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Coronavirus Impacting Theme Parks


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4 minutes ago, disco2000 said:

You would notice it if it wasn't for all the spieling in the station:P

I just had to lookup the definition of "spieling". Fitting.  Haha!

For some reason I tend to pronounce it, "shpiel"-ing? Probably because I'm a Hoosier, I dunno...

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14 hours ago, King Ding Dong said:

Does anyone see a scenario that KI can operate safely at normal attendance levels?   
 

Does anyone see a scenario that KI can operate profitably at a 50% reduction in attendance?  (Say no daily tickets sales except for bring-a-friend)

Question 1: No, I don't think so.

Question 2: Maybe.  What if they cut staff by 50%?  Half of the rides would be closed.  There would be no shows.  No indoor food locations would be open.  There would likely be a daily attendance "cap" number which is coordinated with the state before opening.  Once this number is reached, no one else would be admitted.  Queues for everything would need to be adjusted to leave distance between guests waiting in line.  There would be no usage of the group picnic shelters.  To ride Orion would likely take many hours of waiting since they would likely only be loading trains at half capacity.

Even with all that, I'm not sure it would be profitable.  There is also the negative PR aspect of many of these things to consider.  Who wants to pay full price for a significantly downgraded experience? 

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If any parks were to open under social distancing guidelines conflicts among guests would be another problem the parks would have to deal with.  Many posts on this forum about the parks being very lax in enforcement for current violations such as smoking, line jumping, cameras on rides etc.  

How would they deal with these kinds of issues?  Would security personnel need to adjudicate on the spot which party violated the rules?  Having to physically remove a group from the park also puts those security personnel in a vulnerable position if guests become belligerent and refuse to comply with instructions.  

There is a good chance some of these incidents would be captured on video and make the rounds on social media.  If park personnel made any error of judgement now they have to deal with the negative PR and threats of lawsuits. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/08/doctor-social-distancing-strangulation/

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Here is my thinking currently and what my family and I are planning this summer

We are preparing our selfs for closure of all the parks this summer. We spend a lot of summer at the parks over 50 visits. We are hoping maybe the parks will be able to open for winter fest/ and maybe open up early Spring time next year. If our passes are comped we are considering upgrading our passes to season long Fast Lane. 
 

We as a family have a kit $1300 invested in our passes this season and Im sure all the parks want to open to get more of our money. It has to be hard to make the call because the parks are losing a lot more money and they have a lot more at steak. They will open when it's safe.  

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1 hour ago, King Ding Dong said:

If any parks were to open under social distancing guidelines conflicts among guests would be another problem the parks would have to deal with.  Many posts on this forum about the parks being very lax in enforcement for current violations such as smoking, line jumping, cameras on rides etc.  

How would they deal with these kinds of issues?  Would security personnel need to adjudicate on the spot which party violated the rules?  Having to physically remove a group from the park also puts those security personnel in a vulnerable position if guests become belligerent and refuse to comply with instructions.  

There is a good chance some of these incidents would be captured on video and make the rounds on social media.  If park personnel made any error of judgement now they have to deal with the negative PR and threats of lawsuits. 

Exactly!  Line jumping happens when you are shoulder-to-shoulder in line...imagine the temptation if there is six feet between everyone for someone to jump...

And now that people are realizing (shocking I know) that this virus is airborne, think about when someone is smoking in line.   Think about how many times you have smelled tobacco or pot smoke in line or walking around the park.  Many times you are looking around trying to see who is doing it.  Essentially, we are inhaling the contents of their lungs.  If they are sick with this virus, guess what...

I have seen someone in line very politely inform a guest that smoking is not allowed in line, and the smoker tells them to go F off.  I have seen an employee kindly tell a guest smoking is not allowed in line and the guest screams the employee is racist and picking on them and creates a big scene.  More times than not unfortunately, in my experiences the offending smoker shows an attitude even if approached nicely...Imagine now what could happen in line if someone is smoking... 

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Interesting.  Just received my payment processed email through Canada’s Wonderland. Personally fine with this as the exchange rate changes keep making my payment lower. Clearly CF is taking a park by park approach on this.  
 

While both CP & KI have similar wording about suspending payment plans CW’s site says explicitly payments will continue.  
 

Anyone know what the original opening date for CW was? Edit: from a hiring announcement post it looks like it was to be May 1st. 

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10 minutes ago, Joshua said:

As expected, KI's wording is different from KBF's regarding the Easy Pay Program. It doesn't sound like the plans will continue into 2021 if they don't re-open for this season. 

Just give it some time on pass extensions through 2021.  It's coming.  KI hasn't officially missed any operating days.  They aren't going to send it before the season even starts.

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7 minutes ago, jimlaheyscar said:

Just give it some time on pass extensions through 2021.  It's coming.  KI hasn't officially missed any operating days.  They aren't going to send it before the season even starts.

That is true. Things can and likely will change. In part, I am relieved as that is one less expenditure I have to worry about at this time. 

I'm curious if passholders who paid in full received some sort of update as well. 

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26 minutes ago, Joshua said:

As expected, KI's wording is different from KBF's regarding the Easy Pay Program. As of now, It doesn't sound like the plans will continue into 2021 if they don't re-open for this season. 

For those that missed it on page 44, or didn't bother to read it because you only have a KI gold pass so it wasn't applicable to you yet, here is a summary of my thoughts on what this means and a potential unintended consequence, disparity in the works....

Since they did not announce a chain-wide offer that Knott's provided, that could mean CF believes that the remaining parks could still potentially open with enough days left in the year to make up for missed days!  Or it could simply mean that Cedar Fair is a publicly traded company and that affects the type and timing of their communication...and after enough days will be missed than cannot be made up, we get the announcement...

IF for some reason CF is able to open their parks this year and not have to extend season park gold and regular passes through the 2021 season, they have potentially just created unintended consequences of their Knott's announcement...

What are these unintended consequences you may be asking yourself?  Well, a platinum pass is a platinum pass.  So Knott's announced platinum passes are now good thru the 2021 season.  If the Knott's announcement doesn't go chain-wide, that now creates a disparity since your gold pass for KI is only valid for 2020, yet your friend that bought a platinum pass same day as you now gets in for 2021 as well...

One could argue CF could say that a 2020 platinum pass is only valid for 2021 season at Knott's or the 2021 season is only valid to platinum passes purchased at Knott's, but that then opens up a whole new set of issues associated with a platinum pass, from internal legacy admissions software issues that may not be able to deal with this issue, to creating a disparity based on where one purchases a platinum pass, etc...in this case not all platinum passes are created equal...

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