KIghostguy

Very interesting article on the development of Tumbili and Jungle X-Pedition at Kings Dominion. Definitely worth a read! https://www.inparkmagazine.com/bleck-bleck-welcome-to-the-jungle/

I understand where you're coming from, and I had some hesitation initially as well. But I think Adventure Express is a fun, great theme and a classic Kings Island experience. It's cool to see it expanded into a whole land. The Festhaus and Emporium are remaining, so there will still be German theming left at Kings Island!

I’m surprised they didn’t do some sort of in-person announcement. They’ve done announcement events for more minor additions, and this would have been very well-received in-person.

Interesting that it doesn’t sound like R&R Creative Amusement Designs is involved at all. They designed Adventure Express’s theming in the first place…maybe they were outside the budget? JRA is great too though. Excited to see how it turns out!

I'm very pleased about this! Retheming the land to fit in with Adventure Express is brilliant, and the new flat rides are definitely needed. Adventure Express fit well into the park when it was installed in Wild Animal Habitat, but now that it's grouped in with Oktoberfest, it's great to see it re-contextualized to fit in. We will still have German representation in the park with the Festhaus and Emporium. The overall land looks like the love-child of Jungle X-Pedition and the new Fiesta Village, which means this should also turn out great.

Nice to see the new/relocated shows. I hope they make a really big deal about this year's Winterfest. It's the 40th anniversary of the first Christmas event at a seasonal park, and I hope they market it accordingly! It will be a huge missed opportunity if they don't have Walt Davis, the inventor of Winterfest, in the park opening night to do the Tree Lightning Ceremony.

This is a very interesting thread to read! I worked on Coal Cracker this past summer at Hersheypark. It was very easy ride to work when everything was running smoothly, but when it did break down, which wasn't often, there was a very specific procedure that you had to do that was different at each position. It took a fair number of people to operate for a log flume and each person had to practice what to do at each position in case of a breakdown. I generally enjoyed it, but because training was so rigorous, they didn't have a lot of people trained on it. So the people that were trained on it tended to be placed there pretty frequently! I assume that KCKC was probably easier to run because it only had one lift versus two. I understand why most parks have gotten rid of their hydroflumes--they take a lot to staff and can't be cheap to run. I'm glad that Hersheypark still has theirs though. It's a nice ride with a low height requirement. I seemed to me that it had high ridership and because of the layouts of Hersheypark's rides, Coal Cracker doesn't take up a lot of room, so I don't think it will be departing for a while.

This looks great and fits Rivertown really well!

I got the chance to visit Haunt this past weekend for my first time this year. Pros: Hotel St. Michelle had great set design and the actors were all very enthusiastic. I was impressed! Some really great scares in here. Lots of sliders out and about on the midways. I definitely jumped a couple times! Slaughterhouse, Madame Fatale's, and KillMart were "the usual"--that is, all really good. Cornered is much improved in its new location over last year. Still nowhere near as good as Field of Screams, but definitely an improvement over when it was in Tower Gardens. Night rides! Everything was running really well this weekend, particularly on Sunday night. I had my best ride ever on Orion. Wasn't able to catch the full lightshow, but from what I saw it looked great. Cons: CHAOS was really good its first year, but I think the past two years it's been the weakest maze by far. The mirrors are all smudged now and the path is obvious, which really weakens that final act. The loss of Blackout and Wolf Pack without replacements is not good...I understand staffing is an issue, but it's hard for me to fathom that we went from 9 mazes in 2019 to almost half of that with 5 in 2021. I'm really glad that Kings Island replaced Urgent Scare this year, though! The dance party in Coney Maul has got to be a new low for this event. I'm sorry, but there is nothing scary or creepy or eerie about the Cupid Shuffle--unless you have traumatic wedding and/or school dance memories. It doesn't fit Haunt at all. Less decor than in years past. For instance, anyone remember the severed heads in the giant pumpkin in Pumpkin Eater's old location? What they had out this year looked really good, I just wish there was more like in the past. Lack of fog has already been pointed out and discussed on here many times. Overall, I felt that Haunt just didn't have that immersive Halloween spirit that it had in years past. There's still some fun to be had--you can't ever go wrong with The Beast at night!--but I was disappointed. The Coney Maul dance party in particular just totally kills the mood and atmosphere. Cedar Point really elevated HalloWeekends this year, and while I felt that Kings Island had a much better event in 2021, I don't think Kings Island's Haunt touches Cedar Point's this year.

The Notice of Commencement for Orion was dated for 2018, 2019, and 2020 additions and modifications to the park. The NoC with Mystic Timbers was for 2016 and 2017. There's one for Tropical Plunge that's dated for 2015 and 2016. This document is for 2022 and 2023 changes to the park. I'm not well-versed in Notices of Commencement, but based on the past ones, it seems like we're looking at work that's starting in 2022 and finishing/opening in 2023.

I'm glad you brought up HalloWeekends! I'm also super impressed with it, especially compared to how the event was last year. All the mazes seem well-staffed, screamsters seem very engaged and involved. The new Opening ScaryMoanies and Midnight Syndicate show are great fun--the actor who plays Mr. Midnight is FANTASTIC! The event is night and day compared to last year. A lot of the improvements are no doubt because Michael Roddy, who used to be the head creative for Halloween Horror Nights, is now the VP of Entertainment at Cedar Point. I'm finally making it down to Haunt this weekend and am interested to compare the two. I felt that last year, Haunt was definitely the better, more immersive event compared to HalloWeekends. But I'm with you @BB1, Cedar Point really upped their game this year for Halloween.

This is not true at all. Worrying about "overshadowing" Cedar Point is not a part of the decision-making process for Kings Island. Look at Banshee to see this in action--it's a much more marketable ride than Raptor. And I'm sure a lot of people would put Orion above Mehllennium Force.

Yes, Jeff Gramke and Jamie Gaffney. The initial idea was for the station to go where TimberWolf was and the coaster would have gone along the old Columbia Road and the parking lot. The issue with that is there's a lot of utilities owned by outside companies right around there. Relocating those and negotiating with the companies would have been too time-consuming since the project started later in the game at Kings Island. Ultimately, Coney Mall was slipping on the revenue side and had two rides that needed to be replaced, so they decided to focus on that area instead. I don't believe there were any layouts done with the ride in Action Zone since it was early in the planning process. Just the general idea of, "This is where it could go."

TimberWolf has been on the chopping block before--it was considered as the original location of Orion's station. So I wouldn't be surprised if it's removed, but I'm also sure that's contingent on how well the concerts did this year.

Here’s a really interesting article on Zambezi Zinger and Worlds of Fun’s 50th Anniversary that ran in the latest Amusement Today: https://amusementtoday.com/issues/2022/202210/assets/downloads/AT-OCT-2022i.pdf I thought the section about how they’re going to be redeveloping and adding new theming to further differentiate each land was particularly interesting. Worlds of Fun is definitely high on my radar for 2023!

The regional history aspect was really pushed heavily by Rob Decker--look at Mystic Timbers, Copperhead Strike, HangTime, also the original Orion story was supposed to tie in very heavily to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It's nice to see that idea still continue past his retirement and I hope that we continue to see more of it. I agree with you, it makes the park feel more relevant and authentic, and certainly more unique--a park in Florida can't have Copperhead Strike, etc.

Christmas at the Southern Palace at Six Flags Over Texas. https://twitter.com/amusementtoday/status/1568733271953141762?s=20&t=pa93wMLC_5eTkhOO-cMg6w

Well deserved! Great to see the park get the award and recognition. Also worth noting that Kings Island was ranked as 8th best park in the world in the magazine issue! Pretty cool to see. But also--Carowinds Winterfest is the fifth best Christmas event in the world?! https://amusementtoday.com/issues/2022/GTA2022/

I'm definitely surprised there wasn't any new Phantom Theater merch other than the poster this summer--maybe it's just yet to come in? The characters are unique, distinctive to Kings Island, and highly marketable. The Usher plushie in particular is a no-brainer. I would buy that for sure!

And to think there was almost no central water feature in Rivertown at all! Greg Scheid originally wanted to eliminate Swan Lake completely when building Diamondback. I'm grateful and happy that we at least have some water features left in the park.

IIRC the Rivertown waterfall was turned off when Diamondback was installed. I miss that one as well!

I miss this SO much. Relaxing in Tower Gardens next to the waterfall is one of my earliest memories of the park. I was so upset when they got rid of it.

Alien X sounds pretty cool. I always like it when they tie a Scare Zone or Maze into the land that it’s in. Nice that we’re getting a replacement for Urgent Scare, too!

I think that’s great. The last two times the organ was restored, it was so quiet you could barely hear it. You had to be standing right up against it. I think it’s a beautiful sound and it deserves to be heard throughout the park.

I popped in for a quick visit today earlier this afternoon. The "No signal" TV that was broken at the Flight of Fear exit vignette is back in operation! Which was great to see. The podcast wagon is still not emitting audio. No idea about the station music/light in the meteor because like I said, I was just there for a quick visit. It's great to see that that TV was fixed, I hope the other elements will be repaired soon.