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Kings Island
Cincinnati, Ohio
Six Flags Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(11/18/2025) Kings Island Shows Off New Animatronics For new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare
(10/18/2025) New Attraction Guest Survey Concepts
(8/30/2025) More Phantom Theater Details for 2026
(8/28/2025) The Phantom Theater Is Returning To Kings Island in 2026
Park News - (8/17/2025) Kings Island dropped an interesting bit of news this week, confirming that the park’s Boo Blaster on Boo Hill dark ride will be closing for good at the end of operations, Monday Sept. 1st. (aka: Labor Day). While the loss of dark ride is never a good thing, the park has been playfully teasing memories of the ride’s popular predecessor over the past few years on social media, the infamous Phantom Theater, including a fun celebration of what would have been the ride’s 50th Anniversary back in 2022 where they even launched a live action show in a park theater featuring the Phantom character.
Park guests have responded over the years indicating that they would love for the park to bring back the Phantom Theater in some form, so we can only hope that perhaps the time has finally come to do just that, rather than demolish the attraction entirely. Stay tuned and hopefully the park will be ready to release some more information about their future plans during this year’s Halloween Haunt.
(8/10/2025) The good news for Kings Island fans is that it looks like Whitewater Canyon has reopened! The bad news is that Invertigo is now closed and blocked off by barriers, and appears to have some items cleared and removed from the station and queue area. Notice in the photo there is not a single bench or trash-can to be seen in the plaza, indicating that the park isn’t intending to reopen this area to the public again this season. Invertigo has long been thought to be near the top of the list of possible rides to retire at the park for cost savings.
(2/10/2025) Given that we’ve seen a number of roller coasters closed and removed from several parks within the newly merged “Six Flags” theme park chain, a couple of rumored candidates for retirement by the end of the 2025 season (or they may survive until 2026) have been sent in to Screamscape. At this time, I’m not saying with any certainty that these rides will in fact be removed… only that this is a new rumor of something being talked about by the corporate office. I also have to admit that closing these rides would indeed meet the requirements that Six Flags management has been looking for when it comes to retiring older coasters that are possibly getting more problematic to maintain.
With that out of the way, the two rumored roller coasters that I’ve heard mentioned are actually clones… the Premier Rides “Flight of Fear” indoor launched coasters that first opened at Kings Island and Kings Dominion way back in 1996 under the name: Outer Limits: Flight of Fear, tying into the Paramount Park’s studio branding.
Depending on if they close in late 2025 or 2026, the two Flight of Fear coasters will either be 29 or 30 years old, and the identical rides were also billed as the world’s first LIM launched coasters when they first opened. For those that remember the early days of these prototype coasters, there were quite a few teething issues that took place in order to not only open these rides, but to keep them operational in those days.
Two years later, Six Flags opened four of their own LIM launch coasters from Premier Rides, Mr. Freeze at Six Flags over Texas and Six Flags. St. Louis and the dual-tracked Batman & Robin: The Chiller at Six Flags Great Adventure. The later creation suffered the most problems, which eventually saw The Chiller closed for good in 2007. However, some have also suggested that the Mr. Freeze coasters could also be up for retirement following the rumored retirement of the two Flight of Fear coasters. Again… just a rumor upon another rumor, so no truth to this yet, but just something to keep in mind because nothing lasts forever. (and yes… Superman: The Escape (now Escape from Krypton) at Six Flags Magic Mountain also comes from this same era, having been planned to open in 1996, but was pushed back until 1997 due to Intamin having technical issues with that ride’s LSM launch system.)
Anyway, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves… so for now, if you get the chance to ride Flight of Fear this summer, go ahead and take it. You never know when the ride could be retired for good.
(12/21/2024) Regarding that rumor claiming the era of The Bat could be coming to an end, sooner than later at Kings Island, new alternate rumors are also rising about what attractions Kings Island may choose to close instead. This has been the case at every park where rides have closed thus far, as rumors begin flying pointing the finger at entirely different rides. In the case of Six Flags Great Adventure, they actually lost everything that was rumored.
In the case of Kings Island, the united thread between closing The Bat and the alternate rumor is a design to revamp the park’s Action Zone into something new. Based on this other report, alternate rides on the chopping block would be the park’s Vekoma Invertigo coaster and the Congo Falls flume ride next door.
The loss of Congo Falls would be no surprise as one-by-one all of these shoot the chutes style flume rides have been getting removed across the nation for the past 15+ years. Meanwhile the Invertigo coaster (formerly known as Face/Off) would likely be retired for most of the same reasons that Six Flags just decided to close Nighthawk at Carowinds for.
The Vekoma made Invertigo is also the last such roller coaster of it’s kind operating in North America, having opened at the park back in 1999. Vekoma only produced four Invertigo style coasters in the world and strangely enough, this is the only one that is still standing in the original park it was built for, as the other three have been relocated at least once, and in the case of the original model, HangOver from Liseberg, it is now running at it’s 4th location, currently at Bagatelle in France under the name Triops. (For those keeping track, another one is currently at Movieland Park (Italy) as Diabolik, and the final one started as Invertigo at California’s Great America then moved to Dorney Park as Stinger where it ran for just three seasons (2015 to 2017) before being scrapped.
Just as the report about The Bat, these are all just rumors at this point, so nothing has been confirmed or announced by the park or Six Flags management. However, I wouldn’t expect any kind of pre-announcement to come either, so next time you are at the park, be sure to give them all a ride just in case. You never know when your favorite ride may be retired.
2026 - Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare - (11/18/2025) Kings Island unveiled a look at a couple of the new animatronic figures coming to next year’s Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare dark ride at IAAPA.
 (8/30/2025) I’ve got a few more notes about next year’s new version of the Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare. The new attraction will see the animatronic return of the Maestro, but also feature a number of other fantastic characters, both new and returning, such as No Legs Larry the ghostly usher, Houdelini, Great Garbanzo, Hilda Bovine, Lionel Burymore as well as various members of the Phantom Theater’s stage crew. One new character that is supposed to play a big role will be Arpeggio, the Maestro’s furry feline.
Sally Dark Rides will be behind this transformation to the new Phantom Theater, featuring 26 interactive scenes with “multi-sensory effects like wind and sound, hidden Easter eggs throughout and a grand on-stage musical finale with all cast members.” You’ll ride through the attraction inside enchanted “Opera Boxes” and “travel through fully built dimensional scenes, including backstage areas, haunted hallways, dressing rooms and a fiery boiler room as they meet other performers who are ready to take the stage.”
To be honest, this move has been a long time coming and I’m so glad to see the Phantom Theater theme return to represent the park on the grand Dark Ride stage as an original Kings Island created IP.
(8/28/2025) Kings Island has officially confirmed that the Phantom Theater is coming back in 2026. This new version of the attraction will be called “Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare” and will indeed take over the attraction’s original building site once Boo Blasters closes for good in a few days.
According to the official description, Maestro has invited you to return to the Phantom Theater for his long awaited return performance. The problem is, just prior to showtime, a lightning strike as hit the theater and released a strange supernatural “ghost notes” that were trapped inside Maestro’s pipe organ. The runaway notes are running amok throughout the theater and they need your help to return them back to the organ before showtime.
(8/23/2025) For those who didn’t get the hint last time, the teaser video from Kings Island (see below) features a security guard wandering through the Boo Blasters attraction while eerie organ music is playing. Of course he goes to the scene with organ and pulls a piece of sheet music up for the haunting Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which is what the Phantom used to play on the organ in the preshow for Phantom Theater.
So while this clearly seem to be a direct teaser than the Phantom is returning… there is a final piece of the puzzle that I have to question. The security guard is speaking over the radio to another guard who is calling him about a problem elsewhere. He says “hang on” because he’s checking out the source of the music, but at the end we flash over briefly to the other guard who is looking very concerned and standing inside The Crypt (formerly: Tomb Raider) ride building at the open circular portal door. Cut to BLACK and the words, “To Be Continued…”
So while the Phantom may be returning… is there a chance that whatever the new attraction may be, it could be something to be built within the structure of the long closed Crypt building instead, and not as a replacement in the Boo Blasters building? Well.. maybe… that or the director of the video just felt the need to use the already built creepy themed set of The Crypt to tease the next part of the video, so we’ll have to wait and see!
(8/22/2025) Another teaser about the fate of Boo Blasters at Kings Island has been posted by the park, along with an August 28th teaser date, which is likely the announcement. Check it out!
(11/14/2024) A press release from Six Flags today confirmed that the company is planning to spend over $1 BILLION on the parks over the next two years. Some of this will come in the form of enhancements to the guest experience, such as new themed areas, dining upgrades and technology enhancements. While we’ve seen the 2025 capital projects ($500 million) already announced, they decided to post a list of teasers of what they are already confirming will come to some of the parks in 2026 as part of another $525 million capital investment plan.
Kings Island made the list with a teaser to add “a new family thrill attraction”. This could be just about anything, but as the park already added new attractions to Camp Snoopy in 2024, I’d think this might be something a bit bigger and with wider appeal. Plus there are survey markings said to be around the former Vortex plot, so keep your eyes peeled here during the 2025 season.
???? - New Attraction Guest Survey Concept - (10/18/2025) Six Flags has begun sending out surveys to select guests to get feedback about possible future addition concepts that may be in the works. Keep in mind that not every concept they pitch for any given park may actually be intended for that particular park, as sometimes the chains will pitch ride concepts to other markets as well to gain some broader feedback on certain concepts. With that said… let’s dig into what is currently being pitched for the various parks.
The guest survey or Kings Island pitches concepts like a “Story Driven Experience” that sounds like one of those family car rides being updated to include dinosaur animatronics. They also mention other story concepts that include traveling into outer space or to the bottom of the ocean. Other ideas include an “Indoor-Outdoor Coaster” concept, where they show off a picture of Mack Rides “Arthur” coaster at Europa Park, the Stunt Show concept and a Vekoma Multi-Launch Thrill Coaster, showing off artwork of Vekoma’s ‘Ghostrider’ model that the prototype is currently under construction in Brazil at the new Cacau Park.
(4/28/2024) A new guest survey was sent out by Kings Island to get opinions on possible new ride concepts for the park. Similar surveys were also sent out to guests about Carowinds and Cedar Point, though the style though not all the rides were the same.
Rides proposed for Kings Island include a strange sounding ‘Tower Coaster’ that would launch riders out on outwards-facing circular cars, through an upside-down launch and up a 200 foot tower with a spiral at the top, only the roll backwards through the course again.
Also proposed is a 4,500 foot long family launched shuttle coaster, a 300 foot tall B&M Dive Coaster, and unique to Kings Island was a proposal for an Indoor/Outdoor Dark Ride Coaster. Described as taking riders “through a high themed mysterious adventure, part dark ride, park coaster. Encounter multiple scenes and show elements through darkened passages where you’re never quite certain of what lies ahead. Experience surprise track switches, speeds reaching up to 40mph, snaking riders indoors and out, with unexpected moments and a startling finale.”
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