TombRaiderFTW

I don't disagree with the idea of stricter rules per se, but I'm intensely curious to know how "faking a disability" will be policed. If anyone other than people who understand the details of the person's disability are the ones policing it, this seems like it could turn into some PR nightmares where someone unfairly gets a lifetime ban for not presenting "disabled enough." I mean, it's Disney, so I'm sure they've thought it through. The wording on this change is just... curious.

Obviously you aren't here to have good-faith conversations and you'll show me up with a laugh reaction or a reply where you don't actually respond to anything I say and just repeat how entitled or delusional we are for expecting something else, but for what it's worth, you're ignoring a long context of the multi-park Cedar Fair pass not having these kinds of restrictions being added to them. A Platinum pass from one park was entitled to the Gold-level perks from all of them. You could fairly point out that the Gold and Prestige passes with the All Park Passport aren't called Platinum passes BECAUSE the parks want to be able to have these exclusive events, and you might even be correct, but that's simply not how passes with the All Park Passport were advertised when you consider the context of how similar products from the company have worked for 17 years. Here's how the website currently reads: (Underline emphasis mine. Link.) Does that automatically mean the pass is good for special events like the Top Thrill 2 preview where park-specific admission is required? To your point, not necessarily. If you think of this legalistically, there's nothing there to imply that parks can't have their own park-passholder-specific events. But the implication is that the status quo is unchanged, and it actually is. Adding in a line elsewhere in the pass page before the 2024 page went live to say that your Cedar Point pass gets you entry to CP passholder-only events would clear up a lot of feelings of being duped--and I daresay even function as an added benefit they could advertise with. As it stands right now... KI's Passholder Preview Day is the 19th. The text on the event page starts with, "Calling all Kings Island 2024 Silver, Gold and Prestige Season Passholders!" Does that actually mean Kings Island passholders only? It didn't previously--your CF Platinum Pass would get you in, regardless of park. Does it now? The site text does not offer a disclaimer at the bottom such as, "Passes from other Cedar Fair parks are not valid for this event." If KI were to update the page today to say that only KI passholders can attend, they'd be within their rights to do so based on what's in writing, but it's a poor PR move and arguably violates an unwritten contract that no customer had reason to expect would have changed from prior years. "Gold Pass with All Park Passport" and "Prestige Pass with All Park Passport" is not the same product as a "Platinum pass," but apart from the name, what was supposed to clue customers into that difference? It checks out on a technicality, but that's not a great way to run a company. It's giving Kinzel-era, "get such-and-such special offer on the second Thursday of every other October" 2012-FunPerks-reward-level convolution on something that should be very simple and easy to communicate. For the record, I don't actually care if the parks want to do events that are open to their own passholders. It's a neutral idea to me. I just think that if Cedar Fair is going to go down a new path, folks would digest that change a hundred times better if they were upfront about it at the time of purchase instead of changing things along the way. It's not a bait and switch in the most literal sense of the term, but it does skirt the line.

Obviously this is more of the trademark Cedar Fair bait-and-switch, and that's an issue, but I feel like what's bugging me more is how unwieldy of a condition this might be to enforce. Will they be asking for pass numbers at the time of reservation and checking each one against the database automatically to make sure they're Cedar Point passes? Surely they will... but I also wouldn't put it past Cedar Fair to not set that up and make it the poor admissions folks' job to tell KI passholders they're out of luck at the gate.

If there's one thing I've figured out in this hobby, it's that when a ride is SBNO or has its closure announced, people who were otherwise silent on the matter WILL come out of the woodwork to talk about how amazing and underappreciated it is and why the park should reverse their decision immediately. I genuinely never witnessed a single person do that for Garfield's Nightmare.

I actually own a copy of this book. It's a nice little guide, although obviously the material is 20+ years old. It makes me nostalgic for Kings Island as it was when I first realized my love for it. I don't suppose there's a legal means for KIC to scan and document it in the photo galleries, right?

Boo! Hiss! Burn the heretic!

Thank goodness. I was there in October, and rather than emptying the park and readmitting everyone like Carowinds does, they closed the rides for an hour and had everyone inside the park line up to be rescanned. The problem was that the rescanning happened by Berzerker and the line stretched past Drop Tower, so the vast majority of people never got rescanned--the park reopened and eventually the staff just told everyone they didn't have to be rescanned and could go about their day. I'm on the fence about whether or not Halloween events should be separately ticketed, but that entire experience at KD just reeked of being scare tactics (no pun intended) to get you to buy a separate ticket to Haunt that, effectively, you didn't have to buy. I struggle to imagine any nights except the most lightly-attended ones using that strategy effectively.

I love this new litmus test for amusement park amenity usefulness. If it's not relevant to KIC user FreedomPenguin, it's gotta go.

Smart move. Weird move to make in 2024 instead of 2014, but as long as this helps the chain move forward...

Finally. Someone with VISION.

^ To clarify, the Suspended Top Spin is a model that has been offered by HUSS longer than the Giant Top Spin ever was. Kings Dominion's Tomb Raider: Firefall (later The Crypt) and Knott's Riptide were both Suspended Top Spins. At this point, Cedar Fair has removed all variations of HUSS Top Spins from their parks--KD's Crypt was the last to go. Wonderland has a similar ride, but it is from Mondial (makers of WindSeeker), not HUSS. HUSS continues to offer the normal Top Spin and the Suspended Top Spin; Cedar Fair just doesn't own any of them.

Like... I'm not defending Chad, but after 7+ months of folks going after him and Elizabeth and the quality of their individual work, why wouldn't you cut off folks' ability to discern whose work is whose? Surely the criticism wears thin after a bit, regardless of the fact that there does seem to be consistent patterns in what has been observed about Chad's work. Like, yeah, maybe this is just changes from the top... but the merger has not happened yet. And there is a nonzero chance of it being rejected in the SIX vote--remember that a big shareholder for SIX was against it. Adjustments in preparation of that seem pretty premature.

^ I'm not implying you're wrong, but I'm curious: What site(s) is your data based on?

Yeah, but be sure to look at ground level for them--they've cut them way shorter than they used to be.

I'm not suggesting this is a good practice, but let me add some perspective to hopefully help keep this thread from falling into more anti-Six Flags hysterics: This comes after a couple years of the SeaWorld parks doing a 5% surcharge on all transactions, for similar reasons. What I'd like to know is why chains see this as a better move than to simply raise prices. Who's going to notice that prices at Six Flags jumped $1? Why is $0.99 the point at which leadership goes, "We've got to blame the economy and our workers for this to save face?" Unless, of course, this surcharge actually has nothing to do with the economy and is actually about increasing revenue...? I wonder if there's some value in being able to point out increased revenues to their shareholders when it comes time to vote on the merger. But like, I also get that the economy isn't great right now, so it could just be what it says on the tin. But I still want to know why adding the surcharge makes more sense than increasing prices. EDIT: Just to corroborate this entire situation, here's a tweet with a picture of a menu at SFoG showing the surcharge: https://twitter.com/OnlineHyde/status/1726370435510497582?t=oBC0V9GgssWl1iwiuUJNIQ&s=19

There's a slight difference between what I said and what you asked. I don't think he has ruined the brand--that's your word. I think Six Flags has a niche presence in the market and Bassoul has attempted to break out of it and redefine what Six Flags is extremely quickly, which (based on SIX's quarterly reports) has presumably done some damage to how Six Flags is perceived. Whether or not doing that was a smart move is a matter of perspective. I'm purely going off of vibes here, but I do wonder if he was intentionally trying to position SF to seem more attractive to CF or other prospective buyers.

Saying nice (and truthful) things about Six Flags?! Burn the heretic! How dare you interrupt a perfectly good collective meltdown! Listen, are there reasons to be concerned with this merger? Sure. But everyone judging this situation based on Six Flags of 20 years ago ("Everything is going to get a Six Flags name! Parking lot coasters!") hasn't been paying attention to how Six Flags has handled its most recent acquisitions and additions. And much as homestar said, I think the chain is being judged off its worst examples. The Texas parks, for example, are fantastic, as are Great America and Great Adventure (though admittedly I haven't been to the latter in 10+ years.) Not to mention, as much damage as Bassoul has done to Six Flags's branding recently, the president is still Zimmerman and the board is still half Cedar Fair. IF people at the top are thinking about doing y'all's worst nightmares and transforming Kings Island into Six Flags America Part II: Electric Boogaloo, there are people with a lot of say who seem to understand branding better. I'm not saying that's impossible; I AM saying that y'all have a precise count on how many chickens you'll have when the eggs haven't hatched yet. And yeah, Six Flags's FoL system is, as far as I'm concerned, objectively a better system than Fast Lane.

Respectfully, I think this largely would only matter to enthusiasts.

Rivertown Funnel Cakes had them its first few years. I don't think they do anymore.

I disagree. I think this expansion is 10 years overdue. The SeaWorld parks especially need to shift towards being more theme park than zoo/aquarium--their goodwill with the public as a zoo/aquarium is tarnished, and whether or not they can reclaim that goodwill is a moot point now. And they're dragging the Busch parks down with them. They're doing this one year at a time, not attempting to radically change from one extreme to another overnight (see: Six Flags Ohio in 2000.) SEAS is being aggressive, for sure, but there is at least SOME time to gauge between additions if things are going to plan. Adding 4 coasters to one park in a year did not provide that for early 2000's SIX.

Because SEAS in the 2010s was trying to pretend the Blackfish backlash would just blow over without a meaningful response on their part, and it was doing a lot of damage to their bottom line in the meantime.

I had similar thoughts. My bet is that this is just coincidental wording and it will just be a typical family invert.

Nope. The park has done lights-on tours during the day during Haunt before, but that was the exception, not the norm. The houses are otherwise closed during the day and open for scares at dusk. Presumably, if they decide to offer lights-on tours again, they will make mention of that on social media and/or the KI Blog.

I'm fairly sure the LSMs have always covered the ~3/4ths of the launch they currently do. They've just been tweaked over the years to launch more slowly.