystic Timbers has honestly been the highest quality out of all of their latest additions to the park. Orion was a really good ride, but nowhere as good as most people were expecting. We expected Orion to be like Fury, but it ended more like Leviathan. The next big addition was Adventure Port, but that just felt like some improvements to the Oktoberfest section of the park. Their most recent coaster, Snoopy's Soap Box Racers, along with the Camp Snoopy section of the park once again was just improvements to an area, although I don't think the Planet Snoopy section desperately needed it, since the area is already pretty high quality. In 2025, we got Soak City improvements, which while needed, felt kind of lackluster. The headline new attraction, RiverRacers, wasn't exactly an amazing water coaster, especially since it only features one real drop, and is more of a family ride if anything. In 2026 we're getting a "family thrill attraction", which I do not think will be a roller coaster, since I feel that if it were to be a coaster, it would have been specified on the article. Yes, four additions in four years is something that most parks don't get, but the actual quality of the rides isn't really that amazing. It honestly seems like KI is trying to become more of a family park, especially considering all of the recent additions aside from Orion are basically family rides or not very thrilling. I think that Kings Island's luck will run out eventually, and I don't think we'll be seeing anything in 2027. If we get a major thrill coaster in 2028, that would mean that there is an 8 year gap between major thrill coasters, and many small parks do better than that. Personally, I don't want KI to become more family-oriented, and I don't think it needs to either. Combine this with the merger, cutting costs, employment issues, and it makes me wonder if Kings Island will fall off and become more of a middle of the road park. I don't think it will fall to much, but it definitely feels like Kings Island is no longer in the top-tier. What are your thoughts on this?
In my opinion, management under Cedar Fair was the golden era for modern KI. I'll take Six Flags though, since the park is still being managed fairly well and that the merger is still very recent. This could very likely change as we see how Six Flags manages their parks in the future.