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Everything posted by coasterbill
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Carowinds Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
So Carowinds has apparently just been crushing it since they decided to actually open things for Winterfest. Here are some photos from the weekend courtesy of a park Facebook group. Sky Tower line Rock N Roller line I'm glad to see them doing so well. Hopefully they keep adding rides to Winterfest and tweaking refurb schedules so that Fury can always have at-least 2 trains on. I'm also curious to see if they expand their hours on Saturdays. -
People often assume that a lack of new additions mean that a park is going to close. It often means quite the opposite. It could mean that a park has no competition and has already saturated a market so they'd see a better return elsewhere. They can do nothing at Six Flags St. Louis and it would still turn a profit despite minimal investment because the area is not growing quickly and the nearest competition is 3.5-4 hours away. People have no other options. They can do nothing, throw open the gates every year, make money and repeat the process every year forever without ever having to do anything. If you live in the St. Louis metro and you want to go to a theme park without getting a hotel and dedicating an entire weekend to it, you're going to Six Flags St. Louis. You have no other choice. They don't have to add much and they know that, so why would they?
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I don't know the financials, but I don't fault them for closing on weekdays when the park was dead. Yeah, it was fun for us (back when the park used to kind-of-care and open things) but they are a business. What I do have a problem with is closing 2/3 of the rides on the days where they are open and charging people over $100 for one day between parking and admission.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's really, really, really, really hard to pull the plug on tons of guaranteed money every month from people who have given you their consent to bill them monthly until the end of time and then actively hope that they'll renew knowing full well that a large percentage of them will not or that they won't until their next visit and you can lose out on money for months / years. There are probably tons of people and families paying Six Flags $5-$7 per month per person who never go and don't care enough to cancel it thinking that they'll go eventually. SeaWorld still hasn't done it on passes that they haven't sold in like 5+ years. It will cause an absolutely apocalyptic quarter when they're already dropping bombs every 3 months. As for raising the price, they probably will do this but incrementally so people don't notice and cancel. That said, it's what they should have done all along instead of the current plan which is to have 34 different active pass types and see what sticks (not an exaggeration).
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Go to Knott's or Disneyland. Our visit this park in September was the worst visit I've ever had to any park in the world except for maybe La Ronde. They had like 4 coasters open for the first 4 hours of the day, then they opened maybe 4 more for the last few hours. Weather was not the issue, they just aggressively don't care this year, even more than normal which is saying a lot for Magic Mountain. I can't ever remember a time where this park was being operated this badly and it's always operated badly.
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Carowinds Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
We nicknamed the dude working at Afterburn Bubba because he looks more like a Bubba than anyone who has ever looked like a Bubba. Operations were awful last weekend too because he was busy cleaning the floor by sweeping tons of water on to the previously-dry exit stairs to make them super slippery for no reason. Then they would eventually get his attention and he would come over and check the train... slowly. I'm also pretty sure that he picked the station playlist. Anyway, I'm glad you had fun. We went last weekend which was technically before Winterfest, but the only extras we got were a longer operating day and Goldrusher and Drop Tower were open. The park wasn't packed, but Fastlane was a must because of one train on Fury. Thankfully it was only about 50 bucks. I'm just happy that Fury was open, beggars can't be choosers. Year-round ops is going to go great for them and I love to see them busy. This ride is perfect... -
Kennywood (KW) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to DenDen's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I see what you did there -
Worlds of Fun (WOF) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to OzCatter's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Ooh, Amusement today. I stand corrected then. I have no doubt that they (like all parks) care about this to the extent that they can hype it up and make money off of it, but I absolutely don't believe that the fact that it's the park's anniversary will encourage them to finish this coaster even one second faster than they otherwise would have. Come on... -
Worlds of Fun (WOF) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to OzCatter's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
It's insane to me that anyone still believes that parks actually care about this. Anyway, be right back. They just called my boarding group for Tron. -
November 19th 2023 is a Sunday. Either the event is coming back but they looked at the 2022 calendar when they made that so they took it down to fix it or it's not coming back at all and accidentally added it with old dates. Either explanation is plausible, but the common thread is that regardless of what happened, Six Flags is dumb.
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Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
lol I just went to check the webcam but they have it pointing at something that appears to be VERY on fire. -
Playland(PNE) Vancouver Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to Nrthwnd's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
I'm not taking credit for this, because others have already picked up on it but there is a lot of weirdness going on here. This "Zamperla" seems to be an Intamin. It's Senzafiato, an Intamin Rocket Coaster that closed in 2018 and has been standing but not operating ever since. Either, Zamperla put an LSM launch on an Intamin coaster or they cloned an Intamin coaster that the park could have just bought for some reason. PS: This will also send the Top Thrill Dragster rumor mill into an absolute frenzy. -
Cedar Point (CP) Discussion Thread
coasterbill replied to robbalvey's topic in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Those are Snake River Expedition boats.