Hockeydad

Another point you brought up was the advertising. If I weren't a coaster enthusiast I probably wouldn't even know about the park. If I would, it would be very little since the park has never been promoted well by either owner. I've mentioned in the past that I have close friends who live in Columbia, SC, (roughly 2 1/2 hours away), who said they didn't even know the park existed until I told them about it. You'd think they'd at least try to promote the park within the SC, NC, GA regions. I don't know, maybe they have, but for some reason I get the feeling they didn't. The location also really sucks for this park. Unless they advertise within the resorts many people may miss the park since it's not really close to most of the other attractions. People can say what the want about Family Kingdom, but they have prime real estate.

I do agree that the park losing that "Hard Rock" tag was a huge blow that "Freestyle Music Park" cannot live up to in any way. Their financial woes are a whole different subject. But I think that the driving force behind the park not working out is the area. Most of the vacation traffic appears to be within state, or in neighboring states. The times we've been there in recent years you see tons of NC, SC, and GA plates over over the resorts, not a lot from other states though. Plus, if you want to go to the beach, there are plenty of nicer beaches along the coast. Myrtle Beach comes across as pretty crappy compared to the beaches in Virginia, NC, and Florida, (esp. Virginia Beach for us!). Other than Myrtle Beach, the main reason to go to MB seems to be the Golf. They have tons of Golf courses, and seemingly every single resort in the area either has their own course or has packages available for local courses. MB is just not an amusement park friendly locale anymore like it was when I was growing up going to the Pavillion during vacations. And not just for Freestyle, if what has been said in recent months is true, Family Kingdom's time may be coming to an end too. Apparently, the original owner passed away last year, and the kids aren't showing a whole lot of interest in keeping the park alive. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

^ Dueling Roller Soakers...coming to Hersheypark in 2011!

I voted yes for the same reason Chuck said. They'll open, but will close before the end of the season.

With the future of Family Kingdom iffy beyond 2010, (apparently the kids of the original owner have stated no real interest in keeping the park), I'd think keeping FMP even as a "boardwalk-style" pay-per-ride park would be interesting to the area. I'm of course speaking beyond all the legalities that are stinking up the whole situation right now.

^

I say it over and over, I've gotta get to Europe or Japan someday. For the coasters, yes, but If for no other reason the "never in america" rides. Just Incredible!

They will probably keep whatever rides they can on property, for the state fair. They have been using SFKK's rides for the state fair for years as an up-charge section of the fair. The part I never have gotten was that they would still truck in all the fair rides as well. I'm guessing the state had some kind of contract with the ride company. It is just so weird to be there and see a rides section in the parking lot across from SFKK.

I'm not so sure the removal of CHANG was a precursor to the park closing. All the 8-9 years we'd been going to the park it was pretty obvious that most people came for the waterpark in the first place. I think the new waterpark expansion was legit, it just came down to Six Flags deciding not to renew the lease, and deciding their resources could be used better elsewhere. They thought a ton of that waterpark though. I mean over the past five years they'd either added new rides or updated and remodeled the existing ones. And it worked for us on several occasions, we live 25 minutes from King's Island, but would still travel 2 hours down to SFKK a couple times a season for the waterpark. As far as CHANG goes, could it possibly be a decision to move it because of the cost of the upkeep/maintenance for it? That coaster seemed to have it's fair share of downtime, (though when it did run it was one of the better stand-up's I'd ridden). May they ave possibly removed it to put it at one of their bigger parks where it could get better ridership, and more attention when it needed it?

What really sucks for us is that we bought passes for this season, (the real reason was to use them for SFOG & SFGAdv, which we still plan to do). But the worst part was that my 6 yr. old was all geared up to finally ride Greezed Lightnin'! - On a personal level, I hope they find a home for Greezed Lightnin', I do love that coaster. Me and my daughter would marathon ride that coaster as much as we could every visit. - Deluge will find a new home with no problem! I hope the same is true of Penguins Blizzard River. On the drench factor, I have never rode a better river ride anywhere.

I can see the Splinter fx coaster being a great fit for Holiday World! And not just because HW has gone with GG for Voyage in the past. A family-themed dark ride/roller coaster just reeks HW to me. And if they could squeeze it, (geographically), into Halloween...even better!

We already bought ours for SFKK! Were heading for SFOG for sure, and then trying decide on either SFStL or SFGAdv later in the season. We'll probably spend a bit more time at SFKK this season, (even though it is a 2-hour drive, were just burned out on King's Island completely...as funny as that sounds!). It sucks that Chang is gone...but I still have Greezed Lightnin'!

My #1 was easy...jds03 by a longshot! A distant #2 was aljh22 and #3 was jcrouse, (also not too big on the red bar, but like the rest).

1. What are your initial thoughts? I totally love the idea, and have been waiting for something like this this for a while now. 2. Can you think of anything else we could be offering? No, not at this point. 3. Is this something that interests you? YES! 4. Why would you NOT be interested in this? There's not a chance I wouldn't be interested. 5. Any additional feedback you can give us based on the information you see here. Ignore me if you explained this and I missed it, but... I'm not able to afford any of the larger trips TPR offers, but events like you've done some in the past year where TPR members can pay a fee and join the traveling group at a park for the day are great. Would information/access to events like that be included in a premium membership? Also, would someone wanting to use their premium membership for access to a park sponsored event, (example: Holiwood Nights), be able to bring a guest along with their TPR membership?

I don't know...If it's Disneyland's castle it should fit fine with room to spare (lol).

Maybe we could see about getting a Formule X - style coaster. Thrilling, yet compact enough to put on a ship. Let Imagineers go nuts with the theming, I don't care what they do as long as the coaster goes over the ships edge at some point.

I've only been on Apollo's Chariot & Ragin' Bull from that list, but I'll have to go with AC because it was my first B&M Hyper! Sentimental vote.

Had a friend a few years back that got a couple pairs of customized Nike Shocks with Milennium Force & Raptors names and color schemes on them. As for me, I used to post regularly on Coasterbuzz!

Me and my wife just went to KW back in May, and stayed in Monroeville, and went to that mall. The whole time I was there I kept thinking that that mall looked so familiar for some reason. We even went to a store there where they had thousands of classic action figures, and in the back they had a section with "Dawn of the Dead" memorabilia everywhere. And it never came to me until now!

I would also agree with other choices like MF, Loch Ness, and Voyage. But I also used to love Dominator when it was still at Geauga Lake, (esp. from the watershows stadium). Volcano is also pretty awesome!

I've only got one milestone so far and that was no. 100. It was Raging Bull SFGAm. And it was no accident...we actually made sure we rode Whizzer and Viper first so I could make RB my no. 100.

I love Christmas down G'burg/PF, (esp. at Dollywood). Just beautiful. When we stayed overnight there back in April, (on the way home from WDW), we noticed that they've been really busy in PF the past couple of years building some new attractions and restaurants, and continuing to remodel a lot of hotels. My favorite part of being down there in December is the weather though. It is typically very warm with highs sometimes in the mid to high 50's. And when we were at DW last time in December it was still in the low 40's at closing time. My second favorite time to be there is in the spring for the "Festival Of Nations". Great food, good shows, and hot Irish women!

WDW, Kennywood, King's Island, and CP

CP, next Friday, weather permitting, and hopefully a ride on MF or Maverick!

The contract with Nickelodeon was not renewed for any of their parks. That is why they are interested in the New Orleans park. I think this is a BAD move on their part. Kids these days relate to the nick characters not the peanuts ones. I have a 5 and 9 year old so I can attest to the popularity of Nickelodeon in our house...in the past! But they are actually, voluntarily, switching more to the Disney shows, (esp. Phineas & Pherb) and even moreso over to Boomerang. My 5 yr. old said Sponge-Bob is boring, (he used to worship that idiot!). But for my kids anyway...Snoopy/Peanuts is timeless. They never miss a holiday episode, plus they have the stuffed animals and some videos of them. I don't think it's a BAD move for the company, but a smart one. I cannot imagine how much $$$ they've dished out for the rights and royalties to those Nick characters. Plus, while it's clearly huge, I don't think the Nick characters are quite as popular as they were a year ago...we may be starting to see them slip a bit with kids in the near future. Doesn't CF have sort of chunk of the Peanuts franchise that they own, or nearly own? If so, or if they can get that theming considerably cheaper, why not go with Snoopy/Peanuts. If they have good marketing teams in place at these CF parks they can make this work really well. To me, it makes better financial sense in the end.