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Kenban

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Kenban last won the day on February 10

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  1. A voyage lift hill climb has traditionally been offered as a prize during the auction at Holiwood Nights. Would love to see more parks offer this type of experience. Cedar Point offers one to the top of Valravn. Would be happy to pay Kings Island to climb a lift… It’s a great view up there
  2. I have long felt that Timberwolf should be removed. The reason for that was because I just doubted we would see it be used, and I felt one weekend a year was not enough to justify its existence. It’s not a true desire to see it torn down, but more that as a paid concert venue, it’s unlikely to really see much use, and it’s in a very valuable location. A summer concert series, especially free with admission would change my views. I would go from it needing to be torn down to it needs to be renovated into something more modern and would like to see at the very least a roof, and likely new seats. I can see Kings Island trying this as well. It works well for a lot of big parks, Busch Gardens, Sea World, Universal, and Disney all do free concerts. It does feel like there will be something else on the schedule for Kings Island, not sure it will be a concert series but it is very possible.
  3. Carowinds does not appear to be getting Grand Carnivale this year. Anyone familiar with their normal entertainment offerings? Does it look like they have cut back on the regular shows this year? Mostly wondering if this is being paid for by cuts elsewhere in the entertainment offerings.
  4. When I look at Six Flags I see potential, the chain should have a higher attendance. It should have a higher revenue, it should be more profitable. As a chain they are 10 million guests a year below where they were in 2019. If I was a shareholder of Six Flags, I would jump at the chance of new management. If I was a Cedar Fair shareholder I would be a lot more conflicted. It’s possible they are getting Six Flags at a discount due to the poor management. It’s also possible you end up with people from Six Flags in positions that ruin the company. Who is in charge and what is going to change becomes more important. The potential for huge growth and large returns exists, for both sides. But both have large bills that are coming due, huge upcoming expenses, and frankly I believe many of the Six Flags parks will need a lot of investment. Synergies between the chains are a real possibility, but the savings they are using to sell this deal seems too high. My view in the end is this is something Six Flags needs. That while Cedar Fair would survive without it, they could also see giant growth with it.
  5. ACE just sent out the details to members and posted them on their website for the spring conference. https://www.aceonline.org/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1823985 Tickets go on sale this Saturday March 16th. ACE Members: $213 ACE Members age 3-11: $192 Nonmembers: $266 $90 discount with an annual pass, members cannot buy tickets for non-members for a few weeks to give members time, it’s unlikely the tickets will last long enough.
  6. Which does conflict with other information in the 2023 annual report. So first let me admit, I copied my chart from the 2022 annual report because that is what the newest report is on https://investors.sixflags.com/financial-information/annual-reports I did realize after I cleaned it up, you know the SEC filing is out there, its just not the fancy one with graphics. So I went and looked at that, it appeared nothing had changed and just posted the chart. Here's the problem with believing the 2034. This is from page 19 and continuing onto page 20 of the PDF version of the 2023 annual report from https://investors.sixflags.com/sec-filings. I personally suspect the lease will be renewed, and maybe it has been and the conflict in dates occurred because it was renewed while the report was being prepared.
  7. NOTE: This is copy and pasted, from the annual report, then I tried to clean up the formatting. Here is a list of the Six Flags parks and how many of them they actually own and which ones are leased, and the foot notes explain when the leases will expire. Six Flags actually owns a lot less parks than people think. They fully own only 9 amusement parks, and 3 stand alone water parks, they own portions of 2 more amusement parks, the rest of the chain is just operating leases. The Six Flags Mexico lease even expires this year, it has been stated by Six Flags they are close to working out a new lease for the park, but nothing is guaranteed. So on a list of 24 properties, 13 of them have footnotes about leases and partial ownership.
  8. As far as I know the tickets never went on sale. The registration page just says “Information will be posted soon.”
  9. You’re right I was not remembering when Snake River opened correctly, I should have double checked. I still stand by the statement this would have never been built after 2020 though. It feels like this was longer ago than it really was, I really did think this operated for more than 3 years, even though I did remember Forbidden Frontier not being open in 2020. These dates are from Wikipedia so they should be right. Snake River Expedition was announced December 11th, 2019 and was supposed to be part of the 150th, and should have opened with the park in 2020. It ended up being delayed until 2021 because of the Pandemic and restrictions from that. I know the characters as part of Forbidden Frontier were Live Entertainment. I believe but could be wrong the people operating Snake River Expedition also were considered live entertainment, and not rides. The reason why I do not believe these attractions would be built today is in part the difficulty in staffing the park, and also the amount the park pays its employees. These attractions are just too expensive to operate right now, so even though they are new attractions, they were the first to get cut. They are also not really an attraction that someone would likely travel for. While I personally think these types of attractions really do improve people’s experiences at the park and can be memorable, they don’t really have any return on the investment directly.
  10. It does. Canada’s Wonderland – Parking is included with the purchase of a Gold Pass and All Park Passport add-on.
  11. Forbidden Frontier, and Snake River Expedition opened in 2019, they never would have even been built after 2020. I enjoyed the boat ride, it was much better in 2019 than at any time since then. Personally I would have liked it to be similar to the Jungle Cruise, place animatronics around the shore, have the boat captain make bad jokes throughout the experience. I suspect the boat ride is done for and never to return. But I could also see how removing it might help part of the island to return. Forbidden Frontier was out of the way, required a lot of walking to access, and had a single access point due to the need for the elevated walkway. There should have also been a bridge from Camp Snoopy. There is already a walkway on the island that dead ends directly across from where the boat dock is located. Build a bridge that is just above the water, it will be cheaper than a large elevated structure. The high ground play structure is very close to this point as well. Start there reopening the play structure and restrooms, then slowly turn the island into an extension of camp Snoopy.
  12. Personally I just hope this highlights the need for more training, and more clarity surrounding annual passes and how they work at different parks.
  13. I wish I had a good answer for you, my gut says people being told no is down to poor training, and likely employees who are just not familiar with the changes to the annual pass program. My experiences in the past suggests that training around details like this is just downright terrible. I am expecting people to have issues with early entry at Cedar Point this year as well. So why did it not work? My best guess is something is setup wrong somewhere, which is not really helpful. Would the same pass work in two months, maybe. Is it due to what park issued the pass? Is it something misconfigured at Knott's? Maybe it is something specific to that pass? The number of guests I have spoken with who complain about something not working on their pass is higher than it should be. I went to Kings Island with someone in October and their meal plan and drink plan worked, we went back in December for Winterfest and neither worked, the pass worked just fine for admission but suddenly none of the add on's worked. I recently spoke with someone who purchased two passes at the same time last year from Canada's Wonderland the add-ons only worked on one of the two passes, they just lived with it last year and are hopeful it fixes itself this year. This is part of the reason why I hate that there is no transparency around things added to passes, like the renewal Fast Lane, or bring a friend free tickets. Until you show up at the park and try to use something you have no idea if it actually attached to the card. Personally the majority of issues I have personally experienced with my passes are training problems, the pass worked fine, the employees had no idea how to handle the new drink plan, season long Fast Lane, prestige passes, etc. Most employees don't have problems but the guest should not have to try to walk an employee through what buttons to press on the register. The lack of consistency in policies from park to park also does not help.
  14. It’s still listed in the terms and conditions that everyone gets free parking at all parks with purchase of the all parks passport. Most of the benefits including the lounge and what it contains are just promises on the website, the parking is actually spelled out in the actual legal terms which is more difficult to modify and has not been changed since last summer. I just cannot imagine walking back the free parking in 2024.
  15. That's my hope at least. I have also wondered if part of the issue might be what park the pass was purchased from. I know there have been issues at Knott's in the past when using a pass from a park that has not yet opened for the season. My understanding is the pass that worked was from Canada's Wonderland. I could see a Kings Island or Cedar Point pass possibly having issues because their add-on's did not work last year. It has been a few years but I personally had issues at Knott's early in the year before Kings Island opened. Guest Services could see my meal plan but it would not work at restaurants and I had to get managers to over ride every time I wanted a drink or meal.
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