Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare Construction Progress

[BryanJay]

Historically the facade’s been worked on once the interior of the ride has basically been finished (as in that happened with Scooby Doo, that’s really the most recent example). I am doubtful at this point that the facade will see much of a facelift besides a repaint, but I’d love to be proven wrong. 

 

I’m very curious if we’ll see anymore updates this month from the park. The two unlisted videos have been removed from the YouTube playlist. There’s a Six Flags shareholders meeting on the 19th, but I don’t think the opening date or anything would be released because of it.

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

52 minutes ago, BB1 said:

I've been driving up periodically to see if I can still see the spires of the old castle that was BBOBH, can confirm as of last weekend they still exist. My issue with the current situation is that I remember distinctly that they said work on the exterior would commence after the new year, which it is well into. That being said, we have like what practically 2 months from Opening Day? Plenty of time for the park to get everything done and get some testing in. As, with this attraction it is all indoors thus the progress seen from outside the park is slim to none. 

I remain cautiously optimistic that it opens on Opening Day, previews even. 

They're still there whenever I look at the Planet Snoopy webcam. I've been looking every so often and the most I've seen is a truck or two parked outside of the facade. Whatever is supposed to happen with the facade, I don't think we'll see much of it from the street or the webcams. We're about 2 months and 7 days away from Opening Day. As much as I hope it's open by then, the likelihood does feel low now. 

It also looks like there are more opera box doom buggies in front of the Bandstand.

 

12 minutes ago, BryanJay said:

I’m very curious if we’ll see anymore updates this month from the park. The two unlisted videos have been removed from the YouTube playlist. There’s a Six Flags shareholders meeting on the 19th, but I don’t think the opening date or anything would be released because of it.

I hope we see an update this month. I'd hate it if they did well PR-wise for January only to completely fall flat for February. The shareholder meeting might prompt them to release some updates to pad any bad news that might decrease their stock prices.

[kingsislandfan1972]

A fossil was found during the construction of PT: ON... (a relic of a forgotten time perhaps? 🤔)

[Orion-XL200]

At this point, I know no reason of this attraction not opening "on time," whether it's at the very first day of the season or further into April or even May. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I think the main question is if we will see a return to the standard of a ride opening with the park or not. We'd been so used to new attractions opening with the park that the recent trend of delayed openings have not been sitting well. It might open "on time" but it'd be good to know when that is going to be.

It would be much nicer if the parks would start giving a set opening date again. I feel like they're so scared of setting an opening date only to have to push it back, even though that wasn't an issue for years.

[BryanJay]

To my pain, I don't know if the plan is to open it with the park (though it seems odd to me that it would open the weekend after opening instead of having a soft opening with minor effects or adjustments being made during the weekdays the park is closed) but I also don't think it's likely for it to have been delayed. For reference, two months before their opening, RiverRacers hadn't been fully assembled, and the trains for Soapbox Racers hadn't arrived. Though I suppose I'm just "defending" the April 18th opening date because if manifest it enough I'll be able to ride it sooner. I think the reddit source is trustworthy, but I'm more inclined to believe the April date that has remained on Sally Dark Ride's site.

Perhaps this is more of a personal want, but whether it opens with the park or if they hold a charity event, it would be a shame to me if there wasn't a clearly communicated opening day and if it randomly soft opened without notice a few weeks into the season. The crowd energy from fans at the last performance of Encore and the last day of Boo Blasters (and probably the Rick Bastrup Q&A, I'm still salty about having to miss that) was very fun to experience and I'd love to have it for the theater's grand reopening. 

[DispatchMaster]

8 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

I think the main question is if we will see a return to the standard of a ride opening with the park or not.

New rides, in general, are often bigger and more complex than they were back in the day, and the off season is as short or shorter than ever for many parks, with Halloween and other holiday events. 

I think that, in combination with parks realizing that it's not essential to have a ride open when the parks aren't even that busy (the bulk of business is done in July and August), means rides opening during the season has become the new standard.

[robintodd]

14 hours ago, BB1 said:

I've been driving up periodically to see if I can still see the spires of the old castle that was BBOBH, can confirm as of last weekend they still exist. My issue with the current situation is that I remember distinctly that they said work on the exterior would commence after the new year, which it is well into. That being said, we have like what practically 2 months from Opening Day? Plenty of time for the park to get everything done and get some testing in. As, with this attraction it is all indoors thus the progress seen from outside the park is slim to none. 

I remain cautiously optimistic that it opens on Opening Day, previews even. 

You can see the back of the castle top from the Camp Snoopy and Planet Snoopy cam on their website.

[CoasterJack]

I've been told this is on the park's Instagram page I believe. So if anyone has any burning questions about the original PT, now's your time to ask!

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

13 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

New rides, in general, are often bigger and more complex than they were back in the day, and the off season is as short or shorter than ever for many parks, with Halloween and other holiday events. 

I think that, in combination with parks realizing that it's not essential to have a ride open when the parks aren't even that busy (the bulk of business is done in July and August), means rides opening during the season has become the new standard.

I agree with you on this, I just also wish the parks would give us a set opening date more than two weeks out. Construction projects have deadlines and it mostly just takes good planning to ensure each opening date is reached. AlpenFury didn't open until the middle of July and left Canada's Wonderland Silver Pass holders with only 1.5 months to experience it instead of the full 4-ish months formerly afforded.

My questions would probably be better asked this way: Aside from major construction delays, why do the parks feel fine with not announcing an opening date for their "big new thing" until a week or two before it comes?

 

2 minutes ago, CoasterJack said:

I've been told this is on the park's Instagram page I believe. So if anyone has any burning questions about the original PT, now's your time to ask!

I can confirm it's on their Instagram page!

[Orion-XL200]

5 minutes ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

My questions would probably be better asked this way: Aside from major construction delays, why do the parks feel fine with not announcing an opening date for their "big new thing" until a week or two before it comes?

My guess is that people are going to come either way and/or they don't want people to hold off on coming (especially early in the season) to have $$ coming in early.  Just my guess.

[DispatchMaster]

13 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

Construction projects have deadlines and it mostly just takes good planning to ensure each opening date is reached.

Are you familiar with the "fast, cheap, good - pick two" axiom? The idea is that a project/product can be any two at the expense of the third:

1. It can be done fast and cheap, but it won't be good.
2. It can be done cheap and good, but it won't be fast.
3. It can be done fast and good, but it won't be cheap.

Obviously the park cannot sacrifice the "good" component, so you're left with options 2 or 3. And considering park installations are meant to provide entertainment value for decades, it's hard to justify spending significant sums of money to achieve "fast", when all that really means is opening a few weeks earlier for a product that is expected to operate, say, 400 weeks over its lifetime. Does it make fiscal sense to increase a budget by several percent to achieve an additional <1% of operating weeks? Parks seem to have settled on "no" for that answer, which makes sense.

14 hours ago, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

AlpenFury didn't open until the middle of July and left Canada's Wonderland Silver Pass holders with only 1.5 months to experience it instead of the full 4-ish

I don't recall the announcement. Was AlpenFury ever announced to be opening on the park's opening day? Or was it announced to be opening "this summer" or whatever? Because if it's the latter, it makes no difference what pass holders expected. They were provide what the park announced - a new coaster that opened in the summer. 

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

16 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

Are you familiar with the "fast, cheap, good - pick two" axiom?

I'm far too well acquainted with it, unfortunately. 

As it's probably clear by now, I'm bad at articulating what I want to say with these kinds of things. Meanwhile my prompting of thought comes off as me being dumb. (That won't stop me though, y'all are fun to respond to either way.)

16 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:

Because if it's the latter, it makes no difference what pass holders expected. They were provide what the park announced - a new coaster that opened in the summer. 

This point was more just to say that I think it's unfair to leave Silver Pass holders hanging like they did. Does it really matter? No, but I think the guests would appreciate attractions opening before July. I also think the Silver Passes should actually be a lower tier of a standard season pass instead of a Summer Pass (go all year with blackout dates and such instead of ending at Labor Day), but that's another conversation.

On 2/12/2026 at 9:32 PM, Orion-XL200 said:

My guess is that people are going to come either way and/or they don't want people to hold off on coming (especially early in the season) to have $$ coming in early.  Just my guess.

I'd think these parks would want to get projects done around Memorial Day so they can get the bugs worked out before the big summer crowds come in July and August. If the chain and execs don't want that, then fine. They can work out the kinks during the busiest time of the season.

 

Anyways, I'll be diligently watching that webcam to see if they start to do any visible work on the facade and if more ride pieces come in like the doom buggy opera boxes.

[kingsislandfan1972]

Not a construction update but Kings Island just released this Phantom Theater Opening Nightmare Valentine on their Facebook page! 😀

[kingsislandfan1972]

I wonder if the candles will return in the hallway que, I know when PT turned into Scooby-Doo/Boo Blasters; they kept the original Candles exiting the ride. Fingers crossed they are still there. 🤞

[Losantiville Mining Co.]

I think the inverted busts are being replaced by screens (probably better for the guest experience if people are stopped there for more than 30 seconds), but I think the candles returning would be a good theming upgrade over the singular blue light and however many smaller white lights. One major shift we could see is less thematic signs of wear and tear and more "fresh" signs of the theater reopening. I'd love to see some of the grandeur of the original ride brought back. The lobby (loading station) looked so nice in photos. Maybe we'll see some really good easter eggs in the queue and station instead of just during the ride itself.

Do you think we'll see any references to the theater's "actual" name, or will they just refer to it as the Phantom Theater every time? I think early concept art had it named as the Palace Theater. It'd be a small but fun detail.

[teenageninja]

On 2/3/2026 at 2:13 AM, Losantiville Mining Co. said:

I'm shocked that the auto collision shop that has the ride cars right now hasn't put up a wall to block the view of them from the street since it seems folks keep trespassing to see them. 

Here's to hoping that we'll see the ride ready for the park's Opening Day. That source from Reddit could be right on some things, but I'm still hung up on the idea that it would take two straight months of work to program the whole ride. Would they not be working all week (40 hours) every week to get it ready starting in March? If it was just Six Flags with their contractors then I might understand better, but surely it'd be Sally Dark Rides employees heading the programming efforts, right? I guess what I'm really wanting is to know how fast their other recent dark rides have taken to program — not that it's public information anyways.

I think the amount of people that are going to go and take pictures of a ride car or track for a steel coaster is an extremely low number.

[BryanJay]

I've tried taking screenshots and it doesn't show up clearly, but there's currently a crew working on the facade (or landscaping maybe?) on the live cams. 

[BryanJay]

I have absolutely no clue what the quote is referring to, but glad to have an update finally. I can’t wait!

[MaestroJr]

Also posted on Kings Islands story is a picture of boocifer, with a very vague caption I wonder if he will stick around for the new ride I kind of hope he does cause I like him

[kingsislandfan1972]

33 minutes ago, MaestroJr said:

Also posted on Kings Islands story is a picture of boocifer, with a very vague caption I wonder if he will stick around for the new ride I kind of hope he does cause I like him

Yeah I was wondering the exact same thing. 

[johnjniehaus]

I'm personally in the camp of put boocifer in Coney mall for Halloween and let him for a few years like they did to the original PT characters. I personally don't love boo blasters and hope they don't give the new PT a cheapened look by trying to reuse a bunch of that outdated garbage 

[SonofBaconator]

I have a question- are the stairs from the entrance leading down to the main que area level with the stairs that lead to the hallway before the turntable?

I’m trying to figure out if- in theory- you could raise the floor in the show que and have it level with the 2003 entrance and the hallway. I can’t remember if there are energy exits at ground level or not- so much was changed between PT and SD.

[BryanJay]

I wonder if they’re teasing Boocifer making a cameo within the new ride (maybe he’s ‘watching us’ and the new curtain call’s about the obscure Easter eggs they put in). I would say it’s just nostalgia posting or just saying that both Boocifer and maestro play the organ, but it’s odd that there was also a Boocifer mention in the Valentine’s Day post. 

10 minutes ago, SonofBaconator said:

I have a question- are the stairs from the entrance leading down to the main que area level with the stairs that lead to the hallway before the turntable?

They’d be mostly level, just accounting for the slight incline in the hill up to the entrance and the slight decline from the exit (which is level with the exit). I think there’d be more of an issue with the emergency exits, as there’s two on the ground floor (and also blocking the employee’s break/maintenance area door, but stairs could be placed back there if needed) 

[kingsislandfan1972]

Just a random thought... what if they made Boocifer a villain in the ride to rival the Maestro? It seems like they are mentioning Boocifer an awful lot, perhaps Boocifer is the reason why all the chaos is happening in PT: ON? Its just a theory...😅

[KICP16]

 

Small Spoiler alert this takes a sneak peak at the look of the indoor Queue portion. I came across this posted on Facebook tonight from the flooring company working on the indoor Queue

not too much revealed in the video/picture. 
just gives a little more excitement knowing work is going on and things are coming along! 
 

 

Spoiler

https://www.facebook.com/stories/1677584335627115/UzpfSVNDOjIxMDk4MTA4NzMxNDQwMzA=/?view_single=1&source=shared_permalink&mibextid=wwXIfr

 

Spoiler

 

[beastfan11]

Interesting! Thank you for sharing. Think this gives us a clue for the queue line smell effect that was listed in the plans. Looks incredible. 

[kingsislandfan1972]

1 hour ago, KICP16 said:

 

Small Spoiler alert this takes a sneak peak at the look of the indoor Queue portion. I came across this posted on Facebook tonight from the flooring company working on the indoor Queue

not too much revealed in the video/picture. 
just gives a little more excitement knowing work is going on and things are coming along! 
 

 

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The new que area looks AMAZING, I'm glad they went with the new wallpaper. I loved the original PT wallpaper but after so many years it started to look outdated and even at times it started to peel back from the wall. It looks like KI is putting a lot of thought in this me being a big fan of the original ride... it looks like more thought is being put into this ride than the original PT. 😊

[MaestroJr]

Looks like the Hallway has possibly 6 portraits 

[SonofBaconator]

7 hours ago, BryanJay said:

I have absolutely no clue what the quote is referring to, but glad to have an update finally. I can’t wait!

Possibly what’s quoted below

19 minutes ago, MaestroJr said:

Looks like the Hallway has possibly 6 portraits 

They might bring the following busts back. IIRC, there were 4 originally (I thought 6 in the original ride’s concept art).