Winterfestguy

Six Flags marketing can make this new season pass structure sound so nice but think in reality it’s their dumbest marketing move yet (and if this is what SF marketing management was thinking, why didn’t they do it before the fall MVP sale? Reminds me of when JC Penney went to a not having any sale prices model with the lowest price being offered everyday that miserably flopped). Now pass holders will be totally confused on what their benefits really are for 2026 and what they will get with a renewal in 2027. Sure, it’s great that my 2026 gold pass with all park passport will be upgraded to prestige all region for 2026 at the end of February (so I can go to all 4 regions this year) but this will likely result in way too many trying for the prestige benefits like KI premium parking and lounge access, not to mention the previously purchased prestige being basically downgraded for 2026. I think SF management is wrong to think people will pay the extra (and am sure it will be a substantial amount) to keep prestige all region in 2027 to attend the other regional parks as opposed to the simpler all park gold pass access. This change is making me reconsider my travel plans in 2027 to several of the other regional parks.

The weather for this years a Winterfest reminds me of the weather back to Winterfest 2.0 by Paramount in 2005 that only lasted that year. Attendance was low partly due to extremely cold and daily snows but also season passes were not honored and the gate price was like $29 which became the sudden death of the event. Cedar Fair then announced in July of 2006 Winterfest was discontinued (and sort of cited not profitable) until Cedar Fair brought it back again in 2017. Now with Six Flags running the show and admitting they like to focus on improving the summer/fall seasons rather than focusing on winter events, it will be interesting to see what happens. If this years Winterfest shows a loss on the books (cold and snow likely to blame), I would not be surprised to see a July 2026 announcement that Winterfest has been discontinued (it would fit the July announcement pattern for Winterfest over the years). Of course it’s been advertised with the season passes sales, but we see things get changed all the time with season passes.

Expect less entertainment for Winterfest this year. Tower Topics has already reported the KI tradition of Tinkers Toy Factory was cut. Without the many characters including Santa from that show to participate in the parade, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the parade cut too. Six Flags does not like winter park events so enjoy this year’s Winterfest as it may be the last for many more years to come. Then the park won’t have to worry about draining the fountain early or removing all the Halloween in a short period of time.

There was one year at Haunt where they had a Halloween themed buffet in the International Street Restaurant. I remember looking out and seeing the fog overtake the old pedestals in the fountain as well as the scare actors roam around International Street. It’s a shame that SF misses good opportunities like the buffet/fountain show viewing from the restaurant.

Being the first night of Haunt and just as expected, many season pass holders came out including lots of families with their large buggy wagon strollers, children under 10, and even saw several babies maybe 1 year old in their mothers arms. There did not seem to be many lines at the houses unlike other years likely because like me, refuse to pay for something that used to be free and pretty much the same every year. However, I do agree it is worth the money to do the Conjuring Beyond Fear experience and wanted to see for myself after reading about experiences at CP. Conjuring Beyond Fear was very well put together and you could tell a lot of thought went into it. I was disappointed in the scare zones as the scareactors were playing up to the little kids instead of scaring folks walking through like me. I walked behind a father of a 5 year old filming his little boy going through Hooked as the little boy chatted with each pirate instead of being scared by them (or maybe they are supposed to be very friendly pirates and in pumpkin eater, friendly pumpkin gut eaters?). Ghouls Gone Wild and Nyte Walkers seem to be more G content rated for families and pretty much the same with a few different songs (and there were lots of kids and families in the audience of both, so seems like Haunt has moved away from the adult theme for mature audiences only. I do miss Dead Awakenings and Hot Blooded for sure.) Exceptional pub burger at the Brewhouse as expected but the place wasn’t super busy. The longest food line seemed to be at Skyline but then again, that place always has a long line being so slow. Considering all the budget cuts lately, my Haunt experience was just okay, not the best and not the worst.

Many of the Winterfest white lights were never removed from the trees as you could still see the strings on the trees this spring/summer, so imagine they might be testing to see what still works and what doesn’t - or maybe they will use the lighted trees with white lights for Haunt as well to get their money out of them.

And to think the 52 week high was $49.77 and has gone down down down from there

Carowinds quietly removed the parade from their Winterfest line up, changed to daytime hours, and rumors of no ice skating there as well. Wonder when or if KI will make the same announcement? The puzzle pieces start coming into focus for KI as no Tinkers means one less show and maybe an empty theater as well. Enjoy what’s left as KI Winterfest 3.0 as it likely comes to a sudden end this season.

Six Flags does not like winter events as evidenced by cutting 4 holiday events this year from parks. Definitely sadly looking like this will be the last year for KI Winterfest especially given Carowinds has just cut their nighttime hours from their original calendar this season. Hopefully, KI doesn’t follow this budget hourly cutting trend.

Both KI and CP have had sleepovers in the park after hours before with proceeds benefiting charity - KI in 2019 and CP in 2021

Since the parade used many characters from Tinkers, especially Santa, wonder if that means the Winterfest parade has been cut too? Guess we will have to watch if the floats start appearing out of storage this fall behind The Racer.

This will make a lot of families with kids sad. Tinkers (in several forms) has been a tradition since Winterfest 1.0 - Six Flags doesn’t like winter events and with budget cuts everywhere this may be the end of Winterfest 3.0 after this season. Wonder where the tombstone will be for Tinkers Toy Factory at Haunt this year?

In the spirit of nickel and dime, they do list a gold pass parking add-on for $87 Canadian dollars. Also the fine print says you have to purchase pass at your home park and may actually enforce that this year with such a cheap gold pass $99 Canadian dollars (about $75 USD)

The MVP sale on Canada Wonderland site indicates the Gold 2026 pass will be good for all 40 Six Flags parks. Looks like they might be having away the gate. Waiting to see what and when KI announces.

Not sure if Island Smokehouse and Coconut Cove Cafe have heat (know they have AC but not sure about the heating capability - and then there also has to be heat in a few sets of restrooms). Think building heating may be the biggest investment cost issue with trying to expand Winterfest into Soak City. The tubing hill currently in Action Zone could be relocated to the wave pool similar to how Kentucky Kingdom has their sledding hill in their wave pool. Move the vendor booths around the Tower over to Soak City to create the village (which opens up the very congested area currently around the Tower) and perhaps move Santa from Rivertown over to Soak City, maybe in a temporary heated “tent”. Add some lights in the trees and a few large garland trees to complete the village. It would be exciting if the park could pull this off, but very doubtful considering budget and personnel cutbacks happening in the new Six Flags environment. My biggest wish is that KI would bring back the KI singing penguin puppets to Winterfest 3.0 which were part of Santa’s Toy Factory at the original Winterfest as well as in Winterfest 2.0 (then got dropped when Tinker’s Toy Factory took over for the now Winterfest 3.0) - they were always a hit with all the kids and even adults. They still may be around someplace in the theater in deep storage and their soundtrack is likely in the archives.

Coastermania fans today were disappointed with this announcement to them early this morning and additional disappointment that TTD2 would not operate at all today for the event.

The Food and Wine festival misses the mark in my opinion and will be surprised if it returns as a profitable event. We were at the park Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and had a few observations - Forget about hearing any of the music since with both Food and Wine stages playing their music at the same time while the Grand Carousel belts out its music at the same time and all three being all overpowered by the loud sound of Hot Rhythm nights when it plays at the scheduled times, not the most pleasant enjoyment of the music - many people did not have any wine or food from the festival in the new circus tent (most brought food and drinks from other park locations or were just there to hear the music) - the food was overpriced for the portion size and rather limited in selections offered. The wine flight was probably the best alcohol deal. Nobody seemed to be playing the festival games but did like how they used all the empty wine bottles for a ring toss game for the kids. After seeing this how this festival was ran, I don’t have high hopes for Carnival in July.

Likely they have been rehearsing the new fountain show late at night and don’t want to spoil the premiere this weekend. The same thing happened last season with Icam being down as they rehearsed and fine tuned the show a week before its debut.

Materials arrive via FedEx in a nice box. If you are a season pass holder, drink wristband ticket, meal tickets, and fun pic ticket are in your season pass account. So excited for Coasterstock this year.

Since the vast majority of professional firework displays are made in China (and with increasing China tariffs), I wonder how the overall seasonal cost of the fireworks will fit into the 2025 park budget allotted for show. Or it may be the show goes on with the drones and only with fireworks added on the weekend.

I find it amusing that they turned on the I street cam for just a moment to capture a new shot of there being no snow and a sunny day (just after the dismantling of the ice rink, they turned off the I street cam to likely block construction view progress of the new gift shop and bar). The new still shot may fool some when thinking the I street cam is on when it’s not, especially since all snow has melted from the former still shot. Note in the new I street cam shot (likely taken a few weeks ago) still shows the Winterfest sign out front and you can see all the building construction over on the right.

Reading the notes on the blueprint in the upper right, the fabric roof cannot withstand a heavy wet snow weight, so would expect the fabric roof to be removed for Winterfest (which then the question becomes will this area be utilized for Winterfest at all?) The other 115 mph wind note is highly unlikely and even with climate change and more frequent thunderstorms with straight line winds, still likely a very slight risk for the structure (remember the Kings Island sign out front getting hit by a severe thunderstorm years back and having to be rebuilt?)

The I-street cam has been turned off for a few weeks now. Typically, right after Winterfest they turn it off so we can’t watch the ice rink and decorations being disassembled. However, this year the cam stayed up for most of February to watch the decking of the ice rink taken out exposing the actual fountain as well as the Eiffel Tower light stings being removed. Then they turned the cam off likely for the start of I-Street construction on the new gift shops. Likely won’t come back on line until passholder preview in April as not to spoil the big reveal.

In pass holder email today - no real surprises as everyone kind of already guessed ”To make space for these exciting new experiences, we’re retiring a few classics— Cyclos, Eye of the Storm, and the Raging Rapids River Ride. We know it’s hard to part with rides that have given us so many wonderful memories, but each farewell opens the door to a whole new chapter of memory-making fun.”

The event was sold out by late this afternoon. KI did a much better job of simplifying ticket purchases this year than they have in past as well. I do think it doesn’t make any difference how long it takes to reach maximum capacity for a sell out as long as the event sells out (and in this case sold out three month ahead of time)! There have been years where other parks such as CP Coastermania took over a week to sell out (but likely not this year at CP with two major coasters opening/re-opening). It will be exciting to see old friends and meet new coaster friends this May.