Leaderboard

And I'm sure they love selling you their trash.

...to replace Ride of Steel.

I've worked for both companies for many years (not just a seasonal employee.) Busch USED to be amazing. When the Busch family owned the parks, there was a level and quality and service unmatched elsewhere. Once they sold to Blackstone, things went downhill fast. This past summer, Cedar Point celebrated its 150th with tons of show including a MASSIVE one with a cast of over 70 people. This past Christmas, Sea World could not be bothered to bring back "Oh Wondrous Night," their award winning Christmas show and instead got groups to fill in on weekends. It was lackluster and cheap and showed how different these two parks are in their commitment to entertainment. There is just no comparison between the companies and their two philosophies. Cedar Fair has been around for 150+ years and is an ENTERTAINMENT company. Sea World is owned by Blackstone, an investment firm. They just see the parks as money makers and way to make dividends off of their stocks. And until Sea World Orlando can retain a president for more than one year, they are in no business to be buying other properties.

Will they name the new company Seadar Fair?

only 2 years later than expected... woo! (or should I say Wahoo!)

^

This park removing two major inverting coasters in one offseason is rough though…

Probably sometime after their next taxpayer-funded bailout.

Big deal. Six Flags gave that away annually for $40, or just eight easy monthly payments of $5.

I'm absolutely shocked, shocked I say!

Cheer up, I'm sure Valleyfair's Howl O Scream 2022 will be lit...

Looks like half of the ride is complete! lol lol

oh. . Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio are all SHUT DOWN. . .

/checks weather uh… sending prayers I think?

Man, I wish I could have been a part of some of those 3 and 4 am Dragster waits. That's great. Riding it at 3am would be fun.

yup. . and the Governor has been on TV all day today (and most of yesterday) telling folks that if the GRID fails, and it WON'T. .he says. . . it's not his fault. because he's done NOTHING to prevent the same failures they had last year. . . other than block bills to fix issues at the plants. no really. he actually said "if you lose power, it might not be the grid..it might be a tree fell on a power line" really.

^ This is the sort of winter storm that causes Texans to go to Cancun, right?

I experienced the best and worst of Cedar Point's inconsistent policy in the same night last Memorial Day. I rode Steel Vengeance and it had NO line (well... except for in the clusterf*ck tunnels after the lockers but we won't mention that) but they closed off the line at 7:25 with an 8pm close. I got off at 7:45, had time to get on the train, ride through Boneville, get off and walk over to the still open Millennium Force line at 7:57. It was a walk on, and as we came around the last overbank I saw people STILL getting into the line at 8:05. Back in the station they had popped open the magic gate and I got two more rides on it. The night before, as far as I could tell, they closed every line in the park by 7:50. It's a total crapshoot. Hopefully someday when staffing gets better (hahahahaha), Cedar Point will go back to their old policy of keeping almost every major ride's line open 5-10 minutes past park close. If the park is mobbed and you don't mind being there till 1am, you can get in line for something with a 3 hour line right at closing and no matter how long the line is, they'll get you on. I remember going to the park the year TTD opened and they were still running it at 4am one night. I'm sure we'll never see days like that again and it's understandable, but hopefully they'll at least get past the inconsistency of closing some lines 30+ minutes early while keeping other lines open 10+ minutes after closing and you pretty much have to cross your fingers that you're finishing your night at the correct ride.

TERRIBLE weather tonight and thru next few days. . not letting it stop them!

That’s going to need a lot of work to look better than what was there. I’m overall disappointed with some of the choices DW is making these days. I feel a lot of what made it unique (staffing, atmosphere, quality of shows) is slipping into a corporate “growth” strategy.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I can't imagine leaving Busch Gardens Williamsburg and thinking "I don't want their food, employees, or operating procedures at Kings Dominion." I'd love to hear an elaboration on this because I'm genuinely curious.

What are they going to do? Sabotage the park by opening it like 6 months later in the year than the Busch park down the road and remove their most popular coaster and replace it with nothing? That would be ridicu.... oh

In all seriousness, I see nothing not to like here. Both chains are similar levels of quality (see: they're both clusterfucks) and both actually compliment eachother's weaknesses reasonably well. I doubt there would be much of a noticeable change from a guest perspective other than probably more aggressive operating calendars (especially at parks like CGA and Carowinds) and some coasters actually running after October. I would love for someone to explain to be how SEAS is any more f*cked up than Cedar Fair though aside from the total fanboy answer of "THEY OPENED ORION ON TIME!!!1111" or whatever that doesn't matter going forward... If they turned down a 4 billion dollar offer from SIX in 2019 and accept a 3.4 billion dollar offer in 2022 then l...o...f*cking...l though.

Wasn't SeaWorld having trouble paying their vendors last year? I seem to remember an article about some of the ride companies filing liens against them. I find it hard to believe they now have the funds to take over Cedar Fair.

Sea World Pepsi Chipotle, proud to be one of America's eight companies!

I really wanted it the other way around to see Manta become Flight Deck!

Looks awesome! Bonus points for the simple fact its going to piss off/freak out bunch of people off that are too fragile to handle any kind of change ever.

Sidenote, anyone else notice they either cleaned the webcams or installed higher quality cameras? The view now looks amazing: https://www.cedarpoint.com/live-video

^ I think this is why I love wooden coasters. Still a design-and-build, right? And mainly based on gravity, yes? No? I do know tech and computer stuff are now more involved with woodies, as much as steels. Still - all this stuff about prepulsion, braking, etc. etc... Gives me a headache, lol.

Independent smaller parks are still, mostly, trying to recover from the pandemic closures.

Also they really need to figure out what to do with the old Shoot the Rapids area where they bandaided the sky flyer.

I'll second Colonial Williamsburg! If your at all interested in history, enjoy "living" history stuff, or both it is very much worth it. You can park in their parking lot by the visitor center and either walk (it's like a 5 minute walk max) or pay a fee and ride one of their buses. You have to buy a ticket to go inside the buildings, but you can walk on the streets for free since it's a public street technically. No matter what you decide I would say it's worth it to at least check out. There are also similar things at Yorktown and Jamestown nearby (not as extensive, and with varying degrees of cost) if you want to make a day out of the "Colonial Triangle" or whatever it's called now. Virginia Beach is popular but I've never been so I'm no help there. Shenandoah National Park (https://www.nps.gov/shen/index.htm) isn't all that far away either, a little bit of a drive but you could make a day of that if you really wanted to. Will say that I don't consider it one of the better national parks out there (if you had to choose between Shenandoah and the Smokies, I would 1000% say the Smokies), but it's fun and different. I would say skip SFA at (almost) all costs... The stuff on the mall is great, although getting into DC is a beast (even by parking outside the city and taking the subway in it's tough). All of the Smithsonians are great and well worth a trip. I think the main Air and Space Museum on the mall is closed for remodeling, but the one by Dulles airport (The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center; https://airandspace.si.edu/udvar-hazy-center) is open and I will say is absolutely fantastic. I would even consider it to be better than the main museum on the mall, its's that good. They do charge for parking ($15 last I was there I think), but it's well worth it. Very well put together, some really cool planes, highly HIGHLY recommend! Have you also just considered a second day at BGW? Not sure if its your first time or not, but that's such a big park you might consider a second day to be able to take it all in.

Yes, I am far from a lawyer and work in finance, but when I got my degree I was required to take a number of business law classes and this is clear. Waivers can protect a company from being sued for dangers that can reasonably be expected from using their product/service. A waiver MIGHT be able to even exclude a company from liability for the death of the end user. For example, an ATV rental company may explain, through a waiver, that improper usage of the equipment may lead to death through no fault of the company and the company would therefore not be liable. If, upon review, the equipment was in good shape and the end user used it in a negligent manner that caused their own demise as described as possible in the waiver, a waiver may be held up by a court even in the event of a death. This is not a case like that. There can be no reasonable expectation of death in an amusement park ride. You cannot have a waiver saying that we may or may not have trained our ride operators up to the proper standards, sign this, and the risk now transfers to you. That's not something that can exist within the bounds of our legal system. Nor can a six year old be found liable to have caused their own death with negligent use of the equipment by any reasonable standard. I don't think that would even hold up if she was an adult. This is 100% on the park from a legal perspective no matter what they had signed.

All those big pine trees behind it got blown onto it during a storm last summer and bent the hell out of it.