jzarley

I still have a bit of PTSD whenever I hear the word “Blackfish” I wonder if the talks with CF occurred when Jim Atchison was still CEO, or if this was something initiated after Joel Manby came in 2015? (If the release of Blackfish wasn’t public knowledge yet, I’m guessing it was under Atchison.) I’ve long maintained that if Blackfish would have happened when Busch Entertainment Corp owned the parks, the entire situation could have played out differently. Anheuser-Busch would have had the messaging and communication expertise to counteract the effects of the documentary (or, at least address it head on). After all, AB makes an addictive product that kills people and everyone still seems to love them… But the timing was such that it occurred right after the spin off, and the leadership at the time just didn’t have the expertise to address it. Not only that, but I fully believe that after years of being the “good guys” who loved and cared for animals, they just couldn’t believe that public perception about them could change. Of course, we know how that turned out…

True, but my hope would have been that they would have spun off the new company (the combined SEA/FUN) into a new IPO that may have gotten Scott Ross & Hill Path to take the profits and exit. (I realize that may just be wishful thinking…) To be honest, I’m really surprised Hill Path didn’t cash out a long time ago—they bought most of their shares in the sub $20 price point and the stock now routinely (for a few years now) trades in the plus $50 range (and a few brief times in the +$60 range). I would have thought the fund investors would have wanted to take their profits and cash out a while ago.

So, basically a status quo to pre-merger I wasn’t really for it at the time, but in retrospect I think CF would have been better off accepting (with price negotiation) SeaWorld’s buy out offer a few years ago. I know “United Parks” (sorry, still hard for me to say that) has their own issues (as I’m acutely and personally aware), but those parks are still in a lot better shape financially than the legacy SF ones. Both are similarly sized chains and I don’t think either one would have negatively impacted the other as much as SF is negatively impacting CF.

That video felt very AI-created to me

I don’t think they’re far enough into the investigation to really know yet (or, at least not ready to report any findings). I’ve ridden it 3x and realize that I can’t really remember now what the restraints were like—if I recall, they are an over the head lap restraint (similar to VelociCoaster). I don’t recall anything odd about the spacing between the rows or anything. I read a comment on one story that said he had transferred from a wheelchair into the ride, but I don’t know if that’s true or just something a random person commented on the internet.

It’s horrible! When I first heard the news this morning, I assumed (as I’m sure a lot of people did) that it may have been someone with an unknown serious health issue that was triggered by the forces of the coaster. I was shocked when the cause of death came back as multiple blunt force trauma.

Merlin did outsource food service a few years ago (in the UK & US), but instead of outsourcing each unit to different franchisees they outsourced the whole F&B operation at each park to Aramark. All of the food service employees were terminated from Merlin and converted to Aramark employees. This was done toward the end of my time there, and I have no idea whether or not they realized the cost savings/operational improvements they expected, or if they eventually backed off that strategy. Similarly, one of the last projects I worked on at SeaWorld was the reorganization to outsource all games to a third party company. It was a similar situation in that a single third-party was selected to run all of the games, and the existing employees were converted to that company. In this case, I thought the strategy made a little more sense, since the vendor specialized in games and had some economies of scale and training. The goal in both cases was that the outsourcing would be transparent to park guests. Most parks (I’m assuming Six Flags as well) outsource some of the more specialized skill positions that they don’t want to recruit or train for (like caricaturists, face painters, etc.) I’m not saying whether these strategies were good or not, but it’s not a unique approach in the industry.

I think you’re exactly right on this. No offense to Peanuts, but it’s not exactly the most valuable IP out in the market (although, I’m sure more valuable than the Berenstain Bears would be ) and the licensor is taking a nice cut on all of the merch sales I’m sure (in addition to the licensing fee SF is paying them), so it probably made sense for both sides to reach a deal that worked for everyone. For Six Flags I’m sure it was a cost comparison issue—was it cheaper to renew or re-theme all of those legacy CF kids areas? Plus, re-theming would have taken a pretty big bite out of an already stretched capital budget over the next few years, whereas I’m assuming licensing costs would be classified as more administrative/legal expenses. (I realize, money spent is money spent, but trust me—those types of classifications matter a lot to the Finance bros ) That being said, I’m really happy they landed here. Peanuts are a classic, and it would have been a shame for them to lose their park presence and history with the parks (especially KBF).

I also used to collect them—I have a portfolio of them from multiple parks over multiple years. I think Disney may be the only parks still producing paper maps? The maps were one of those things stopped during covid then never restarted because the parks found it to be a cost savings. Same thing with airline magazines—and I miss them too!

Obviously the stock price is impacted by the recent bad earnings news, but I also wonder how much is due to short sellers in the market driving down the stock? I was at SeaWorld during the worst of the stock performance (at one point the stock price hit single digits) and I remember our leadership saying at the time the biggest issue wasn’t company performance but was the number of short sellers in the stock who made money when the stock price went down. I didn’t really buy that at the time, but lo and behold once they started shaking out the short sellers the stock price went up—and now routinely sits in the $50/share range. Short sellers are like sharks (to use a SEA analogy)—once they detect a struggle they go in for the attack. The stock price at SeaWorld raised a lot higher than the actual performance results did… I’ll also say that Chapek would not be a bad fit for Six Flags—they need a cost focus discipline guy that knows theme parks and that’s definitely him. His biggest issue at TWDC was just that he was not Bob Iger (with that style and charisma) and didn’t have the deep relationships with the Hollywood community that Iger has. People outside of Disney tend to think of the company as the parks first, and while they are an extremely important part of the success, the heart & soul of the company is still the studio.

Me too! I’ve heard rumors that it will happen sooner rather than later, but we shall see I guess. I’m really wondering how much the add-on for Epic will be? My current FL resident Premiere AP (parks only—no Volcano Bay) is roughly $70/month—so if the $35 per park/month average holds I’m hoping that adding Epic will up it to around $105/month (which is comparable to a monthly FL resident Incredipass level AP at WDW for the 4 theme parks-no water parks).

I hate to be overly nit-picky, but Six Flags LICENSES the rights to *some* Warner IP—they don’t “own” the rights to WB properties (the way Disney owns the rights to Mickey Mouse and Star Wars or Universal owns the rights to Shrek and Jurassic Park) and they’re paying some sort of ongoing fee to use that IP in their parks. My understanding is that the licenses to Looney Tunes & the DC comic characters is pretty long term, but at some point they will have to be renegotiated and renewed—and any IP not specified in the current licensing would have to be negotiated separately—for example, Six Flags couldn’t just create a replica of the “Friends” coffee house in the parks without negotiating the licensing to use that specific IP.

I’m one of those locals!

Although, if they expand my after 4p Express benefits for my AP to Epic, I could get behind this change

While I think SF management may be able to pinned with a certain amount of financial and operational incompetence, it seems pretty far fetched to believe that there’s any intentional fraud there. Every single bit of “guidance” they’ve ever published has been accompanied by the standard “forward looking statement” safe harbor provision that every public company includes when talking about the future…

A little off topic, but the Enchanted Voyage ride at KI is the thing that I credit most with launching my life-long love of theme parks and attractions. I rode it for the first time at age 6 and still remember the feeling of it being the most incredible, beautiful thing I had ever seen (I was from Zanesville, so that was probably accurate ). I know there’s some old Super-8 ride footage of it on YouTube, but I’ve avoided ever watching it because I’m pretty sure the reality wouldn’t hold up to my memories. And, I want to remember it as the most incredible, beautiful thing ever

Looks like the SeaWorld parks were a mixed bag…attendance was up (according to the comments on the call, a good amount in Orlando even after the opening of Epic) but revenue was down. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/united-parks--resorts-inc-reports-second-quarter-and-first-six-months-2025-results-302524044.html

I really hope that SF’s management does recognize and honor the historical significance of Peanuts at KBF—that would be a shame to lose considering Charles Schulz’s close ties to California. According to the internet, Peanuts at KBF goes back to the early 80s and Walter and Cordelia Knott negotiated the initial IP agreement directly with Schulz. But, when dollars and cents are involved, who knows what decision they’ll make…

^ definitely agree with you—their debt is their biggest albatross right now. The product is (or can fairly easily be made) fine. There may be some upcoming general financial headwinds on the horizon that could cause general market slowdowns, but it’s not like they haven’t been thru recessions many, many times before. Plus, if the economy does continue to sputter it will most likely cause the Fed to lower rates, which may give them the opportunity to refinance some of that debt at better rates—it’s not a solve for their problem, but could help incrementally. Meanwhile, Disney reported strong numbers for their Experiences division this morning as Comcast did a few days earlier. It will be interesting to see what United Parks (I *still* have a hard time saying that ) reports on their next earnings release—see if it’s more of an Orlando market strength thing or more destination vs. regional parks thing.

^ totally agree—both are fantastic What I’ve always found most amazing is that RMC was able to transform two of the most God-awful wood coasters into those incredible machines!

I rank Iron Gwazi #2 on my overall favorites list—with Steel Vengeance still holding at #1 (and I used to work for what was then SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment so my admiration for SV outweighs even that bias ) I give Steel Vengeance the edge because I think the visuals are better—since the track is compressed into a smaller area and the in & outs through the structure add to the excitement. But, granted, it’s a *very* close #1 & #2

Thank you! That’s an awesome resource

So, is TT2 routinely running at this point? I know it had some issues in early June and was down for a few days, but haven’t seen much about it since. I looked at the CP website and there’s no indication that it’s *not* currently running.

I could not agree more with your assessment of Wing Gliders! By far it was the most pleasant surprise for me in the park—I thought it was going to be a boring coaster, but instead it really reminded me a lot of the same qualities that Hagrid’s has at IOA. I guess on the flip side, Mine Cart Madness was my biggest disappointment—I had a lot higher hopes for that ride than it actually delivered

In fairness, the reporter is pretty annoying Similar to Maverick or Mystic Timbers, I think this is going to be one of those coasters that don’t seem that exciting in the description, but ends up being a really fun ride in reality.