Kenban

It felt like there was enough people for Thursday’s to be viable, especially if the attendance increases like it typically does later in October. It’s not like it was so dead the coasters were running empty trains. You could basically walk on the majority of rides, but they also had a steady enough flow of people the trains seemed to always have a few rows filled. I went on Adventure Express and my train had around 8 people but when we got back to the station almost every row was filled. According to the sign there was a 25 minute wait for The Beast, but I did not wait in the line, so I know there was a wait, but unsure it’s real length. The haunts did not have a wait except for Order of the Dragon. The Conjuring had effectively no wait, the person at the entrance to the line had a stack of cards, likely for return times to limit the line length, but I never saw them give them out, or need to do so. I am curious if they let people go through solo, or made people wait until there was enough for at least a small group. I was surprised by how much of the park was open. The rides seemed to all be operating except for the kids area. The restaurants were all operating, although one side of brewhouse was blocked off. They even did all the shows. It really was a normal night of haunt, just with less guests. There was definitely areas where changes could be made to reduce costs if desired, and I have been to parks with a lot more limited operations. I did the first Thursdays of Halloweekends at Cedar Point this year as well. That felt more crowded but not by a huge margin. Also they do not perform the majority of shows at Cedar Point on Thursday. I remember several rides not operating but I think most of that was maintenance issues. My biggest concern was it felt like everyone at the park was a pass holder. I think preferred parking was like half full. If it grows in attendance over the coming weeks, I could definitely see Thursdays make a return next year. If you have a chance to go on a Thursday this October, I recommend it.

I am surprised the supervisor let you go, not because you don’t have the free ticket, but they changed how those work. You are supposed to go the ticket booth and they print you a ticket. I have been told they can no longer do the bring a friend free tickets at the gate.

Traditionally neither legacy Six Flags nor Cedar Fair relocated water slides. The refurbishment and expense to carefully take down and move water slides has typically outweighed any savings. Water slides are pretty cheap, and it’s typically better to just buy new. My expectation is Ragin Cagun, maybe great chase, some flat rides, and parts and trains to be all gets relocated from SFA.

Express is sold out because it includes The Conjuring. If the conjuring sells out, it forces express sales to end. I personally feel including the conjuring in express was a mistake. I figured a version of express without the conjuring would happen so that the express sales could resume but it has not. When I did the conjuring at Kings Island I was pretty confident they took advantage of the extra space and built the house for higher capacity than the version at Cedar Point. I think they even duplicated some of the rooms. I am also unsure if they hired enough actors to run it at maximum capacity.

I have higher standards when a park charges extra for the event than when it’s included as part of the ticket. The conjuring for instance is worth that extra cost, the house is incredible and is overall one of the best houses I have ever done at any theme park, including the huge number of houses I have done at Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. Over the years I have been to roughly half of all the HHN events at Universal in Orlando, and have also done Knott’s Scary Farm, Howl O Scream, and HHN in Hollywood, in addition to numerous other haunts. I feel like I have a significant amount of experience when it comes to haunts. The houses at Kings Island have largely been decent but nothing special. For actual build quality they are acceptable, and staffing has always been a little weak. But it was a free experience and like I said I have lowered expectations due to that, and Kings Island lived up to those lowered expectations. I went opening night and I started my night at the conjuring, and that house is one of the best haunted experiences I have never had, it is a level of quality that justifies charging extra, and is just as good as the houses at HHN. Probably better due to going through as a small group. I was at Cedar Point the previous weekend and experienced The Conjuring there as well. While the two houses are very similar, Kings Island does have larger rooms, and I am pretty sure I saw duplicates of at the very least the office at the start and the warehouse at the end, so I think it can have a much higher capacity. The line gets long, and moves slowly, but it was worth waiting two hours at Cedar Point, and while I waited less time it was definitely worth the wait at Kings Island as well. If you do nothing else at Haunt buy a separate ticket just for the Conjuring and experience this house. After the conjuring I started doing the rest of the houses, which largely are the same as previous years except for the one new traditional house, and I will cover that last. Hotel St Michelle Is my favorite of the old houses, I feel like the layout is an interesting choice starting at a service entrance and working your way to the front door, overall well done. Houses like Slaughter house, and Killmart are classics, but they are getting old. Alien Abyss is a bigger problem, overall it’s not that old, but the house is just boring, and I don’t care for it. Cornered while I believe it’s a new layout, is still similar to previous years, nothing special except for the length. At this point in the night, I was not really feeling the upgrades that I would expect moving to a paid event, because while the conjuring is worth extra, it’s also not really one of the houses. If anything the staffing felt lower than previous years, and I was not really caring about the scare zones. Then I went and did the Order of the Dragon, not a fan of the walk to the actual entrance, the gravel path would be better as a straight line or if there were walls of some kind, the back and forth especially when you can see the whole path the entire time just did not really do much. But I was already noticing the quality of the props, and they look good. Then I got to the entrance, and it really impressed me even before I saw the inside, and sets the stage for the house. I don’t want to give spoilers for the first room, but it’s something I would expect to see at Halloween Horror Nights, it’s not that a room can’t be built like that other places, but I have seen similar effects and making it the start so the group sees it all at once is a good move. The build quality of the Order of the Dragon is very, very good. I don’t know who designed or built it, but I am pretty confident the park hired an outside company to do so. There are projection effects, recorded sound effects, pretty sure there is music, costumes, it’s an actual professional house. It’s a level of quality that does not fit in with the rest of the event except for The Conjuring. This house feels like what you would see at Knott’s, or HHN. My biggest criticism is just like the rest of the event, it just felt light on scare actors, this might get better over time, or maybe I just kept hitting the houses at bad times. I did not see the shows, or buy a lantern, so not much I can say there. The shows I will catch sometime next month. If the order of the dragon and the conjuring shows what the future of the event will be by moving to charging extra for Haunt, sign me up. I will happily pay for houses of that quality. For me half of the event is basically old, and not really worth the expense and personally I don’t feel like those experiences were that amazing. But if Kings Island can keep this going, and build more houses like Order of the Dragon in the future, charging extra for Haunt makes sense.

At the regular houses there was no scanning into anything. They checked for the presence of a wristband and made sure you were in the correct line based on which of the two you had, but that’s it. Both wrist bands are unlimited except for the conjuring, which is express only or a separate purchase, and is one time only. At the conjuring they scanned barcodes when you reached the front of the line. With small groups and significant time between them there is no real need for speed. You have several characters that you interact with as you move through the experience, I am unsure how many there are. It’s very possible it’s nothing that simple because I think you spend unequal amounts of time with them, so they could have several who rotate through a series of rooms and some who are effectively stationary for instance. No one travels through the entire experience with your group. Redeeming the wristbands is no different than redeeming Fast Lane and at Cedar Point they are available in the same locations as Fast Lane.

After going to Cedar Point last weekend and seeing how low capacity the conjuring is, too many. Including the conjuring in express was a mistake, including it in season long express was an even larger mistake. The conjuring has to send people through in at most groups of 10 people and frankly that’s pushing the capacity of the rooms at Cedar Point. Your group has to stop and interact multiple times which means there has to be separation between the groups, I think it was around 3 minutes, but I never bothered timing it. At 10 people every 3 minutes that’s 200 people an hour. The house opened later than the other houses and closed the line early, all those people with express had to wait 2 hours to experience the house and it takes 20-30 minutes to go through the house. It’s worth it, but it has been oversold based on the houses capacity BADLY. The conjuring needs to open earlier, there needs to be an express product that does not include the conjuring. Personally I think there needs to be sign ups for the house and assign return times to get rid of the line as well.

The free parking is covered by a different part of the terms and conditions.

There does not appear to be a plastic bottle option for the drink plans, Canadas Wonderland website is only listing the two paper cup options for 2026. In previous years you could activate the annual pass on the Canadas Wonderland website, or even upload a photo when purchasing the pass and it started working immediately. I would wait until someone actually tests it before jumping to too many conclusions since Canadas Wonderlands website still allows online activation and still asks for a photo when buying the pass.

Six Flags Mexico lists, “family thrill boomerang coaster”. It specifically lists the ride as a coaster. Which I suspect means a Vekoma boomerang similar to Soapbox Racers or Good Gravy. That Kings Island does not say coaster, and instead states attraction, immediately sets off alarm bells, that it is not a coaster. Projects change, maybe it’s not actually firmly decided exactly what will be built. But I would not expect a coaster and end up being disappointed.

I suspect this release is a response to the ride closures. This will also fuel the fires around Kingda Ka being transformed into an LSM coaster, possibly with a longer layout. It least at Kings Island, that sounds like a flat ride of some kind.

I was not at the park but the rain on Saturday was extremely heavy at times in the region. This would not be the first coaster to have two trains bump each other due to rain reducing the stopping power of the brakes. I am sure there will be an investigation, but personally my guess is just too much water on the brakes. If I remember right, around 20 years ago Magnum slipped through the brakes hitting the train in front of it at Cedar Point. Some parks have a policy to remove a train from the track if possible, when it is raining. Coasters that typically run 3 trains drop to 2, and coasters that run 2 go to a single train. If there had only been two trains, I suspect this would not have occurred. We might see some policy changes come out of this.

That’s not the way I read this. I think this is a single new position, and I do not believe the individual parks staffing will be directly impacted. Cedar Fair had regional manager positions as well, not sure about specifically over the marketing, but regional managers were allowed to be based at any park in the chain they oversaw. Which is why it lists the parks in the region, they can have their office at their choice of parks. The one regional manager that I am familiar with was Greg Scheid. He was the old regional VP until he retired from Cedar Fair, and he worked out of Kings Island. When your on international street and look up at the international restaurant, his office was the last few windows on the left. It has a fantastic view.

Space constraints, the rides still have to fit around existing infrastructure. Rob Decker literally discussed trying to fit in a bigger ride, and they could not make it work. Yukon Striker was designed for that drop through Vortex, and everything has to line up to make that possible. Doing the design of YS is what made them realize they could cram a dive coaster at Cedar Point in a difficult to fill space they had been trying to use for years. The high water table due to the lake means tunnels are out at Cedar Point, and Valravn is stuck between the road and the midway, anything bigger and it would stick out into the midway.

What matters is the engineering done by B&M, and the financial analysis by Six Flags. Both of which appears to have been done and at this point Six Flags appears to be trying to figure out where to build it. So far this year before the merger, Cedar Fair, and now after the merger, Six Flags, have included a giga dive coaster on 3 separate coaster surveys, maybe more that I am not aware of. The three that I know of are Kings Island, Carowinds, and more recently Magic Mountain, all had pass holders asked their feelings about building a giga dive. The fact that corporate keeps asking, suggests they know how much it will cost and are comfortable paying for it. Obviously the rides in a survey may never be built, but it’s also not common for the same ride to be asked about over and over again like this. The merged company is largely run by the old Cedar Fair management and a giga dive is basically the exact type of ride the pre merger Cedar Fair would build.