KI Hotel Concept

[Orion-XL200]

KI is already busy enough....does it really need it's own hotel that allows access to the park? Would park locals (KIC members, Mason/Cincinnati region) actually stay? Often? KI brings in A LOT of local folks...more so than visitors from other markets. IMO, I could be wrong, the KI would benefit more from reorganizing the land for parking and expanding the park footprint with rides and water park things.

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

10 hours ago, BeeastFarmer said:

2.  Would need more parking.

The idea would be to convert the field behind it that's empty in the pic where that old baseball field was into more hotel parking

58 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:

KI is already busy enough....does it really need it's own hotel that allows access to the park? Would park locals (KIC members, Mason/Cincinnati region) actually stay? Often? KI brings in A LOT of local folks...more so than visitors from other markets. IMO, I could be wrong, the KI would benefit more from reorganizing the land for parking and expanding the park footprint with rides and water park things.

I had the same thought, but with Great Wolf Lodge looking to add another tower and with more hotels popping up at the Kings Mills/Mason exit over the last several years we know the demand for housing is there. Plus with the new regional pass, I think this could be a way to attract more out of town visitors to make a trip out of KI and add more revenue with on site lodging as the other hotels don't provide KI or Six Flags with any extra revenue. 

[Orion-XL200]

25 minutes ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

I had the same thought, but with Great Wolf Lodge looking to add another tower and with more hotels popping up at the Kings Mills/Mason exit over the last several years we know the demand for housing is there. Plus with the new regional pass, I think this could be a way to attract more out of town visitors to make a trip out of KI and add more revenue with on site lodging as the other hotels don't provide KI or Six Flags with any extra revenue. 

GWL and the other hotels in the area are their own though. While several of the hotels bring people to KI it's just not KI traffic, there's also many other things that people stay at them for. 

The new regional pass? After 2026: 

Quote

Canada's Wonderland & Splash Works 

Cedar Point & Cedar Point Shores 

Kings Island 

Six Flags Great America & Hurricane Harbor 

With the addition of lodging, they also get the added expenses. While that happens with any additions to the park, lodging/waterpark isn't cheap. 

With Six Flags dumping parks to get $, I don't think the priority is to add new major property/operating expenses anytime soon.

I just don't see KI adding a hotel/resort anytime soon, especially in today's climate with our economy and Six Flags in general.

[IndyGuy4KI]

12 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

Just playing around with AI a little lol

tbh I actually kinda like how this turned out! If this actually came to reality, it would give Great Wolf some legit competition! 

I bet GWL would fight that being built until the doors open to customers, but I really like the concept. 

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

7 minutes ago, IndyGuy4KI said:

I bet GWL would fight that being built until the doors open to customers, but I really like the concept. 

They probably would, but Sandusky literally has like 3 indoor waterpark hotels near each other including a Great Wolf. Competition can be a good thing. Plus I'm not envisioning a major indoor waterpark on the size of Great Wolf. I'm thinking something more along the lines of the little indoor waterpark that used to be connected to the thirsty pony years ago or the indoor waterpark at the YMCA in Lebanon.

[Orion-XL200]

The three parks in Sandusky have a little distance between them: Kalahari to GWL ~3 miles, GWL to Castaway is ~3 miles, Kalahari to Castaway is ~ 6 miles. 

GWL Mason to this area is under 2 miles with a waterpark right behind the area. 

How many people would choose a smaller waterpark within the lodging like (Rain?) compared to GWL or Soak City?

[jzarley]

My gut is that an onsite hotel at the southern side of the property and the existing GWL on the northern side would do just fine together (especially when talking about a property of only 200 rooms or so)—particularly in the Summer. Many, many, MANY years ago during a summer in college I worked at Red Roof Inn’s central reservations center at their HQ near Columbus. At that point, Cincinnati was one of RRI’s busiest markets especially in the summer. I would personally take dozens of calls (the center got about 10K calls a day at that point) for people going to KI and wanting to book a room nearby—and I was just one of a few hundred reservation agents. The caller’s goal was always to be “close to Kings Island” and at that time RRI’s closest property was Blue Ash (which was still 10 miles away)—it was almost always booked, then would expand out to Norwood, Sharonville, etc. (if I recall, at that time there were maybe five RRIs in the Cincy market?). Most weekends in the summer, the whole cincy market was sold out. (Once, I was even able to book “Columbus-South” in Grove City for someone going to Kings Island and desperate to find something—I got a sales bonus that day 😀)

I’m sure the local market has a lot more rooms in it now than it did then (again—this was many, many, MANY years ago 😀) but I’m guessing the booking activity is still robust enough to support something like this.

[DonHelbig]

There was a time pre-merger when a hotel was in the future plans. 

[Imperial79]

48 minutes ago, DonHelbig said:

There was a time pre-merger when a hotel was in the future plans. 

I've never heard that, was it around 2021 or so if you're able to say.  I can see them doing it now, with them wanting to put more focus on their most profitable parks. 

[WoodVengeance]

I think a standard hotel like what Carowinds has with Springhill Suites would probably work better. I would imagine it being a more affordable option compared to GWL, and I don't think an indoor waterpark is really necessary when Soak City is a short walk from where that concept is. Although, the downside of that would be that you wouldn't be able to do the waterpark during bad weather.

I do think there is going to be a slight attendance bump with the new Midwest Gold Passes. Cedar Point explicitly markets that you can go to Kings Island with a Cedar Point gold pass, so the Sandusky/Cleveland market will have more of an incentive to travel south to Kings Island.

[Orion-XL200]

43 minutes ago, WoodVengeance said:

I do think there is going to be a slight attendance bump with the new Midwest Gold Passes. Cedar Point explicitly markets that you can go to Kings Island with a Cedar Point gold pass, so the Sandusky/Cleveland market will have more of an incentive to travel south to Kings Island.

Doubt it will be that much of a bump. Those who are in the Midwest who would visit any other park than their home park most likely already had the Platinum Pass or Prestige Pass. Trends on visiting parks in the Midwest likely are not going to change much at all just because a regional pass is now available (after the whole MVP sale). 

[DonHelbig]

8 minutes ago, Orion-XL200 said:

Doubt it will be that much of a bump. Those who are in the Midwest who would visit any other park than their home park most likely already had the Platinum Pass or Prestige Pass. Trends on visiting parks in the Midwest likely are not going to change much at all just because a regional pass is now available (after the whole MVP sale). 

Spot on! 

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

I made another hotel concept with AI for that plot that is a little more realistic imo. This actually was mocked up before the water park hotel shared above

 

[SmartCat7162]

20 hours ago, Hawaiian Coasters 325 said:

I made another hotel concept with AI for that plot that is a little more realistic imo. This actually was mocked up before the water park hotel shared above

 

What ai are you using for this it is very impressive. Did it make it a full 3d rendering where you can spin around and see the back or is it just this stationary image?

[Hawaiian Coasters 325]

4 hours ago, SmartCat7162 said:

What ai are you using for this it is very impressive. Did it make it a full 3d rendering where you can spin around and see the back or is it just this stationary image?

Google Gemini and no it is a stationary image. I just screenshot a pic from Google Earth and paste it onto Google Gemini and I describe what I want to add to the image (for example I said "add a hotel in the grass area in foreground and name it the Kings Island Inn.")