Stupid Moves that Parks have made

[azza29]

Luna Park Melbourne failing to deliver on their promise of a "big surprise" for their 100th anniversary. I was expecting something at least slightly significant, but the announcement was a Reverchon Spinner. Not only that, but the spinner will only be there for Summer. WTF Luna Park? Of all times to reveal plans for at least a minor new permanent attraction the 100th anniversary is perfect. But no. Luna Park will never be rebuilt to the awesomeness it was in the 70's from what I see in the pics, when it used to have a bunch of classic rides which have since been removed. /rant

 

I was down there on the weekend and it struck me how inefficently they use what little space they have. They have a few flats which use up a lot of room but aren't anything special, and the overall layout is fairly haphazard.

 

A quality, permanent wild mouse or compact would be a great addition - rather than the temporary fairground rides the park cycles through. And a decent dark ride would give them something else that could stay open during bad weather.

 

It doesn't help that their pricing is insane. $45 for an all-day pass or $10 for individual rides, for a park with two coasters and a handful of flats. So we decided to skip the rides...

[caffeine_demon]

^I've ridden Whirlwind, and if it was one of "Finland's faves," then the Finns need to get out more often. But to each his own.

 

I rode the one at fort fun abenteuerland in germany, and rather liked it!

 

Anyway - mine is alton towers marketing of thirteen - first it was a family coaster, next it was going to be "so extreme you could only ride once a day, and have to sign a waiver" - and in the end we got a nice drop, and decent enough indoor bit, but a dire outdoor section!

 

Oh - and "storm surge" at thorpe park

[ArizonaGuy]

Six Flags Fiesta Texas finally getting a Batman: The Ride mirror image clone and then naming it "Goliath" when it's the 3rd or 4th tallest coaster in the park. They could have easily gone with El Toro or Raging Bull to go with the Los Festvales section of the park but no, they went with the stupidest option they could possibly find.

 

Im not gonna fault them for the actual coaster itself just because SFFT needed an inverted coaster and had Six Flags not taken it out of Sfno, it would have just rotted away. So they did the right thing followed by a stupid thing. And no, I don't give a crap that there was already one 10 miles away.

[Angle O. Descent]

Adding an old Vekoma inverted coaster to any park as a new ride is a stupid move. Worst example was La Ronde... they already had a far superior B&M 'batman' inverted, yet two years ago they basically added a worse version of the exact same ride. Why???

[154bmag]

CGA removing the Tidal Wave and Invertigo and replacing them with....nothing!

[JRHcoasterki]

^Wasn't Cedar Fair removing those rides because they were selling the park? Obviously, the sale fell through, but I thought they were moving those to other parks before they sold the park. I could be confused though...

[XYZ]

^Wasn't Cedar Fair removing those rides because they were selling the park? Obviously, the sale fell through, but I thought they were moving those to other parks before they sold the park. I could be confused though...

 

Paramount removed Tidal Wave in 2002 and Cedar Fair removed Invertigo in 2010. Invertigo was removed because they were selling the park like you said, but Tidal Wave was removed for other reasons...

[CpBluestreakCp]

Cedar Fair closing Geauga Lake so suddenly. No announcement to get your last rides in or anything, kind of a bummer. Sure there were rumors and everything, but a formal warning would of been nice..

[JRHcoasterki]

^^Oh okay.

[thestripedtaco]

Knott's Berry Farm removing Wacky Soap Box Racers for Windjammer.

[ArundelHigh Coasters]

SFA removing Two-Face almost four years ago, and still not replacing it, just leaving the station decaying, along with them removing most of their flats, Six Flags closing AstroWorld, and former PGA removing Stealth, and a bunch of other coasters.

 

Another stupid thing is how SF is putting identical rides in one park, or in a park that's in the area of another park that has the similar ride:

 

-Golaith, and Flashback at SFNE.

- Six Flags La Ronde getting a SLC which has a long name that I will not bother to type, when they already have Le Vampire, a B&M Invert, which is better.

[ArundelHigh Coasters]

CGA removing the Tidal Wave and Invertigo and replacing them with....nothing!

 

 

Cedar fair didn't remove the Tidal Wave, that was during the Paramount era. The only coaster they took down was Invertigo, and that was because of reliability issues, and the media surrounding the breakdowns. I used think this park wasn't changing, but know, I understand Cedar Fair has a hard time with state/city orders, and 49'ers. I give Cedar Fair kudos for installing Gold Striker, they are really trying to improve CGA in many ways.

[Kyle Coleman]

Ioa to stop the dueling on dueling dragons(it will always be called that to me). Totally ruined what used to be a one of a kind experience.

[rcdude]

A couple recent ones:

 

-Cedar Fair buys not one, not two, not three, but four prototype Windseekers and they all have significant issues. They then purchase more and have even bigger issues. Shouldn't all of the issues been solved on the originals before more were installed?

 

-Six Flags Magic Mountain installs Green Lantern: First Flight, which has an unacceptably low capacity for the park. It gets delayed to a 4th of July opening due to a late start on construction and last minute changes, thereby losing out on half of the summer season. They then refuse to run the ride at its full potential, and turn what should be one of the park's best coasters into an average ride that can be uncomfortable and has a line long enough that it is typically not worth riding.

 

-Six Flags decides to give its parks most in need of a new coaster old, outdated relocated rides from other parks while they install new, somewhat gimmicky new coasters at their parks that already have enough. They also seem unable to install any flat rides other than Sky Screamers or kiddie rides at their major parks.

 

-Merlin Entertainment hypes their new attractions to the point that the rides have no chance at living up to the unreasonable expectations created and recieve an overwhelmingly negative response from the public and from enthusiasts.

 

These ones haven't happened yet, but I could see them occurring based on the direction the industry is currently going:

 

-Disney brings NextGen technology and more upcharge events to the California parks after their success in Florida, but due to an entirely different visitor base they backfire.

 

-As a result of excessive price increases and lack of major unique attractions that appeal to a broad audience, the Orlando parks experience a sharp attendance drop as more people choose to visit their local parks for less.

[154bmag]

CGA removing the Tidal Wave and Invertigo and replacing them with....nothing!

 

 

Cedar fair didn't remove the Tidal Wave, that was during the Paramount era. The only coaster they took down was Invertigo, and that was because of reliability issues, and the media surrounding the breakdowns. I used think this park wasn't changing, but know, I understand Cedar Fair has a hard time with state/city orders, and 49'ers. I give Cedar Fair kudos for installing Gold Striker, they are really trying to improve CGA in many ways.

I didn't say "Cedar Fair" although using the term CGA can be misleading. I understand that it was a corporate choice, and they had reasons, but that doesn't change the fact that there's nothing in their old spot, and that still, to me, makes it a stupid move.

[australianalex]

I was down there on the weekend and it struck me how inefficently they use what little space they have. They have a few flats which use up a lot of room but aren't anything special, and the overall layout is fairly haphazard.

They used to be really space efficient in their earlier days, the rides were packed in, so much so they even had a second woodie!

 

The "Good Old Days"

 

^^Luna Park has quite a few issues when it comes to their "neighbors," correct? Maybe they should've gone with a really cool dark ride for their 100th anniversary, instead of a temporary spinning coaster.

 

That being said, I liked Luna Park, and it's a wonder that it's still operating at all. The park is worth it just for the fun house and wooden wild mouse (and the rotor has a lot of fans, as well).

You're getting your Luna Parks mixed up. The one in Sydney is the one with the Wild Mouse, the one in Melbourne is the one with the Scenic Railway. The Sydney one is actually quite decent, while the Melbourne one is tragic.

Edited November 29, 2012 by australianalex

[Rollercoaster Rider]

Six Flags Over Georgia not building Batman the Ride in 96

 

I'm confused on this one. They got the ride in 97, why is it stupid that it didn't open a year earlier?

 

 

Six Flags Over Georgia wanted it in 1996 to tie-in with the 1996 Olympics. That was part of the reason of the $454,000,000.00 lawsuit on Time Warner for delaying major attractions, Overcharging attractions to lower the parks value.

 

 

Another Stupid move: Blackpool removing 10+ rides and only adding Nickelodeon Land and Infusion since 2004.

[goatdan]

A lot of interesting stuff here... I think that most of the time, moves that appear stupid are done for really solid business reasons. It's relatively rare that a park does something completely stupid without there being some reasoning... To reply to a few things in particular:

 

GCI and CCI probably saw the concept [son of Beast] presented to them by KI and said "Hell no! We are NOT building that!"

 

If I recall correctly, part of RCCA whole promotion of building the ride was the claim that no one coaster manufacturer would touch it. I think CCI actually had a statement that they wouldn't build rides above a certain height around that time too. My memory may not be perfect, but I remember that exact thing coming up back then.

 

Re: Dark Knights. Yeah, the ride may not have been up to par - I'd argue the ride itself is fine, it's just the theming makes no sense. Someone described it as a "Batman Acid Trip" and that is exactly how it feels. It's intense enough to be a solid *themed* attraction, but once the pre-show is done, what's going on... but enough bagging on it, let's be honest -- basing your big summer ride on what may have just been the largest movie blockbuster ever isn't a bad idea, even if the ride wasn't up to par.

 

Re: Parks buying prototypes that break down a bunch. It's always a risk, but you never know. Often times, manufacturers work with parks to discount the first prototype to get it right, and when you look at the success something like Batman: The Ride had, it's a tempting thing to go with something cheap(er) and one of a kind instead of something established. It's also way easier to market, and marketing is what the game is all about. It's way "cooler" to claim a "first ride with _____" then it is to just say, "Hey, it's a wooden coaster!" While I'm be more interested in that wooden coaster, the general public wants to know they were amongst the first to go on something, or they want to go on the biggest.

 

Re: Mark Shapiro hired with no theme park knowledge. Remember, before they brought Shapiro in, Six Flags had people with theme park knowledge running the parks, and the parks were run absolutely into the ground. Dirty parks, no infastructure improvements, and massive debt were how they were run. There were actually reasons for this, that I could write a much longer post on (someone once told me I should do a "mad money" theme park thing...), but essentially they made it so the parks were absolutely bleeding money. I believe the losses were in the realms of $200 mil + / year, if I remember my stock reports right from back in the day. Shapiro came in and said let's get clean, let's improve infastructure, let's target families, and let's add rides for a few years specifically to try to bolster our image. The parks went bankrupt, but in his tenure he took parks that were bleeding $200 mil + per year and made them essentially break even. The "success" of the chain now and their ability to build big rides again has more to do with bankruptcy wiping out a ton of their debt, and the parks having been improved so drastically during his administration. It may not have been the best for enthusiasts, but it was the best for the chain.

 

Re: Disney has Eisner. At the end, Eisner (or perhaps Eisner's team) started doing some strange stuff, but it's hard to deny the huge success he had for years. MGM was a smash hit, he made huge strides in the Orlando hotels, he forged partnerships with the parks for Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and so on. At the end, yeah - not as hot. But in the beginning, he was amazing.

 

Just on thing I'll toss out there for now...

 

Disney parks after MGM - For what I just said about Eisner, I think MGM taught Disney a bad lesson. They built it as a half-day park, and it was PACKED from the moment it opened. I remember attending that first year when there was little there, but what was there was really amazing and my family and I were okay waiting in line for like two hours to do the entire backlot / backstage tour at once. It was a cool thing. They spent a lot of time slowly expanding the park to meet demand... but, for whatever reason, I think Disney took this idea as anyone who goes to a Disney park will be happy and they can build a lot less when they make them. I think MGM got by because the "studio" tour was SO long (about three hours total I think) that if you waited for a couple hours, it was still worth it. The few other things there -- Indy show, Great Movie Ride -- were pretty impressive too, and took a while. That's all I remember from that trip, but I remember LOVING it.

 

It seems like they took that concept and said, "Cool! We don't need much and people will come!" Animal Kingdom was a half day park at best when it opened, and while it is beautiful there just wasn't much to do. Disney Studios Paris I went to when it opened, and I was ready to go an hour later. It had like 9 attractions, one of which was a parade and one was a shopping zone. The tram tour was okay-ish, Rock N Roller Coaster was what it is, and they had an Armageddon (sp?) thing that was fun, but not repeatable. California Adventure made me feel the same way. They had shoehorned a few things in there, but not enough to be interesting. It seems like Hong Kong was the same way. They could get by without having to "fix" these parks if they built them better to begin with. In particular, DCA looks incredible now and I hope to go back sometime soon.

 

...fascinating topic overall.

[cfc]

Disney's "half-built" parks plan worked well enough for WDW, mainly because of the "captive" nature of the audience in Florida. Once you're on the Disney property, it's a bit of a pain to get out. Their mistake was in applying the same plan elsewhere (and they're paying the price now by paying big bucks to build up DCA, the Paris Studios park, and Hong Kong Disney).

[Bryce]

Dueling Dragons not dueling.

[Rai Fox]

Dueling Dragons not dueling.

 

I'm gonna put the blame for that one about 10% on the park, 40% on the insurance companies, and 50% on the piece of half-sentient trash that though it would be amusing to throw rocks at people on the other coaster and cost someone their eye.

[ArundelHigh Coasters]

Dueling Dragons not dueling.

 

I'm gonna put the blame for that one about 10% on the park, 40% on the insurance companies, and 50% on the piece of half-sentient trash that though it would be amusing to throw rocks at people on the other coaster and cost someone their eye.

 

 

It's definatly 100% the riders fault. The park can't control it when guests decide to bring objects on the ride, and throw them. What is so fun about hurting people?, I just can't beleive someone actually brought rocks on the ride, and THREW them!!, that's terrible. The park should not be blamed when someone irresponsible was trusted to go on a roller coaster by themselves. They can't check rider's pockets for rocks before the ride, and they couldn't control what happened either. If someone stab's someone at a grocery store, is it at the fault of the store owner?, no, it's not. Same thing applies to this situation, when someone throw's rocks in the middle of a ride, the park couldn't control it, and it's not their fault. To prevent anything like that from happening again, it occured to them they had to discontinue dueling the coasters because not everyone is mature enough to handle dueling coasters, which furthermore does not make it a stupid move, the stupid move was the move the rider made.

[Rai Fox]

Dueling Dragons not dueling.

 

I'm gonna put the blame for that one about 10% on the park, 40% on the insurance companies, and 50% on the piece of half-sentient trash that though it would be amusing to throw rocks at people on the other coaster and cost someone their eye.

 

 

It's definatly 100% the riders fault. The park can't control it when guests decide to bring objects on the ride, and throw them. What is so fun about hurting people?, I just can't beleive someone actually brought rocks on the ride, and THREW them!!, that's terrible. The park should not be blamed when someone irresponsible was trusted to go on a roller coaster by themselves. They can't check rider's pockets for rocks before the ride, and they couldn't control what happened either. If someone stab's someone at a grocery store, is it at the fault of the store owner?, no, it's not. Same thing applies to this situation, when someone throw's rocks in the middle of a ride, the park couldn't control it, and it's not their fault. To prevent anything like that from happening again, it occured to them they had to discontinue dueling the coasters because not everyone is mature enough to handle dueling coasters, which furthermore does not make it a stupid move, the stupid move was the move the rider made.

 

I agree with the vast majority of what you're saying, but I'm not blaming the park for what happened. I put some blame on the park because I don't think stopping the rides from dueling was the way to handle the situation. It was the rider's fault; that was assault ending in serious injury. But it wasn't the coaster to blame, and they didn't stop any other dueling coasters from dueling when it could have happened just as easily on any one of them. The coaster was the scene, nothing more. Sick people that want to hurt someone else are going to do it no matter what; the only thing ruining the coaster accomplished was to take away one of its best features from its fans; almost certainly done to appease the ridiculous US insurance companies (which, to be fully fair, shifts some of the blame to the public as well, because the insurance agencies are partially so insane because of the sue-crazy US mindset...).

[ArundelHigh Coasters]

Dueling Dragons not dueling.

 

I'm gonna put the blame for that one about 10% on the park, 40% on the insurance companies, and 50% on the piece of half-sentient trash that though it would be amusing to throw rocks at people on the other coaster and cost someone their eye.

 

 

It's definatly 100% the riders fault. The park can't control it when guests decide to bring objects on the ride, and throw them. What is so fun about hurting people?, I just can't beleive someone actually brought rocks on the ride, and THREW them!!, that's terrible. The park should not be blamed when someone irresponsible was trusted to go on a roller coaster by themselves. They can't check rider's pockets for rocks before the ride, and they couldn't control what happened either. If someone stab's someone at a grocery store, is it at the fault of the store owner?, no, it's not. Same thing applies to this situation, when someone throw's rocks in the middle of a ride, the park couldn't control it, and it's not their fault. To prevent anything like that from happening again, it occured to them they had to discontinue dueling the coasters because not everyone is mature enough to handle dueling coasters, which furthermore does not make it a stupid move, the stupid move was the move the rider made.

 

I agree with the vast majority of what you're saying, but I'm not blaming the park for what happened. I put some blame on the park because I don't think stopping the rides from dueling was the way to handle the situation. It was the rider's fault; that was assault ending in serious injury. But it wasn't the coaster to blame, and they didn't stop any other dueling coasters from dueling when it could have happened just as easily on any one of them. The coaster was the scene, nothing more. Sick people that want to hurt someone else are going to do it no matter what; the only thing ruining the coaster accomplished was to take away one of its best features from its fans; almost certainly done to appease the ridiculous US insurance companies (which, to be fully fair, shifts some of the blame to the public as well, because the insurance agencies are partially so insane because of the sue-crazy US mindset...).

 

 

^ I guess your right about that. I swear, they are going to eventually need to take a test to see if you are eligible maturity-wise to ride roler coasters. They should call it the "Riding Liscense," lol. I get where your comming from, there could have been other choices made, but for the sake of guests safety, stoping the dueling untill an idea was found would have been a great idea.

[goatdan]

Disney's "half-built" parks plan worked well enough for WDW, mainly because of the "captive" nature of the audience in Florida. Once you're on the Disney property, it's a bit of a pain to get out. Their mistake was in applying the same plan elsewhere (and they're paying the price now by paying big bucks to build up DCA, the Paris Studios park, and Hong Kong Disney).

 

I don't think it even worked that well for Animal Kingdom. AK didn't have attendance issues that DCA, Paris Studios and Hong Kong had, but there is a reason that they closed SO much earlier than all the other parks and it isn't because of the animals. Disney makes a TON of money through food and merch sales, and having a park close at 5pm regularly doesn't help those numbers at all. They tried to fix it first with quick fixes like the dinoland junk, then tried a bigger fix with Everest that did a little but not a ton (similar to TZ:TOT at DCA), and will soon be spending TONS to build Pandora to try to keep people there.

 

I wonder if Disney has figured this out, and if any future parks will be full-day at opening...