Problematic Water Park Placements

[SonofBaconator]

I'm not the expert when it comes to water parks but I typically have a pretty good idea of their general purpose and how they can be most effective. Recently, I talked a lot on the other water park threads about updating certain aspects of our water park to make it more modern and profitable. There are other parks, however, that I question their placement and if its giving the respective park their money's worth. The two parks that come to mind are Kings Dominion and Canada's Wonderland where their water parks are placed inside the park itself instead of being put to the side near a separate entrance like our Soak City, Carowinds newer Carolina Harbor, Oceans of Fun, etc. 

If you look at Kings Dominion and Canada's Wonderland's map, you see both Soak City and Splash Works only have one entrance and they take up a lot of dry park real estate. I personally think its problematic when there's not a separate entrance who want to just enjoy the water park and have to walk all the way through the dry park. 

 

Would it have been a better business decision for these two parks to relocate their water parks to a different property? I'd argue no for Kings Dominion because many consider it a mid-tier CF park and relocating the water park wouldn't help out as much. Canada's Wonderland on the other hand wouldn't be a bad idea. I know the financial setback of relocating a water park would be astronomical, however I foresee some potential benefits. For one, Canada's Wonderland is landlocked so it would always benefit the park to free up some more space. Additionally both the dry and the wet park would be able to expand on their own without having to worry about affecting one another. Like I said this would be a lot of money but don't necessarily think its a horrible idea. 

Anyone else care to voice your thoughts?

[King Ding Dong]

Weather permitting half and half or some ratio is our preferred day at the park.  Another location wouldn’t be a big problem if it wasn’t far away but some families like to split up and one parent stay in the waterpark with the little ones while another rides coasters with the older kids. 

[Benjamin22]

Another weird waterpark placement is Hershey Park, it’s kind of the middle of the park.

[SnakePlissken]

Kentucky Kingdom has dry mixed in with the water park. This edit is for the confused person. Kentucky Flyer and one flat ride is on the water park side.

[VekomaRulz]

2 hours ago, Benjamin22 said:

Another weird waterpark placement is Hershey Park, it’s kind of the middle of the park.

I wish they would have built a separate gate water park. There aren't enough slides/attractions for the crowds it gets (last year Breaker's Edge had a 3 hour posted wait on weekdays multiple times) and the wave pool actually has a queue set up with a time limit in the water because of the demand. Not counting kids slides, there are only 8 water slides. It also caused the park to remove their great rapids ride to add the lazy river and wave pool. 

[Gabe]

Be careful what you wish for..Universal Orlando built Volcano Bay across I-4 (the current dry parks are landlocked) and I still don't think people realize it's there. 

[PatchesC]

On 7/6/2020 at 9:05 PM, SonofBaconator said:

I'm not the expert when it comes to water parks but I typically have a pretty good idea of their general purpose and how they can be most effective. Recently, I talked a lot on the other water park threads about updating certain aspects of our water park to make it more modern and profitable. There are other parks, however, that I question their placement and if its giving the respective park their money's worth. The two parks that come to mind are Kings Dominion and Canada's Wonderland where their water parks are placed inside the park itself instead of being put to the side near a separate entrance like our Soak City, Carowinds newer Carolina Harbor, Oceans of Fun, etc. 

If you look at Kings Dominion and Canada's Wonderland's map, you see both Soak City and Splash Works only have one entrance and they take up a lot of dry park real estate. I personally think its problematic when there's not a separate entrance who want to just enjoy the water park and have to walk all the way through the dry park. 

 

Would it have been a better business decision for these two parks to relocate their water parks to a different property? I'd argue no for Kings Dominion because many consider it a mid-tier CF park and relocating the water park wouldn't help out as much. Canada's Wonderland on the other hand wouldn't be a bad idea. I know the financial setback of relocating a water park would be astronomical, however I foresee some potential benefits. For one, Canada's Wonderland is landlocked so it would always benefit the park to free up some more space. Additionally both the dry and the wet park would be able to expand on their own without having to worry about affecting one another. Like I said this would be a lot of money but don't necessarily think its a horrible idea. 

Anyone else care to voice your thoughts?

I've been to neither of them, but one thing I look at when we plan amusement park trips in summer is how accessible the parts are we would go to, including the waterpark. Virginia area Busch Gardens looks more likely because we go separate days for dry vs waterpark. Canada's Wonderland, we'd probably just go to a different waterpark in the area and cut down our CW time.

[purdude86]

On 7/6/2020 at 9:19 PM, SnakePlissken said:

Kentucky Kingdom has dry mixed in with the water park. This edit is for the confused person. Kentucky Flyer and one flat ride is on the water park side.

Kentucky Kingdom definitely has some interesting ride placements. Used to have the separate entrance until they expanded it and now they placement of rides around the outskirts. Kentucky Flyer and Skycatcher are definitely oddly placed currently, even the ferris wheel is kind of on its own to a degree. It is kind of interesting how the old waterpark entrance is in the middle of it now and you can tell that it was an entrance too.