Oldiesmann

I visited Kentucky Kingdom today on my way home from HoliWood Nights. It was my first visit in nearly 2 years so this was my first glance at seeing the changes Herschend had made. The new coaster is a lot of fun and a great addition to the park. I got two rides on it - front row and back row (and those were just the rows I happened to get assigned - I didn't ask for any specific row either time). It's at the front of the park right next to Lightning Run, but you can't get to it directly as part of the path is blocked off. Instead you have to cut through King Louie's Kingdom. The new Discovery Meadow section, which debuted last year, is quite nice. There are now quite a few kids' and family rides in the back half of the park (near Mile High Falls) where there used to be a bunch of empty space, plus a play area and more. It's going to be interesting to see what else Herschend does with the park in the coming years. I'm already seeing reports on Facebook of another major investment planned for next year.

Whatever it is, it's going to be quite large. It takes up a huge space along the right side of the path between 4th of July and Thanksgiving. There was a poster up this weekend as well, hinting at a possible August 22nd announcement (though someone on Facebook said the park president had mentioned that it would be announced in July, so it's hard to say).

Somehow I missed that earlier.

If you plan to visit more than once the gold pass is a good deal. Tickets for specific days range from $40 to $47 depending on the day. The gold pass is $100 and includes free parking, free drinks, 15% discount on food, merchandise and photos and more. The Silver Pass doesn't include parking.

According to a Kentucky Kingdom fan page on Facebook, there was a fire at the former Casa Mia restaurant at Kentucky Kingdom (the pizza place on the left as you entered the park), which was in the process of being converted into Bluegrass Grill. No injuries reported and the fire was contained just to that part of the building, but the extent of the damage and cause aren't known at this point. The park opens for the season next Saturday. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EA7Wb8FvF/

I might have to wander out there this year. I haven't been in 7 years, despite visiting Virginia and West Virginia last year (mainly because Google routed me over US 35 instead of the AA highway, so I didn't go through Huntington at all).

I never rode the original but I thought this one was a lot of fun and a vast improvement over what Boo Blasters had become by the time it closed last year. I waited about 2½ hours, getting to the park just after opening and getting in line about 10:15.

KI operated the campground themselves. According to Wikipedia, Jellystone is operated on a franchise system and is a division of Sun Communities (the same Sun that operates Lake Rudolph in Santa Claus, Indiana, though I think Sun Outdoors might be a separate division)

I'm not surprised they're doing this, but I am surprised they announced it now, since they just made a big deal out of the regional pass thing and we're less than 2 months from most of these parks opening for the season. It'll be interesting to see how this affects my planned visit to Six Flags St Louis in a few months as well (I'm still planning to visit, but the question is whether I'll have to pay for parking/admission/food/drinks). It also makes you wonder how this will affect ride names - will they retain rights to the WB or Peanuts (depending on the park) IP or will they be forced to rename everything and drop references to those characters?

From Silver Dollar City's Facebook page. The Thunderation mine train coaster will be retired at the end of this season.

It's mainly geared towards families with kids, so if you don't have kids or aren't part of a group that includes kids, you may not get much enjoyment out of it. I've been to the one in Sandusky once (with my sister, brother-in-law and nieces back in 2020 - the girls were 2 and 4 at the time so they got a lot out of it) and the one in Mason several times (once or twice with family again, and a few times with other KIC members as we used to do holiday get togethers there)

Fortunately no employees or animals were injured...

Interesting series of developments regarding Lakemont Park and specifically the Leap the Dips coaster. The organization that runs the park under a lease agreement with the county has apparently decided they can no longer afford to maintain the coaster, which would give the county 60 days to decide to take it back, after which time the park could sell it. However, the county is claiming that the organization running the park hasn't been keeping up with maintenance as required, and therefore cannot back out of the agreement or sell the coaster. https://www.altoonamirror.com/news/local-news/2025/12/lakemont-blair-lawsuit-partnership-officials-responds/

Interesting that they set the story in Huron rather than Sandusky. Huron isn't far from Sandusky but it's not where the park is located.

The Six Flags app has been updated to include all of the legacy CF parks as well. However, I can't get it to behave properly (possibly because I had an account with Six Flags and an account with Cedar Fair, both with the same email/contact info and with the same pass added to both accounts from when I visited Great Adventure last year). It also doesn't seem to want to behave when logging in - the status thing just sits there spinning until you tap on it again (at which point it tells you there's already a user logged in). Other than that the app doesn't seem to be much different than the various legacy CF park apps were, beyond being able to select which park you're interested in.

I could see one of the MIssouri parks going to Herschend (maybe Worlds of Fun), but I don't know if both of them would. I haven't been to either of them (though SF St. L is on the agenda for next year's summer coaster trip - unfortunately I won't have time to do WoF as well since I'm also doing SDC and want to have time to actually see some things besides amusement parks in both Branson and St. Louis) but both are far enough apart from one another (about 4 hours) and SDC (3½ hours for each) that they wouldn't be overlapping too much if both ended up in the hands of Herschend, especially given that there's nothing of note in Kansas as far as amusement parks go.

I'm glad I ended up making an unplanned visit to that park this summer (KD was closed due to a water main break, it was too late to change hotel reservations and I already had a two-day ticket for BGW later in the week). I didn't get to see everything because of the drive (I was coming from Beckley, WV and it took me 6 hours to get there with stops), but it was still a fun visit and I got a lot ridden in the 6 hours I was there. Hopefully someone else will buy the property and keep it an amusement park, though it also might depend on how many rides Six Flags wants to relocate to other properties

Great to see Herschend going headstrong into improving Kentucky Kingdom. I never made it down there this year, but will definitely find my way down there at some point next season. The fair board seems to have finally picked the right folks to run the park, and I hope they get a good return on their investment for this. KK has been a bit of a mess since Six Flags left and needs stuff like this to revive it.

I'm not sure what's worse - this or the one I got yesterday about Oprah. At no point have I ever had any desire to see either one in a bikini

These ads just keep getting more ridiculous.

Apparently the contract between Palace Entertainment and Cartoon Network has ended and isn't being renewed, so they're retheming the hotel to Dutch Wonderland Inn instead: https://lancasteronline.com/news/local/the-cartoon-network-hotel-to-become-dutch-wonderland-inn/article_547e3068-f210-4aaa-bfda-f9a2f76e4304.html

Nice to see a theme other than "haunted <something>" like what is so common with the legacy CF parks (Mystic Timbers, Iron Menace, Siren's Curse, etc.), though I'd imagine a bull fighting theme would be far more meaningful in Texas than in the midwest or eastern PA. Either way this looks like a fun coaster, and I might have to venture down to Arlington to ride it at some point in the next few years (already have Missouri on the list for next year and possibly a Canadian trip in 27, so maybe 2028?)

These ads are getting a bit weird/crazy...

I'm not surprised at all. Yes, they have Looney Tunes already, but slapping Bugs and friends on all the Peanuts themed areas/attractions is not at all cheap. New signs, new costumes, significantly more new merchandise (instead of just replenishing existing stock - for instance they'd need to completely clear out and restock the Snoopy store), updating websites and marketing materials... It would be a significant investment. When Cedar Fair switched everything over to Snoopy, they only had 5 parks to deal with and they didn't have much of an option besides just making them generic kids' areas.

Also a corporate sponsor apparently, which will likely help cover the costs of the service