WORLDS OF FUN
& Oceans of Fun
Kansas City, MO
Cedar Fair L.P.
 Park News - (10/18/2024) Good news for Worlds of Fun, as the park has come to a tentative agreement with the labor union who represents the park’s maintenance team. While the final details are worked on for the new 3-year labor contract, the Union has agreed not to strike. According to the reports, the new contract is supposed to include a series of pay raises to come each year, more paid leave, life insurance, and more.
In other news from the park, it looks like something interesting is happening with Mamba, as the park has posted a photo showing off a new bright neon green section of track on the coaster, along with the quote, “Mamab is shedding its skin”.
So just new colors… or could there be something else involved in terms of the coasters brand or identity? I guess we’ll have to wait and see, as Cedar Fair is also busy repainting the coaster formerly known as Intimidator 305 at sister park, Kings Dominion in some striking new Orange & Black colors, with the promise of a new name there.
(10/5/2024) Some troubled times may be ahead for World of Fun as the union for the park’s maintenance workers has authorized to go on strike after months of unsuccessful contract negotiations. According to the local news report, the contract between the park and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1 expired way back on Feb. 29th, 2024 and they’ve been working without a contract ever since.
According to the union, they’ve met with management 36 times since then to address their various issues, including understaffing, not ordering parts needed to make repairs on time, and trying to stop management's efforts (now Six Flags) to subcontract certain work out to non-union workers.
While the first two sound like valid concerns, I’ve seen the later issue come up with unions elsewhere before, as parks often need to bring in experts in their field from outside who are not local union workers to perform certain repairs or upgrades. In these cases, this sounds more like the union trying to puff out their chest to guard their territory, rather than allow qualified maintenance crews from other states or even other countries come in to do work on the rides their companies created in the first place. (ie: Bringing in someone from B&M to work on Patriot or maybe non-union crews from GCI to work on Zambezi Zinger, Prowler and Timberwolf.)
Look for a rally to take place at the park on Oct. 8th by the union members to discuss their issues and the possibility and timing of a possible strike. Keep in mind that Worlds of Fun will close for the season after the Haunt on October 27th, as there is no longer a WinterFest event at this park, so the strike would likely effort more of the park’s planned off-season maintenance efforts.
(7/23/2023) Worlds of Fun has made a big change to this year’s Halloween Haunt. The park’s website has now confirmed that when the Haunt returns in 2023, “This year Halloween Haunt will now be a stand alone event with separate tickets and policies.”
2024 - Nothing new is expected this season...
2025 - Project 2.0 / New Orient Express - Rumor - (7/17/22) The rumor mill is going a bit crazy at Worlds of Fun these days, so take everything with a grain of salt right now. A reader reached out to Screamscape to try and explain things a bit better, including all those codenames that have been dropping. According to this source the plans for “Project 2.0” have been bumped back from 2023, so don’t expect to see it until at least 2024, possibly later, but they tell us the plan at the time was for “Project 2.0” to actually be some kind of updated Orient Express coaster.
(3/3/22) While it doesn’t appear that much is happening at Worlds of Fun for this season, we have been slowly hearing some quiet rumors suggesting that the park will be adding something of interest in 2023. The latest news from a new source backs up another rumor I had heard a few months ago, that the park’s next coaster project would be coming in 2023, and would be some kind of modern replacement for an old beloved coaster, thought to be either the Zambezi Zinger or Orient Express. According to our source, internally the project has been given the codename, “Project 2.0’.
This is also expected to be a major selling point for the park’s 50th Anniversary celebration taking place in 2023, where the park will be heavily marketed as the hometown park to the people of Kansas City. They say the plan is to also get the Hunt Family involved in some fashion, who were the original creators of the Worlds of Fun park.
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