DonHelbig

Get your facts straight. If you read my posts or listened to the podcasts, you'd see where I said I was grateful for the 17 years I had there; grateful for the opportunity. There were no hard feelings when I left. I have maintained relationships with people that work there. It's fair game to call Elizabeth out for how she has gone about things, especially when it's in writing from content creators. She doesn't get a free pass.

Elizabeth was instructing content creators to distance themselves from me if they wanted to stay on the park's media invite list, and she blocked people until they proved themselves. She also lied to management when she said she wasn't hiding and deleting replies from Tower Topics on the park accounts, that it was a "software issue." But congrats to her on the new role with the new Six Flags.

Guess that now makes two parks that won't interact with me on social media.

On the outside, I can see where people would think it's not competition. Having been on the inside, it is.

Kentucky Kingdom, Holiday World, Dollywood, and Kennywood are very much what Kings Island considers as competition.

They don't hire them (PR/marketing) like they used to.

Holiday World may be smaller on scale than Kings Island, but Holiday World has a number of things that are better than Kings Island, including water park. The value I received as a 2024 Holiday World passholder was superior to the value I received as a 2024 Kings Island passholder. I live three hours from Holiday World; 22 minutes from Kings Island.

Come for the lights, stay for the food!

Christmas at Kentucky Kingdom!

The 1980 USA Olympic men's hockey team didn't win the Gold Medal because they had the best players. They won because they had the right players. Same thing applies here. For the restructuring to work, the regional PR and social media teams are going to need the right people involved. If they build the regional teams that way, it will lead to the improvements park fans want to see.

Once the director of PR for the Midwest Region has their team in place, the park level PR positions will be eliminated. They were just officially named to the position yesterday. In addition to internal candidates, there will be those outside of Six Flags that will be considered for these roles.

What part of the PR and social media positions at the park level are being eliminated are you having trouble understanding?

Tony will be in the same boat as the others throughout the company. He may end up with a position on one of the regional PR teams, or he may be looking for a job outside of Six Flags. He won't be a director of communications at Cedar Point. The PR positions at the park level are being eliminated. The Midwest Regional team will manage the PR function for the parks within that region. It's similar to what they did when the marketing director positions were eliminated at the park level and run out of Charlotte by Brand teams.

There is a grass area behind the Crypt building where Coasterstock participants were taking to get behind-the-scenes photos of Diamondback that would be a possible spot to relocate where the drones launch from, if they continue to use drones in 2025 and beyond. It's only a couple hundred feet from the current location.

When I worked at Kings Island, managing PR and social media, if a major ride was going to be closed for more than one day I wanted to be transparent and did post on social media to advise guests the ride would be closed, and apologized. This includes multiple day closures for Son of Beast, The Beast, Vortex, Diamondback. Once the ride reopened, the posts were removed. But I felt as the person responsible for communicating to the public, it was important to let guests know. And guests appreciated the advisory. I didn't go into detail as to why, but a simple "X ride will be closed through X" was always appreciated.

Silent radio.

Only a Neo-Maxi-Zoom-Dweebie would whine about a lift hill on a roller coaster not being 13 feet taller.

Following the example set by Kings Island and other Six Flags parks with its content creator policy, the San Diego Padres banned Fox Sports baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal from their dugout during Game 3 of the National League Division Series on Tuesday. The Padres were displeased with something Rosenthal had written for ‘The Athletic.’ In response, they also chose not to participate in the standard in-game interviews with him, which are typically part of the broadcast.

Silver Dollar City is on my bucket list for 2025.

I had the same experience with French Corner closed often during the week. But the bars around the park were usually open so hopefully because they added a bar it opens daily moving forward.

If the issues plaguing Top Thrill 2 cannot be resolved, what goes down as the bigger failure: Son of Beast or Top Thrill 2?

I enjoyed this year's show.

Holiday World's water park is arguably the best in the amusement and theme park industry. Each of the three water coasters are fantastic! The restaurants in Splashin' Safari are also excellent. Some of the best pulled pork and brisket sandwiches that I've ever had can be found there. Kings Island's water park is average at best by comparison.

The Shrimp Sandwich was one of my favorite dining options this summer. It's amazing how good the food really is at Kings Island, and how few people talk about it.

The Mounds of Meatwich looks good!