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Kings Island
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cedar Fair Entertainment
 Park News - (1/20/12) Glacing at the new 2012 Kings Island website, it appears that any mention of The Crypt (formerly: Tomb Raider: The Ride) has been removed from the site. Both in the listing of rides, as well as in the list of ride height requirements. Back on Halloween Screamscape did report a rumor that The Crypt was thought to possibly be on its way out of the park, and right now that is looking like the truth after all, though we’ve yet to get an official confirmation from the park.
(1/13/12) This week’s episode of Ghost Hunters on Syfy takes place at Kings Island where they search for the ghost sighting of the little girl in a blue dress and a few other restless spirits said to inhabit the property and/or nearby cemetery.
(10/31/11) I’m not sure how legit this rumor is, so please take it with a grain of salt until I’ve gotten a better lock on the story. That said... I’ve heard an early rumor claiming that The Crypt (formerly: Tomb Raider) may be on the way out of Kings Island for good. Not sure if they are thinking of moving it to another park, or if there is something wrong with it. Anyone else know more?
(9/26/11) Perhaps I misread something earlier this year, or perhaps I just assumed too much, but I’ve been under the impression that Dinosaurs Alive would be leaving Kings Island and setting up shop at one of the other Cedar Fair parks in 2012. Apparently this is not the case, and Dinosaurs Alive is planning on returning to Kings Island once again in 2012. Despite the hang-ups many may have had about adding an upcharge attraction like this to the park, the fact that several more are being added to sister parks in the chain in 2012 does reflect the simply fact that Dinosaurs Alive at Kings Island made money… and judging from the expansion rate… it must have made a ton of it.
This leads me to wonder how Kings Island is planning on bringing it back for an encore year, simply because about 15 years ago when other parks and attractions brought in similar animatronic beast exhibits, the normal practice was to only have it for a season and then move it to a new location and start over. On the rare occasion when one returned for a second season, the display was usually marketed as being improved in some fashion: made bigger, added new dinos, added better dinos, added a 4D movie or simulator to the mix, etc. So will Dinosaurs Alive at Kings Island be plussed in any way when it returns in 2012? We’ll have to wait and see.
In other news, a reader who dropped by Kings Island the other day say they came across some interesting decorations set up for Halloween Haunt near The Beast. A fake graveyard has been built which had gravestones made for many of the park’s old removed rides. Actually, not just rides from Kings Island, they had a few gravestones for rides removed from Geauga Lake as well.
Nothing too odd about all that, however in the display was another item they felt was noteworthy… a dug up grave site with an open and empty casket lying in front. The casket was covered with broken chains all around, as in whatever was inside, had broken free. There were two tombstones behind this caskets, one for Geauga Lake’s old Raging Wolf Bobs, while the other simply said, “My Unloved Son”.
I’ve got to wonder if this is just a standard bit of themeing the park has used for the past few years, or a new little tease to the enthusiast crowds regarding the possible fate of Son of Beast. Anyone know more or have a picture of this? I’d love to see it.
(9/20/11) Yesterday we talked about the off cemeteries on site at Funtown / Splashtown in Maine (to be relocated) and the one at Tweetsie in North Carolina, but apparently Kings Island also has their own cemetery out in the far end of the north parking lot. You can find some pictures here.
(8/31/11) Kings Island’s Facebook page now has a graphic teasing an upcoming 2012 attraction announcement, which oddly has three little blue comic book style speech bubbles, each with it’s own question mark inside. Does this indicate that the park could add three new attractions?
(8/16/11) The latest rumors about this year’s Haunt at Kings Island indicate that the event will still have twelve mazes, two of which are supposed to be new, however two older mazes seem to be cut. The former Trail of Terror can not happen because Dinosaur’s Alive has taken it’s spot. Death Row is also rumored to have been cut, but that has not been confirmed. There is also a strong rumor, much like at Kings Dominion, that Cornstalkers will be moved to a new location and be much improved. They did this at Carowinds when I visited last year as well, and the new version was so much better than the original, there just was no comparison, so this can only be a good thing if true. As far as the new mazes, a popular rumor is Defex, a twisted toy factory haunt concept that opened at a few of the other parks last year.
(7/25/11) A reader visiting Kings Island this past weekend noticed that the park had just raised their parking prices to $12, up from $10 earlier this month. While no one likes to pay for parking, most accept it, but what is the deal with parks starting to raise their parking prices in mid-season? If they would just raise as a new price starting on Day 1 of the new season, that is one thing, but raising it in mid-season like this just sort of sticks out as a bad indicator that perhaps a park isn’t doing as well on the financial side as they should have been at this point and are trying to bolster their numbers for the corporate office.
2012 - Soak City / Boomerang Bay Expansion - (9/6/11) As rumored Kings Island announced a $10 million plan to expand the park’s Boomerang Bay waterpark… and rebrand it as Soak City. A new main entrance will be built, along with a new larger wave pool, and the lazy river will be rethemed as an “action river”. Unfortunately, those hopeing for half a dozen new slides will be very disappointed, as there are none on the way. Apparently you don’t get as much for $10 million in a water park as you used too… that or all those new cabanas and lounge chairs they are planning are quite costly. There are also plenty who are critical of the plan, as a chunk of the budget is obviously going in just to remove and replace the Aussie themed elements just added to the park in the last big overhaul, which seems unnecessary. (Not to mention those who think the $10 million may have been better off spent on a new coaster, or a few flat rides, or even a plan to fix and reopen Son of Beast…)
The press releases also keep saying how the plan is going to nearly double the size of the park… but while only adding a single new attraction (ie: wave pool) it just seems counter-productive to add space for twice as many people in the waterpark, while not doubling the number of attractions for the people. There is also a concern many local fans about how the formerly heavily themed Kings Island attractions are not only becoming to generic, but that the park is slowly becoming ‘Cedar Point South’ instead of trying to maintain it’s own unique identity.
There are also many out there who are worried that the new “Soak City” will reopen as a separate attraction, requiring it’s own admission fee. After all, every other “Soak City” branded park in the Cedar Fair chain, is a separate ticket park, including the one at Cedar Point, but according to Kings Island’s own Don Helbig admission to Soak City will be, “Included with park admission as it has always been.”
(8/9/11) In a strange move, I’m told that Kings Island’s big makeover for Boomerang Bay may be more in name only and not so much on the attraction side of things. Yep… even though the park’s last big expansion saw the new name of Boomerang Bay put on it, now I’m told they will likely rename the park as Soak City. As far as the expansion / upgrade goes, the only new attraction I’m aware of so far will be a new large wave pool. I’d hope for more slides to be added, but dropping in a wave pool by itself seems to fit the Cedar Fair pattern from the past few years where they did the same thing to Carowinds and Valleyfair. (I’m thinking these kinds of projects help pay for themselves right away, because with new wave pools comes prime real estate to put down private cabana rentals, which have been a top priority for waterparks in general the past few years as they are fetching a huge premium price from guests willing to pay for private access into a simple “tents”.
(8/5/11) What latest rumors for Kings Island in 2012 points to the park making a substantial multi-million dollar upgrade to the Boomerang Bay waterpark that will see both improvements and new attractions added.
???? - Son Of Beast Returns - Rumor Only - (7/22/11) While I’ve heard about various plans to save Son of Beast so far this month, another anonymous source wrote in to say that none of it is going to happen. From what they’ve been led to believe, the board determined that it really wasn’t financially feasible to repair / rebuild / remodel Son of Beast and still get a decent ROI on the project, so one of Kinzel’s last orders of business may have been to sign the death warrant for Son of Beast. After all, they’ve already lost more than the coaster, but a slew of lawsuits from injured riders which were all settled. The SOB has cost them quite enough already...
(7/20/11) According to a new rumor sent in, another possible plan of action under heavy consideration for Son of Beast is to hire on the Gravity Group to not only retrack and modify the existing ride, but to also provide a pair of new Timberliner trains for it as well. No word on if this plan is leading out over any of the others yet, but I think they’ll have to make a choice soon.
(6/16/11) While I don’t know exactly what may be involved in the rumored “fixing” of Son of Beast for 2012, I’m told that whatever takes place will be the ride’s last shot. If it doesn’t work, we can expect to see Son of Beast demolished to may way for a new ride in the future.
(6/14/11) While it is still too early to say for sure if this is true, we did get a rumor earlier this month claiming that work to possibly fix Son of Beast could begin before the end of the Summer season in an effort to reopen the ride for the 2012 season. As part of this process, I’m told we may see some major modifications to the track layout as well.
On top of this, another new attraction is also rumored to be on-deck for the 2012 season, but no more information was available. Anyone know more about either project?
(4/25/11) A great article that covers the past, present and possible future of the Son of Beast coaster at Kings Island was posted to Cincinnati.com, which includes some great quotes towards the end by myself as well. Check it out…
(11/24/10) Is there a glimmer of hope for Son of Beast? Well… not for 2011, but according to an anonymous source who was at IAAPA last week, they claim to have overhead a conversation between someone from Cedar Fair and the Rocky Mountain guys about possibly doing work on Son of Beast in the future. Of course this may be every coaster fanboys dream rumor being talked about as well... so take this with a grain of salt until we hear something more serious.
(8/13/10) We’ve heard from several sources that the work taking place in the Son of Beast station building is indeed for a new Halloween Haunt attraction and not part of a covert effort to get the ride running again.
(8/2/10) The new land clearing behind Son of Beast is real it seems, and can be seen from the tower’s observation deck if you look through the gap where the loop used to be to the land beyond. Even more interesting are the reports from those riding Flight Deck who claim to have seen workers pounding/sawing away at stuff in the SOB station, along with the sound of power tools. I’ve got to wonder, are they working on something in the station for the ride… or planning to turn the station into a Halloween Haunt?
(7/28/10) I’m told that some new land clearing has actually begun behind Son of Beast. While I’m not sure what this may mean, another reader has pointed out that the former SonOfBeast.com website is now auto-forwarding all visits to the Intimidator 305 page. Odd… very odd…
(7/19/10) I don’t know Cedar Fair has reconsidered or not, but for some reason a new rumor has popped up claiming that Son Of Beast is under consideration for the Texas Giant treatment… having it’s layout reprofiled and wooden track system replaced with steel track. It could just be a fanboy dream for 2012… but you never know. Maybe there is still hope.
(6/30/10) A not so good rumor floated my way this week regarding the fate of Son of Beast. According to the source, Cedar Fair officials are said to have weighed their options on fixing the coaster against the cost and benefits of doing so and the view wasn’t good at all. While it certainly may be possible to fix and make the ride enjoyable, the cost involved as well as the cost of the PR campaign needed to turn around the notoriously bad reputation of the ride was deemed to be cost prohibitive. If true, we will likely never seen SOB ride again.
(4/9/10) Causing quite a bit of fuss for Kings Island fans is the fact that Son of Beast has been removed from the new park map now posted online. This seems to lock in the previous news that there was little if any chance at all of the ride reopening this season.
Of course the big rumor in industry circles is that Cedar Fair may be in contact with the company who came up with the new all metal track system being added to the Texas Giant right now. Of course this makes perfect sense as Cedar Fair has not one but two major attractions in Ohio (SOB and Mean Streak) that could greatly benefit from this kind of make-over technology if it proves successful for Six Flags.
(3/18/10) While the last news article to touch upon the fate of Son of Beast seemed to imply that there was little chance of it opening again, this alternate article actually says that the park hopes to reopen the coaster later in the season and that the park is currently in talks with companies about long term fixes to the ride.
(3/17/10) Kings Island reports that as of right there are no plans to reopen Son of Beast for the foreseeable future. KI’s GM, Greg Scheid commented, “Eight days after I took over, the accident occurred. We have struggled with it ever since. We have smoothed out the ride. Most people will say they are comfortable with the ride, but I am not comfortable with the ride.”
(11/16/09) Now even the local news is starting to report that Son of Beast may never reopen. Still... the bottom line is nothing seems to have been decided for sure in the halls of Cedar Fair, so we’re still watching and waiting.
(8/24/09) While nothing has been decided, I’ve heard that there are three likely solutions to the whole Son of Beast problem. One… they could just close the ride and demolish it. Given the number of problems they’ve had with this ride over the years, no one would be surprised at this outcome. The other two ideas are costly, and still may not fix the problem entirely. One idea is to look at replacing the ride’s structure with a steel support system, in addition to complete retracking as well as a new third train design. The other would keep it as a wooden ride, but would involve a complete design of the track, eliminating the two giant helixes as this seems to be the focus point of all the problems and complaints they’ve had with the ride over the years.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing the second option used… going with a layout that has more ups and down and less radical turns. While I doubt it’s still possible, I wouldn’t mind seeing the loop and old trains return as well, but that’s just me.
(8/11/09) Kings Island has announced that Son Of Beast will remain closed for the rest of the 2009 season. As for the future of the ride, they claim that it’s fate wont be decided until sometime during the off-season. I have to imagine that at this point, all options are on the table right now, so anything can happen. According to a reader report from the park yesterday, they already had spotted that the SOB trains had been shrink wrapped and placed away in the maintenance bays.
(7/31/09) The news reports that the stage investigation into Son Of Beast is now over and that they found “no irregularities.” Son of Beast is still currently closed however and park spokesperson Don Helbig said that he couldn’t speculate as to when it might reopen.
(7/28/09) While the exact findings of the investigation of Son of Beast have not been released, the local news reports that inspectors have been called out to check out problems with Son of Beast more than any other coaster in Ohio. In most of the previous injury cases, it was determined that a pre-existing condition caused the rider’s injury There is still no timeline set to reopen the ride this season.
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