Sk610

If you really look at it, DL has never "teased" about any new attractions. The closest thing was the two season pass newsletters with the lake monster and frisbee ride options. Other than that, I cannot think of any other teases for new attractions. To be honest, it seems like the big parks like CP and some SF parks are the only ones doing this

I am not sure about March, but definitely after the 1st of the year now most likely. Also, the IAAP show just ended, and a good number of parks make their buyin decsion at that show. They can see new rides and buy on the spot. Sometimes these are new rides, or just something they want to sell a bunch of. My guess is they bought something there, now need to get it approved from the gensee county board. Keep an eye out for DL to be on their agenda

I think everyone would be e tremely surprised if DL were to close. The land is not worth much to sell it off and it brings in major cash with the hotel and campgrounds on site. I think parks owned by a REIT can have good investments. It's all up to what they want to invest in. CNL was not in it for the long haul. We all knew that. It was even clearly stated in their charter that after so many years they would liquidate assets for their investors. If the REIT wants to make money, they understand they will have to invest. Also, when it is time to liquidate, investments now will pay off then. The more they invest and clean things up and drive attendance up, they ultimately will make more money. CNL did invest at the beginning, just not at the end. I expect similar from EPR as well. With that said, if they could find a small coaster that could be assembled in a month or so, it could be done. I am thinking something like a eurofighter or wild mouse, but more than likely a coaster for 2018.

Doug, I think all of us agree with you that Premier is not the problem, but CNL was the problem. The great thing about keeping Premier is that they can go to the new owners with their list of what needs fixing as well as what they would like to add and try to get a better budget. New owners may be willing to invest on the front end if it will pay off later. They are already shelling out 900 million, whats a few extra million to fix things up?

In looking at the report, it looks like Premier will lease the parks from EPR. Personally, I don't have a problem with Premier operating the park. I think they will do fine as long as they are given the proper funds to operate the park the way they want. That is where I think all operations under CNL failed. If EPR opens the checkbook, all will be fine. If they try to milk every penny for their bottom line, we are back to where we were. Only time will fully tell which one comes to fruition. With this sale announcement, we may see next years announcement soon.

Any and all changes will depend on what happens with Premier. If the new owners remove Premier, possibly very little changes. If they keep Premier, they may go off Premier's suggestions. Also, remember when SF originally sold to CNL, they added Motocoaster rather quickly. Something similar could be done this year, but I would rather wait until next year for something bigger and better. Also, with the heavy waterpark background, the easy addition this year would be to the waterpark side Either way, it's a new era for DL and we will have to just wait and see.

On the topic of the survey, yes I am a season pass holder, and have actually never spent a night at the hotel or campground. I just assumed the survey was sent to all season pass holders. As always, I think everyone is excited that CNL finally sold the park. Schlitterbahn is the standard for waterparks, so maybe they will do the same with their amusement parks. My concern is that this is another property holding company. It would be interesting to see if they actually operate the Schlitterbahn parks or hire a management company to operate the parks for them. At the same time, the article does say that they do not expect to make a profit immediately. That tells me they plan to invest innitially. I would be fine with Premier managing the park if ERP will give them enough money to add good rides and coasters to the park. Also, I am pretty sure this company made this purchase for the large number of waterparks. Could it be possible they turn around and sell the four amusement parks to a different group either like HFE or Premier to operate outright and recoup some of their spend? Only time will tell what happens. It most likely can't be worse can it?

The majority of parks Premier manages are CNL properties, but not all. Also, on a separate note, I recieved an email from the park today as a guest survey. If you recieve this, I highly reccomend you fill it out. I was sure to point out at least twice that they needed to add a new coaster and new thrilling flat rides

I do agree that a starflyer would make a great addition to the park. And yes, Premier has a history of same or similar additions to all of their parks. Sometimes though they do test in one park and the do the mass additions the next year. This is what they did with Rolling Thunder. They added one to Elitch as Brain Drain and the next year added them to almost all the parks they manage. This may be the case with the Starflyer addition at Elitch. The other thing is what Frontier City added last year which I think was a frisbee style ride.

I just dont see the park moving the picnic pavillions anytime in the near future seeing as they did move them to put in ROS. That is a lot of concrete work along with a lot of construction to move those. At some point, yes they may have to move them, but there are so many open spaces to fill first. Even with that, they may still not ever move the picnic pavillions any time soon as the park could easily spread up towards Rte 77 as well as over towards the lodge first without having to touch those picnic pavillions

Yes, I agree that the placement of a new ride is very interesting. That spot between Twister and Motocoaster is extremely interesting as are some spots over by ME and by ROS as well. Also, who knows any other spots that open similar to what they did to open space for Rowdy's Ridge.

Well if a park is adding a new coaster, large pieces of track and footers are not easy to disguise. Plus, it takes a long time to build a new coaster, so they announce early. Plus it also would give a spike in season pass sales. With DL adding a small flat ride most likely, the time to build that is minimal, so no need to announce early. Plus nobody will buy a season pass if they did not already have one due to a new flat ride

I agree, I have always thought a frisbee style ride would be an excellent addition to the park. If they do re-route the queue for Viper to the old Ranger spot, there are two very good size plots of land inside viper. One is where the old mini golf sits, and the other would be between the cor kscrews and brake run where the current Viper queue runs. If not those spaces, there are lots of areas in the park with space, especially by ROS, next to twister and over by Mind Eraser

Yes, some of this is very far fethed, but some things are not. I can totally see the moving of Viper's entrance as the current queue area is way too long. My question would be are they planning on putting some type of flat ride inside of Viper's layout? There is room inside there for something, especially something like a drop tower. The park will never remove two of their three water rides to replace them with parking. If they were to remove either of those, I would expect it to be for something large, like a coaster. Either, way, I just do not see the park removing either grizzly run or thunder rapids anytime soon. I could see predator get a full makeover by a company like GCI similar to what Knott's did with Ghostrider. That would definitely cost money, but not the cost of a full new coaster. If I were to guess, this year brings a new flat and the second ROS train. Next year could be a revamped Predator along with a new waterslide. All of this is under the assumption that the park continues to be owned by CNL and managed by Premier. Any changes to either of these could drastically change everything, except the removal of grizzly run and thunder rapids for parking

^and to add one more insight, most times I went this year, the amusement side of the park was not very busy, but the water park side was slammed. Basically, people went, but some for the water park and some for the amusement park. Either way, it all counts for overall attendance and revenue. Now if we could just get CNL to re-invest that capital into the park, we would be good. Unfortunately, I dont see a new coaster coming to the park until CNL sells it to someone else outright

I do think that the crowds really had to do with the extremely nice fall we are having combined with closing weekend. Don't forget that about 10 years ago that Buffalo got 2 feet or more of snow on the 12th of October. It is very unpredictable, and the park has to set its operating schedule before the season even starts. The current schedule is the safest with all things considered. Don't forget that there are major costs associated with operating the park daily like labor, water and electricity and in October in WNY, a bad weather weekend could result a major loss of cash just to try to stay open an extra weekend or two

I went yesterday and the park was mobbed! Lines for everything were crazy! We waited over 30 minutes for hornets nest along with just about every other ride we went on. Twister and Siver Bullet were both down obviously, but the restraints appeared to be back on, so that may be good news for next year. Now it is just time to wait for a 2017 announcement

They already do bring in food trucks in the fall as staffing is so light.

I think the weather possibilities along with the difficulty in finding staff are the reason they do not have the fright fest activities any longer. I know I went when it was SF and it was in the upper 30's and they only had haf the park open. If you notice, now they are bringing in food trucks on the weekends as staff for the food stands is very difficult.

Yes I remember when ROS was new the park had huge attendance. I recall waiting over an hour for ROS with two train ops. The good thing is that the park ownership/management then and now are the same. Hence they know what worked previously to drive attendance at the park and hopefully could replicate those actions.

Please don't get me wrong, but the only places at DL worth eating at are anchor bar, marias and beaver brothers. The others are just basic fast food that is not even all that great. So the meal plan is only a good deal if you go 7-8 times and it includes the true 'sit down' restaurants

I went to the park Wednesday night and Silver Bulet was still down. And by the way, the park was pretty busy Wednesday. My son is 6 and is not tall enough yet for the coasters, but most flats were about 3-4 cycle waits. That is the longest I have seen in two years. Yes the old cuda site is really only noticed from the ferris wheel. I do hope they use that area for a good coaster in the future. However, next year I really would like to see a good new flat ride to go with a new train for one of the coasters. Also, has anyone noticed that ME looks to be going up the lift a bit slower than usual? I am wondering if it is having a similar problem as Boomerang with the hydraulics that run the lift.

Did anyone ever stop to think that those are just very cleaverly disguised survey markers?

Yes, the hotel was built so that it could be expanded upwards. The idea of an indoor waterpark at DL is a tough one. It is not close to anything else and not many will travel to darien in the winter for an indoor waterpark. I may be wrong, but unless my season pass gets me admission, I would still be heading up to great wolf

I would say that other than the coasters and a few others, be sure to hit blast off and the haymaker. The haymaker is a paratrooper type ride, but is the only one in existence by Heinz Fahtz making it a must ride in my book