Magic Springs and Their New PARC Management

[brianwolters]

Hello Magic Springs Fans.

 

I am getting some disturbing news out of Magic Springs and it was never like this before they went to PARC.

 

I have a contact within the park and I asked about the Twister and their response was pretty generic citing the rains and costs as being major factors in why the Twister and other rides are not operating yet. But the park has been open weekends since April and they had all off-season to work out kinks.

 

So I emailed them via the website...the email address is now bad.

 

So, I called as an "average Joe", stating I wanted to buy a season pass but was worried about the Twister being closed. I asked if it would open...the girl paused and said IT SHOULD but she didn't sound forthcoming and was almost afraid to say IT SHOULD. It was said with major doubt in her voice.

 

This does not bode well for the park and a classic coaster like the Arkansas Twister.

 

Sounds like PARC doesn't care...any thought or news on this situation? Any other PARC managed parks see this kind of stuff?

 

Thanks!

[brianwolters]

Here's an update from Screamscape:

 

Over the past week I’ve received several alarming reports from Magic Springs that have given me cause to issue this warning… if your planning a trip to the park you really might want to wait until later in the season.

 

The basic gist is that the popular Arkansas Twister wooden coaster and many other park rides are still not open for the season. The Arkansas Twister itself was also closed early last fall due to some kind of problem (rumored to be train related) so they’ve had plenty of time to have it fixed by now, but apparently didn’t send it out to have the work done until just before the start of the season. The scary thing is that apparently the park doesn’t think it will be open for awhile because they’ve removed it from their list of “Thrill Rides” on their website.

 

Other complaints we’ve received include: both kiddie pools being closed, tube rentals are now $6, no more free soda or sunscreen, several other waterslides are currently closed along with Dr. Deans, Wild Thing, X Coaster, the Swings, Log Ride and a few other kiddie rides. Twist and Shout, which was rumored to be leaving last fall is also still at the park, but it too is closed. It seems that many of these same rides were also broken and closed at the end of the park season last fall as you can see in our reports below. It’s as if they did nothing at all to rehab the park over the off-season, other than install an army of coke machines.

 

The other rather odd thing is that if you try to e-mail the park at all to their posted information address (info@magicsprings.com) your e-mail will bounce back because that e-mail address is now invalid. So… you’ve got time to remove a coaster from the website, but you can’t keep something as basic as a valid e-mail address? Between this and all the ride downtime, it sounds like a lot of scary things are going on there since ever since PARC Management took over last year. Definitely not a good track record for the first year under their watch, so I’d delay any possible visit until later in the season, and perhaps avoid purchasing any season passes at this point.