KIghostguy

https://amusementtoday.com/issues/2025/202511ii/assets/downloads/AT-NOV-II-2025i.pdf The latest issue of Amusement Today has an article about Phantom Theater, with some details that have not yet been released. The ride will feature a new performer, a contortionist named Sir Pretzel, and it features 33 animatronics and 1 static figure.

In 1991, when Smurf's Enchanted Voyage closed for Phantom Theater construction, the park opened two additional rides for Winterfest to compensate for the dark ride being closed (Dodgem and Antique Cars). It would have been nice for the park to go the extra mile and open something new that isn't usually open since Boo Blasters is offline this year.

I appreciated that the park was open this past weekend, but I thought it was very strange that all the non-Winterfest rides went down for weather around 1 yesterday and didn't come back up. It was cold, but I was at Canada's Wonderland the weekend before and they ran everything all weekend, even though the temperature there was colder than it was in Mason yesterday. I know Canada has wheel heaters in the station. Maybe it would be wise for Kings Island to invest in those so that they can run their rides in colder temperatures, if they plan on having this bonus weekend in future years. At the very least, it would be nice to have standardized policies so that you know that all the B&M gigas across the chain will operate in this temperature, all the B&M hypers, etc.

I'm disappointed that they did nothing with Phantom Theater for Haunt this year. It would have been so easy to have Maestro open up Haunt every night or have the characters roaming around during Tricks and Treats, promoting the new ride. It would have been the perfect seasonal tie-in and help promote and build interest for the new ride. It's not surprising, but still disappointing that the park doesn't do any creative in-park marketing anymore.

Looks like a cute addition to the park. The Vekoma family inverts are a far superior product than the ones from B&M (imagine saying that even a few years ago!).

The scavenger hunt makes no sense. The short film was made as a way to drive people to attend Halloween at a Six Flags park. However, if you are doing the scavenger hunt tied in with the film...you already are at the park. So, what is the point?

But like...he's The Boss. Would you like it better if it was Billy Joel-themed instead of Bruce Springsteen?

At the end of the day, Bruce Springsteen is The Boss. You have to respect that. Imagine if he was the one who requested this retheme. Then the park would have no choice, since he's The Boss.

I think this would be a great idea, but I think it would be even better if they emphasized the racing aspect and themed the other side to another classic artist. Like Billy Joel or Jimmy Buffet.

Are you sure it was Phantom Theater? They usually play music from Tales From the Crypt and Beetlejuice on WindSeeker during Haunt, and those sound really similar to Phantom Theater. I really hope it is Phantom Theater, though!

And also, Woodstock's Air Rail is labeled as simply "Woodstock's."

What about Orion/Megabyte

"Swoops" is the only word italicized on that sign--it seems like they wanted to draw emphasis to that word in particular.

Thank you for sharing this. This is a topic I would LOVE to have more information on. Just about everyone I spoke to couldn't recall a lot of details about this ride pre-Top Gun, other than it was already contracted prior to the sale and was going to be built under the Swoop name. I was told that it would have been bird-themed and that a sign/logo had been designed (which I would love to see). That's about all the information that I was able to get, unfortunately. No one had any blueprints or color schemes or anything like that. I think these are likely the cars being built when it was going to be that name. I'm sure that more exists out there, somewhere, but as far as historical archiving at the park, a lot of stuff is either scattered around or was thrown out. If anyone has any further info, I would love to see it. I've looked around various places at the park but have not been able to turn up any more information. By the way, I still think Swoop is a great name for a coaster. Unique, easy to say, and to the point. It would have been an awesome name for Rapterra.

Passholders have been trained that the mazes are included with the event. I can't see this really ending well, unless the goal is to limit attendance in the mazes. Similar to Winterfest 2005, when they forced passholders to pay for the event, nobody came. At the very least, I'm sure there will be very long lines at Guest Services. The Conjuring is different--as more of an escape room-type experience versus a standard maze, I think people will want to do it and be willing to pay for it.

They were always headquartered in Charlotte. KECO moved their headquarters from Kings Island to Charlotte in 1986. When they were bought by Paramount, that office building remained the Paramount Parks corporate headquarters.

I had the chance to ride this during Associate Previews, and it is a great ride. Very smooth, great airtime, and the on-board audio really ties everything together nicely. I really hope parks buy more of these. I was surprised by how much the ride feels at home at Cedar Point. To me at least, it didn't feel like a ride that was supposed to go to two other parks. And yes, I would support building one of these as The Vortex replacement!

Plague Productions built Ghost in the Machine at Dorney Park, which is absolutely stunning. It would be great for them to build a house at Kings Island!

If this post was made in the future, I would have to say the cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory or a delicious flame-grilled Whopper at Burger King.

They were removed because it was felt that the curbs created a psychological barrier that prevented people from going in and spending money in the shops and restaurants.

I visited this park in 2022, when I was working at Hersheypark. I rode Superman next to a boy who was visiting from Britain...he wanted to visit an "American theme park." I told him it was a pretty poor representation of the parks here. I wonder if he ever went to another, better park during his trip!

Dean Nahrup. I tried to reach out to him through several different avenues when I was writing my book and never heard anything. So I would like to chill out with him so I could finally interview him!

Oh, interesting. I am not sure when that changed. The GMs of the resorts have reported to a corporate resort VP for at least a year at this point.

Resorts reports to Corporate, not to the park GM.

Great post and especially great photos. Thank you for sharing!