SaraAB87

The machines were 4 tokens each which is about 1$ but i believe tokens are cheaper if bought in bulk. The larger The big one cranes were 8 tokens per play or roughly $2 per go. Yes there were play till you win machines with rubber ducks inside that cost 4 tokens each. Otherwise the cranes with larger stuffed animals and other prizes and The big one cranes were one go per play you either win or lose.

This is a minor complaint as I can simply walk by them but darien PLEASE tone down the number of rigged elaut claw machines in the park. It just looks extremely tacky to turn every corner and have one of these machines in my face. I know they are rigged and set on a payout rate so I wont put a dime into them. I have read the operators manuals for these machines and know exactly what they are. It would be better to put in carnival games instead of these. I am only complaining because these were in excess and shoved basically anywhere they coud put them to the tune of easily 50 or more machines. Its fine to have a few of these machines in the arcade but the back arcade everyone was talking about is just crammed with these machines amongst like 2-3 actual other games. I didnt see anyone playing these machines thankfully when I was there. Its just too much of the same machine over and over.

I am sure the people who live near the park would have a fit if the land across the street was used, so I don't see that happening anytime soon. I think the park is taking small and steady steps. Also with huge capital improvements like moving the parking lots across the street would also mean they would have to increase the ticket price, food prices and the prices of everything. We might be paying $60 for a discount ticket and $15 for parking if some of the things mentioned in this thread happen. Can the economy of this area handle that? I don't think so. Locals would be mighty pissed if the admission price doubled within the next 5 years even if significant attractions were added. Attendance might fall since the price of going to DL would be completely out of reach for most locals. Is this is a park that can draw huge numbers of guests from every other state, I don't think so either. Unless its a park with 10 or more non-clone coasters I don't think people from far away states are going to come and visit. The Canadian dollar is on the decline as well, so drawing more Canadian visitors than whomever already comes to get away from the crowds at Wonderland doesn't seem to be in the cards for now As already mentioned planning and approvals have to go through and the residents of darien would probably fight tooth and nail if the land across the street was ever going to be used, plus the wetlands... don't think that is happening anytime soon. I can see new trains happening on ROS and I can see the removal of the gokarts and another attraction put in its place but, DL is also at the point where they need to start replacing aging attractions with new ones or with used attractions from other parks (or else we will end up with a lot of SBNO rides which would just look bad), so I think that will come first rather than any significant expansion that uses land that is not already used. As with Ranger some of the older attractions will simply just die out and then they will not be able to be used anymore if they don't focus on first replacing what is old and half broken down. The entrance area, and entrance restrooms are also in desperate need of an overhaul and other areas of the park could use improvement in the cleanliness area. Some of the waterpark attractions are old and are not working very well so those need to be considered for replacement as well.

I would like to see the area around ROS expanded, that is a good area to expand as there is nothing there but...ROS. Maybe they could put in a family ride or something back there because a lot of people who don't want to ride ROS just end up standing around and waiting for the people that are on ROS. Something more mild than ROS would be good back there. I have been going to the park since I was a kid, not a pass holder but I try to get there every year. Hmmm maybe the park closing earlier this year is for a reason, they want to make improvements for next year! There were seasons I can remember where it was open till halloween. The park is definitely a gold mine, they must make tons of money on the concerts alone. I have no idea where the upcharge discussion came from, I dont exactly see a trend of tons of parks loading up on upcharge attractions either. That may have been a trend in the early 2000's or late 90's but the economy was in a totally different state back then. I don't think upcharge attractions are making a comeback en masse anytime soon throughout the parks in the USA due to the economy. Darien won't build another mini golf either, no one is gonna come to the park for a new mini golf course. Its a large investment and one that wont draw a lot of people,so its not gonna happen. If you are female and want to play mini golf I think you can play for free on one weeknight at lasertron, forget which night it is though. The Canadian dollar isnt exactly doing well either so I am surprised that hasnt affected business at all because I know that here in Niagara Falls our stores are so much slower because less people are coming over from Canada. I am sure business has been affected by the Canadian dollar here.

Darien actually isn't a bad value as it stands for this season when I consider the other options. I can get tickets for $27.99 and even with $8 parking its not so bad because the other parks are only a few dollars less per person. Seabreeze was $25 and that was with an online discount ticket, regular admission is over $30. Plus you get a full day of entertainment, so its not that much money for admission only. It does add up when you consider food and upcharges but those can easily be avoided. You also get a full waterpark included with admission, and admission to some of these indoor water park facilities far exceeds the cost of admission and parking to darien. With the Erie county fair raising ride prices $30 on weekdays to an absolutely absurd $40 on weekends Darien looks like a pretty attractive value, the fair doesn't have enough rides to justify those prices, they do have better food, but the food at the fair is now even more expensive than the food at Darien. Most food is $8-10 per item, though if you look around you can find food for cheaper prices but its still pretty expensive. I did buy the discount ride voucher at tops for $25 but a lot of people had trouble getting these vouchers and I didn't see anyone else using them on the midway. I don't really want to say anything bad about the fair because I do love the event but its just becoming way too expensive. The vendors at the fair used to give out lots of free things, they even had free books on weekdays, free milk, and lots of other things, now there is none of that. They also used to have a country jamboree with popular singers that was included with admission and lasted the whole day, there were years when I attended the fair more than one day due to all the stuff they had going on. The only way the fair is good now is if you pay the $5 morning admission and just walk around and do the buildings and free entertainment. But apparently ride revenue is up at the event so its obvious that people are willing to pay these prices.. Other carnivals charge $4-5 per adult ride, and some charge more, and some only allow the purchase of tickets in certain amounts (which almost never equals out to what you need so you end up with left over tickets, and they don't sell single tickets). You usually have to buy tickets in bundles of $10-20 so you will spend at least that much. Adding to that, most carnivals are $20-25 per ride wristband if they have that option per person, the wristband might only last half the day or a few hours and there is no where near as many rides as there is at Darien, most only have 3-4 adult rides per lot. If you run into a situation with a lot of lines at a carnival with a wristband its possible you might only get a couple rides within the allotted time for the wristband, I haven't seen this happen personally but its a possibility. Then when you look at PP charging $28 for a single gokart ride, Darien looks like an incredible value given the prices I mentioned. Operations were good for the park this year at least when I was there, most of the rides were open except for the obvious ones (I don't think anyone is crying over the demise of Ranger) and I can definitely see why the park is so crowded, I am sure a lot of other people are seeing the value in darien vs other similar entertainment options. I do hope that darien continues to operate the gokarts as long as they are able to, because the alternative unless they do something with the land they are on would be to have a large plot of land without an operating attraction, and would leave the gokarts as a SBNO attraction. That would not be a good thing for the park, unless there is a plan in place for the land they are on, but it would probably take quite a while to get something in place for that land unless they already have a plan for it. I wouldn't want the gokarts to become a large plot of land that sits for years and years without operating.

Yeah PP is totally outrageous plus they will slow your car down if you try to do anything at all from what I hear, also they can slow your car down any time to let a person pass. If a person is a member they will slow down a non member so they can get ahead. I havent actually been there and i will never go there since i simply cant afford it. But its NOT the racing place they describe on TV unless you pay into membership and go weekly. I would recommend lasertron for gokarts, probably the most fun i have had for the cheapest price on karts I have seen. They are also electric karts and are controlled by an ipad, its a very cool setup. I have been to lemans, fast freddies, lasertron, speedway park, adventure landing (formerly the track) and the epic fun center and yes the ones at darien too like 20 years ago. Might be another one i am missing. Fast freddies was not expensive when i was there but i am an adult and they wanted to put me in a kids kart which was pretty embarrassing.

I think I speak for the majority of WNY when I say this, but the majority of people who go to Darien are people from WNY and many of us are stuck on hard times as far as money goes. Many of us are scraping up money just to come to the park because we like the park, we want the park to succeed and we also love amusement rides. Families want their kids to have a good time when they are kids because they grow up very fast, and taking the kids to darien for the day is a very expensive venture for some families. It simply is not in the interest of the WNY economy to add more upcharge rides to this park. Most people going to this park cannot afford rides that are $20-50 per person for a ride that lasts a couple minutes at best. If you want a thrill the park has enough rides that are available under regular admission. Putting in another upcharge attraction with all the struggling families in WNY and people who lose their jobs and cannot find another one, and all the other people who are struggling in WNY would not be a very good thing. I watch families and friends struggle and scrape up enough money to go to one park every year. It would definitely turn me away from the park, and I really don't think it would be in the park's best interest. If darien was to become a park that adds nothing but an upcharge attraction every year I would stop going, not that it will ever become that, but in your vision this is park that adds a bunch of upcharge attractions and it becomes a good thing........ There is simply no way the economy of this area can sustain a park that has a ton of upcharge attractions for $20-50 each. What do you see when you go to the park, I see people bringing their own food, in fact on my last visit, almost everyone I saw eating was eating their own food! People have clearly caught on to the high food prices in this park and choose to either eat in the car or eat at one of the picnic tables on the outside. Almost no one was purchasing food or drink at the park. For the record I always bring my own food, as I refuse to give any park or establishment a dime for food or drink, except for Waldameer which is the only park I have ever found that had reasonably priced food. To be far its not just darien either, I went to seabreeze and food prices were nearly the same as they were at darien. However seabreeze was giving out free water in coolers, with paper cups, it was a very nice gesture from this park. As far as gokarts I have already said my piece on that, like everyone else here, I am sure they will be gone eventually. They take up too much land, require too much maintenance, use too much gasoline and require a lot of staff to run. Besides I think gokarts are past their prime like everyone else, I cannot count the number of gokart tracks in WNY that have closed, but its quite a lot, I have been to them all in the past. Its clear that there isn't a market for gokarts here in WNY. There are a reason these places close up. Those karts are very old, and they will not last forever. I don't think darien will want to pay for a completely new set of gokarts once the old ones become not usable. If you want to go on gokarts I already sited 2-3 other options in this area for that. If you have a lot of money to waste then please go to Pole position in the galleria mall and give them $28 for a race or purchase a membership to their track. There are other options besides darien's track if you like darien that much. When I go to the park, any park, I don't want to pay extra for attractions, and I simply will not pay it. Whatever costs more after admission, I won't pay it. I don't have the money to pay $20-50 for something that is a 2-3 min experience. I don't really care about those kinds of rides anyways as I said the park offers enough to keep me busy for my time there that I don't need to pay extra for rides.

Wow really you want more upcharge attractions? That is insane, way to give those that pay for daily tickets more value... If anything they should be removing the upcharge attractions and putting in attractions that guests can go on with regular admission,or perhaps you enjoy paying $50 per skydiver ride? The gokarts need to go, they take up a lot of land, require a lot of staff and are high maintenance and are probably costly to run. I am sorry I am being so negative here as I usually am not but I am not going to Darien for the gokarts, however if they added a new large attraction of some sort in its place that would absolutely get me into the park. Also they were $7 per ride when I was at the park earlier in the season. If you want to go on gokarts and overpriced upcharge attractions you can head to pole position raceway in the galleria mall and pay $28 to ride their go-karts. Lasertron has gokarts for $5 per go or 2 for $7 if you can hit one of their specials. Epic fun center if they still have them has gokarts for $5 a pop as well. There are plenty of options for gokarts in this area.

I just went to the park recently and pretty sure it was $65 for a sky coaster ride single rider unless I read the sign wrong.

I like the trend of adding a flat ride every year, I don't care if it's a used ride as long as it's a park model and not an obvious carnival ride. We had the same flats for forever until the addition of rowdy's and blast off. The next step is to remove ranger and place something in its spot. If they can keep the trend of replacing rides that is a good thing until all the half broken stuff is gone. This adds more rides and disperses the lines on crowded days. If the rides run better than the old rides there will be more uptime which in turn means less lines. I think DL is a hit or miss park, if you can hit when the lines are relatively short you will have a great time. If you randomly hit a crowded day then your time will be miserable because you will spend most of your time in lines since the lines do not move fast in this park like they do in some others. If you happen to hit on a day when several attractions are closed at once due to failure then you won't have a good time because this means lines will be longer.

I am pretty sure the top spin was removed because the ride was aging. I think that ride was from 1993 or early 90's at least. Definitely not a money issue, if the fair couldn't afford it then they would have removed the zyklon coaster and the enterprise which are the other big rides there. Strates is the operator there and they just renewed their contract with the fair so they must be doing pretty well.

I have definitely seen a lot of improvement from my last visits as I already stated. The new ride makes a lot of difference to the park and brightens things up. I love the corn popper so I hope it doesn't go. The return of the scrambler is also a good thing. The top spin at the Erie county fair has been gone for a couple years now so it doesn't surprise me that twister is not fairing well.

I was under the impression that you couldn't go into the line unless you are skinny enough to fit for sure since there was a guard there who I assume was there to stop people who clearly won't fit from getting in the line.

Did you try the test seat, there was a guard at the entrance of ROS and the test seat is right there so I really didn't want to bother with all of this in front of a lot of people which would have been really humiliating especially since I have lost over 40lbs, then if I couldn't fit I would probably end up on a starvation diet which would be impossible for me and bad for my health. I did see a photo of ROS recently and it looks like the belts are totally different than they used to be, though I can't say for sure if I even remember how they used to be and my last ride on ROS was well over 10 years ago.

There were at one point. I am talking about the photos from the past that included the octopus from raging seas and the barns with the kiddie rides in them. Anyways these photos were from so long ago that it's possible they may not be relevant today (things may have changed in the area).

As a guest of the park I really don't care what is in the scrapyard, but more about what is happening in the park. If they remove or keep the batman coaster does not affect me as a guest of the park. But I have to admit those photos of the scrapyard posted to the old forums years ago were quite interesting. It's obvious they would never build that coaster as it was already unpopular the last time it was used, plus it's too old. I guess my question would be when are they going to remove ranger ( as I assume they are going to remove it at this point)and will it get replaced with anything in the same spot? I know the new ride replaces ranger as it's almost the same motion but I am wondering if there is plans to put another ride there once ranger is removed.

I used to be a member of those forums, while I don't know who you are I think I can guess

Just got back from the park, not bad, not bad at all. Everyone must have been in the water park cause lines were short. Max coaster wait was probably 30 min. ROS was 25 min when I walked by. So somehow much better than my last visits even though the parking lot was almost completely full. There was also someone cleaning the restrooms every time I had to use it which was nice. Lines seemed wayyyy shorter overall than my last visits. Overall had a good time, nothing bad to say. All rides except ranger were up and running, didn't see any downtime, twister was working too. My 2013 visit had 4 rides down, much better this time. Corn popper, silver bullet and haymaker are my favorites. No surprise on ranger since we all know it's pretty much down for good at this point.

Remind me not to go this season, if things are this bad at the beginning of the season it will only get worse.

I don't see them closing the park, they will just run it to the ground much like six flags did, although we have gotten several nice improvements since them.

I was also going to say that when guests are stuck in long lines then the time of their visit is more constrained. When they are stuck in the line then that means they are not moving around the park, which means less guests to spend money on other things in the park. DL has a fair amount of shops, games and food and if guests are stuck in a line they are not spending money in other areas of the park. For this reason alone I would think that it would be beneficial for the park to keep the lines and people moving. For example if I have to spend half of my visit in lines or a very long time in one line (over an hour and a half again for example) then I might not spend the $10 in the arcade or on games simply because the line will hold me up and I won't have time to play games or visit the shops. If I become angry during the visit or I am not having a good time, I will be more likely to stick it to the park, and say I am not spending money here. A better experience leads to more money spending by the guests. A lot of people not having a good time and a lot of people stuck in lines and that is a lot of lost income for the park.

Yeah 2012 was rough for the raging seas as well, when I was there at least half of the boats were down on the ride, then they removed it with good reason. 2013 was lacking twister, corn popper and UFO for me at least which not surprisingly contributed to longer lines around the park. Actually I don't think I was able to catch twister open on either visit. There was also no scrambler till last year to fill in for the rides that were down. Some rides also have very short lines, like hornet's nest, that was a walk on each time for me. Most of the flats are a very short wait like 10-15 min or a walk on. Some other good things about the park are that they have one of few fascination parlors left at parks and they do have 2 arcades, and I did see games like Outrun 2 that I have literately never seen in arcades, and I have seen a lot of games in my time. I did notice there was significantly more people in the park on my 2013 visit than my 2012 one. The parking was already into the overflow lots early in the day when we arrived, but that actually turned to work out in our favor as I believe we ended up closer to the gate than we would have if we had a further back section of the regular lot.

I saw it happen, twice. Must have somehow been on the highest attendance days? Don't remember the exact dates of the visit but one was in August 2013 and one was in August 2012. It could have been 2 hours though, I don't remember exactly how much time it was but it was at least 1.5 to 2 hours. I do remember that the UB Bulls were signing autographs during both visits. Perhaps this contributed to higher attendance? I also know that it was not during any festival like kingdom bound. I didn't go last season. Both visits were on Sundays. I wasn't in the line for reasons I discussed but several members of our party reported the wait and I saw that the queue was overflowing onto the midway. Perhaps they just decided to get in line at a bad time... I did also notice there were some rides down during my visits, the 2013 visit I think twister, corn popper were down and UFO was gone and the new ride was the drop tower. This could have contributed to the longer line because 3 rides were down. I was however in the line during the fright fest 2000 or 2002 or so when they decided to add a second train mid day. I do not remember if I abandoned the line or not but I think I was pretty close to the coaster so I didn't abandon as I think the chaos was ensuing as more and more people got into the line. I don't think I wore my glasses on the ride, which means I left them with a non rider and went into the queue so details might be sketchy. I cannot see anything without my glasses so I have never actually seen the superman station even though I have been on the ride. I can barely get up and down the stairs without them but I can't afford to break them on a ride since they cost hundreds of dollars.

I know it's my fault but please also understand it is exceedingly painful for some guests to stand in a 2.5 hour or more line. I have a bad leg and my feet hurt to the point where standing more than 20-30 min in one place is exceedingly painful for me. I am sure there are a lot of other people who have problems with such a long wait, but can still go on rides just fine. Standing in a 2.5 hour line is out of the question for me at this point. Yes, I know this is my fault and I take full responsibility for going to a park in the condition that I am in and I don't want to ask for special perks because I don't want to disrupt anyone and I look completely normal so I don't consider myself eligible for special perks because of a foot/ankle problem. I go to Waldameer and the Erie county fair and I do just fine since there are no excessive waits. I can walk around for a long time and there are also plenty of benches and places to sit when a rest is needed, I do much better moving around than standing in one place. But in a very long line there is no place to rest and once you are in the line you are stuck in it. I can understand if it was a huge park like six flags MM for example then I would have to adjust accordingly or just not ride the ones with super long waits but this isn't a park where I would expect the wait to get as long as it does. Also after waiting 2.5 hours for one ride guests simply become irate (anyone would!)and it ruins the guest's who is waiting rest of the time in the park and it ruins it for the other guests in the park who then have to listen to the irate guest. Especially when there are many irate guests. Last time I checked those who choose to wait in the ROS line are stuck in an uncovered queue for that amount of time on a hot humid sometimes 90 degree day with no access to water since I am pretty sure no loose items are allowed in the queue. The only good thing about it is that if you don't care about riding ROS then every other line in the park is usually short because the whole crowd is standing in the ROS line or in the waterpark if it's a hot day. It's not just the enthusiasts either, I can hardly call myself an enthusiast and this is really the only thread I post on here. I am not here to berate the park or make ridiculous requests (unless it is in good humor) I am just here to tell it from the perspective of the guest. My point is that almost everyone who goes to the park knows that ROS needs more than one train, I heard it at the park when I was there from the non-enthusiast guests. The guests are smarter than we think, they know the line is not moving, and they know why the line is not moving. They compare it to experiences they have had at other parks and they know that the reason why the line doesn't move is because the coaster only has one train.

The wait for ROS exceeded 2.5 hours the last 2 times I have been to DL. Then there was the fright fest in 2002 or so that I went to when a riot almost erupted in the queue since they were adding the second train mid day since the wait was again over 2 hours and people were angry that they didn't add it in the morning like they should have. Maintenance had to be sent to calm the crowd. That is unacceptable to make a park guest wait almost half the time they will be in the park for one ride on a coaster. A second train is needed, at least on weekends, event days and after the kids get out of school and any other busy day. Wait time should not exceed 60 min on any coaster or ride in the park. I can see not using 2 trains when it's a slow weekday, but on weekends after the kids get out of school it should be used. Motocoaster is never more than a 45 min wait (at least when I was there) even on the busy days so that is reasonable . The line for predator is usually short so I doubt they need a second train on that, but since everyone in the park wants to ride ROS it needs a second train.