Losantiville Mining Co.

How do we feel about the new look of the KI Essentials store? I think the Eiffel Tower motif is kind of nice even though it visually breaks up the archways that make up that side of the entrance building. The sign is a little too big and some of the forms feel bulky, but it's better than what was there before. My biggest question about the design is if the blank wall in the corner closest to Grain & Grill was intentional? It looked so weird for just being blank while every other wall had something on it.

There is a chance that those 10 parks aren't the only ones that will be receiving Park Presidents seeing as Six Flags has yet to put out an official announcement about it. Part of this could be a funding issue where they only have the money for some parks to get them while the middle-of-the-road parks could be fine without a Park President. It could also be a situation where this is a new testing phase to see if the parks actually run better under the new leadership since so much has changed since the last management shake up. We're already seeing this with the two versions of Fast Lane, so it's a possibility. I'll have to go back through my lists to see which parks I think SF would actually sell off first at this point.

I'm hoping that this is the kind of thing that bringing back a boots-on-the-ground Park President will fix. You've put it beautifully! I'd like to echo that there are some things that will probably be fixed in the coming weeks, but some of the other stuff is likely sticking around for a while. The gift shops in particular feel a little empty and stale right now. Just this past Saturday I was talking to someone about how burnt out I felt with the park after my first visit of the season. Some of that feeling dissipated after I got back to the park on Sunday, but I'm definitely in an era right now where I need to take things slower than I have been. This is going to continue to be a rougher stretch of time for Kings Island, but I'm hopeful that the steps that people like John Reilly are taking will be better in the long run. Creativity and the arts are what made parks like Kings Island thrive in the beginning! I absolutely love when the arts get integrated into anything (though I am incredibly biased as a creative and fine arts person myself). I'd really like to see people in the company who understand the importance of creativity, especially in spite of how the legacy Six Flags company operated. This will sound bad, but I really hope the AI merch fails entirely. Not only does it get the details wrong, it's also incredibly ugly! Also, the new AI magnets are $9 a piece. Even after considering the minimal amount of labor that went into them (which literally only consisted of printing, shipping/delivery, and stocking) there is no way these things should cost more than $5. That also feels like a stretch. I won't be buying them and I hope none of you do either. No matter what your opinions on AI are, please please please do not buy that crazy ugly merchandise!!

I think the only big change I'd have made to the ride scene layout would be to bring back the big theater scene but without the Pepper's Ghost effects. Make guests feel a little closer to the stage than before, though. Put some smaller animatronics on stage and in the audience, but keep them corporeal. There could still be Ghost Notes floating along the back wall and a flat surface for the tracking system as well. The PT Encore scene music stays, the Ghost Notes and game aspect are kept, you're just not right up at the front of the stage. Other than that I think everything else will be fixed as the ride continues to cycle with public guests. To add to this, I hope Kings Island decides to put in another family dark ride elsewhere in the park. I've been advocating for something in an expanded Action Theater but it doesn't have to go there.

I remember if there was a dedicated topic for Six Flags removing the General Manager and Park President position, so I'll put this here. Six Flags to Reinstate the Park President Position at 10 Parks The following quote is from a Green Tagged: Theme Park in 30 post and references the original story broken by Brady MacDonald at the Orange County Register on April 16th. I am happy with this decision, but am also questioning the motive behind which parks were chosen to receive GMs. The five legacy Cedar Fair parks on the list are top performers overall. The list of legacy Six Flags parks is made up of both winners and losers for that legacy company. IIRC Chicago's Great America, Great Adventure, and Magic Mountain are all comparatively big time money makers while SFOT was doing horribly up until it got some refreshed investment this year. It does not feel great to have the threat of more park sales looming over Six Flags' head this close to when they just sold off 7 parks. Even if it results in good things for the company overall, reducing the company's overall size from 41 parks down to 32 (not including SFQC) over the course of a few years does not make it look successful. Only counting overall dry park resorts just looks worse with that number going from 26 parks down to 17. Selling any more parks without officially splitting the company sounds like it would scream "we're in a death spiral but want to make it look like we're not" to me. If this really is a sign that the company is looking to divest more parks, I hope they don't sell the parks to Herschend. I don't want to see one mega chain forcibly shrunk only to see the other (now) mega chain grow even bigger. HFE does amazing things in their flagship parks, don't get me wrong, but I'd much rather see another new chain come into play instead of feeding the current ones. Do you think the reinstatement of the Park President position is a sign of anything to come? Do you, like me, wish they would call them General Managers instead? Change is sometimes scary, and boy am I scared for my happy place right now.

Can you expand on that? I can entertain rumors about Fiesta Texas, but Dorney does not seem like a good fit for HFE unless they're really trying to corner the PA market. If anything I'd be worried about Kings Dominion being sold to Herschend since they've received more/better investment recently. Also, before anyone tries to suggest otherwise, Jeffrey Siebert leaving Six Flags is not a sign that Fiesta Texas will be sold off. I've been following the "drama" (if you could even call it that) and it sounds like he left willingly for personal reasons. This might've been something he was already eyeing and the opportunity presented itself right as Six Flags announced that they were planning to reinstate the Park President position at 10 parks. I'll post more about that in a more relevant topic thread. It is odd that Fiesta Texas is not currently set to receive a Park President.

I think if it was built to either equal or exceed Fury 325's stats then the park would've had a definite hit instead of a "really good but people are butthurt" hit. That said, I'm not sure exceeding Fury is what Orion really needed to do. I maintain that I think it would've been made more special by including an inversion or two. If Orion came before Fury 325 then it might've received less criticism. Either way, it's pretty cool for being a (maybe, probably, definitely) reallocated coaster project and ticks all of my boxes for what I like.

I think Maestro still sounds like himself, the difference is that Richard Doyle used a less antagonistic tone of voice in the new recordings. That's literally the most authentic voice acting you can get without reusing the original recordings. While I agree that I miss the heavily antagonistic and scary tone I've seen in videos of the original, I think the new version is what the park needed. The music does need to be turned back on and the audio levels fixed throughout the whole ride. I think the park and Sally Dark Rides will be making some adjustments in the upcoming weeks while the park is closed. The ride speed also felt slow, but I'm not entirely sure about that being the case. I have a theory that some things like the speed were set a certain way for the first rides (such as the decreased speed to help everyone get used to the new loading arrangements) and will be fixed.

I've been hearing that the seatbelts were also shortened for FOF. I'd love to see the ride get a good refurbishment with new (more comfortable) trains and other upgrades instead of being torn out entirely. It seems to be the hardest coaster for adults to fit into so anything that makes the train less restrictive would help so much. I haven't seen anything about that, but I did see a photo of Banshee's train shed that had a crate marked "Diamondback" under it. There looked to be a whole pile of stuff under there, including what might've been a tightly wrapped lift chain for something. Could you tell if the one by Beast's second drop was a larger (40 ft) or smaller (20 ft) shipping container? I'm wondering if it was used to store some materials for the rebuild of that drop or if it's housing something else. Now that I've had a little more time to process yesterday I will admit that I was in a bad headspace when I was writing some of my posts. I feel like I was overly critical, though to be fair I still stand by most of what I said. Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare is still super amazing! Some of the little changes throughout the park looked really good. Those little quality upgrades do a ton of good overall.

Earlier today I saw a photo of a meat (?) sandwich on a burger bun cut in half with a bowl of mac & cheese in between the two halves. Does anyone know what Kings Island food item that might be? It looked to be from French Corner, but it wasn't the shrimp po boy or the new crowaffle breakfast sandwich. It looked to be really nicely presented so I'm wondering if I should see about trying it. I wish they would've kept some form of hot dog on the Brewhouse's menu instead of making it a Chef's Special item — though I do appreciate that the new hot dog is available for the meal plan. In case anyone would like to see, here is the 2026 standard menu at the Miami River Brewhouse. As you can see, the prices now range from $13 to over $20 for the entrees. I also noticed that they don't have a price for fountain beverages listed anywhere, which would be nice to know if I didn't have the drink plan. Some of these prices are ridiculous, but I think most guests know to either buy a dining plan or eat outside of the park. Speaking of the meal plan, do you like that the meal plan and drink plans are separate or do you wish the two were combined for a slightly higher price? I prefer them to be separate.

Ask and you shall receive! Phantom Theater Archives uploaded their Passholder Preview POV. (Also thank you @BryanJay for the archives channel!! I'm pretty sure you said it's yours . It's helped a ton with some of my research!)

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.

The line for the Brewhouse was out of the front door around 3 as we were walking toward Potato Works. Then, we decided to ride the train before getting our food. When we got off of the train around 3:20, Brewhouse didn't have a line so we went inside and only waited about 10 minutes in line due to some register issues (which I witnessed while getting a drink from LaRosa's on I-Street as well). What we actually waited for was our food. We snagged a booth and proceeded to wait 30 minutes for a plain Pub Burger, a Mac & Cheese Dog, and a Hail Caesar Salad. The receipts still say "King's Island" with the wrong spelling and all. I swear it should be as easy as editing the name in a Settings menu, but it's not been done. For those who keep track like I do, the meal plan "price" is $11.00 per meal and the drink plan "price" is $2.00 per SP paper cup. I'm glad that the Brewhouse does still allow guests to refill their cups, but I wish they could find a way to reconfigure the guest flow and partially separate the register exit from the soda fountains. Now for my actual food review: I ordered a plain Pub Burger (no L, T, or O) and a Coke from the Miami River Brewhouse around 3:30PM today. It took about 10 minutes to get to the register due to POS system issues in front of us and about 30 minutes to get our food after ordering. We've waited that long before, but it's not a great experience when we could've just gone over to the Rivertown Potato Works and had our food out quicker. When our food did come out my burger was absolutely steaming hot (mmm yes SuperNintendo Chalmers, those were indeed steamed hams 🍔) and my tater tots — uh, I mean potato barrels — were cooked to perfection. The member of my group who got the Mac Dog received it without the Grippos despite requesting everything stay on it. It sounded like the salad was good as well. I was really close to joining the clean plate club, but I started to feel full right before I could get there. Overall, it was a really good meal!

Those colors look awesome! Now all we need is for the yellow tubes to return to the rotor at the top (please please please please please Kings Island just do it!!!!!)

I'll post a longer rambling either tonight or tomorrow after I hopefully get my second ridethrough in. This was an amazing ride! There were so many Easter eggs that I noticed and even more new things overall! I don't think anyone who's ridden it could call this a Boo Blasters reskin or anything of the such anymore. Some spoiler-ific things below including both good and bad things! I'll try to not repeat what others have said, but apologies if I do. I think I'll like it more as I ride it more, but I'm glad it's back IIRC for the first few days they had return time tickets that helped the queue line feel quick while ensuring social distancing could be observed. I think I might've waited an hour before my first ride on/around July 2nd or July 7th (whichever day the park opened that year).

To be honest, I feel like that is what the VIP Lounge should have had from the beginning — especially for something its size. Some small portions of chips, sodas either for purchase or redeemable with the drink plan, and a place to sit and relax while you're in the park. Is that what happened? No, but this is one part of the Prestige benefits that I don't feel bad seeing. The expansion of the Preferred Parking lot was really nice to see, though. I would've preferred (hah) to see the guard booth moved and the service road entrance fixed, but it's fine. I've also seen some people complaining about how the new asphalt/sealing coat looks. While it does look cracked, there's still part of the lot that isn't done so I'm thinking it can still be fixed if it becomes a major problem.

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 feel like this is kind of standard for the park at this point. If nothing has changed in terms of the meal plan meals then I wouldn't be surprised if they just keep the 2025 list up. I also wouldn't be surprised if we see some quality issues in printed/digital materials. Canada's Wonderland just released their 2026 map that still had the color palette for Daredeviller in squares next to the ride. I've also noticed that CW and Carowinds have started to use Futura as the font for ride names on their maps, while Great Adventure and Kings Dominion are using the Seoge UI Variable font (I'm pretty sure that's what it is from my research).

I will probably also be trying to stay offline until Friday afternoon (which, admittedly, will be hard to do). The photos shared by Local 12 look so good! I'm sure they're from the professional casting call as well. To be honest I don't think the park will do anything for the original photoshoot folks besides give them free one-day Fast Lane or something like that. That's a great catch! I wonder how much else we might recognize😄

I think the park is still working on getting the lights around the fountain in working order. There's been one light tower and a tree uplight consistently lit up while the rest sit dark since the beginning of April. When they were testing the fountain show the front left jet wasn't cooperating either. The lights on the Eiffel Tower also looked like they were having some troubles a couple of nights ago, but they seem to be fine now.

They haven't posted any more shows to the entertainment page yet, but I really hope we're still going to have nightly fireworks. Some of the choices we've seen from the park and corporate this year are really odd to me — especially when it comes to information release dates compared to other parks like Carowinds or Cedar Point.

It looks like we're also getting a look at the "trade secret" wait time sign (as it was referred to by the City of Mason) 😂 Aside from that I like this look for the ride. The signs haven't been installed yet, but it looks like the mounting points are still there. Thank goodness the teeth were removed from the entrance. The windows above it look like they could use some decoration, though. It also looks like they replaced the lanterns that used to be on the front of the facade. Those might be the base for the lanterns so maybe they'll come back? I haven't been able to see any lights on the facade from the webcams but I hope it has some fun lighting. As for the merch stand I'm a little intrigued by the wording. It looks like it says "MERCH" and "ICE, COLD SODA" with either a fancy "and" or something else in between them. Personally, I think it's an odd choice to include the comma between ice and cold. They also chose to leave "Opening Nightmare" off of the merch stand's sign, so I hope they'll also sell some original PT merchandise in addition to the PT:ON merchandise. Some Phantom Theater Encore merch would also be nice!

IIRC the last Boo Blasters POV had riders shooting at the targets (you could hear them talking and maybe see an arm ). Theirs and others' POVs interacting with the ride really helped make it not feel so dead, so I hope any PT:ON POV has people interacting with it. Releasing a POV at the end of Summer would make a lot of sense. Let everyone come see it for themselves and then release the video. Another thought: now that the ride cars are grouped in pairs (except for #27 which appears to be alone on the plans) do you think there will be 3 or 6 different flashlight colors? We know there will be at least three colors per vehicle, but depending on how interactions in each scene are planned out I think six colors could be helpful.

*Correction: I think the other two arms of Monster might be installed on the ride, they're just hard to see because of the camera angle. Someone posted a screenshot from the webcams that had orange lights and it looked like it could have all 6 arms lit up.

I should've clarified: I don't think it's the ride that isn't ready but rather the park or someone higher up involved in the photoshoot. Someone could've gotten sick (the most likely scenario IMO), or the camera crew (whoever that might be) needs time for something, or maybe there's an issue with another thing in the park. I think all of the ride construction and programming is done. While we're speculating, when do you think the park might take a ride POV? Will it just be a camera riding alone in the car or do you think they would have someone there capturing ghost notes? Maybe the park will wait a little bit before filming the POV. Who knows (I don't, that's why I'm asking all of you) That's an issue I could see popping up like this. Selecting participants via a Google Form that shut down 2+ hours before it was advertised to close isn't exactly the best look. There also could have been an issue with either participants not being chosen fairly — though I would think that might only be an issue if those chosen were being paid. I've heard stories about these photoshoots only including people with certain physical aspects. The private casting company will be much better for all of the above since they're probably held to a higher legal standard. Either way, it's upsetting for all of the folks who were selected and got all gussied up for it. As for media invites, I'll remind everyone that Six Flags had Quantum Accelerator's 2025 media day planned with invites sent before cancelling it. (I don't think that will happen here, just saying that it's happened before.)