BoddaH1994
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Posts posted by BoddaH1994
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39 minutes ago, Timchat2 said:
With the recent song changes (presumably due to issues with the song rights) to Dreamland Drive-In we had a feeling it likely wasn't going to be around much longer. Sixteen years is an incredible run though. Dreamland was truly something special. Few theme park shows have that kind of heart and emotional impact. Hopefully the future productions will continue that tradition.
Yeah, I have a feeling that they felt like it ran its course. I doubt they had trouble with the rights. They probably just changed songs to keep it fresh. Kings Island used to do it a lot when they ran shows two or three years.
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I just hope the replacement for Dreamland is a story-driven show. They have a lot of concerts. That one was unique in that regard. .
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SP revenue was down slightly as a result of the change in the program with the All Park Passport. That tells me that Prestige didn’t do well, since they would have mentioned it as an offset.
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“Decrease in per capita as a result of a change in admissions mix.”
Sounds like what I heard about a too big of a SP mix in Q4 was correct.
They also mention they saved operating expense due to cutting seasonal and entertainment costs.
If Grand Carnivale comes back, it’ll look a lot more like 2023 than 2019.
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6 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:
Budget aside, 10 continuous days anywhere seems like a waste of entertainment dollars to me.
If I were doing nothing but marathoning coasters, yeah, 3 days would be too much. But the family-centric stays we've done there included shows/live E, copious beach/pool/resort time, water park time, etc., and we've never felt we overstayed during our 4/5 day visits. YMMV.
I do most of the things that you are mentioning. My favorite part is the beach. I just don’t have the patience to wait in Cedar Point lines at my age. lol
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On 2/8/2024 at 7:03 PM, BeeastFarmer said:
Nickelodeon characters are trashy.
The characters were problematic.
Spongebob was the timeless one, but I feel like we are way of his hump in popularity.
Wild Thornberrys was off the air in the U.S. when the log flume was rethemed.
Many of the characters are live action, which doesn’t help.
The heyday of Nickelodeon was ending when Splat City was coming in. All the Gak, “kids rule” etc stuff was great, but they don’t do stuff as much anymore.
It would be cool to have Star Trek, Mission Impossible, and so on back though. Unfortunately, the extend of their theming was often to drop a movie name on an off-the-shelf ride.
Of course, it’s been a very long time…
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3 hours ago, disco2000 said:
As a passholder you already get 10%, or Prestige 15%, and I highly doubt this is on top of the pass discount, so basically a useless perk....
Or it stacks, but only for certain things. They had 60% off “select” 50th merch toward the end of the season. No one seemed to be sure what it was good for. My friends and I tried several times to buy 50th things, only to find out it didn’t qualify. Finally, it was consolidated to a few shelves. When we went to purchase something from one of the shelves, we were told that it was good for anything on the shelves except what we wanted to purchase, which happened to be sharing the shelf with the sign advertising the 60% off.
Based on what we saw this past season, as well as the many displays this offseason, I imagine this level of competence to continue this year with the Pass Perks.
Option 2 will be that it’s for something of zero value to passholders. For example, a small discount on food that’s on the dining plan.
I don’t know what part of the new app would make anyone think that this absurd five-year-old program that has not delivered would begin to do so. It’s very evident that they don’t know what to do with it. The person they hired to manage it doesn’t understand the business, and the “as adorable as it is predictable” etc statements made by park officials demonstrates how they think of the season pass base anyway.
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I THINK the arrangement is a revenue share. Skycoaster may own the equipment. Not sure. If that’s true, they’ll keep it until they find a more profitable use of the land.
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Great article out of CP Food Blog. He’s writing about CP, but I imagine the story will be relevant to Kings Island too.
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I’m good for about three days at CP before I’m over it.
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11 hours ago, brenthodge said:
Heck-there are so many streamers STILL left in the trees that the park was too lazy to remove, if they cancel the event, we can just look up and pretend it’s still happening.
Or just convince ourselves that we missed the parade.
To be fair, I don’t think laziness is the reason why some streamers are still around.
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She talks about everything Holiday World, including that Good Gravy! Will be the first Vekoma Family Boomerang to open in the U.S.
Listen or watch: https://linktr.ee/attractions_group
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17 hours ago, Tr0y said:
I wouldn’t be surprised if Carnivale doesn’t make a return for the 2024 season. I bought the tasting card and wasn’t impressed with the 2023 season’s food lineup. Im guessing a lot of people made the smarter decision and didn’t bother getting a tasting card at all.
What’s odd is that KD is doing it, Carowinds is not.
But I share in your sentiment. The food wasn’t as good last year as previous years. Plus if I recall the card was far more expensive. This was in addition to all of the other cuts that took place with GC last year.
I love the opening ceremony and the parade, but having them as essentially two Al la carte events, it loses its allure compared to when GC was a full blown event.
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17 hours ago, IBEW_Sparky said:
Not if they are Premier unitholders.
Those with preferred stock get to sit in the VIP lounge.
edit
I received a prospectus for anyone with a ton of time on their hands:
https://materials.proxyvote.com/Approved/150185/20240124/NPSPR_559684.PDF
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1 hour ago, Tr0y said:
I’m assuming these folks forgot to read the fine print that clearly states, “subject to change” when making a purchase from Cedar Fair.
Caveat Emptor.
Oof... does that apply to the Units too???
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Fun while it lasted, I suppose.
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I posted this in the Other Parks thread. The thought of it going to KD does add some hope for KI.
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47 minutes ago, DispatchMaster said:
In other words, a change for the worse.
To be fair, we don’t know that.
The thing that needs to be clear is that, especially with the 51/49 thing, this isn’t necessarily Six Flags becoming Cedar Fair. In the long term, there will be no “business as usual” as we know it now
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Kings Dominion announced their lineup, including Grand Carnivale.
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How long until your one time FL isn’t good on TT2 with Prestige?
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14 minutes ago, DispatchMaster said:
Because that's the threshold defined in the CF partnership agreement, at least as far back as 2011, the date of the most recent revision as far as I am aware.
Specifically, so long as CF continues "to represent (either by remaining Outstanding or by being converted or exchanged for voting securities of the surviving or resulting entity or its parent corporation) more than fifty-one percent (51%) of the voting interest of the partnership interests", no vote is required.
Yes, on paper, it is a "merger of equals", but only on paper. Show me any previous so-called "merger of equals" that was truly beneficial to both parties involved. SF was barely treading water before this, hence their justification to pay $85 million specifically to avoid a CF unitholder vote they knew they'd likely lose. And the current CF board seems clearly fixated on short term gains at the expense of long term health, probably so they can put some bullet points on their resumes when they abandon a sinking ship in the future.
Yeah, I’m sure it has language in the prospectus. Like I said, my guess is it was entered when they added the poison pill. That was before 2011, so the timeline checks out.
By the way, if anyone is taking solace in the 51/49% thing, that’s nonsense. Very much on paper. In fact, if what @DispatchMaster is saying is accurate (and I do believe them) then they may have done that to specifically bypass the hurdle of a CF equity vote. Just speculation. This won’t be CF taking over SIX. It’s simply not going to look like this. Almost every aspect of the business will change - for better or worse.
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2 hours ago, DispatchMaster said:
This is not accurate. You are referring to fixed costs, which do not vary with attendance.
But there are variable costs in addition to the fixed costs. Every body in the park consumes resources. Someone at the extreme low-utilization end of the spectrum - someone who merely wanders around the park and does nothing other than use the bathroom every few hours - still consumes park resources in water, consumables, and labor to clean the restroom. Someone on the extreme high end - someone who marathons rides for 10 hours on an early June weekday - well, those rides, which have a fixed hourly capacity (thus more bodies = more ride cycles) consume ride power, labor to run the rides, maintenance, etc., and so on.
Yes, this is what I'm suggesting. And since the bottom line goal of any business is to earn revenue in excess of expenses (i.e. profit), and one time visitors tend to be more profitable than season pass holders on a per-visit basis (see fixed vs. variable costs above), the park should be focusing their efforts on the former at the expense of the latter.
And, to bring it back around to the OT, park ambassadors were likely far more valuable for the one time visitors than for pass holders, so axing that value-added resource while chasing volume instead of margin with cheap passes is a terrible strategy in the long term. They're driving away more lucrative one time customers as they chase low margin season pass holders. Not good.
I feel like we are on the same page with the last part. Don and I discussed something similar with the cutting of the three shows for Winterfest. Very few people would be upset that Four Drummers or HJ Trolley didn’t come back, but people may leave thinking that there wasn’t as much to do, without being able to put their finger on what. Likewise, without the PAs people may see the customer service at KI as going downhill, although they wouldn’t be able to cite the PAs as a reason why.
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1 hour ago, DispatchMaster said:
Not exactly clear on what you're alluding to, but they explain why in that article and others than proceeded it - the deal was structured in a way that gives FUN 51% ownership, thus negating the requirement of a vote by FUN unitholders.
I’m not sure why CF having a 51% stake would negate the unit holders’ vote. Honestly, people are reading WAY too much into the 51/49 thing. It’s very much a merger of equals.
My theory is that when they added the poison pill measure in 2009-ish to combat the Jeffrey Reynor/Q Investments hostile takeover involving the Apollo leveraged buyout that they also added a measure that allowed them to merge without an equity vote. This would prevent what happened last time.
2 hours ago, disco2000 said:The unitholders not getting a vote isn't new news - it was mentioned when the merger was announced, including being referenced in the 5th post in this thread by @DispatchMaster the day the news broke. But everyone's attention was diverted to the actual announcement and the most vocal probably didn't own units anyway so it wasn't a topic of discussion.
But CF is the majority owner everyone says....
I know it’s not new news, but I felt like the article laid out the opposition pretty well. The benefits are obvious, the opposition is a little more clunky.
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Grand Carnivale no more in 2024?
in Kings Island
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I almost wish they would do that. Have GC Wednesday through Sunday, but run for three or four weeks. That way They can run it longer, but the cast doesn't necessarily have to work the whole run without a day off.