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Kenban

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Everything posted by Kenban

  1. The worst part about these kinds of things is the missed opportunities. The number of people saying I visited frequently and never received a perk. If they are visiting frequently they should be receiving opportunities to try to push them into spending more money in the park. Spend X amount get Y item free, or just an extra discount. But one, get one free, on certain snack items. Discounts on midway games. Provide extra bring a friend free tickets only usable on weekdays or other slower times of the year. Instead it was, your already going to the park so we will just totally ignore you. I have not received a single pass perk all year. Some of those perks would have been completely ignored, but others could have been the push I needed to spend more money.
  2. You are going to need to be more specific, because I do not know of any park who does not charge extra for this specific attraction. Cedar Point does charge per a rider and if I remember right it’s $25. Great Adventure charges $25, Darien Lake also charges $25. Some Six Flags parks do have attractions that have been paid attractions at other locations, such as Cat Woman’s Whip at Six Flags St Louis. But as far as I know, no one offers a slingshot for free.
  3. Building a slingshot from scratch is something like a million dollars. Then you have to figure in maintenance and operating expenses. This is the problem, people keep saying I rode it when it was $5 or $10, but no one is saying $20 is a fair price. Over the life of the attraction it was likely profitable. But did it make enough money to justify building a new one? Unlikely. Kings Island is really the wrong kind of park to install one in. You need a location where people are already used to paying per a ride, a higher percentage of tourists, or something special. Kings Island is just too much of a locals park.
  4. Jason McClure spoke about the gold passes at Coaster Mania during the Q&A session the year after it started being offered at $99. According to him enthusiasts are really overstating how many gold passes were being used during the extremely busy Halloweekends days, and that we are also wrong about how many of those passes sold. He basically stated that the vast majority of the guests when the park hit capacity were not using gold passes, and that the cheap passes had nothing to with the crowding. He was the parks GM at the time, and has access to all of the information needed to make these claims. As I remember Kings Island was essentially in the same position on the same days. The parking lot was filled to the brim with even the water parks lot full and people parking in the grass. It does feel like Cedar Point could get away with raising the pass price, or not including Halloweekends. Personally I have suspected the reason for changing how the passes work and dropping the platinum pass was to make it easier to introduce more pass levels, and taking features away from the gold pass and making them part of the mid tier(s) seems likely to me.
  5. In my opinion it’s true in context, he took over sometime in 2021. I am referring specifically to the 2022 season with that comment. He made a lot of mistakes for the 2022 season which likely some could have been prevented if he had not fired so much of the corporate staff.
  6. What he has claimed that he wanted, turning the parks into a more family friendly and premium experience is good. But it’s going to take more than talk, they need to invest in changes. The biggest investments were pricing and pass changes that drove away customers, reducing the crowds so that they had shorter lines. He raised prices without actually improving the quality. Claimed that no investment was needed for the next few years and cancelled most projects, then suddenly backtracked and had to order whatever off the shelf rides that were available. Whatever investments they are making are opening extremely late, one of the 2023 projects announced last year just opened this weekend, when the season is basically over. Budget cuts that including closing entire lands at parks, just wiping the rides off the map, app, and website. Where is the live entertainment at Six Flags parks? Cancelled Holiday in the park at 4 or 5 parks. Those are just the things off the top of my head. I guarantee there is more that I am not remembering. He also made changes that are not customer facing, including firing a lot of corporate staff.
  7. The DC IP is honestly good, but has been poorly utilized, mostly just using the name, logos and a color scheme. It’s possible to actually make it good, and the IP sells a LOT of merchandise. Utilizing it at one of the two parks in Ohio makes sense, and frankly Kings Island feels like the more logical location. Building a new land from scratch is doable, but Action Zone needs a retheme already, I was hopeful we might see something that would allow Banshee to fit in with no changes, but DC makes sense. I do not think that it would be as simple or cheap as just renaming the existing attractions. It sounds like the Cedar Fair executive team will be in charge of the combined company and they realized a long time ago that just doing the absolute minimum is not enough, building larger more expensive projects less frequently produces better returns. Personally I would lean towards removing Congo Falls, Timberwolf, and either moving or removing the Skyflyer. I would even remove the gift shop and ice cream stand, just start over. That gives a giant plot of land for new flat rides, a coaster, gift shops, restaurant the works. At least that’s what I would do. Assuming this merger goes through, and frankly it feels likely, using the IP’s from Six Flags in Ohio makes sense, the closest Six Flags park is likely Chicago. Assuming DC, and Loony Toons will likely end up at one of the parks, and I feel like making sure there is no duplication and giving each their own unique feel to make visiting both parks more enjoyable. Plus to create a little more separation from Great America, Kings Island makes more sense to me.
  8. I have my doubts, not that there is no discussions but that Cedar Fair would agree to do it. I suspect it was Six Flags who started the conversations. Also I suspect Six Flags would need permission from some third parties, for instance they don’t own 100% of some of the legacy parks like Georgia and Texas. If this gets serious I could see SEAS making another attempt at purchasing Cedar Fair.
  9. According to Mike Koontz, the park always knew it would be impossible for Adventure Port to be ready for opening day. When the rides were ordered, the planned delivery date for the ride hardware was always after opening day. The construction was planned due to the estimated delivery of the rides, which were delivered late but not by much. Soapbox Racers is a small coaster, it’s not even 80 feet tall, and has less than 700 feet of track. The single train operation means a lot less wiring and controls. It’s a simple ride that will be able to be rapidly constructed. Vekoma has publicly stated Good Gravy will be the first family boomerang in North America, so they need to have a good reason and construction does not make any sense to me. Either it’s built into the contract or the order was placed so late that it’s already known there is no way it could be ready by opening day. The park cannot build a ride it does not have.
  10. From what I have heard the spike is causing problems for entertainment. Iron Dragon has to shut down if a show on the stage will have any fire effects or fireworks. Typically not a big deal, but from what I have heard this is also true of Top Thrill 2, for a show to have fire or fireworks both coasters will have to close, and priority has been given to the new coaster. It sounds like Cedar Point’s current plan is to just not do any evening shows on that stage next year, and possibly not use the stage at all next year. Long term I expect the stage is likely going to move.
  11. I have been to both, neither one really stands out. My gut says do Worlds of Fun, but that might be because my original plan for this summer was a road trip to visit WoF and a bunch of other parks on the way there and back so I could visit during the parks anniversary and ride Zambezi Zinger. The opening of the coaster was delayed and I cancelled the trip and later ended up doing a totally different trip. I am also concerned about the future of Lost Island amusement park and wanted to visit while I was certain of it still being in business. It’s a lot of driving to visit either park if you’re not planning on visiting anything else. My suggestion is try to visit something else, and would make the decision more based on those extras than one of those parks over the other, neither is that amazing, and I am concerned you might find either disappointing on its own. Two more Cedar Fair parks to throw into the mix, first Valleyfair is not much farther than either of these parks at around 11 hours just in a North West direction, passing through Chicago, and the Wisconsin Dells, on the way. On the road trip I made to visit Worlds of Fun, I also visited Valleyfair, because Worlds of Fun is directly south of Valleyfair with Adventureland in the middle between the two. Finally Michigan’s Adventure, it’s around a 6 hour drive from Cincinnati and would be closer than any of these other parks. If I were to rank Cedar Fair parks, MA is firmly in the last spot for me, but the 3 spots ahead of it are Valleyfair, Dorney, and Worlds of Fun.
  12. The people on this site really not good examples of what average is when it comes to utilization. The pass price and meal plan price make sense in context with how many times they are used on average, when considering every pass holder, not just a small group of dedicated individuals. Most passes really are not being used more than a handful of times a year. For every pass holder going 20+ times a year there are multiple only going 1, 2, 3 times. This is an old number and I cannot remember the source, but back around 2016 or 2017 I believe, the average was somewhere between 3 and 4. I have never heard any hints at what average use is for the meal plan. But it’s obviously low enough that the chain is making a good deal of money at the current price. I am positive there are guests that get enough meals the park and the chain lose money on the meal plan, do they make it back on merchandise and other spending, maybe. Whatever my meal plan costs Cedar Fair is easily paid for from my in park spending and that I have a prestige pass and season long Fast Lane. Raising the price risks losing those guests who don’t really use it frequently. The price point was decided to try to maximize revenue and profits, using data we don’t have access to. They are selling the idea of unlimited, and using data to support how often it actually is used. Guests are really bad at estimating how often they actually use their pass and meal plan.
  13. Carowinds, Worlds of Fun, Canadas Wonderland, and Kings Dominion all have this same policy. I know it was announced months ago for Kings Dominion, and is how they have been operating since haunt started. I do not think it was a new policy at all of these parks either. Knott’s also clears the park but it’s a true separate ticket and annual passes do not work, I believe the rest of these parks do allow annual pass admissions for haunt. Kings Island, Cedar Point, and Dorney are the only parks in the chain to my knowledge which do not clear the park before haunt and I believe the only parks that allow guests with regular day tickets access to haunt. I would not be surprised to see this expand to more of the chain next year.
  14. You might want to take another look at the website, the existing family inverts don’t have vests. The restraints look like the vest restraints, just with only the lap bar, and the metal hoop, but there is no vest. I am pretty sure this will be the standard family invert trains with speakers added for an onboard sound system. On those trains the seats are rigidly mounted to the train and they do not sway.
  15. Scary Farm is a separately ticketed event, the park closes at 5 PM, and kicks the guests out of the park, and reopens at 7 for Scary Farm. No annual pass gets you into the event, and some add one like meal plans do not work. The event runs 5 nights a week. Kings Island has to justify any Haunt expense based on a handful of nights and one in which pass holders get in for free. While Knott’s has to be good enough to justify an expensive ticket.
  16. I went to haunt on Saturday. Frankly, not impressed by most of the event. It feels inappropriate to have the really young kids even in the park, let alone the parents who were taking children in strollers through the houses. The roaming scare actors feel more like photo opportunities than something to scare the guests. The lack of fog, the park has gone over board in the past, but it was almost nonexistent this year. While in line for Cornered guests found several extremely rusty nailed and screws sticking out of the fence. They proceeded to try to break them off and successfully did so to at least 2 or 3, but someone should have checked before the event. I understand the desire to pulse the line, sending guests through the house in groups, which lets the actors reset. This works to a point, and frankly several lines reached the point where they should have moved to bigger groups or at some point just conga line the guests. It’s not uncommon for groups to bunch up already anyways. Repeatedly while I was walking around close to a house, person after person was leaving a house and trying to warn other guests near the entrance it’s not worth it. Proper line management, would have done a lot to help guest satisfaction. They might be even more disappointed by the house itself, but with a reasonable wait they are more likely to enjoy the night overall. The best part of the event was the live entertainment. I watched both Nyte Walkers, and Monster Rock, plus about half of Dr. Nightmare. Not really a fan of Dr. Nightmare, I like the host but it feels like it was not a good use of his talents or of the stage. The other two shows were fantastic and both are a much better use of your time than the houses. The event just does not feel big enough, 6 houses are not enough, there are not enough scare actors. Personally I would prefer the park improves the event and makes it into something that would be worthy of a separate hard ticket, where even most or all pass holders need to buy a ticket. But it would take a lot of changes to get to this point. Frankly I recommend checking out the shows, and getting night rides on the coasters, at Kings Island. Then just head to some of the many better haunt events and houses in the area. If you’re up for traveling, Knott’s Scary Farm, Halloween Horror Nights on either coast, and either Howl-o-scream event in Florida are all much better events.
  17. Maybe, it should be obvious in the sunlight today. Because the letters cause the paint to fade unevenly and leave a shadow. If that is not visible they likely just turned it around. My guess is they turned it to face the other direction, and the letters are still there. I saw multiple groups walking through the grass last night but I was not willing to do so myself.
  18. Even better at that point do not renew, just get a new pass. When purchased through Canada the add-ons activate immediately. So combined with your current pass you have two drink plans, and two meal plans, for the rest of the year. The renewal savings is I believe $5 it’s just not enough to care about.
  19. According to Dollywood they have not changed the launch speed, it is the same today as it was on opening day, it was never turned down. The launch only covering 3/4 of the hill is where a lot of impression comes from. You can feel the train stop accelerating and start slowing once your past the LSM’s as you coast up the hill.
  20. This is more of a protest against the Covid shutdowns and charging rent when they were forced to be closed, then an inability to pay. They have the money and have paid rent for the time since they reopened. My guess is they will have a hard time arguing this in court, but it appears they want to try.
  21. Blazing Fury like the original Fire in the Hole ride were built in house by the parks staff. They did a good job, but the ride is getting old. It opened in 1978, six years after the original. While they learned a lot and it appears to be better built, I suspect the ride is likely also approaching the end of its life. There were already rumors this new fire in the hole ride would be cloned to Dollywood before the ride was announced. I expect it might be a few years, HFE likely would want to make sure it’s reliable before building a second copy. So far the ride looks fantastic and I look forward to making my way back to SDC and riding the new version.
  22. Just like every year, season passes work differently depending on what park you purchased your pass from. Many of the parks outside of Ohio already have their add-ons valid for use in 2023, including meal and drink plans. But if you purchase a pass from Kings Island or Cedar Point neither the meal plan or drink plan is valid until 2024. This includes a new premium drink tier that includes ICEE’s. No one bothered to tell the employees at Kings Island. Looking at the register screen while they checked me out over the weekend I confirmed the ICEE option does appear on the register. Good luck actually getting one though. Even when it shows up on the register they deny it is valid.
  23. Thought this was interesting, I was parked in the preferred parking and was leaving just after park close tonight. They had security at the exit of preferred parking directing traffic to the right, then another person directing people to drive down the road between the parking lot and the park itself, so we drove past the dorms, greenhouses, and behind the Great Wolf Lodge. I suspect they have gotten complaints about how hard it can be to get out of the lot at the end of the night. This is an interesting and unexpected fix. Only I think the fourth time I stayed until close this year so not sure if it has been done other nights or not.
  24. The park filed a plan with the local government in either early 2020 or late 2019 for what appeared to be a wooden coaster for this plot of land. The park withdrew the application after the pandemic hit. My guess was it would have been set to open in 2021. Based on the layout of the footers the speculation was it would be a Gravity Group coaster. The reason people were pretty confident it was GG was the footer layout and it appeared to feature a spike like Switchback at ZDT. The layout appeared to have a traditional lift hill and a track switch. You climbed the hill and went through the course forward, went up the spike, then went backwards until close to the drop from the lift hill which is where the track switch was located and it would have switched to allow you back to the station. The track switch would have allowed it to run two trains. The plans also showed Possessed being removed, and even showed concrete work around where the sign was located so people were pretty confident it being removed in the plans was not a mistake. Removing Wicked Twister might have saved Possessed. As I remember the two never actually interfered with each other so I thought it should have been possible to keep Possessed and still build the wooden coaster.
  25. After Good Gravy!, we could have had Good Grief!. If they do repaint and retheme Aerial Chase, I really hope they get the new Vekoma trains as well. The newer lapbar only trains like on Dragonflier at Dollywood are so much more comfortable. Not sure if they can just replace the seats and restraints or they have to replace the whole thing. Overall at least from the concept art it looks fantastic. I wonder what else is happening that we are not seeing. This really does feel like a great way to use existing infrastructure, and to add a new coaster. I always have preferred the Camp Snoopy theme to Planet Snoopy and it’s great finally seeing it at KI.
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