King's Island Grand Carnival

 

One of the big events I looked forward to this year was the return of KI's Grand Carnival. [note: at the time of this post, I owned two units of Cedar Fair, the parent company of Kings Island.] It was something I was really looking forward to, especially since it was canceled last year due to Covid, and the year before I only got to see it once. Well, I actually did see it a little more than once, because that year I worked at the park, and trained a day to work the festival before an injury involving a swivel chair almost cost me my foot.

Part of what I love about the festival is that it reminds me a bit of New Orleans. After missing the event in '19, we made plans to go to NOLA for my birthday in 2020, and actually officially left there a week before they claimed Covid arrived. It is one of my favorite places, for reasons I may not ever fully understand. I love it there, and I always feel like I am missing so much on my visit. The parades there that I caught were similar in some ways to what KI had and very different in others. KI kept it family-friendly, and a lot of the parades in New Orleans are also family-friendly. I still hope to watch the Krewe of Thoth's parade one day, but that didn't align with our trip. 

We made three trips this year to KI for the parade, and also the food festival that came with it. We did go a little overboard with the tasting cards, and as a result, we may have about 5 packages of Macaroons still. I really enjoyed the Chinese food section, but I really preferred the Food and Wine Festival at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. 

A few of the floats were different this year, there was at least one I know was missing, or it was changed a lot. I can not say for sure, and since they ran this at another park at the same time, it might have shuffled them a little. 

I don't know if they will do it again next year, maybe they will send it to other parks. Maybe it would be worth seeing how other parks do it, and we might have the opportunity to travel to the other parks next summer. Of course, with the normal pattern of changing shows up after two years, Grand Carnival might be gone after this. Time will tell, as the world hopefully gets back to whatever normal really is. 

More photos...