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I've lived in the Detroit area all my life, but Kings Island has always been our go-to park. Growing up, we went there because of the kids' area. In my teens and twenties, I was more of a Cedar Point fan because of the roller coasters, and I'd head down to KI ever few years for a concert or a weekend getaway. When our son was old enough in 2015, we started making Kings Island our annual family vacation because, again, the kids' area is so good, and it was a better-paced park for our family (nostalgia didn't hurt). The last time I had went to Cedar Point was back in 2012 to celebrate my wife's 31st birthday. I didn't intend to take a long break, but I also didn't mind because as fun as the coasters are, CP was always the lesser park in my opinion. The food options weren't nearly as good, the park wasn't as nice, and there was a trashiness to it that I didn't pick up from Kings Island. But last year, we got Gold Passes, figuring that our family is old enough (son's 14, daughter's 10) for us to enjoy Kings Island but also start giving Cedar Point another try. So, this past weekend we drove on down for two days. We knew it would be busy, so we splurged and got Fast Lane Plus for Friday. Throughout the weekend, we were able to get on all the big rides and do a few, like Steel Vengeance, twice. In the 14 years I'd been away, Cedar Point has really upped its game. I love the new boardwalk area. Last time I was there, they were just tearing down Disaster Transport and the Space Spiral, and the addition of GateKeeper, Wild Mouse and the Grand Pavilion really make that area special. I especially loved the food options at the Grand Pavilion and the chance to enjoy a meal overlooking Lake Erie (the weather was sunny and 75 all weekend; perfect). I also think their Frontiertown reminds me of what Rivertown at Kings Island used to be. I would never wish to get rid of Mystic Timbers or Diamondback, but I feel like Rivertown is a bit smaller than it used to be. It feels like a quick jaunt from Camp Snoopy to the White Water Canyon station, where the theming starts to peter out. But Cedar Point's Frontierland stretches for so long. I love that they have the shaded stretch with the forts and shops (and live music) still maintained without big rides cutting in. Then you get to the more Western-themed section and you get the two best rides in the park. I loved Cedar Farms as a dining option, and Backbeat BBQ looked like a lot of fun, too. Just such a nice section, especially on our second day, when we wanted to slow the pace down and take it easy. The coaster lineup is second to none, of course. Steel Vengeance is possibly the best coaster I've ever ridden -- Maverick is pretty great as well. The Raptor still holds up, and Siren's Curse has the single most terrifying element I've experienced on a coaster with that tilt, followed by a ride that is just so much fun. I think Valravyn and GateKeeper kind of struggle to be more than their gimmicks, but they're fun. The kids rode everything they were tall enough for -- Raptor and Rougarou's restraints meant they were the only things my daughter couldn't ride. She was a little daredevil; Siren's Curse was her favorite. We closed out with a ride on TT2, which might have been her limit ... she was in tears when it ended. I'll admit that while I had no problem with the original Dragster, that spike element might have been a bit much for me. I still think there are some things Kings Island does better than CP. The people ops at Kings Island are so much better; all the Cedar Point ops seemed stressed out, and in some cases were yelling at people to get on rides more quickly in a way that felt very rude. Kings Island seems to have loading and unloading down to a science, where it seemed the Cedar Point teams were struggling a bit. And all the big rides went down at least once over our time there -- Maverick, Steel Vengeance and Millennium Force were closed for several hours. And while I think Cedar Point has a much better Frontierland/Rivertown area, Kings Island is still the cleaner and better-designed park...that circular structure really makes it easy to navigate from one area to the next. We met up with our church youth group the second day and trying to check in was a chore because there's not really an easy way to get from one end of the park to the next. Also, I'm not sure if this is a Six Flags-wide change this year or specific to CP only, but the meal plans were wonky. The entrees and sides were self-explanatory, but the included snacks were pretty much non-existent. You could get Dippin' Dots and...that was about it. I seem to remember at KI last year being able to get the Oreo churros, Aunt Annie's, and a few other snack items throughout the park, but none of that was included in our meal plan. But still, a great trip. We'll be back!

The music was very noticeable in the stairs going down to the queue yesterday morning, which included Toccata & Fugue in D Minor. I didn't notice anything after that. The strips on the stairs in the portrait hallway are also still missing, but that issue may be low on the totem pole. If I had to take a guess as to what the issue with the first boiler is, I think it is a physical issue with the TV that cannot be easily fixed. If it's something to do with the outlets/cords/internal components/etc then it would be hard or impossible to fix without taking the rest of the boiler off/apart. It looks somewhat fine without the screen IMO.

Im thinking it's a mix of budget/staffing as well as employees not caring to clean up. Like I've seen stories on here as well as in the facebook groups that employees were standing around doing nothing/yapping with each other when they could be cleaning. Imo that's a discipline issue. When I worked in rides, our supervisors would get onto us daily almost to make sure we were cleaning after park close and not standing around talking the whole time.

Tony ran Operations and was over Park Services when I was in that department. Crazy how dirty the park appears to be by comparison. I'm sure it's budget related, mostly.

I think it looks better without the other screen honestly because the fire on the tv screen looks so fake so the way it is right now with just the coils looks better to me, the strips at the bottom of the stairs are small potatoes to me, I honestly do not even recall what they looked like when they were in place, the only thing I would change right now is giving the gargoyle dialogue again because I think even if his lips don’t move it would be a welcome addition, same goes for our boiler boys as I think more dialogue is a almost always better, I also have found that the flashlight messes up for me the most on the second Maestro scene towards the middle of the ride, not sure why that scene specifically but every time I’m going through there the flashlight gets stuck but overall the ride is still absolutely amazing

What’s changed is having people that know the difference between storytelling and messaging in the PR and social positions at KI and within Six Flags. You can tell the people doing it now don’t really know the park or their audience with the content that gets published. Disney Parks and Universal still do it as they’ve done it for years. They create emotional content, not marketing content. Disney and Universal routinely post content that makes people feel something: Family moments. Character interactions. Guest reactions. Behind-the-scenes stories. Cast/Team Member spotlights. Nostalgia. Vacation memories. Kings Island and many Six Flags parks often default to “The park opens at 10.” “Buy tickets now.” “Here’s a ride photo.” “Food item available this weekend.” When I was running social media, people knew there was a person behind the account. The Beast Groundhog Day tradition is a perfect example. It wasn’t an advertisement. It was a personality-driven tradition. Today Kings Island and many other Six Flags accounts feel corporate and interchangeable. Disney and Universal make fans the stars. Look at Disney and Universal feeds: Guest photos. Fan videos. Influencer content. User-generated content. Vacation stories Disney even has dedicated influencer and creator programs built around sharing guest experiences. Kings Island and Six Flags needs that. Kings Island and other Six Flags parks now operate as if every piece of content has to come from the marketing department. The smartest social strategy today is letting fans tell your story for you. They are part of the conversation. Universal is particularly good at this. When something is trending, they join in. When fans joke, they joke back. When someone posts something funny, they engage. They feel like a participant in the community. Kings Island and other Six Flags accounts feel like a digital billboard. Disney and Universal are masters of teasers, construction updates, countown content, behind-the-scenes reveals, and sneak peeks. Kings Island used to be. Epic Universe is the perfect example. Fans were invested years before opening because Universal constantly fed the conversation. Kings Island and Six Flags parks often go from announcement, construction photo, opening day. There’s no story arc anymore like there used to be. (Scroll back to Banshee and Mystic Timbers teasers, announcement, construction updates, ride opening, and post-opening content.) The biggest difference is Disney and Universal tell those stories constantly. Kings Island and Six Flags often tell people what they can buy, what time the park opens, and what ride is operating. One builds a community; the other shares information. Bottom line: PR and social media in the industry hasn’t changed. Kings Island changed from what they had successfully been doing, which was taking a page from Disney and Universal.

I might need a break from Cedar Point for a while. I still rather like the park. Its more about how they have rides designed to force supposed 'good' operations. I know why Magnum and SteVe need to have faster loads and unloads, but its annoying the way the crews treat guests. And while other rides don't have that, there's this arrogance that the staff has that's been rubbing off on me the wrong way my last few visits. I'll probably swap in either Philly or Gatlinburg next summer instead (probably the former as I've been craving fountain ERT at Longwood, HP and Knoebels something fierce). I'm going to wait until July 4th to make my decision for Missouri. At the very least, I'm planning on keeping SDC to get Thunderation before it bites the dust. St Louis and KC are iffy depending on how gas prices go the next month (can't discuss further as it breaks KIC's TOS). Kentucky Kingdom will be some time before that in case I am making the push to 200 coasters ridden.

The little things matter. They’re often what separate a good park from a great one. When the small details start being overlooked, people begin to wonder what else is being overlooked. The smallest details often make the biggest difference. Kings Island built its reputation on attention to detail. Over the past couple of years, attention to detail, and the standards that guests should expect from one of the industry’s premier amusement parks has not been there. There’s no excuse for lack of cleanliness around the park. It used to be a priority. Now it’s not. And it shows. I grew up with the park. I care about the park. The small details that are now being missed matter to me.

So, what do we think? Has the new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare performed well enough (so far) to convince Six Flags that they should develop more custom concepts with Sally Dark Rides? I certainly think it has. A lot of legacy Six Flags parks need a good replacement for their Justice League dark rides, Carowinds and Kings Dominion need a replacement or update for Boo Blasters, and Cedar Point just needs a dark ride in general. The chain should not copy Phantom Theater over to a ton of parks like they did with Boo Blasters (although it might be nice at Magic Mountain). I'd love to see each park get its own custom dark ride, but there's enough parks that I think each concept could be used twice as long as the parks aren't very close to each other. Great America and Six Flags Over Texas might spring for a Western theme to replace their respective Justice League dark rides. Carowinds' Boo Blasters building would be a great spot for a tastefully done custom dark ride with an even more custom ghost theme. I haven't worked this one out, but it would need to fit into the small 7,000 sq ft Boo Blasters building. It's located within the [Country] Crossroads area of the park and could have some kind of theme with that — though that area as a whole already needs revitalization. They could always turn that back into a theater and put a new dark ride in their Action Aeronautica Theater. Great Adventure will eventually need another dark ride, but they're already in the middle of rebuilding other parts of the park so this one can wait. Kings Dominion is proving itself to be a tough squeeze for a new dark ride, so either some new variation on Boo Blasters or a custom 7,000 sq ft dark ride would fit right in with the current setup. There are some 20,000 sq ft spaces in the park if they're willing to tear something else down, but I think they'd stick with the BBoBH building. Cedar Point has a few spots where a dark ride could fit, depending on which area could actually fit one without disrupting park operations too much. The pavilion and asphalt lot behind the One Stop redemption center takes up nearly 50,000+ square feet. This is larger than PT:ON's footprint by about 10,000 sq ft. One spot that has previously held a dark ride in Cedar Point is the former home of the Pirate Ride. It has about 12,000 sq ft without expanding into the former Chickie & Pete's restaurant. The current Coliseum Arcade doesn't take up a large amount of the whole Coliseum building, but I've estimated the arcade to occupy about 8,000 sq ft. That's enough for a smaller dark ride like Boo Blasters. Another location that may be able to fit a dark ride is the former Melt restaurant. Depending on how much of the building is dedicated to the former restaurant vs the employee dining room, I think the restaurant had a footprint of about, once again, 12,000 sq ft. This would likely require an outdoor queue to be placed between the ride and the Boeckling house, but it is relatively shaded and out of the way. Other spaces at Cedar Point could fit a nicely sized dark ride, such as the railroad side of Rougarou's plot, the former station building of Shoot the Rapids and the Frontier Fling plot, and the pond area from Snake River Falls; but I believe the park should build an omnimover with great capacity at the front of the park first. Anything at the front of the park could be themed to Disaster Transport, while anything toward the back of the park may require a more Frontier theme.