Kenban

The Kings Island website still shows the Winterfest map. Not sure I would trust the physical map since it was likely sent to the printers several weeks ago and could be out of date. Subway has been removed from both the website and the mobile app, if you try going to the old page directly it redirects you to the dining page instead of a 404 error. The FAQ listing for the dining plan which lists restaurants you can use the dining plan at and what meals you can get had Subway removed as well, someone scrubbed the website of any reference to Subway as far as I can tell. My guess is Subway is gone, just like the sign from the building. On a side note, the FAQ still lists “Dinosaurs Alive! Caveman Chicken Wings“ under Wishbone Grill.

I think 2025 is more likely if the next coaster is something big, but I would not be surprised to see a small coaster in 2024. Either something in the kids area, or maybe a wild mouse. The Zamperla being built at Cedar Point would be a tight fit but I believe it would fit where the old arcade is located on Coney Mall, between the antique cars and Zephyr, I believe the fence would be about 10 feet in front of where the building is located, but not 100% certain, with the queue between the coaster and Zephyr. Kings Island is the only park in the chain without a wild mouse or similar coaster. It’s a cheap and easy way to add a coaster and put off the next big new ride at Kings Island for 2 or 3 years. Dive coasters are very popular with the public, I expect Kings Island will get one, just likely not next year. The Vortex spot feels like the perfect location. Although I expect the next big attraction to be built towards the front of the park, likely in Action Zone. I believe The Vortex land will stay empty for a few more years.

A few hours before this announcement there was a news story about this district attorney and a possible scandal. In one instance a prosecutor refused to dismiss charges, then presented no evidence and called no witnesses, explaining to the judge that he could not just dismiss the charges because it’s election season. This feels like a political stunt to distract from being caught playing politics.

There is at least one exception to this that I am aware of, Theme Park Review. TPR has been allowed to film their own POV's at Kings Island on multiple occasions, the majority of them were not filmed on a Media Day. Many of them have been posted to their YouTube channel. Just like the parks POV's the cameras are always hard mounted to the train, nothing is being held by or attached to a rider, some of them do have riders on the train, but not all of them. They even have some 360 degree videos and frequently they film them from multiple angles, for instance Orion was shot from both the front and back row of the train. Filming on the majority of the rides at Kings Island is only allowed with the permission and assistance of the park. I don't see a good reason to change that policy. The POV's filmed by the park or with the assistance of the park are going to be higher quality than anything your going to be capturing.

It is a little out of your way, but there are several very nice sea side parks in New Jersey. I would consider skipping Virginia Beach and instead heading to the Jersey Shore and checking out Morey's Piers and if you have the time Playland's Castaway Cove, if you do visit Playland walk over to Gillian's Wonderland, they don't have any coasters but its still worth walking through the park. If you have never been to Morey's Piers I really recommend spending the time and making the trip since you would be so close. They have the smoothest SLC I have ever ridden, a lot of the track was replaced a few years ago, and it is running the new Vekoma trains with the vest restraints, the only SLC I got back in line for over and over again, it really is that good. Their CCI, Great White is fantastic. Playland has the amazing GaleForce coaster from S&S, I always just wish the line moved faster. You would still be visiting a beach and get access to the ocean just at a different location that also happens to have roller coasters. That is not even all the seaside parks, I also recommend Casino Pier with Hydrus which is a Gerstlauer Euro Fighter, and I loved riding their Sky ride at night. But I would start with Morey's and spend time in Wildwood where the park is located, then make your way up to Playland if you have the time, before you start trying to hit even more. I assume your driving through central PA, there is a small town, Altoona, home of the Boyer candy company which makes Mallo Cups and has a factory outlet, but also home to Lakemont Park. If you have the time it might be worth a diversion since that is where Leap the Dips is located, the oldest operating roller coaster in the world, the ride opened in 1902. If you have a Sea World or Busch garden platinum pass stop off at Sesame Place to ride the coasters, Oscar's Wacky Taxi is worth the time and I really wish it would get cloned. But it is not worth the admission cost for just the coaster.

The town hall remodel being cancelled was announced last year. At the time they said it would be impossible to reopen the old town hall because they had already gutted the building back after the season ended in 2019. They also said that they anticipated it would be several years before something might happen and they were not certain if they would use the existing design or if it would be something new. So I am unsure why this is considered news. Wild Turnip was a quick service restaurant on frontier trail, the entire point was to serve people who had dietary restrictions. The problem was it always had staffing issues and was rarely open, in part because it took special training to work there. I do not remember ever seeing it operate, but I actually heard good things about the food. From what I can tell there was no explanation as to what closing Forbidden Frontier even means. Is it just the characters, or is the whole island that closed? It feels like the entire thing is closing, not sure if that means it’s being removed which suggests something is happening out there, or to reduce labor to operate the park, and it might return in some form in the future. They installed bathrooms on the island, some interactive elements, and a big play structure. Overall I think Cedar Point is trying to reduce the number of employees it takes to operate the resort. Finding enough employees has been hard for a while and it seems more difficult then ever, it does not help that the park does not pay that well. I suspect that’s why the CP Nights is not happening, staffing.

This is the direction the chain has been slowly moving, Kings Island is not the first Cedar Fair park to get rid of the Fast Lane plus option and I doubt it will be the last. If I am correct only 3 parks in the chain still have two separate tiers, and there is enough time left for more parks to make this change this year.

I read the news article and it references another site, except the link goes to the sites homepage and I cannot find the source article on that site. So I have to trust the article. The news article does discuss how this might be true. They are saying the whole vacation is cheaper, so they are including hotels, transportation which they call out Uber, etc. The pricing assumes a family of 4, consisting of 2 adults, and 2 children. Frankly it feels worthless. So much of this is based on variable expenses, and who decides on a park to travel to based on these specific criteria? Parks like Kings Island are called regional parks for a reason. I saw an article a few months ago that compared parks based on cost per an attraction. It divided the ticket cost by number of attractions then ranked the parks based on that. If I remember right Cedar Point actually ends up first due to its number of flat rides and Kings Island is in the top few as well.

I think this was a serious plan, and we might have even seen one piece of this design be implemented. Back in I believe 2019, the Drop Tower at CGA was repainted and the paint job was intended to make you think of a redwood tree. The Drop Tower is in this section of the park and I believe would have been in this new redwood area. If you check the companies very next project on the site it’s a restaurant revamp at Knott’s which was built and opened last summer.

I think it’s important to point out from what I can tell they want Six Flags to sell everything, not just the land, but all of the parks, rides and everything. Then Six Flags turns into a pure management only company, which would have a giant annual lease to operate the parks. The proposal uses MGM resorts and Marriott as examples. Personally I find Marriott a terrible example, it’s a franchise business model that provides brand standards, marketing, rewards program, etc. Marriott does not really operate or lease the hotels, overall it has more in common with a fast food restaurant like McDonalds or Subway. I just don’t know enough about the MGM resorts and it’s corporate structure, but it feels like it might be at least comparable. Six Flags already does not own all of the parks, they only manage Darien lake for instance, they also only own roughly 50% of Over Georgia and Over Texas. While this might work for Magic Mountain, Great Adventure, St Louis and a lot of other parks, I cannot imagine they would be allowed to sell their half of Over Texas or Georgia to a third party, and this could also allow them to leave Six Flags, there has been a lot of complaints about mismanagement over the years. This feels like something that could be a problem long term.

What Cedar Fair has been doing is starting rides inside the existing park, the station, plaza, etc have all been on an existing midway and then the ride may or may not stay inside the existing boundaries.

It’s an almost full train of The Beast. This model has 5 cars, the real one has 6.

You don't understand Disney+ either. The content appears to be fine since Disney+ is seeing massive growth. They hit 164 million subscribers to Disney+ in 3 years, when it took Netflix 8 years to reach a similar milestone. At the rate Disney+ is growing they could pass Netflix in subscribers in the next 2 years. But that growth has been fueled by basically burning money. Also understand the losses are for the entire direct to consumers division, not just Disney+. That also includes 2 other streaming services, Hulu and ESPN+, which are also likely not making money. The problem is largely down to the amount of money the streaming services are spending on new content. The division as a whole spent $16 billion on content last year. Total across the entire company Disney spent $30 billion on new content. That means Disney spent more money on direct to consumer, than all the other Movies and TV Shows they made, combined.

I think a Disney merger with Apple was possible 10 years ago, but not today. Steve Jobs would likely have been a required piece to make this happen. When Steve Jobs died in 2011 he was Disney's largest shareholder due to his investment in Pixar and its later acquisition by Disney. Bob Iger was CEO of Disney and also a member of the Apple board of directors at the time.

The majority of benefits started this year. Preferred parking is one of I think 3 benefits that does not start until 2023, the others being a preferred entrance and the waterpark VIP area, neither of these currently exist, so it made sense why they could not start immediately. This suggests to me there is something changing with the preferred parking beyond just giving access. My assumption is the preferred lot will be expanded into what is currently the bus and RV parking, I expect to see at a minimum the fence and access booth moved. Although I suspect we might see more changes since maintaining access for large vehicles to the service road that goes around the park is important.

None of the above, Baynum confirming they have a contract to paint Diamondback...

Written by someone who does not know the history of the coaster, or the park. PTC did not design or build it, they had already stopped building coasters several years before this. They have the designer correct, Curtis Summers. But they worked for KECO, Kings Entertainment Company, owned by Taft Broadcasting, the company that owned the park and built the park. This coaster just like The Beast was done in house. Then they go on to credit coaster designs to Summers he did not design, including The Racer, Racer 75, and Woodstock Express. Which were all actually built by PTC and designed by John Allen.

Intamin has a long history with building motion simulators, and a long history of announcements like this that no one ever purchases. For instance they built the old Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, but when it was updated for The Simpsons, Universal instead went with Oceaneering. Go take a look at Intamin’s website and it’s got I believe 5 completely different styles of screen based motion rides, none have ever been built. Before anyone asks this appears to be just small enough to fit inside the old TRTR building with enough room for the screen. I just doubt Cedar Fair wants to buy an attraction like this or one from Intamin. I do think a screen based attraction would one of the best uses for the building, because it’s just not big enough for anything larger than a flat ride. But with the majority of park guests being locals not sure how popular a screen based ride would be long term without having new movies produced.

I see three possible track types, Gravity Group with their precut wood track, or I could also see a move to steel using either Titan Track or 208 ReTrak. I just doubt we will see traditional track work, its always possible but parks want to reduce maintenance costs and improve the ride experience, plus this does not feel like a regular retracking. Gravity Group did a fantastic job over the last two years at Kings Island. Keeping the relationship going and having them do more work at other parks in the chain seems like the most likely option. But does the park or corporate care if the ride stays a traditional wood coaster? If it does not why not just use steel track instead. GCI did install some titan track in Michigan earlier this year and is building Zambezi Zinger at WOF. The other possible steel option is 208 ReTrak from RMC. It replicates the entire stack of traditional track using steel, and frankly makes a lot more sense to me than topper track ever did. The Ledgers have been removed in the areas that are being worked on, and I suspect we will be seeing minor design changes like what The Racer and The Beast had done. As soon as we start seeing any new track, we should have an idea of what company is working on this project. I would also think there would be a report of pallets of wood if this was going to be a traditional retracking.

Give it a few more years I am sure Diamondback will need the splashdown replaced long before the rest of the coaster. Sheikra at BGT had its splashdown track totally replaced earlier this year due to damage from the water.

Parks with the attendance, size, and profitability of Kings Island almost need annual additions. The number of years where almost nothing happened in the entire history of the park is very short. They don’t need to be large in scale but there is almost zero chance there will be nothing in 2024 or 2025. But I am expecting something much larger than this one of those years. The longest gap between coasters since the park opened in 1972 has been 5 years and it’s only happened twice, between Diamondback and Banshee, and after the park initially opened to when Demon opened in 1977. 2025 will have been 5 years since Orion opened. Typically it’s 3 years between coasters although the pandemic has changed plans and schedules, I would be extremely surprised if we don’t see a new coaster in either 2024 or 2025.

Fresno is really not a great location for a park. It’s too far to any of the major population centers in the state. It’s the center of the state but it’s mostly farm land, total only 2.8 million people live within a 100 mile radius of Fresno. LA, San Jose, San Francisco are all more than a 3 hour drive away. If Cedar Fair wants to build a replacement, and I am not sure if they do, a park outside a larger city on cheaper land makes more sense, look at Six Flags Magic Mountain for instance. I could also see somewhere like Stockton working, it’s not a huge city, but it’s only an hour drive to Sacramento and an hour and half drive to San Jose or San Francisco. Total it has 13 million people living in a 100 mile radius (straight line not driving distance).

The contract for CGA was designed to give the park several more years of operations and one year at the end to remove attractions. It’s way too early to be removing attractions whatever is happening at Kings Island it’s not attractions from CGA.

After Carowinds and Kings Dominion announcements, I predict it’s just year round operations starting weekends in January.

I have been expecting the announcement for Carowinds, a little surprised by Kings Dominion also going year round. This might be a response to Busch Gardens Williamsburg which has moved to year round operations a few years ago and appears to be seeing a lot of success. If I counted the BGW calendar correctly it is only closed 96 days of the entire year. Cedar Fair really needs to work on building more indoor attractions.