Kings Dominion 50th Visit

[brenthodge]

My son really got into the history of KI during our 50th, so we really wanted to experience the "other KI" during its 50th this year. We went to the park on Sunday evening and all day Monday. It was beyond dead, like park right at the entrance at 5:30 pm dead. Thought we would do a ride or two and dinner Sunday evening, but we almost could’ve skipped Monday with how much we knocked out Sunday night. 

KD is BEAUTIFUL on approach and walk in. It was wonderful to see full fountains that had mass and noise. It was amazing to see an International Street that looked like a park. There were gas lights. There were more interesting buildings with shaded and covered seating. It’s going to be a shock walking back into KI after being reminded how full and lush it used to look there. The pavement is a bot of a mess where the curbs were just shaved down and the ramps filled in years ago when the blacktop street was eliminated. It’s crazy to realize no major reworking of the pavement has occurred since the major redo. 

The Eiffel Tower looks like it is literally placed in a landscaped park. It is such a refreshing change from the patch of flat grass our sits in. Turning toward Old Virginia, it was amazing to see a working waterfall, then another one at the entrance to the water rides. That whole area had almost a Dollywood vibe to it. Love the antique cars where they are with the long path and and the dense woods. The view coming back from that ride across the bridge looking at the theatre was just perfect. Grizzly had a super odd entrance. We actually passed it the first two times in the area and had to really look to find it finally. That seems like a big miss for a (now) great coaster. White Water Canyon was also way better here. The setting hasn't been cleared out as much, and it truly feels like a mountian rushing river. The waterfalls look great and depite the odd indoor portion with creepy static mannequins, the entire experience felt way more themed. 

It was so cool to see a dense vine tunnel as we walked to Twisted Timbers. WOW what a great ride. Its hard to be critical of any operations since we walked right onto almost everything both days, but this was one I would still wait for. We need this - LOVE Mystic Timbers, but I think this actually edges out SteVe for the slower pacing and “you can see it coming” feeling. 

Candy Apple Grove seemed agin just more shaded and lush. Its odd that a younger park feels more established than its older sister. I like the carousel and ferris wheel there. Give the area a full “old time amusement park” feel. It was great to have CHIPS with a bowl at the burrito place and RED SAUCE with pizza. Victoria’s looks nice after the redo and I love the outdoor seating. 

Jungle X is what Adventure Port wishes it could be. Great theming and atmosphere. The shop there along with all the other shops had much stronger thematic merchandsing that KI. Food was OK, but the themed atmosphere again was almost Disney level. Rides in this area were all solid, but Rapterra is the odd exception. 

Rapterra in the front feels brand new - in the back it feels like it’s as old as the park. A few month old coaster shouldn’t bee this rough and janky in the back. I don’t remember Wild Eagle having this much vibration and bounce in the back. It was actually very painful. The load process was also a mess. There’s a separator at the outer “temple” telling you to go to right side or left, but they have to keep leaving and walking to the station to see the balance of people on each side. Then when you get to the station theres a single switchback to the gates. People clump up at the first gate, then you have to force your way past them to get to the other gates that are wide open. There seems like there needs to be station associate assigning people to gates, or loading the train back to front. It just gets messy and people get attitude like you are cutting around them, but there would be people in front of us just standing there not filling in empty gate slots, so we went around them to take a spot for the next train.

BooBlasters was WAY better. KI should be embarrassed by the state of the exterior and queue of ours. The guns with lasers were great. The outdoor queue set the mood. The placement seemed super odd of that and Dominator just plopped along a path. Planet Snoopy could easily be Camp Snoopy as it already feels like it is deep in the woods. Just a much more relaxing setting with shade for rides with kids.

Entertainment was beyond disappointing. There’s a key theatre (Peanuts Showplace) sitting empty. There’s action theatre unused, and even the KD Theatre was unused as they could figure out how to not have slipper aisles after only 2 bubble shows on Saturday when the last show, all shows Sunday and Monday were cancelled. It sounds like thats running again, but that should even BE the signature entertainment for the 50th. The “closing light show” was lame and no one seemed to be paying any attention to it. Its just music and lights on the tower and I street buildings. The bandstand show was weak. There was no parade “street party” even though the ap shows images of our 50th parade like they were going to do it there. Two left over floats from ours roll out with people on them in rainbow outfits (not the matching gold and blue). They hop off, twirl some ribbons, sing songs from the decades of KD, hop back on the flats and ride off twirling ribbons. It comes off as very amateur. 

I was really hoping for a “magical 50th”, but the park itself more than made up for that. I give the physical park edge to KD hands down. I give the “whats left of live entertainment at 6flags” award to KI. Definitely make the trip to this park if you want great rides, minimal waits and a beautiful reminder of how wonderful KI USED to look. 

WATERFALL!!! Adds so much to the area. 

Wonderful theming in the restaurant.

International PARK more than street.

Beautiful view... to a sadly underused theatre.

CHIPS with a burrito bowl. Wht's up Enrique? Throw us some chips!

Tight merchandising and solid theming in retail spaces.

[TOPGUN1993]

Glad you had a great first experience at KD. 

I haven't seen many people talking about it... but all the International Street buildings received new authentic paint schemes, new murals, signage, and hid the night time LED bars with new trim. Huge improvement!

A lot of love and time has been put into this park over the past 5 years, absolutely one of my favorites.  

 

 

[brenthodge]

55 minutes ago, TOPGUN1993 said:

Glad you had a great first experience at KD. 

I haven't seen many people talking about it... but all the International Street buildings received new authentic paint schemes, new murals, signage, and hid the night time LED bars with new trim. Huge improvement!

A lot of love and time has been put into this park over the past 5 years, absolutely one of my favorites.  

 

 

Oh, I definitely noticed the LED hiding. That was one of my "head smack, ask WHYY??" moments when KI redid their I-Street. They literally had ALL of the fixtures removed, repainted the buildings then stuck clunky fixtures and bundled cords right back up when it would've been so simple to build small coves for everything and then repaint all at once. I thought Mike was great for KI, but really sad that Bridget was forced to make the same departure that he did, as it looks like she really fought to bring a lot of charm back to that park against some probably very tight budgets (based on the attendance that I saw). I also didn't notice random bars and alcohol locations stuck all over the place. I'm sure they were there, but hidden behind all the trees. My son said "I wish we lived closer so THIS could be our home park" the totla lack of lines helped. They just need to bring back more "muti-generational" entertainment and experiences. They deserved the full "5oth stret party" that we had, the bandstand show that they did and a real "song and dance" show in the main theatre. There are unused mini performance zones all over the park - thats the missing piece to me. 

[IndyGuy4KI]

Great PTR. It's a wonderful park for sure.

[KIfan73]

Thank you for sharing your trip report as well as the photos.  I'd love to visit KD someday, but I think my brain might melt after going to Kings Island all of these years!  

[brenthodge]

33 minutes ago, KIfan73 said:

Thank you for sharing your trip report as well as the photos.  I'd love to visit KD someday, but I think my brain might melt after going to Kings Island all of these years!  

It’s trippy. Things are the same… but different. It’s hard to orient yourself because the all the markers you are used to are totally off. I’d definitely say make the 8 hr treck. It’s really like a step back in time at KI in a lot of good ways. This is actually the view from the queu of the waterfall switchback of their white water canyon  amazing this is man-made. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

The amount of trees and shade that Kings Dominion offers is always astounding to me. I constantly hear people talk about how nice Kings Island looks because of the nature and foliage, and have to wonder what they would say if the park still had as much foliage and trees as Kings Dominion has. They've definitely been shorted on their 50th celebration, but I hope the park can maintain their improvements and can continue to at least maintain the level they are currently at with the park. I'd love to see more improvements to the entertainment and operations in coming years as Six Flags adjusts further into its new form. 

The fountains, foliage, and small-element theming are what Kings Island needs to re-introduce to improve their International Street. Making some small (in the grand scheme of things) changes would help improve the atmosphere a ton until the park gets some more money to do a larger project. Things like angling the outer fountain jets inward or outward, replacing the grass with white stones/expanding the flower beds (similar to what existed from 1972-1982), and placing some static information kiosks near the front entrance would do so much. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I just found a copy of Kings Island's 50th Celebration menu on Reddit, and it has me wondering, is there a reason why Kings Dominion couldn't have done something like this beyond not having the manpower/willpower to make it happen? Temporarily renaming some more food items for 2025 might've helped to make the celebration a little more grand. I've noticed a lack of promotion for the 50th menu items now as well, despite the fact that the celebration doesn't end until August 3rd. 

[brenthodge]

On 7/25/2025 at 8:30 PM, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

I just found a copy of Kings Island's 50th Celebration menu on Reddit, and it has me wondering, is there a reason why Kings Dominion couldn't have done something like this beyond not having the manpower/willpower to make it happen? Temporarily renaming some more food items for 2025 might've helped to make the celebration a little more grand. I've noticed a lack of promotion for the 50th menu items now as well, despite the fact that the celebration doesn't end until August 3rd. 

They initially talked about “special food items” earlier last year, but that, along with most entertainment seems to have been cut. I really don’t think they had LI save the parade floats, go to the expense of shipping them there to just roll out beside the stage with some ribbon twirlers on them. That was a waste of money if so. I think there was a grander, all around plan that got seriously cut to the bone. Most everything they used were our left overs, or quickly printed signs.