super7

So by you guys it’s ok the close the doors early after you get there just because they don’t have a good attendance. Got ya. I hope you are very local as some people have traveled a distance in these days to get there. Even paid for lodging Is it a good business decision to upset customers? Also as their reputation worsens for these early closures (not too long ago this wasn’t standard practice) that means NOBODY but locals will risk traveling to the parks on questionable weather days. Making it impossible for them to ever turn a profit if rain is in the forecast. imo it’s classic bait and switch to have advertised hours and not produce. Regardless of disclaimers.

I have been there before when they said they were closing for weather. And it stopped raining at 8. They close for attendance when they cut days short at the last moment. Period. And fyi Thursday’s forecast predicted rain all night days ahead. They could at least have done common decency and not open the gates at all if they are going to pull these tricks.

Cedar Fair does a lot of things right, but Tonight (Thursday) was a perfect example of their biggest flaw in park management. They knew the forecast for today yet they allowed people to come and then close early. It’s always because of attendance when they close early and they blame the weather. If they open the gates, they should stay open as scheduled. If the weather looks bad, then cancel ahead of time. They did for Friday. Which Pretty much confirms tonight was because of attendance. It’s just a little bit sleazy way to operate. And nobody is going to come when the weather is questionable because of the chance of the park closing. They’re digging their own ditch with this policy. And just to clarify, it’s fine if they want to close because of weather and safety. But do it before people start traveling to the park Additionally, they cut scheduled hours on the employees. That’s what this early closure is totally about. Saving payroll and operating cost. But they were just having Problems finding employees not too long ago. Who wants to work for a non-reputable company that cuts hours on a whim?

This is still my favorite flat ride to this day. I got to ride Zodiac as a kid and Giant Wheel at Hershey as an adult so I remember the experience well. Giant Wheel was removed after 2004 I believe. I loved the long cycle and great views. It was a ride just about anyone could ride unless afraid of heights. As stated above, it’s such an efficient, high capacity design since one side cycles while one side loads. The typical Ferris wheels like the one at Cedar Point are garbage in comparison. They take forever to load and the cycle is short. You spend most of the ride time not moving. Plus they have a balancing issue, so the parks never load them at full capacity. 2 memories of Zodiac- You could see it from International Street giving anticipation of what was waiting. Bi ajways think of Zodiac when I hear disco music as the Coney Island Disco was next door when I got to ride it.

The ride ending is totally anticlimactic. I always thought that they should extend the final lift hill, add track thst turns left into a 900 degree helix with a tunnel finale. They would be able to market it as a new ride with smaller investment.

Weren’t the unpainted turn arounds rebuilt in recent years? It seems the lack of paint there was budget motivated IMO as it is not a highly visible area. I agree about painting the new track. If they don’t, this years paint job was wasted dollars.

Although it would slightly reduce capacity I would love to see the front car have a train theme like Carowinds Goldrusher. It looks great. CF has been theming front coaster cars in the recent years like Carowinds did in the 70s. I doubt if it happens They will probably do some knickknack theming in the station and maybe queue like they have done at Jungje Expedition at Kings Dominion. Someone is having a good time at flea market treasure hunts! it would be nice if the fog returns. Any on ride theming should be done in the 2nd and final tunnels. The reset of the ride is too fast to see theming. I hope they leave the first tunnel dark. It’s great at night. This isn’t theming but the biggest improvement they could make to the current coaster is removing that stupid kink in the helix. Arrow really knew how to make a coaster unnecessarily janky.

I really hope those two large pine trees beside Adventure Express queue entrance aren’t going to be removed but knowing the parks disdain for trees im not hopeful. I like these smaller themed sections like Area 72 and Adventure Port. There is still enough to have Oktoberfest as a themed area. The entrance to Delerium could easily be moved to the pathway beside Festhaus and thst ride could be incorporated into Oktoberfest. In fact there is already an existing sidewalk connecting the queue to that path. Plus there is room for some small food or game stands. That’s enough to keep the area as its own.

if the get the 24 person model that would be a shame. It’s a budget cut that would sacrifice capacity and customer satisfaction. KI is well attended and they need higher capacity rides. They already went on the “cheap” side with these Zamperla rides. The video I saw of an Endeavour makes it look like a budget enterprise. It doesn’t look like it fully inverts like an enterprise.

Carowinds and Kings Dominion have Tinkers in outdoor theaters. The suggestion for having it in the Showplace is appropriate. The Snoopy show was such as waste for the main theater. I always felt bad for the singers and dancers having to perform with the cringe worthy character segments. The KI theater should really be used for a full production choreographed Christmas show that showcases the best talent. Not a show where talented vocalists sing in elf voices or a character based show like the one that was fortunately eliminated. The shows that need their playlists refreshed are Nativity Mistletones and Jingle Jazz. It could easily be done since they are all fully vocal performances

At least the nano coaster is accurate. The version of Thunder Road is missing hills and has the station beside the lift hill.

And perhaps split that area off of Coney into its own themed area.

Cedar Fair has really stepped up on theming over the last several years. Blue Ridge Junction and now Areonautical Landing at Carowinds. The queue line for Copperhead Strike has a fantastic amount of quality theminh. Jungle Xpedition and the ride rethemes at Kings Dominion are full of quality details. Area 72 at KI finally brought that area together. They also finally realized Frontier Canada Canada’s Wonderland Although it’s still a bit incohesive because of previous ownership Who would’ve ever thought the company who renamed coasters Flight Deck and Stunt Coaster Would be at the top of the theming game for regional theme parks. The Oktoberfest area was the area at Kings Island the most desperately needed attention. I’m a little disappointed it’s not an Oktoberfest refresh and the cheap Zamperla rides, But regardless it will make the area much nicer and cohesive. Adventure Xpress never did go with Oktoberfest. And Kings Island needs flat rides. Der Spinnen Keggers sort of returns It looks like the Fest Haus will be annexed into International Street What about the pirate ship?

IMO these year round announcements are questionable. It’s been my experience multiple times at Cedar Fair parks if they have to low attendance they will close the park early or totally close the park. I have experienced this at Carowinds on a 50 day degree when the weather was clear. At Kings Island multiple times because of tolerable rain but no attendance. And the same by Kings Dominion. With Cedar Fair his reputation of not staying open If the weather affects the crowd. I don’t see this working. Because the weather is going to be bad more days than good in the winter months

Carowinds has a show for Winterfest called Sparkle City Swing Machine in Harmony Hall the new show at KI sounds like a version of this one. in general the live entertainment at Winterfest is worn out after 4 seasons of the same exact material for the high majority of shows. at every CF park. The least they could do is change the playlist of songs if they are keeping the same shows. Lets hope for some snowy nights. Those have been the absolute best Winterfest experiences. Last year was warm.

The drinks and dining if one goes at least 6 or so times. Really if one doesn’t have the dining plan it’s foolish to eat at the park. It’s massively overpriced and just edible. Even the fast food outside the park is better quality.

That’s the LEAST that they could do. It’s video based! Lol. It wouldn’t take much effort.

That’s how Cedar Fair operates. They take your money and advertise something they don’t provide. They consistently close parks earlier than advertised when attendance is low. So why wouldn’t they screw passholders out of other advertised benefits. B They have the mentality of the people love coming to the amusement park so much that they can get away with these things and the people will still renew their passes

I would be happy if they planted trees throughout the park. Especially the barren Action Zone, Planet Snoopy, Area 72 and center of the park. Well the entire park except Oktoberfest lol

They gave me a new card for 2022 at KD when I bought the platinum. It wasn’t an upgrade. I was renewing platinum. But anyway I just went through the steps to renew at CW and it worked. Depending on exchange rate and cc feed it works out to about $390-$395. I’m still going to wait until I’m actually at CW to renew though.

If one can renew online at any park, they must have changed it. Last year i tried to renew my KI issued platinum at KD online and it would not recognize my pass. I had to buy a new issue pass at guest relations. Or maybe it was just system error. With dining and drinks after exchange rate, tax and cc fees the Wonderland platinum pass works out to about $395 US vs around $465 at the US parks I appreciate the original post here I’m planing to go to Wonderland next week and will probably buy my 2023 pass there The true bonus for me is that my sales tax payment will go to Ontario instead of this corrupt Ohio Republican govt. that refuses to use the voter approved law for determining districts The less tax paid to fund them the better

I saw that the Carowinds Prestige passes are $74 cheaper, including the all park +

Busch Gardens offers higher level memberships that include preferred parking and other perks. The level with preferred parking was about $60 more annually. With the way their parking is divided up and the regular parking requiring a tram ride or crossing the entrance road at Williamsburg. It’s a bit of a hassle to get to the regular lot so this was worthwhile. However at KI and most CF parks it’s just one big lot. I don’t think preferred parking is worth saving a few minutes of walking. Even Carowinds with its odd shaped lot has a second gate when the lot is full. The front of the line stuff, just like Fast Lane reduces general operations. Cedar Fair is starting to get some negative operations feedback these days (KI does have decent operations) so this won’t help. This is a very Six Flags thing to do to make a few dollars I also don’t see much benefit of the skip the line passes because while one gets to skip a line, others are going to skip lines on other rides during the day the these pass members are waiting for when they aren’t skipping, increasing those waits If their is free bottled water involved in this there may be value in that since it’s not included on any drink plan Instead of a prestige entry gate wouldn’t it be much better operations to use those resources. to have No Bags entry gates? I just hope they don’t start reducing what you get with gold or platinum. That’s a possibility and seems like the sneaky American way of increasing prices (less product fir same price). I am OK however with the recent price increases on these as they were underpriced especially if one includes dining and drink. In their quarterly financials their biggest brag was that they are squeezing more out of each guest. This is more of that. While their overall EBITDA decreased about 7% since 2019 with inflation fractured in. It seems like their plan to squeeze more out of each guest instead of improving operations, trying to attract new marker of guests with new kinds of non thrill attractions (dark rides, transport) and actual entertainment venues (KI does has more sit down venues than the other CF parks), etc. They are missing most of the target market that allows Herschend to operate 5 days a week 10 months a year….

Phantom Theater was a world class dark ride full of animatronics. Paramount gutted it, filled it with plywood scenery and cut the capacity half. I would like to see the former attraction return exactly like it was with the full omnimover capacity. But seeing how Knotts Bear-y tales was brought back as a cheaper screen based ride by Cedar Fair, that’s probably what would happen.

I don’t go to KI much despite it being the closest park except for Winterfest. I much more enjoy traveling to more scenic parks like Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens. KI has better rides but rides aren’t everything to everyone. KI should be as nice as KD considering they were built as team parks but it isn’t currently. Back before Paramount got their greasy hands in it, it was as nice and green. Cedar Fair has probably removed as many trees without replacement. Even KIs Winterfest suffers from the lack of mature trees in the park compared to KD and even Carowinds. Those 2 parks have lighting high in the trees that is both immersive and gorgeous. I will leave this conversation with this comparison photo from the 90s until now which highlights how barren KI has become.