Shavethewhales2

Once again I'm not sure exactly how it is at DW, but I know at SDC they are now dealing with a lot of "brain drain" as so many of the older employees that used to literally keep the wheels turning smoothly are now retired or quit. Sure they can attract a new generation of younger employees who will work a season or two, but it's not like the old days when you had the same people working for decades and keeping thing going with a certain culture and attitude that you just don't get from someone who doesn't know where they'll be in a few months. In any case, it's going to take time to simply get the numbers back up. How close are they to completing that new dorm? Maybe by summer things will improve with staffing.

^True, but wasn't this an empty corn field before this? They should have been planting trees long before now, but it's not like they had anything to start with. Like I said earlier, I have a feeling landscaping is going to be a work in progress for awhile.

It's looking good, but they are definitely behind schedule and there is so much landscaping work to be done among other things. At least they finally poured a few pathways. I don't think the June 3rd date is achievable, but crazier things have happened, especially if they are OK with getting everything but the final landscaping done before opening and just continuing to work on that afterwards.

Why didn't they paint something on the wall or put up any type of theming/decoration? I think that is one of the things about modern HFEC that is a big departure from what we grew up with. In the old days everything guests saw had to be themed or dressed up. Mary Herschend would have thrown a fit over this. I assume it's a work in progress still, since it looks like the earth behind the wall is a bit precarious, but still, not quite their old standard even for something temporary. Sounds like some great improvements otherwise, and I'm glad their efforts to increase staffing are apparently paying off already.

He also said the soft opening in early summer is still on. It appears the fire took place at night, so that's why no one was around. The real question is why where space heaters being used out there? Probably trying to keep something warm enough to set correctly, but thats still pretty dumb to leave them out there turned on. This always happens when space heaters are left turned on and unattended.

This is very interesting: https://basentinel.town.news/g/broken-arrow-ok/n/65448/market-study-likely-bells-property-amusement-park-not-guaranteed The owner's of Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is the entity actually behind all this. With all the backlash against Bell's, they are taking a step back and re-evaluating if Bell's is quite what they want to do or open it up to other developments. Robby Bell really dropped the ball on this as usual. The neighbor concerns were never addressed and now his backers are having to come out and slow everything down and take control from him. His communication with everyone is so poor and he has no business sense. I feel sorry for him, but damn, after 15 years you'd think he'd be ready to handle some of this. If we get a nice outdoor mall with a few rides, that could be a good compromise. I still want the amusement/water park though obviously.

I'm sure they'll make it look nice. It's a little unfortunate to lose another little quirk of the park, but such is progress. I am sure a lot of this is motivated by crowd sizes, as DW continues to grow at an incredible speed. SDC is having to do similar things all around the park to simply make enough room on the pathways to accommodate modern crowds. DW's steam train is pretty legit though and it has a lot of fans totally independent of DW and theme parks in general, so it's nice that it gets a little more emphasis.

Bizarre that they haven't repainted it yet. I know they are still working on fixing everything and painting might be the final step, but you'd think they could have done that in the last year while it was all still on the ground. Makes me wonder how much magnafluxing/NDT they've done on the connections...

I am sure this will impact many of the refurbishment projects that haven't been completed yet... I wonder if the old float-through dark ride will still get redone the way it was planned. I also wonder if Casa Magnetica will continue to exist. I hope at least Judge Roy gets it's love.

A broken clock has to be right eventually... It's getting pretty weird how long WOF has gone without a new major attraction, and I am pretty sure the park does OK attendance wise. There is certainly the population for it, so even if their numbers haven't been great that's all the more reason to give the park a jump start. SDC has been so packed during parts of the year that they regularly have to turn people away. SDC has added two major coasters, a massive kids area, a huge water ride, and several other things since the last time WOF got a coaster.

The owner was foolish in how he communicated and that rubbed salt in many wounds, but the outcome was almost inevitable. I agree that without the pandemic, the park would have had a fighting chance for a few more years, but the long term viability was still in question. The park simply needed a savior with deep pockets, an interest in saving historic rides, and enough business savvy to make the park work long term. Obviously there aren't enough of those people to go around. In my time as an enthusiast I've watched at least the following classic parks get demolished: Bell's Amusement park, Lesourdsville lake/Americana park, Joyland (Wichita), William's Grove, Miracle Strip, and probably a few others that I have forgotten. It always sucks seeing the irreplaceable classics fade away, but that's life I guess. The classics are classics for a reason and they aren't guaranteed to stick around forever. Get to Lake Winnie while you still can.

Mystic River has the most downtime of any ride in the park, so while it may be technically open for the season, getting a ride on it is a challenge. Your best bet is to head to it first, but it doesn't always open with the park, so you just have to scope it out and see. Then you have to watch the app and see when it opens, because usually it will fill up with a 2 hour wait pretty quick. It'll probably be chilly in early April, so that my help with the line size. I'll be curious to see if any further modifications have been made to it this year. It has been such a challenge for them. It was supposed to have higher throughput than the ride it replaced, but obviously that has not been the case. I'd be surprised if it even has a quarter the capacity that the old Lost River had. They've also had to modify the drop several times since the boats keep getting stuck. Guests also report a high rate of injury on the ride somehow... It's getting to the point that I wonder if this will be another Buzzsaw Falls. Wouldn't surprise me if they do away with the drop as we know it and re-route the channel in various ways within the next few years.

lol. I had a feeling he would either burn it down or push it over and claim it blew down in a storm. What a crappy ending, but part of me is just glad it is finally ending. I've watched so many beloved wood coasters fade away, but this one hurt a lot because I almost got to ride it before all this happened.

Trims can be a good thing on these old Schwartzkopfs. Keep them from being too rough and ripping themselves apart. I probably mentioned this before, but I rode this thing many years ago back at Flamingoland when my family lived in the UK for a few years. It's such a fantastic ride. Just swoops and loops, and somehow it feels amazing.

Ugh, that sucks. Adventureland is such a charming park with a great, unique family atmosphere that is directly caused by the family-run operations. Palace does some good work here and there, but obviously they are hit and miss, and in any case being part of a larger chain doesn't usually bode well for smaller parks. I just hope they don't tear out the Underground. I'm assuming this is partly due to the fallout from the rapids disaster. They probably are hurting from the lawsuits and penalties, not to mention insurance issues. Plus they simply needed better operations and that incident revealed a lot of troubling practices going on behind the scenes. I'm not sure Palace has all around better operations necessarily, but a bigger company is probably better and controlling the important things at least. Here's a news article about it: https://www.kcci.com/article/iowa-altoona-adventureland-purchased-by-palace-entertainment/38583433#

Oof. Fortunately it doesn't look like it would have harmed anyone, but that wouldn't be fun. It sucks that so many Schwartzkopf coasters aren't taken care of in South/Latin America. They literally just run them until they fall apart.

Looks brilliant. Lots of originality in the layout. It's funny how the only straight hill seems to be in the middle of the swing launch. Wave turns are all the rage right now. I want to see some footage of that track switch on the swing launch. It must have a way of moving into place in a hurry. Usually transfer tracks take their sweet time moving and aligning themselves.

I agree, but they are doing the best they can without spending over a hundred million dollars in one go. SDC has rebuilt several large sections of the park over the last five years with massive investments into the infrastructure and guest flow through. If the rumors are true, another large section will be redone for the 2023 season with FITH being replaced. Not to mention the area that will be redone soon due to the recent fire. There's also rumors about them rebuilding parts of midtown since those buildings are so old and the area is kind of awkward. So they are working on it, but unlike many parks the geography has always been extremely challenging and the park simply wasn't originally built with the intention of handling so many guests or even being a theme park per se. The parking lot used to be what is now the main square, for example. They still need to rebuild the entrance though, and that will be a massive challenge. Not only is it a huge area with a lot of big existing buildings, but they also have to avoid the cave and the existing cable car system, which pinches down the pathway area. Speaking of the apparent FITH replacement project, when I last visited a week ago, the site was compacted and it looks like most of the underground infrastructure they were burying earlier in the fall is complete? At least from what we can see. I hope that means they are getting closer to vertical construction once the park closes for the offseason in a couple weeks.

No news is probably bad news considering the last update was the hole in Blue Streak's tunnel. I'm guessing they are doing their best to let it rot so it can be deemed unsalvageable. There's no hope for this place any more. The wild ride ended last year.

If they are indeed getting the mouse, it's a great ride. I didn't realize how high people's hopes were for this park, lol. Come' on guys, they have one coaster currently and are still mostly a water park. This is great progress that no one should be disappointed in. If they got an inverting coaster at this point, it would probably either be an old Boomerang or something like the L&T Wild Wind which isn't very good. Or maybe a Zamperla Volare...

There's been L&T Wild Mouse on the market for awhile now for fairly cheap - under half a million. They don't have the best capacity or ride experience, but as a cheap coaster it hits the spot. Either that or one of those cheap fabbri or Reverchon spinners. Could be a surprise though and they use a mouse theme for a family wood coaster or something.

It seems to me that the water park is basically funding the dry side. They really built the place up over the years and have a strong following now. I wonder if they got a fresh round of investment lately or if their revenue is simply strong enough by itself to support these expansions. I expect most of these rides to be smaller family/kiddie rides, but that would be smart. Keep building the place up over time and eventually the demand and money will be there to support some big coasters.

I completely agree. It's surprising that anyone would defend Lighting Rod, RMC, or even DW at this point over this issue. It has been so many years, and this ride has flopped through every single season. Tearing all or most of it out would actually be a good idea, despite it being a great ride when it is (rarely) open. It's just an operations and public relations nightmare to have a star attraction that can't be open consistently and frequently has major malfunctions. The comments DW has received from guests upset about LR being down over the years says enough. It's not just enthusiasts complaining, it's everyone. I do understand wanting to be positive and wishing the park and all involved the best, but after 5 years it's time to admit they don't know what they are doing and the ride will never work reliably as intended. Save as much of the structure as possible and bring in someone else to re-imagine this ride. In general, DW and HFEC should stop investing in inventive/prototype/first-of-their-kind rides and just build quality, reliable, high capacity rides. Bring in B&M to do all their coasters from now on.

That's fantastic news though! They listened to guests and made a great choice. Interesting to hear Premier is behind the refurbishment. Looking forward to riding during my first KW visit in 2022! Now what else can we get them to bring back?

It's a very large fire unfortunately. Someone posted a photo on the sdcfans forums. It looks like the pork rind stand was completely engulfed and it spread to the furniture crafting factory and store next to it. Sigh... another area to rebuild. These buildings partly dated back to when the stagecoach was the biggest attraction at the park. The north end of the building used to be the stagecoach depot. Edit: just saw a photo posted on the park's FB thread announcing the fire and closure for the day. It looks like all of those buildings have pretty much completely burned down. Nothing left to save. I bet they will bulldoze the remainder next week and we will have an empty space for 2022. They will have to completely start from scratch. These buildings were on the way out anyway due to drainage and age, but it sucks to see devastation it the park like that. Thank god it was contained. You can see part of the "historic" butterfield stage depot sign that is one of the only things left standing.