CINCINNATI — Nothing says "it’s time for the holidays" quite like lacing up a pair of ice skates, stepping outside onto a cold rink and letting all the music and laughter warm your heart.

On Friday, all the festivities kick-off for WinterFest at Kings Island.

It takes a lot to transform the iconic Royal Fountain into Snow Flake Lake for the season.

What You Need To Know

  • WinterFest at Kings Island kicks off Friday

  • From the very beginning, ice skating has been a staple at the holiday celebration at the park

  • It takes nearly a month to prepare the iconic Royal Fountain to transform into Snow Flake Lake

Jared McFadden is the manager of facility maintenance and construction at Kings Island.

Most of what he oversees to help the rink come to life happens weeks before the freeze.

“Twenty days to do this from start to finish, including draining the fountain and putting in all the decking and all the tubes and everything inside for the coolant. So about 20 days, a thousand man hours,” McFadden said.

It also takes about 30,000 gallons of water.

“This is one of the bigger square footage areas. This is 18,000 square feet. So it’s a big chunk of real estate,” he said.

 If you think the crews just freeze over the fountain, guess again.

“This is a 3-inch ice that’s sitting on top of a scaffolding system that is about 4 feet off of the ground. There’s about 19 miles of tubing underneath us right now that runs about 5,000 gallons of glycol, which is like an antifreeze, that just pumps through it,” he said.

It’s a lot of hard work, but it wouldn’t be WinterFest without the skating. 

“It’s one of the largest ice skating rinks in the region and it’s cool because it’s one of the first things you see when you walk through the gates. It’s a WinterFest tradition, every year we’ve had WinterFest at the park, ice skating is a big part of that,” said Kings Island Director of Communications Chad Showalter.

When you’re done skating, there is plenty of park to visit to fill you with holiday cheer.

“We have more than 7 million lights here at the park, 24 rides operating, we have a ton of great places to eat with some of the most festive holiday food you’re going to find in the area,” said Showalter.

There’s also a dozen seasonal shows, the WinterFest Parade and several different "Wonderlands" to explore.

For McFadden, the rink might be a once-a-year transformation, but the memories last a lifetime. 

“Just my biggest enjoyment of this is watching it come to fruition and then when I’m here on the weekends with my folks and my family, we’ll enjoy people skating on it. A lot of memories are made here at King’s Island and I think this is one of the things for WinterFest that everyone looks forward to. So coming out and letting everyone enjoy this, the fruit of all the labor that goes into it, is a good feeling,” he said.

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