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I liked the concept for the Morning Rush event. The fail for Cedar Point was labeling it as a replacement for CoasterMania, which then draws the comparison. Offering significantly less, charging more invited the backlash they received. If they had just rolled it out as an all-new event with no reference to CoasterMania, it would have been much better received. The concept was good. How it was introduced was not.

I think Kentucky Kingdom got the better of the three Vekoma family coasters installed in the tri State area in the last two years.

Plus with the much shorter duration and increased cost compared to CoasterMania, an emphasis should have been made on making it an exclusive event geared towards minimal wait times with a published headcount and language giving an example that would show how little the waits would be. $95 dollars for 3ish hours of minimal/no wait of some key rides would be a better value than a single day Fast Lane. For example, Millie line so short that you could get off the train, cut thru the accessibility door and get back in line and get on the same train you just got off of would be worth it to many people for $95. You would get way more rides in that 90min than any other time of the day with FastLane.

At this point I'm hoping that in 2027 the park takes a break from any new ride and puts their capex towards live entertainment and special events. More like what Kings Dominion is doing. Great Adventure started their Safari Spring Break celebration on opening day and had multiple shows starting opening day. No reason KI can't do the same. I'm going to put my wishful thinking hat on and list what I would do if I were in charge of the park in 2027 while keeping things realistic. I will use the 2027 calendar as a reference for dates. Friday April 16th - Perks and Play Season Passholder Preview Day: I wouldn't change much from this year, but I would add some special activities like what Carowinds did. I would partner with a local charity and invite people to donate certain things towards it and would offer special rewards based on what and how much was donated. I would also hold a Q&A/presentation event in the Kings Island Theater and would show off what is new and what is coming up in the season and maybe drop a few surprises or hints about an upcoming new attraction (2028) Saturday April 17th - Opening Day: This I would make into more of an event. Think Reds Opening Day! I would start by inviting all the local High School and College marching bands and local organizations and would form an opening day parade. The parade would take place around noon and would run the Grand Carnivale/Winterfest parade route. The park would open with a special opening day ceremony right before 10 and would feature speakers like the park president, the executive chef, and more. Then an honorable family would be chosen to come up and help count down and press the "button of fun" to open the park where confetti and ribbons would be shot out announcing the park is open for the season! During the day both Hifi Honey and River City along with a few other local bands would be set up doing sets on stages throughout the park mainly the Festhaus, Bandstand, and Carousel Pavilion. I would also invite multiple local food trucks and have like a food truck festival going on around the Eiffel Tower. I would also invite a bunch of local radio stations to exhibit and broadcast live at the park that day. Saturday April 24th - Sunday May 16th - Food and Wine Festival: First change I would make is moving Food and Wine up earlier. Most parks that have food and wine hold it during the springtime and not early-mid Summer time. This would also help free up space later for more events which I'll get to in a moment. What I would do is make food and wine more immersive. Instead of being just contained to the Tower Gardens/Carousel area I would expand it to around and under the Eiffel Tower as well as down both sides of International Street. I would also add a tasting card and focus more on the food than the wine like what other parks do. I would also add more activities outside of the few lawn games and the mural painting. I would do other crafts like tye dyeing a F&W festival T shirt, decorate your own wine glass (plastic glass), as well as more games and would host some sort of eating competition or try to break some sort of record (like what Carowinds did with the whole hopscotch thing) Fridays from April 23rd through May 21st - Food Truck Fridays: This was an event the park had in like 2016-2017 where every Friday in the spring time select food trucks would come and set up around the Eiffel Tower and the Showplace. This was a cool limited time event and a good opportunity for local food trucks. Surprised this hasn't returned. May 29th (Memorial Day weekend) - June 13th Brew and BBQ Festival: This would be a new event. This would be held in the Rivertown area starting from the Carousel Pavilion and would go through the area in front of Diamondback's entrance. This event would be set up similar to Cedar Point's upcoming Barrel's and Bites event. This one though would be partnered with local breweries. Similar to Food and Wine it would be very immersive and would be family friendly where there would be live entertainment and lots of activities for everyone to enjoy. June 5 - June 20th - Kidzfest: This event would run alongside Brew and BBQ but would be held in both the Planet and Camp Snoopy areas. It would be more geared towards kids but everyone would enjoy it. While this would be hard to do, I would attempt to get some outside IPs to come and do meet and greets and stuff like what Canada's Wonderland does. I would also have Tie dyeing parties, dance parties, crafts and would also have a lego station where kids could play with legos. I would also partner with Crayola and would allow kids to use sidewalk chalk and draw on the concrete in the area. Obviosuly there would be rules and limits with it and parents would have to supervise it and the chalk would have to be either given back or thrown away when done. But I think back to my elementary school days where at the end of the school year some kids would get to write on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk and I remember getting real excited for summer break when seeing that! July 2-4 - Star Spangled Celebration Basically Star Spangled Nights, but I would make it 3 days instead of 1 and would make it a whole day thing instead of just a bigger firework show. Think what Cedar Point will be doing this year. I would bring in stunt performers along with roaming actors and stilt walkers/entertainers and would have extra live entertainment outside of the summer show lineup with some local bands. July 17th - August 1st - Viva La Fiesta Yes I would retire Carnivale. I feel like it has run its course and its time for something new. What I would do is would bring in Viva La Fiesta in and it would take place basically in the Adventure Port area and would run from there to the area around the Eiffel Tower and Carousel and would have the bandstand be the main stage. It would be a lot like the other parks that do it so nothing to really explain here. I would also bring the Splash Water Parade in as the Carnivale Parade replacement. It would likely run through July into some of August. I would also bring in some sort of 5k/color runs and would try and hold some dive in movies/afterhours in Soak City. I would also try and bring back passholder ride nights after park close. I would also bring back Coasterstock as it was under @DonHelbig as well as Coaster Camp Out! I'm not going to get into Haunt and Winterfest here. I would likely add an Oktoberfest though that would run alongside Tricks and Treats and would take place in the area in front of Festhaus near Viking Fury's entrance and would run to the entrance to Action Zone. Hope everyone likes my proposal. Just a reminder it is just an idea of mine and likely won't happen.

Some entitled enthusiasts are partially to blame for this. The criticism surrounding previous Coastermania events being: the same thing every year, a money grab, park officials didn't tell us anything we didn't already know, why not "X-coaster", food is terrible etc. Then it was cancelled/ modified & the masses lost their mind oven that decision. Could it be better? Sure. Anything can be better. No reason you have to go every year. IMO- although the logistics would be VERY difficult, the park should attempt to not have the same guest consecutive years (same goes for WCO). Spread it out to the masses. I'm interested to see the next revision but did get a chuckle how quick that news came out (almost too quick) that Morning Rush was also "cancelled".

Patronizing folks is gross. Drop your superiority complex.

A Haunt/FearFest legacy store would be an excellent way to sell merch. Im sure a lot of people would enjoy even simple t shirts with the logos of many of the haunted houses from over the years on them. KI’s missing out.

What would a good reason be to shorten the seatbelts on a ride like this? The coaster seemed to function just fine (in terms of seating) for 25 years with longer belts. This is a situation that will definitely lead to lower guest satisfaction — something that Cedar Point is already struggling with. Hopefully it can be resolved with new seatbelts that are at least the same length as before.

As my ninth grade English teacher would say daily: "People, people...love one another and use your study skills."

I, personally, wouldn't do that. I'll post it here; I know park employees have a working familiarity of the posts that show up on this site. I'll post pictures here and give someone who works "back stage" a chance to address. I don't have an ax to grind with KI, SF, etc... just want them to do better! And, while I'm at it- REPLACE THE BURNT OUT BULBS LINING THE BUILDINGS ON I-STREET

That's not acceptable and the fact employees in uniform were around just yapping and not doing anything about it makes it worse! Those employees need to be disciplined! When I worked there ride ops weren't allowed to leave at the end of the night until the entire perimeter of our ride area was clear of any trash or debris. And the area supervisors would hold cleaning audits after park close and if they found just one little candy wrapper, your ride crew failed! Cleanliness was one of the major cornerstones when I worked there and I hope it still is! I think the park needs to have this brought to their attention as I know upper management does not tolerate stuff like this. I know someone last year posted a massive rant on a facebook group of Festhaus being filthy and not long after they brought people over to clean it. We know the park reads the facebook groups. Also I think guests need to take a part in this too. When you're done eating, clean up after yourselves and throw your trash away!