Kenban

If there would be Haunt this year was a question brought up at CoasterMania. Jason McClure who is now the regional Vice President over KI, CP, Carowinds, etc, stated the decision has not been made yet. He flat out stated the chain is worried about being able to staff the parks and the event. With the troubles the parks are having getting employees I do not think we will see a full standard Haunt at either Cedar Point or Kings Island. I am expecting a food festival, decorations, trick or treating for children, and maybe some fog machines, lighting and walk through areas but no houses. I would love to be proven wrong and would like the event to be back to normal but I doubt it.

For people not familiar with the Sharonville Convention Center. You grabbed the convention center and the directly connected hotel next door.

For those unaware Annual Passes purchased or renewed through Knotts Berry Farm are being extended into 2022 for the number of days the park is closed this year. Passes from Canada’s Wonderland have already been extended through Labor Day 2022. Nothing is perfect, it would be nice to see all US platinum passes work at Canada’s Winderland and Knott’s during these extension periods but frankly it’s likely difficult. They may still do something for Platinum pass holders, everything keeps changing. But acting like nothing has been done for the individuals at these parks is wrong. Cedar Point needs to use their reservation system to limit park capacity to something which will allow guests a reasonable experience. If one or two rides are creating extremely long uncontrollable lines then have a ride reservation system. I hope Cedar Point finds the employees to be able to operate the park with a reasonable level of service. But they have been having problems during weekend operations at the start and end of the season for years. It just sounds worse then normal.

They said it, but I do not believe them. They are exactly the kind of guest Cedar Point wants as well, visits annually, does not live near a Cedar Fair park so no annual pass, and stays at Breakers.

Fast Lane and similar systems have totally changed how I visit amusement parks and how much money I spend at them. I travel a lot, 50+ nights a year in hotels was normal for me until last year. While I do travel just for amusement parks, I also travel for other reasons as well and it’s not that uncommon for me to try to add on a park to another trip. The ability to basically guarantee I will be able to ride the attractions is huge. If I am paying for a hotel, transportation, tickets, etc while the cost of a front of the line pass is still significant it’s cheaper then another day at the park. I check for line skip add ons and their availability actually changes how I schedule my trips, and makes it more likely I will go out of my way to visit the park. I never want to have a big trip where I only get a handful of rides in, if I am that worried about crowds at a park and there is no way for me to skip the line, I might just skip the park completely. I had a friend who traveled to Cedar Point last fall a trip they have made annually for some time. They were at the park from open to close and rode 4 coasters the entire day. After having to fly to Ohio they felt the entire trip was a waste of time and money. Also it gets me out of the lines and into the arcades, stores, and restaurants. I spend more money at Kings Island and other parks due to front of the line passes then I would otherwise. An argument could be made the source of the issue is the season pass and ticket pricing, that their are just too many guests at times. Raise ticket prices when the park is expected to be crowed, and maybe even tiered annual passes, some with blackout dates.

You can disagree all you want. Here is a press release from Kroger. All of the contactless forms of payment, Samsung, Apple, Google, work on the same technology. Traditionally once the work is in place to support one you can support all of them and most retailers do. It is possible to prevent a single companies contactless payment system and some retailers do.

This is more of a training issue and the fact that contactless forms of payment are not chainwide and they have been slowly rolling it out. But the Kroger stores which take Samsung pay or Google pay also take Apple Pay.

https://www.hfecorp.com/whats-new/ The deal is done and has been formally announced by Herschend. Craig Ross the former GM of Dollywood is taking over as interim GM of Kentucky Kingdom. Personally I am expecting more shows, live entertainment, festivals, and likely a new indoor theater. They are already talking about extending the season so a fall harvest festival and maybe even a Christmas event seem likely.

FYI SeaWorld San Antonio has the lowest price passes in the chain. You can pickup a chain wide platinum pass pretty cheaply. When they run sales around holidays it’s not uncommon to see them for around $130-140 although the last time I really watched the price was almost 2 years ago. If you have any plans to visit Busch Gardens, Orlando or just other Seas parks in the next year it’s nice having a pass and can save you some money. I do have a Platinum pass and my “home park” is San Antonio. I have not had a chance to visit but you might also want to run over to ZDT’s Amusement Park when you are in the San Antonio area because I have heard nothing but good things about Switchback. It only has the one coaster but it sounds like it is worth it. If Fiesta Texas is doing their nighttime show when you visit make sure to stick around and try to find a good viewing area. I have been to all of those parks and just buy the flash pass or quick queue typically, so have always been able to get them done to my satisfaction in a single day. If you have extra time I would spend it in the San Antonio area.

Craig recently became the COO of a new division of Herschend called the Growth and Opportunity Group. Which was to support the acquisition of theme parks, and other properties. This happened back in I think November.

Simply put that map that map is a map of Herschend properties. The one in New Jersey is Adventure Aquarium. I also see Newport Aquarium, Dollywood, and Silver Dollar City. There is one more circle I cannot account for though.

They are 4th, Kings Island is ahead of it as well, by a decent margin. The weakness of the Canadian Dollar really hurts their revenue and profitability. Even without the currency difference I am not sure if they would be 3rd in profits due to the lower operating costs at KI.

Basically reservations and blackout days. All guests are required to make a reservation in advance. Have several different price points with the difference being what days are blacked out and how far in advance you can make a reservation and how many reservations you can make at a time. Higher tier pass holders get a number of extra visits which by pass blackout days. Disneyland sent out surveys to former pass holders which outlined possible tiers and pricing. At the high end around $1500 for 6 reservations few blackout dates, 90 days in advance reservations, and 6 by pass blackout tickets. At the low end only 1 or 2 reservations at a time, 30 days in advance, lots of blackout days, including the entire summer, and few if any bypass blackout day tickets. All of the passes appeared to still technically be unlimited, as long as you can manage to make reservations but same day reservations are unlikely. Disneyland is pretty unique they had a pass holder base which was estimated to be 5 times larger then the total resort capacity. Combined with the tourists and it was either hitting capacity or close to capacity frequently. There are only a handful of other parks on the planet which had similar issues before the pandemic. The only other one off the top of head is Tokyo Disneyland. Capacity issues in Florida were basically only ride openings and Christmas to New Years. Unless seasonal parks start seeing capacity issues outside of special events like Haunt, it’s unlikely to be replicated widely. Although something might need to be done about attendance during Haunt. I could see requiring reservations or just going to a separate ticket.

That’s the thing I remember another article which went into detail and broke that price down, x going to Clermont for the steel, y going to B&M, etc. That was what made it different and special. Wonder if it was not the Sandusky Register and was instead another site.

Many enthusiasts do not understand ride pricing, and how to properly compare the price of attractions. That $24 million or $30 million dollar B&M is for the entire project. That’s the total being spent everything from land clearing, design, track, trains, control systems, to the theming, signs, and plaza. On a ride like Orion that is going to include projects done at the same time, like the modifications to the Flight of Fear queue, the plaza, food stand, etc. Which is why it’s often difficult to compare the price of two coasters because what enthusiasts have access to is not really the price of the coaster itself. Is a B&M more expensive then a comparable ride from another manufacturer? Yes, but not by as much as you might think. This is also the cost of the attraction and ignores the total cost of ownership. Cedar Fair has publicly stated part of the reason they like B&M is the reduced maintenance costs. There is only one time that I can remember the real cost of a B&M leaking. If I am remembering the source correctly, the local newspaper in Sandusky published a document they received which gave the pricing breakdown for Valravn. The issue with finding the information today is that it was published well before the ride opened and I think it was also before the name was announced. I know it was available on the internet a few years ago, but I suspect finding it today will be difficult.

As a company B&M is likely fine. Most of their sales have moved to parks in China, which is seeing less effects from the pandemic then other countries. They only need a handful of ride sales a year, 3 or 4 is a typical year for the company. They could likely survive on just one or two a year for a few years. They also have a large install base which will need maintenance for decades to come. I am not even sure this is the end of the relationship between Cedar Fair and B&M. The biggest Cedar Fair parks still need rides with massive capacity, high reliability, and low maintenance costs. Unless we see a sustained drop in attendance the need for high capacity attractions is not changing. Cedar Point is basically at a natural end, other then the new surf coaster which no one is still sure exactly what it is, and a flyer there is not much B&M makes which they could still build. But parks like Canada's Wonderland, Kings Island, Knott's, and to a lesser extent Carowinds, and Kings Dominion are still going to need rides with excellent capacity. It really depends on how attendance is this year and next year on how quickly the two work together again. But unless attendance does not return to normal rides with low capacity just do not work well at the bigger parks and your not going to see them at the bigger parks. The real issue here comes down to how quickly will the industry bounce back? This is not something unique to a single manufacturer, chain, or park. I have had discussions with industry insiders and many think there will be a rapid return to normal, and some are optimistic we will see a roaring 20s situation where people have been stuck at home with no way to spend their earnings that will suddenly be able to travel and have money to burn. I know several people who work at the big chains which think we will see record attendance as early as 2022. During the last down turn parks which continued to build new rides and increase capacity saw a more rapid return to normal and often bounced back even higher then before the recession. Building as soon as the recovery starts is a good way to get in front of capacity needs and if executives see good attendance this summer smaller cheaper rides could be ordered for 2022, and larger installs could be started in 2022 for a 2023 opening. Personally I have not traveled for over a year now and since I work in an essential industry I have gone into the office the entire time. I am waiting for the restrictions to be lifted and I have like 3 or 4 weeks of vacation time and the money saved to take advantage of it. I used to spend 50+ nights a year in hotels, and plan to return to that as soon as I am able to do so, possibly by this summer.

They are cancelling them as well, and refunding the Disneyland side of the pass. The handful of people who have one are allowed to renew to a Disney World only annual pass. They never sold very many, and really never tried to either, the admissions systems at Disneyland and Disney World are not compatible and the passes were in reality two annual passes sold as a bundle, then put on the same card. The cards had a barcode, a magnetic stripe, and an RFID chip. They could only be purchased in person at a park, and could only be renewed in person at a park, although on time renewal was a waste, there was no discount.

This news story is misleading, this is not a new policy and what the two resorts are doing is very different. This is only news because of what is happening at Disneyland. Disney World stopped selling annual passes when they closed temporarily due to the pandemic. They never restarted selling them after they reopened last summer. Which means the last time someone could purchase a new annual pass was March of 2020. But Disney World is letting existing pass holders keep their passes and to continue to renew them. The restrictions are only for new pass holders. Disneyland is completely ending their pass holder program. They have cancelled all annual passes and are issuing prorated refunds.

Testing has begun again. I have not seen closeup pictures of the lift yet so no clue how much work was done. But I have seen videos of the trains cycling. Still wondering exactly how this accident occurred. I believe the train had to be traveling backwards for the front wheel assembly of the third car to end up under the car in front of it. But I have since seen high resolution photos of the lift with the train stuck on it and the chain is clearly intact. So I am still a little confused on what initially broke.

Wiener Prater in Austria has removed 26 according to RCDB. Here is the parks that I could think of and I grabbed the numbers off of RCDB. Geauga Lake - 14 coasters Great Adventure - 15 coasters Palisades - 16 coasters Cedar Point - 17 coasters Dreamland -17 coasters Wiener Prater - 26 coasters I doubt Kings Island is even in the top 20 or 30 for most removed coasters.

Those cabins look fantastic, I have wanted the park to get a campground for years, and feel this is long overdue. I am torn about staying in one, mostly due to distance once you are far enough away that I have to drive why stay in one of the cabins instead of a hotel which is likely cheaper? I feel like this should have been built by Cedar Fair and it should have been located where the old Safari was located, basically behind Great Wolf Lodge. Actual woods, I could see a walkway to the river, and not directly next to the highway. Great view of the park, and it would be possible to walk to the park, which could have built a second entrance. But then if the park owned Great Wolf Lodge, a campgrounds could be a natural extension of the resort.

KD needs work and it needs good solid unique rides. A B&M hyper would be a great start, but it has to be something special. For instance a speed hill, maybe right after the drop. The turnaround from Shambala, instead of the standard hammerhead. Plus lots of good solid airtime hills. Two loading stations, which would allow 4 trains and they can use one station for forward and one for backwards trains, enabling the ride to basiclly be two different rides. To keep the costs down use the standard B&M hyper trains instead of the staggered seating.

Land should not actually be a problem. This is complicated, but the park used to own like 150-200 acres because they have a giant campground across the street, and they are not even using large sections of that land. Apex sold all of the land to a holding company and was paying a lease. I remember the new owners of the park had stated before the purchase closed that being able to repurchase the land was a requirement. But I have never seen any evidence either way if the land purchase occurred. The counties GIS website still lists Store Master Funding as the owner, but it also still lists Apex as owning the rides and structures.

My guess is this will be a parking lot coaster. It’s pretty compact, it appears to be 130’ x 260’ when I measured it on Google maps. Likely to be located next to Steel Hawg. If the park is planning to continue to expand we will likely see more rides located in this lot and people will have to park in the grass lots and walk in.

There was a Q&A at Dollywood Earlier today, the park representative stated approximately 2,160 feet of the track is being replaced with I-Box. The ride is only 3,800 feet long, so basically 57% of the track is being replaced with I-Box. From what I have seen it will be I-Box from the launch through the first big drop. Then a long stretch of Topper Track. Then it goes to I-Box just before the 45 degree banked hill which leads into the quad down, turn around into the brake run, and it does not become topper track again until after the brakes. It sounds like the only topper track visible from the park will be the station area. Based on what I have heard over the years this should fix all the problem areas, but frankly this will be a steel coaster with some wood track.