Kings Island
Cincinnati, Ohio
Six Flags Entertainment
---- THE LATEST BUZZ ----
(8/1/2026) New Ride Rumors and the Jason Universe Is Coming
(5/30/2026) A Look At the Tech Inside The Returning Phantom Theater at Kings Island
(4/18/2026) Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare Videos
(4/4/2026) New Phantom Theater Said To Be Ready For Opening Day
(3/28/2026) Cedar Point and Kings Island To Reclassify Their Disk'O Coasters
(3/15/2026) Get A Sneak Peek Inside the new Phantom Theater
 Park News - (8/1/2026) Six Flags has announced that the Jason Universe will arrive at select parks this Halloween season with the creation of a “Jason Blood Reign” haunted house experience. The post on social media tagged Kings Island, Six Flags Great Adventure and Carowinds, so we can only assume the new Jason attraction will be at just those parks.
(3/28/2026) I’m not sure who else really categorized these attractions as roller coasters on their own, but according to this news article, Cedar Point and Kings Island will not longer claim that their Pipe Scream / Surf Dog rides are roller coasters going forward. Within the industry, these attractions were technically known as Zamperla Disk’o Coasters, a variant of Zamperla’s popular Disk’o flat ride that features a longer track with a coaster-like hump in the middle of the two ends. There was always a bit of controversy as those parks choose to claim that the attractions were part of their coaster line-ups, while other parks with similar rides classified them as flat rides.
So now these two parks will fall in line with the rest, and re-classify the attractions as simply thrill rides and not roller coasters. This also falls in line with the general fan consensus as well as the fact that neither attraction has even been listed on the globally respected RCDB (Roller Coaster DataBase) website.
(2/15/2026) Great news from Kings Island, the park has confirmed that The Monster will return for the 2026 season to the Coney Mall.
2026 - Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare - (5/30/2026) With the returning Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare now thrilling guests, interactive gameplay supplier, Alterface, has revealed some interesting details about the new ride’s new gameplay systems. According to an update at Amusement Today the dark ride has put Alterface's newest generation "pointing system" to use, built into the ride’s custom “flashlights” being wielded by the guests. The new system boasts a latency response time as low as just 30 milliseconds, allowing the players to "shine" light on physical environments in order to discover hidden items and details within the themed environment.
Riders are then able to use the flashlight in order to capture the unleashed “Ghost Notes” that have been unleashed and running wild throughout the theater in order to return them to the Phantom’s pipe organ in order for the performance to begin on time! This has upgraded the typical ghost-blasting style game play you find on most interactive dark rides into an adventure based exploration, search and discovery. The new experience is also a nice blend of good old fashioned animatronic technology, with real practical sets mixed with some projection mapping effects and digital interactivity systems.
(4/18/2026) Kings Island has now officially opened the new Phantom Theater: Opening Nightmare dark ride. You can check out a full video of the queue, pre-show and attraction itself below, as shot by the Phantom Theater Archives and a second video from Marcus Leshock.
(4/4/2026) Good news for Kings Island fans… while the park is preparing to open for the 2026 season on April 18th, I’m also hearing that the new Phantom Theater attraction is also expected to be ready for opening day as well! So your long wait for the return of the Phantom is nearly over!
(3/15/2026) The local news got a sneak peek inside the new Phantom Theater attraction. Check it out below!
(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 Development - Rumors - (8/1/2026) Longtime park fans of Kings Island will remember the Son of Beast roller coaster that dominated the park’s landscape when it opened back in 2000. Numerous issues with the ride made for a short lifespan, with the coaster running only until 2006 before being modified to remove the loop and replace the trains, then it ran again from 2007 to 2009 before shutting down for good, but it took another three years before the structure itself was demolished. These days the only thing really remaining from the old coaster is the station building that has remained standing all this time, and as I understand it the structure was only used occasionally as a haunted house location from time to time.
Now it’s in the headlines this week as the park has appalled for a permit to “condemn” the ride station structure, which many assumed would lead to a quick demolition as well. Kings Island says that is not the intention… at least not yet. The permit to condemn the structure was filed as part of the process required “to remove and discontinue monitoring of an existing sprinkler system in an unused structure.”
The final fate of the structure, or future plans to repurpose the site it sits on for something else have yet to be determined. While the park has been granted the approval to remove it, they are just not ready to do so at this time. The interesting thing is that the site of the station building really is somewhat boxed in by The Bat and Banshee roller coasters, making any sizable redevelopment here difficult… which leads me to my next rumor.
When Six Flags and Cedar Fair first merged there was a period of re-evaluation of the attractions at each park by the newly established management team. What rides were popular… what rides were problematic… and what rides were just old and nearing the end of their lifespan. A lot of roller coasters were removed following this process across the chain such as Nighthawk at Carowinds, Kingda Ka and Green Lantern at Six Flags Great Adventure, Anaconda at Kings Dominion, and la Vibora at Six Flags over Texas, just to name a few. At the time it was rumored that a short list was made for each park indicating which rides they would likely have to retire soon… if not in 2024, then in the years that followed.
I mention this simply because that rumor mill is starting up once again, and the end of the 2026 season may very well result in another culling of old rides at park’s all across the chain. Some parks that lost a lot of attraction before may be spared this time around, while others parks that got off light may be losing something big this year. This brings me to Kings Island… and the rides that were listed as possible closures in 2024. As a park that currently has 15 roller coasters, Kings Island was spared in 2024 as the park had already cut two coasters back-to-back in 2018 and 2019… Firehawk and Vortex. In 2024 we had heard rumors that corporate was looking into options to close down either Invertigo (1999), Flight of Fear (1996) or The Bat (1993).
Arrow Suspended coasters are a rare breed, and currently Six Flags is in control of the last remaining four of them in North America: Iron Dragon at Cedar Point, The Bat at Kings Island, Vortex at Canada’s Wonderland and Ninja at Six Flags Magic Mountain. There has never been a lot of love for Iron Dragon at Cedar Point and rumors out west has suggested that Ninja may be leaving Magic Mountain when they open their yet-to-be-announced 2027 “Thrill Glider” coaster that will offer a similar experience. With Kings Island taking the steps so they can clear out the Son of Beast station at any time now, I do have to wonder if this really is the first step towards a possible plan to remove The Bat as well. So get your rides in while you still can, just in case.
???? - 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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