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So not only is it raining, but the temperature dropped significantly. Kind of an ugly, miserable rain. Phantom Theater is a HUGE improvement over Boo Blasters. I do prefer the original due to nostalgia, but the new one is good. Beast's retrack is solid. A bit more laterals starting the drop into the helix and the trim is smoother.

There was a surprising amount of stuff closed yesterday. Adventure Express, Beast for most of the day, Zephyr, Bat on one train. But that being said, there’s a lot of new music in the park, as others have noted, including themed music back on International Street. The carousel got touched up for its 100th anniversary and looked great. I didn’t notice any burned out lightbulbs. It just felt like there was more attention to detail around the park than in the last few years. Despite the closed rides, Kings Island felt the most normal it has since the pandemic. Just my opinion.

Yes, red lights on the arms and then under the seats the traditional green and yellow lights. It is very bright.

Your comment about the voice acting is interesting—Richard Doyle does reprise his role as Maestro in this ride. So I would say that’s as authentic as you can get. I think the music definitely needs more fine-tuning. They turned it off on Thursday so they could film on-rides for media day, but while they turned it back on in the queue, I don’t think they turned it on the ride as of yesterday.

Ok I just got off of it and I have to say, I'm surprised at all the praise here! Despite my profile name, I'm not just an old man clamoring that things aren't like they used to be, but this felt just familiar enough to really remind me how much better the original was. And I wasn't even a huge fan of it (I was a Smurf diehard) but the story was clear and the theming then was very high-quality, especially for a regional park. This feels strangely cartoony and cheap and not at all spooky, which is a shame, and there were just so many things that seem like obvious omissions: Maybe there just aren't the same kinds of attention-to-detail story people like there used to be, or maybe they are all just too expensive, but the original story was "you wanted to see the theater, did ya?" you see all the backstage ephemera and then see them all in their dressing rooms or warming up before the show, then the very eventful and large-scale pepper's ghost room for the "show," then the Maestro says "you thought I would let you leave after you heard my music? I don't think so" and you get shot down into the basement where it turns a little wonderland-y and bizarro, until the boiler room finale when you finally get out, followed by "you'll be baaaaack." So simple and clear and just spooky enough. I know they were reallyyyy reaching to try and jam a shooter game in here, but the ghost note story is so strange and silly and cheap-feeling and I know they don't care about this stuff and it's just a silly ride for kids, but that's what set the original apart. Those creatives did care about this stuff. I am also more confused about the ghost notes story after riding: There are a lot of great things to celebrate here. 1 is that they're bringing this IP back and doing an animatronics-based dark ride at all. I was delighted to hear that they were going in this direction, and I'm sure the next generation will find things they love about this one too, but one of the reasons the original made such an impact on people in its short tenure at the park was it's attention to detail and the kinds of high-quality decisions that this one just fundamentally lacks. I really wanted to be pleasantly surprised, but I think deep down I knew when I heard they were keeping the shooter aspect and saw the AI slop key art that this was what we would get. And while I'm not sure this will be the sort of lasting and iconic (and SPOOKY) ride it could have been, it is so cartoony and neutered that kids will absolutely love it.

IAAPA News goes behind the curtain at Kings Island--and Sally Dark Rides--to discover how the newest incarnation came to be. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRflPyJjp50

Good eye! I always wondered.. Were those fixtures used as nighttime downlighting back in the day? I love the new season threads. I grew up in Cincy but moved to Oregon 4 years ago, so I don’t get to the park very often anymore. It is always fun to recognize small changes like this!

I’ve had the time to reflect and I have my solidified thoughts on the attraction. I don’t think this is as iconic as the original Phantom was, but I think the ride is objectively and physically better. I’ve heard others say that the animatronics look cheaper and worse than the original, and that’s objectively not true. I do think this is more family friendly and ‘cartoony’ than the original was. I think the primary change is that the original was modeled after the Haunted Mansion, while this seems to be based off of the 2000s Universal Studios dark rides. I loved the ride’s use of the gaming aspect, as it felt secondary to the physical sets. Some people will probably be disappointed at the lack of physical props that respond to the flashlights, but I love that I can realistically not even bother with the ghost notes and not loose anything from the experience. Same goes for the screen implementation, except for one area I’ll get into within the spoiler section. I don’t think the ride is fully finished, and I imagine/hope there will be changes made during the off-weeks leading into daily operations. The audio was quiet, primarily in the queue. The ride does have a slightly longer runtime, but I think the 3+ hour wait today was caused by a reduced capacity (They worked at about half capacity today, alongside several stops and slowdowns, but I don’t blame the associates for it.) TLDR: Ride good! I’ll be back to ride it whenever I can. Two claws up!

Preview night observations- - Red Racer feels like its running a bit faster and harder than blue, in a good way - The new I-Street music, while nice that it's different, could be turned a bit louder (throughout the rest of the park, too) - Crews are very much still learning (that's obviously okay, but felt more prominent tonight compared to other years IMO) - I'm still not used to the Six Flags logos (I'll probably feel that even more so when I go up to CP in June) - It was WAY slower crowd-wise than I though considering the good weather today and the not-so-good weather for Saturday. I came in the evening so I didn't chance PT, but I will be getting to it early for opening day.

So no more bluegrass covers?! That would be such a blessing! Now all they need to do is fix the music in Camp Snoopy and we're all set!

I heard a couple of Billy Joel songs in Coney Mall including Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) which is a nice inside Tony Easter Egg whether intentional or not.

It was a mistake - it was the whole spiel used at park open and then stopped it about halfway thru and then played the correct closing spiel.

Beast does have a rattle as it goes off the 2nd chain into the new track, but no such thing as it gets towards the helix. EDIT- I heard fricken Stairway to Heaven today in Coney Mall. Thank you KI staff. Also, Racer's rock play list is a bit more modern now, not just 70s.

I am very impressed by the improvements of the ride ops today compared to yesterday, especially for opening weekend. Sans Banshee and Monster.

Skyline was the same as ever but they gave my sibling so little cheese while on mine, I got a little extra. Instead of often giving guests 2 packs of crackers a whole bunch as they did last year, they only gave one. Thats not a big deal but worth mentioning. Other than that, O tried the neopolitan ice cream sandwich at Sweet Spot. They prepare it fresh for you, having the ice cream stored in their big walk in freezer and everything. It was really good, cookies were warm and everything. The staff at Sweet Spot were awesome and caring and attentive yesterday.

It sucks that it appears they used AI slop to generate recolored versions. (Its best to not say AI made this and that because AI slop doesnt make, making requires deliberate efforts by hands or keyboards/mouses. Something generate isnt made, its just generated. Its like how AI art doesnt exist. Something cannot be art if again, it wasnt made with any actual effort from a thinking mind put into it. They could have just hired someone to recolor it all for the merch. I went to a trade school for digital arts and became a digital arts whiz to an extent. Im sure I could have done it myself to be honest. I dabbled enough on like Adobe Illustrator over the years before graduating to know you can alter images and artworks in ways you can make them all black and white for example with just a few clicks of a mouse. But thats not all. Using the paint bucket tool would have also been a easy way to recolor. It wouldnt really take that long especially with the cartoon style of the promo art. Dang, KI/Six Flags management know nothing about digital art tools, do they? Thats actually a problem. Youd think they wouldnt need to know anything about them but if the last 4 years has proven anything, there is a societal lack of collective knowledge about art related processes. And that affects things in so many ways that I can only dream of fully understanding all of those things at the moment.

The yapper is going to yap tonight, so buckle in! I mostly agree with what's been said and will be quoting to add on to y'all's comments. The funny thing is, I noticed a ton more Cedar Fair logos still present around the park (mostly on uniforms) than Six Flags logos (new and old). I understand that they don't want to buy new uniforms when they don't need to — and I know I'd be upset if my job forced me to buy a new uniform out of pocket — but it does make the park experience feel odd. I'm also peeved that they keep using the old SF logo in random places. If Six Flags really wants to look like one company then they desperately need to get their branding in order a whole lot better than it currently is. (OK rant over for now.) I did also notice that the crowds seemed to be lower than last year. We didn't go on any coasters, but there honestly seemed to be longer lines to get food than to get on some rides. Speaking of rides, the Grand Carousel got a really good repaint! And there's a 100th anniversary horse (two in front of the KI 50th anniversary horse)!!!! I think the new section of Prestige Preferred Parking was technically resealed, but that's basically the same as painting the whole thing black. It'll be nice to have more parking spaces over there, but some of them aren't much better than parking in the Banshee section. IMO the parks should just stop selling Preferred outside of being a benefit for Prestige Passes. It was very clear that the parking lot isn't finished, but I really wish the park would've sprung for more than just some new paint and fencing. It also smelled like some of the asphalt in the park was freshly paved as well. While I don't think any of the art within Phantom Theater was made with AI, it unfortunately does look like some of the merch was made with AI... The recolored promotional art in particular looked like someone plugged the original into AI and prompted it with "recolor this". In addition to that, did nobody make any new promo art ever since the one that came out with the ride announcement in August? All of the merch seems to either be the OG promo art in different colors or the ride logo in different colors. Maybe the jacket has something else on it? I really like that they changed the music on International Street. That said, the park does really need to learn how to make a playlist that lasts longer than 3-5 hours. I understand that there's a lot that goes into playing licensed music in the park, but there has to be a better way to do this. The crowds must've really come in after folks started to get out of work and school. I thought it was more comparable to a standard summer day, but we were done with the heat by the time we left so I was focused on getting back to the car. I wholeheartedly second the comment on bringing back the Knott's merch!!! I literally skipped getting the Boysenberry preserves at Kings Dominion because I was about to be at Kings Island! There were two (?) PT treats (the tart and a fudge) but I'd love to see a "Maestro's Crescendo Crunch" chocolate bar like they have in the candy case in the PT:ON queue. Either that or something else that I can feasibly take home or eat as a snack. The dining plan logos and symbols seem to have been mostly changed over to the new versions. There are a few stickers left over from previous years. I'm happy to hear that Hot Rhythm Nights is returning. I'll miss Country Crossroads, but I'm interested to know how Hollywood Hits will be. Unfortunately it looks like we'll be getting yet another two years of the stunt shows. Unless they take the set down and build a new one I'm curious to see what this stunt show will be. I really hope we can see a second show in the Kings Island Theater this summer. I don't think this season will be as bad as others I've seen online have said it'll be, but there are some easy things that I really wish the park would just do. I'm excited for this season to get into full swing! Here's a diagram for those wondering how the Preferred lot got expanded. The aisle in the middle is the new entrance, which has two entrance lanes (one of which is a self-service lane) and one exit lane. That little cut in at the bottom is a new lane going toward the exit of the parking lot directly from the Preferred lot. If you're in a bigger vehicle, watch out for the right turn into that lane though. Our regular-sized truck felt like it was tricky to navigate without hitting the new fence or any cones. The guard shack was moved further off of its pad, so I'm a little baffled as to why they didn't just completely redo the Preferred Parking entrance path. Wouldn't it have made more sense to realign the entrance and get rid of the curve for the service road entrance (that would still be kept)? The parking lot really needs some trees and bioswales, but this is a good start. A ton of the Bus & RV lot signage was bunched up in one parking space, so I have no clue where that is supposed to go. Kings Island's parking lot still needs a massive amount of work to make it even remotely tolerable, but the expansion for Preferred Parking helps a little.

They were. The Eiffel Tower was originally floodlit with bright halogen lamps before switching to the colored LED lighting. The uplighting surrounding the Tower was removed prior to the 2017 season.

Okay so some thoughts from today's excursion to the park: I asked for more parking with preferred, we got it! I was pleased with the new space but I wasn't thrilled that instead of repaving the area they painted it over to make it look fresher than what it actually was which was a detriment in my opinion. Merch, eh the PT merch I feel like could have used some better designs in certain spots but I have to give credit where credit is due the new button down shirts are absolutely amazing. I picked up a black Beast shirt on my way out and I will definitely be sporting it in office Monday. I Street finally getting movie cinematic pieces made me and my family very sentimental of the PKI days. Hearing the Godfather theme several times, not so much. I feel like a mix of the old music and the newer music like we had last year would be a good blend to keep the feel of I Street on par with what guests are looking from the park. Beast being down was definitely a bummer, worse yet that I was really looking forward to getting on it today, hoping that it will be open tomorrow or Sunday at the latest! The amount of people at Preview Day solidified what I have been saying since last year, the park really sold the gate. Now of course, last year and year before we saw high attendance but I felt like this year it was worse. Especially for the VIP section, which I didn't even venture to for my free snack as there was a line that I was not about to deal with. My biggest pet peeve, my one request for park management: Please bring back the Knott's merchandise to Sweet Spot!! The fact that we no longer have that luxury really was a bummer today as my dad was looking forward to getting some preserves. Better yet, I feel like the sweet spot was lacking in various spots in terms of topical treats. Now I maybe too used to Universal pumping out treats for everything but I thought we would see PT cookies or PT goodies for sale, I only saw a cake with a nod. I feel like this was a spot of major opportunity for the park to sell some on topic merch so close to the new attraction. I'll reserve my thoughts for Haunted Mansion North Ohio later as I want a few rides to really give a solid review. (Which won't be in here of course but it will be coming soon)

I think I may have been on the first public train on blue Racer today.

Orion had a line that stretched to the path between the Junkyard Coaster and DB's splashdown. That was with social distancing though. Im sure the line would've been even longer if covid didn't happen and the ride opened on time. I think they would've used the Chaos building as overflow.

I was wondering if that would be an issue just with the amount of people in the lobby que area. Hopefully they can fine tune it as they go

Here’s my initial thoughts after my first ride (spoilered just in case): I’ll probably have an essay to put here later tonight, but I wanted to get my first thoughts out there. The ride also took 18 minutes to complete lmao.

I heard the line was 3 hours...where did they put all those people?.the indoor ques for boo Blasters usually only held maybe 45 minutes of people max

I just got off a little bit ago and I must say the attention to detail was a very good . The interactive flashlights (which I was unsure how that would work) turned out very fun and kids are going to absolutely love it. All in all, I think they now have a new hit at Kings Island that will create family memories for generations to come.

Still in line…. Totally surreal. 3 hour wait. Popcorn scent in front of the “snack bar” is a nice touch!

Will we use this thread to post our thoughts and reviews of the new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare.

A few noticeable staffing cuts on some rides. The Eiffel Tower cut the base person Franklin's Flyers is a single op ride now Wasn't able to confirm it, but heard through the grapevine that the 2 Adventure Port rides are single op (correct me if wrong) Not a good look for capacity and throughput as that is apparently a vision for new CEO John Reilly

I just stopped and got food at Coney BBQ. The portion sizes they were serving still seem to be rather generous. I’ve noticed they changed to waffle fries for this season, but they still use the same seasoning.

Given how iconic the original music is to fans, the lack of a unifying soundtrack is odd, so hopefully it is a matter of fine-tuning that still needs to happen.

I guess I'm the lone dissenter...I really enjoyed the Pickin' On covers and listen to the Spotify playlist often.

If it hasn't been mentioned already, the start dates for several of the shows are posted around the park. Hot Rhythm Nights at the Bandstand and the new show Hollywood Hits at the Festhaus both open on May 23rd. International Showplace has a sign saying an unnamed show will open June 20th.

They were not doing that when I rode earlier in the day.

Dollywood at home. Now we just need Cinnamon Bread

Sorry for your loss. Hope you had a nice day at the park in your friend's memory.

Yes.

Glad I got to see it for myself today! Looks fantastic and they had people in all arms not long before closing!

Was able to come up today due to calling off work to attend a coworker’s funeral. My deceased coworker loved roller coasters, loved Kings Island so I get to go in his place whenever I go up now. Ive come to terms with his death, Im happy I got to know him and then learn a lot about him today. Unfortunately, I was unable to get on Phantom Theater but I saw the exterior at last and Im impressed. It looks awesome! The merch cart is pretty great. Im excited to be able to ride it eventually and when I do, judging from what Ive seen here, its likely to become my new favorite dark ride, maybe even beating out like The Haunted Mansion, Pirates Of The Carribean, and Great Movie Ride(RIP).

Unfortunately the majority of the Rivtertown soundtrack includes our “favorite” bluegrass covers. Coney Mall also had some really cheap, karaoke style Queen covers. Yikes. Here’s to hoping these areas get the IS treatment and get a refreshed soundtrack soon.

They were fine for one season, but after that got stale quick.

You can thank me for making part of the extended queue line for Phantom Theater.

Rivertown also has some new music! We heard some Dolly Parton playing as we walked past LaRosa's, though I didn't notice much of the other music. Our day was kind of centered around Phantom Theater (which was really good btw) so that was most of what I was listening for.

I just heard Hoedown by Aaron Copland, an old track that played during the KECO era.

Unreal. Totally in shock. Loved the whole thing.

I have to say, from what I have seen online this really looks like a high quality dark ride Kings Island added, congratulations to the team that got it done. I just hope they budget for yearly maintenance on it and guest respect the theming elements.

Curious if anyone has found a POV where the riders don't give you a commentary the entire ride. All the ones I'm seeing it's difficult to hear the character and storyline over everyone blabbing through the entire thing. If you know of one feel free to DM me as I know some folks are desperately trying to avoid spoilers

Same boat here. I won't be at the park till Aug so I'm getting the spoilers because I'm not going to be able to avoid them for 4 months

I watched the POV because I'm not sure when/if we're making it down to KI this year (think we're trying Dollywood instead). I won't spoil anything. But I'm beyond impressed. When this was announced, I really thought it was going to be a cheap Boo Blasters overlay or very screen-based. But the use of animatronics is great, and they've really put a lot of work into using projections, physical effects and new sets to make the ride look new and fresh. And I love that they've found ways to incorporate things from the old ride alongside new surprises. I think this is going to be a huge hit. Kudos to KI on this one; it looks like they pulled off something special.

Now what the park needs now is their own gormet popcorn shop like WDW Magic Kingdom has. People would pay good money to make their own mixed popcorn bowl

Just distract yourself with anything you can. Books, video games, you name it. Tbh, I turned off my watch history on YouTube after clearing it completely so the video suggestions I do get are not tailored, theyre based on what other people are watching besides whatever video youre watching. It is so tempting to go in and watch something like that but you gotta resist. Seeing it in person for the first time will be all the sweeter if you avoid most if not all spoilers which is why Im avoiding spoilers. My job has been giving me less weekend days off than usual since late January which means I have no idea when I’ll get the chance to see it for myself. Its almost like upper management are just messing with me out of sheer whim to make my job less appealing than it already is. Anyway, Im only going to look in this thread further while avoiding spoilers. Tag goodness this forum has a built in spoilers feature. It takes serious willpower to again, avoid spoilers but you can do it. You just gotta want to avoid it badly enough.