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Honorarius

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Everything posted by Honorarius

  1. I think there is a sweet spot below B&M people eater, but above Sky-Rocket pitch-a-tent-in-line that would serve the park quite nicely.
  2. It's the station for the highspeed underground KI to CP monorail...
  3. I'd worry about the capacity on a skyrocket or free spin. The lines get bad enough on the rides with good capacity... There's room if they want it... Kingswood sits empty a lot, and that land is beside 2 coasters that are absolutely terrible... Let's be honest, unless people are really looking through rose-coloured nostalgia-glasses, they have a lot of very, very bad coasters...
  4. Unfortunately, the damage is done... Years from now, we'll still be hearing about someone who knows someone who saw someone die when the seats flew off that day... And absolutely nothing you can say/do/show them will convince them that it didn't happen. They "know" it happened, and that's that...
  5. Cedar Fair sold that chunk of land (82 acres) on the north side of the Major Mackenzie for $60,000,000 in 2009... A chunk of land like that could have come in handy... Not sure how much it would have been to move the existing waterpark to that lot to develop the Splash Works land for the dry park... There was a pre-existing tunnel under the Major Mackenzie so they could also have used the land on the north side for parking and run trams like some parks do when they have lots that are a bit too long to walk... Would have opened up a nice chunk of lot beside the park to develop into park... Selling wouldn't have been my choice, but it's not my money either... They likely used the $60 million to pay off some of the debts they took on when they bought the parks...
  6. Agree that the indoor multi-option eatery is badly needed... And I think that MisterSG1 is correct, don't sleep on the space taken by the go-karts and Kingswood. Take a look on a satellite map at how much room those 2 take up...
  7. Yes, they use the conveyor belt ovens (at least at the Internation Street one), which I think leads to the increased consistency in comparison to my local franchise, which I think sets the timer by throwing darts at a dartboard... The parks post on their own website states: All guests age two and older are required to wear a face covering in all indoor spaces, on rides and outdoors where 2 metres physical distance cannot be maintained (with limited exceptions, including Splash Works and water attractions so if you can stay 2m from people outdoors, you can take it off. Why you have to wear it on the ride when you're 2 metres from the next person, I don't know. I think they're just doing whatever they're told by the local health unit as long as it lets them open. If rides and outdoors were 2 separate clauses, I'd expect a comma in there, but I think that's just me being nitpicky... Forgot to mention the park is now completely smoke free... The million dollar question is will it be enforced, because the old smoking policy certainly wasn't...
  8. I understand not every job is interchangeable... But every single basketball shooting game was open, both arcades were open and heavily staffed, while the only drink stand open in the adult section of the park was the one beside True north gifts... Having to join the food lines just to get drinks adds a fair amount of time... The beer stand by Yukon Striker was open, because with the Jays still out of town, people need to buy $12 beer somewhere... I think they would've made more opening a refresh station or an ICEE stand, but it is what it is... We at at the Pizza Pizza on I-street, and the food was good, way better than my local Pizza Pizza where one time it's burned, next it's raw... The kitchen was well staffed and they were putting out pizzas at a fair clip, the bottle neck was having only one cashier... From joining line to paying took 25 minutes... Backlot Cafe and Marketplace had nicely printed signage on the windows letting you know that those locations are closed... Due to the indoor dining regulations in the province, this wasn't really a surprise... Hoping some of the smaller ones that were closed are open for the next go-round... Also, when did they start charging tax on the midway games??? It used to be they were a nice round number, now they're all X.99 + tax... Yes, I came in off Major Mackenzie and down Jane... We had an 11:00 window, and traffic was far, far lighter do to limiting how many people can arrive at each window... They are doing some construction on Major Mack east of Amusement Drive, but I'm not sure what... Due to this construction, we left through the south exit and got on the 400 off Rutherford... Road didn't seem bad, but I'm likely a bit more rural and with roads being less trafficked, the benchmark for "bad roads" is a little different... With the throughput that road sees, I'm surprised it's in such disrepair... Speaking of construction, the hospital across the road has progressed well, is it open??? No temperature checks were done, or screening questions or anything. They had the standard signs up that all businesses seem to have which is along the lines of "If you have on the symptoms on this list, please go away". And the website says "All guests age two and older are require to wear a face covering in all indoor spaces, on rides, and outdoors where 2 metres physical distance cannot be maintained". I'm sure this was set by the province or health unit, and the park is going along because the alternative is not opening at all... They also were periodically sanitizing the trains, I'm not sure how often. They'd spray it from a bottle, wipe down seat and hand rest, then send the train off empty... Got to watch in Leviathan's station as they did this, and they actually seemed pretty thorough... And I don't think merchandise is an incredibly risky investment... Unless they have a date on them, they can be sold at a later date... It's certainly less of a risk than food which has a shelf-life... Riptide has new restraints and seats... I didn't ride so I'm not sure how they are compared to the old ones... The preferred parking sections of the lot aren't there, they've removed most of the big white concrete barriers where they were...
  9. After 550 days being closed, I'm very happy the park is now open... Just a few meandering thoughts... Mask enforcement was hit-and-miss... People in the line for Yukon Striker were being told to keep them on... People were getting on Vortex and taking them off... Reduced capacity combined with social distancing making it hard to judge how long of a wait a line is... Lines stretch longer because people aren't nose-to-tail... But reduced capacity on the rides means that the lines move a lot slower... Leviathan, Vortex, Behemoth both had half their rows closed... Yukon Striker I honestly couldn't tell what they were doing... They seemed to be keeping smaller groups to the outside seats of the 8-seat rows, leaving a few empty seats between the groups, or if it was a larger group, they'd have a row to themselves, but some trains they would have people in all 3 rows, some they wouldn't... Staffing was clearly an issue... Personally I think having a few more food/drink places open and less midway games would've been beneficial to the guest experience... The ones that were open were trying their best, and I'd actually say it went a lot smoother than it normally does this early in the season (I've had a few very, very bad experiences)... Sledgehammer was running!!! Always a nice surprise... Saw the new cliff-jumping attraction (from Behemoth so didn't get a photo) and it looks nice... Hope it goes well... At ticket sales outside the park, the person managing the line was saying that Fast Lane would not be available... It was being sold at the small stand between Leviathan and Drop Tower... I inquired to the price point and she said it was $90... Not sure if it went up during the day... I'm also assuming that was the FLP+ price... Does anyone ever buy the regular Fast Lane??? The FL+ line was full to the start of the FLP+ queue for Yukon Striker, had a few people at top of the stairs on Leviathan and Behemoth, and was empty on Vortex... So far, merch has taken a step back this year... I've been pretty vocal at my disappointment in the merch at the park over the years, and felt that last year they really did make an improvement... This year, they've let it slip... Hoping that the new/good stuff just hasn't made the shelves yet... But for all you hear about "per cap spending", you need to offer something that people want to buy if you want them to spend money... The small shops/Fun Pix kiosks at the ends of Leviathan, Behemoth and Yukon Striker have no merch... This is likely because there's a limit on customers in the space, and they don't want people loitering looking at merch and not allowing people in to buy ride photos (which have a great profit margin)... No merch celebrating the parks 40th season... I did read/hear somewhere that they had planned to sell this merch at the former All The Rage store by Xtreme Skyflyer, but it was closed, so I'm still hopeful... They've got a ton of branded/themed Squishmallows, and though I'm not a fan of the line myself, I do like to see park-branding on things like this. One of the things they have done well over the last few years is that most of the plushies sold in the park have the park logo/name/initials somewhere on it, nice to see them following suit with the Squishmallows, instead of the generic ones you can buy anywhere that they had last year... Oh, almost forgot, was looking forward to getting some theme park branded masks... Was going to buy some KI/CP ones last year, but $38 USD for shipping 1 mask put the brakes on that... Two giftshops, True North Gifts and Canada's Wonderland Gifts both had masks, branded for the park and the newer big-ticket coasters, at a price point of $30-$35... They just looked like a plain black mask with a small logo on it in the corner...
  10. ^^^ And I'm saying when those changes happened, it was "now" to someone. Just like these changes are to us now. And it's spreading. Someone, somewhere, is figuring out a way to upcharge me for even more stuff that I haven't even considered I could be upcharged for. Someone's doing the math on "lost money from disgruntled customers unhappy with our business model" vs "Earned money from people willing to pay extra for" and their calculator just shows one of them old timey bags with the dollar sign on it. Like you say, it'll be a while to see if it's positive long-term. Wouldn't be the first time a company ran over a cliff trying to squeeze every nickel they can out of people. But they've also got a lot of examples of "it worked for them, we can do it too"
  11. Not "always". Those businesses just realized that they can get people to pay more for an upgraded experience earlier than theme parks and movie theatres. What you're seeing now is just the latter catching up.
  12. Next thing you know, they'll be letting people pay more for better seats at Reds games!!!
  13. I think it's getting worse because people see others doing it and getting away with it, so they figure they can do it too. I don't think Fast Lane factors into it at all.
  14. These people drive me bonkers... It's not like they took a quiet neighbourhood and jammed a loud amusement park in there to everyone's protest... I also will be at the park on Monday...
  15. No, it just means that it costs the government more money than they budgeted for. They either just tack it on to the deficit or try to balance it out by cutting somewhere else.
  16. We will have some people that refuse to get it, but I believe that the percentage that don't want to is between 10% and 20%... We've been behind the curve on vaccination rates largely because of supply and distribution issues, now that we're getting a good supply, we're catching up.... I know in the rural area where I live, people are still having trouble getting appointments for their first shot, whereas a few hours away there are places taking walk-ins...
  17. None of this makes sense. I'd buy the "don't travel to protect the system" line if they did any more than pay it lip service. I live in cottage country, a couple hours north of the GTA. Our hospitals are significantly smaller than those in the GTA. If travel were such a concern for our hospitals, why does the population of the towns double/triple every weekend? Why is lining up for a roller-coaster a bridge too far but I can travel south to the Costco and line up nose-to-tail? I'll obey the rules they make. And if the rule says I can go to a theme park, I will.
  18. If the powers that be say I can travel, I'll travel if it so pleases me...
  19. Yes, it's closed for now... But the decisions are seemingly being made by Magic 8-Ball... They could extend a week, they could extend a month, they may not extend at all. There is still lots of summer after July 21. Just wanted to let people know so they could book a date just in case. I've got some time off work later this year, and I have hotel reservations made should I have the chance to use them. It costs nothing, and it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it...
  20. I feel your pain... I'm stuck up here and I can't use ANY of the parks I bought it for... You got that shiny new coaster there and I haven't been able to give it a whirl... And to top it off ya hogging all the baseball too
  21. Bookings are being snapped up pretty fast... Anyone hoping to get a visit in, book it quick!!! Also, the booking system is only letting people book for 1 day currently, as opposed to the 2 days they announced...
  22. He didn't "lose" his job. He quit because he felt that $730,000 wasn't enough money to do the job. There's a difference.
  23. I voted for Carowinds, but I haven't had a chance to ride Orion yet, and that will factor heavily into my decision...
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