DispatchMaster

That is not at all what I am saying. If I were defending the park for adding nothing, sure, this would be a fair response to that. They have objectively improved the water park with this addition. That adding two water coasters and expanding a kids' area with a new set of slides "a commitment to mediocrity"? You're free to critique, of course, but calling a significant water park expansion "a commitment to mediocrity" does not strike me as a "fair" critique. Respectfully, the park you grew up with in the 80's and 90's was a far less mature park with fewer rides, areas, and attractions that what exists today. As such, the potential for growth and rate of growth was much higher then compared to today. Take the coaster roster for example. It's true that from ~1990 to ~2000 the park's net coaster count went from 5 to 12, and since has gone only up to 15 (forgive me if my quick math is incorrect, but I think I'm close enough), but to expect linear growth would mean the park should have ~25 coasters today, ~10 more than they currently have. While I'm sure those who think RCT sandbox mode is real life would think they should have ~25 coasters, any reasonable observer should, I think, realize that such growth is not sustainable (see: Geauga Lake). Heck, even CP, the so-called "Roller Coaster Capital of the World" hasn't seen nearly the same rate of growth in recent years that it saw in the 90's. Growth is not, and can not, be infinitely linear. The fact of the matter is that there are few "holes" in the park's lineup compared to the 80's and 90's, and that, I think, is also true of the water park.

It's always impossible to meet enthusiasts' expectations. KI is getting not one, but two water coasters for next year, and people are complaining about that. It's like trying to please a spoiled child, who opens their gift, sees that it's in the wrong color or whatever, and tosses it aside in disgust and whines that it's not what they asked for. It's just ridiculous. At least ride the darn thing before moaning about how it didn't meet some set of arbitrary "expectations". Or, better yet, don't set expectations! Just enjoy the hobby for what it is, and find joy in the fact that we're fortunate enough to have sufficient disposable income that we're able to spend time indulging in the hobby. Lots of folks are far less fortunate, and as such are not nearly as spoiled.

Social media is comprised almost entirely of people complaining about something or other, so that's a terrible barometer. Social media is not real life. For every person whining on FB, there's a hundred more who will happily enjoy a new ride, even if said ride doesn't meet the impossible standards of enthusiasts who do almost nothing but complain. I mean, it's pretty incredible when you think about it. You're already deriding an attraction that hasn't even been built yet. That's not normal.

You'd have to ask their marketing department why their strategy doesn't align with the cap ex strategy. It's the new Cedar Fair, where the strategies are made up, and the per caps don't matter!

My point was only that, given the scale of the project, CP's choice was between Intamin and any number of other manufacturers, none of which have experience at this scale. As such, the choice was either risk another disaster with Intamin, or give another firm a go at it, which has the added benefit of increasing competition within the industry on large scale projects.

From your piece: With regard to the above, you're assuming the goal is to draw guests from beyond the local market, which I don't think is the case. This addition seems more like the standard practice of keeping the slide lineup reasonably fresh and modern, with the goal of maintaining the water park's draw for regional guests. In that view, this seems like a great addition - cost effective, with an eye toward reliability and capacity, and variety with the added kids' slides. Now, should Cedar Fair be aiming higher across the board with what they offer? Yes, on that I would agree! But that's a slightly different argument, in that it's more of a criticism of CF management and vision overall, rather than the choices individual parks have to make within the framework set by the chain.

Aside from Intamin, who as you concede has a troubled history, who else in the industry has a history of producing attractions of this magnitude? And again, even Intamin's Formula Rossa has been SBNO for 7+ months with zero explanation as to why, so...

In other words, if it was between Intamin and Zamperla, it was a choice between a company that is known to produce unreliable and sometimes dangerous and lethal rides versus one that produces reliable rides on a smaller scale. Seems like an easy choice to me, even considering the massive failure of getting the ride running this season.

Absent an actual link or something, I am deeply skeptical of the claim that Intamin approached CF, because, as I said, that is simply not how they have ever approached projects in the past. And it's also not how Tony described the process with TT2 specifically, though I think it was during a Q&A on an Instagram Live or some such thing prior to the ride's opening. As for the car analogy, any reputable mechanic can work on any car, regardless of the OEM, so the analogy falls apart. And again, that's without considering the poor relationship between CF and Intamin.

This is a pretty extraordinary claim, so what is your source? Because, according to the park for this project specifically, and for every project basically ever, the park invites several companies to come with a ride concept that meets a certain set of criteria (family-friendly invert, water ride, record-breaking airtime coaster, etc.), and this sets of a discussion between the park and manufacturers, and eventually a contract is agreed upon with one of them. And in the case of TT2, CF (again, according to CF themselves) wanted to see what could be done with the existing ride structure, and invited multiple companies to bid on their vision for the project, and to my recollection, CF never mentioned any of the other companies involved, probably because that would violate mutual NDAs that were signed at the onset of the project. As for the implication that Intamin would have been a better choice, even if we ignore the awful history of their rides' performance and tendency to try and kill their passengers, there's not much reason to think they could have done any better. After all, how's Formula Rossa running these days?

The people who will be enjoying RiverRacers won't know or care who the OEM is. They'll simply have a ton of fun on it, because they're not jaded enthusiasts who can't let a new ride announcement happen without finding something to complain about.

Yeesh, that service counter being that gross is despicable. How is keeping that counter at least somewhat tidy not drilled into employees from day 0?

Apologies for the double post, but this!!! For the life of me I do not understand the constant "bait and switch" whining and hand wringing over whether the value proposition of a product may change in the future. Either the pass (with or without the add-ons) is worth the cost or it isn't, period, end of story. That anyone spends more than 30 seconds making that calculation in their head is bewildering to me, especially considering these season passes are ridiculously cheap compared to virtually any other entertainment product. And if it's that much of a stressor for some of you, maybe just take BeastFarmer's sage advice here and just not buy it.

How is it "fine print" if it's exactly the same size as the rest of the text? If someone purchases something and expects it to do something they were explicitly told it would not do, how is that anyone's fault other than the purchaser? I'm trying to understand the logic here. Either the pass + add-ons is worth the cost, or it isn't. Per the company selling the product, there won't be additional benefits, period. And if for some reason they decide to add additional benefits down the line, how does that worsen the value proposition?

Oh, thank goodness. And I can see the edge of the plank now that you point it out now.

Decent name, solid, somewhat-unique layout/elements, beautiful color scheme, great interaction with the midway. My only issue is that, with two 20-person trains, capacity won't come anywhere near to GK's lofty people-eater status, but that's a high bar.

Were you... were you eating that thing directly off the table?

It's always easy to identify who has a baseline ability for critical thought and discussion by how quickly they resort to ad hominem attacks on others. Nice of you to out yourself right off The Bat.

Responding to random, anonymous Internet posts on a niche enthusiast platform adds credibility to the claims against him. Ignoring them has the opposite effect. Had Chad gotten into a public back-and-forth with the accuser here, that may well have been a newsworthy story. A few uninformed dorks arguing online (and I include myself in that group) is not newsworthy. First of all, this would be libel, not slander, since the criticisms are written rather than spoken. But more importantly, to sue for libel, the statements made must be provably-false, and must be shown to have caused harm or damage. So, if Chad didn't lose his job as a result of this information coming to light, or wasn't able to secure future employment due to these claims, there would possibly be a case, but even then it's still a long shot.

This assumes a CF/SF chain-wide pass is a priority for the company, and I have no Earthly idea why it should be a priority. It's not like there are that many people who would even be affected by this. If someone purchased SF and/or CF chain-wide passes in 2024, and those same individuals willingly purchase the same chain-wide passes in 2025, then what's the problem regardless of what happens with a combined pass thereafter? Either the individual passes are worth the cost to the individual at the time of purchase or not. That someone else may get a better price or whatever is irrelevant.

Easier said than done. It's not as if back in early/mid-May they had a precise timeline of when the ride would reopen, so it would have been a fool's errand to go through the trouble and expense of planning the substantial overhaul of the infield needed to accommodate lockers that could be accessed by riders as they enter and leave the station, as is the case with SV. It's only with the benefit of mid-July hindsight that there may have been enough time to do so, and even that's not necessarily the case, since it's not exactly a trivial thing to accomplish during the operating season.

I don't dispute that whoever decided on silence had their reasoning. My contention is that their reasoning comes from a place of gross incompetence, rather than experience. I fail to see the legal exposure from CP's statement, and the vague allusions you make do nothing to convince me otherwise. No it has not. Social media has not substantively changed since Twitter came on the scene, and even the change brought by Twitter I would argue is not "drastic". Information traveled fast when FB was the hottest game in town, and it's no different now. The statement from CP above also went out on Twitter, so the idea that things are "drastically" different now is nonsensical. Agreed, which makes the lack of a statement from KI all the more darning! Again, a simple, slightly opaque statement like the one CP put out stating the basic facts, and nothing more, is all they needed to do. And they failed to do that, which, to your point, could make it appear the park is trying to hide something. And it's not Monday morning QB-ing! This is basic, 101-level PR stuff! Getting the basic facts out to the public makes it less likely that misinformation and rumors take hold. And once rumors take hold, subsequent comments by the park look like a response to the rumors, which adds to the "cover up" appearance.

I am not a lawyer, but I fail to see where there's any legal risk to post what CP did in the wake of the Raptor incident, so I fail to see why there would have been any legal risk for KI to do the same when the same thing happened at KI. It's a terrible move to leave an information vacuum to be filled in with rumors and misinformation. Where's the legal exposure in the above statement? Nonsense. The events are virtually identical - a guest lost an item(s) in a restricted area, and circumvented multiple barriers to retrieve said item(s), was struck by the ride and subsequently died from their injuries. KI could quite literally have copied CP's media comment and replaced "Raptor" with "Banshee" and that's it (the medium (press release, Twitter post, etc.) is irrelevant). That they couldn't meet that incredibly low bar is pretty bad.

Dorney Park was able to squeeze half of a B&M dive coaster into where Invertigo was.

Or the silence is simply an indication that they don't have any new updates to share, rather than indication of some conspiracy or whatever. Are they supposed to give daily "updates" where they say nothing has changed since their last comments on the ride?