timetrial3141592 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Just read in the globe that Santa's Land is closing for good. It had one credit, I believe. Not much was said in the article, but if anyone has memories of this park, feel free to share them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I've never been to Santa's Land, but here's the story from the Boston Globe: Santa’s Land to close after more than a half centuryBy David Filipov | Globe Staff December 17, 2011 Save PUTNEY, Vt. -- After 54 years, Santa’s Land, a Christmas theme park that has hosted generations of children and their families, is closing Sunday. The owners, Timothy and Leslie Wells, say the high cost of gasoline, the overhead, and the reduced number of visitors because of the recession are the main reasons why they are shutting the park. The Wells, both Vermont natives, recall coming here as children and bought the place eight years ago. “This weekend is really gonna hurt,” said Leslie Wells, who operates the snack shop. Another reason behind the Land’s hard times might be that theme parks just aren’t that popular anymore. Chris Harlow used to work here as a boy in the early 1970s and later operated the train, Santa’s Land Express. “I came here for the nostalgia,” he said. “Kids have other ways to entertain themselves these days.” http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2011/12/17/santa-land-close-after-more-than-half-century/gkLuryPHGhI5Y2ayeCZsQO/story.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gisco Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Never heard of this park. There are probably dozens like this across the country, just not with a Santa theme. The park really is for little kids. Looks like it would be a great park for a family with little kids to spend a few hours. One of the problems I see is that it is open on weekends in December and it is 17 degrees right now. A little cold for little kids. Santa's Land Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beatle11 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Sad to see a place go after being open more than 50 years. I'd never heard of this place. The Santa's Land website doesn't mention any coaster and there's nothing listed on RCDB at all for Vermont so I assume they probably didn't have a credit. Nonetheless, 50+ years of history will be tough for those in the community to let go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chroniq Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 Christmas is ruined Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VinTheAttendant Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I don't think there is a credit at Santa's Land. Are you sure you're not confusing it with Santa's Village (one state over in New Hampshire) or Santa's Land (the one in North Carolina)? Either way, it's always sad to see little amusement parks like these go. There's just a certain charm to them. Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 (edited) Here's what kind of bothers me about a story like this.... After 54 years, Santa’s Land, a Christmas theme park that has hosted generations of children and their families, is closing Sunday. The owners, Timothy and Leslie Wells, bought the place eight years ago. Ok, here's my thoughts on this.... Putting their "excuses" of "the high cost of gasoline", "the recession", "theme parks just aren’t that popular anymore" aside for a moment, let's just have a look at their business based on what I can tell from the website... - First off, the website is dated...even more so than TPR's! The park is billed as a family and kids destination, yet they offer zero information on their website about booking a kids birthday party, group outings or anything like that at all. - The operating hours are very strange. Not open in June at all, and Saturday, Sunday, and Monday July 1st through Labor day, and then weekends in October, November, and December. - There are no events to speak of listed on the site at all. - They are getting $10 per person, and practically BEGGING people to come to the park instead of the "big box stores" during the holiday. Have any of you been to a shopping mall, Target, or any other theme park over this winter? They have been **PACKED**. Is there a 'recession'??? You'd almost not know it looking at how much money is exchanging hands at these places. As for "theme parks not being popular anymore?" Who are they trying to kid??? You can't survive off of JUST word of mouth these days! You have to do stuff to get people to come to your business. Go out there and get exposure for your park. Even their Facebook page was practically deserted having only a total of 7 posts between September 3rd and December 18th. And three of them were in December about the park closing. For a Christmas themed park, October - December should be your you're Tweeting and FB posting a LOT! Here's a tip, when you have very limited operations between October - December, try TELLING SOMEONE!!! This is 2011. You need to reach out to people via social networking, promotions, community activities, etc, to get yourself more noticed. Otherwise every year you're just going to fade away a little more and more until, guess what? You're gone. The park managed to survive for 46 years, and within 8 years of these people buying it, it's closing it's doors. Hmmm.... Could it be that these people just had no business buying and running a theme park to begin with? I'm not sure. But what I can derive from looking at their website is that they are probably getting KILLED by all these other "kids party" options popping up lately; they don't appear to present any kind of special events to their community to bring locals back to the park; and they are open so infrequently that it's no wonder why all the responses in this thread have been "I've never even heard of this place!" I kind of wish there was a "Kitchen NIghtmares" for theme parks, because this place just SCREAMS "Gordon Ramsey Makeover!" Sometimes "common sense" isn't so common in business, and you need someone to step in and tell you things that you should at least try doing to get customers to pay attention to you. When you look at the website, and there is more information about the parks past "history" than there is upcoming events or booking a party for your kids, it's no wonder why this park is about to fade into it's own history. I know this has been a fairly long and drawn out post, but it really irks me when you hear people try to blame the recession, gas prices, and the one that just makes me laugh "theme parks aren't popular anymore", when really, I kind of get the feeling the people that bought the park just didn't know what they were doing, or how keep up with current trends to promote the place. It's sad, really. And yes, I realize there is probably more "behind the scenes" that went into their closing, and I'm totally just second guesting here, but some of these things just seem to be obvious "low hanging fruit" that should have been at least explored, don't you think? People are out there spending plenty of money, they just aren't doing it at that business anymore, and I can't see where they park owners actually did anything about it. --Robb "End Rant." Alvey Edited December 18, 2011 by robbalvey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 ^ I knew there was a reason I married you. And I love your idea for a Gordon Ramsay style Amusement Park show...we would totally own that and kill it!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sspaz1000 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 ^ I vote for you guys being the Gordon Ramsey's of the amusement park world. I agree with what Robb was saying about the social media. It's 2011, you have to have some sort of online presence. I know if I like something I'm not going to go call someone and be like OMG this place is awesome. I'm tweeting it. It's a same that a park has to close. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
megamatt Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I used to drive by this place every time I went to my Great Aunt's house. From what I remember, the front of it looked run down and trashy. It had one of those hand-cranked kiddie ferris wheels, and I remember it either being rusty or a rust-red. I also remember seeing like, 5 cars in the entire parking lot, and it only had about 30 spaces. Looking back, it might have been a Mangle Kiddie Wheel, but I could have SWORN that I saw a big, black metal crank at it's centerpoint. It had 4 or 5 spokes, and each had a small seating bench. I think it was open. About 7-9 feet tall, at most. To be honest, I'm surprised it lasted this long. I never saw it advertize once, and I only found their website after scouring the internet. Perhaps if they had tried to modernize, like Santa's Village, Story Land or Six Gun City, they would have survived. As for the credit, I could have sworn that at one point they had a Little Dipper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
O-Town77 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 I'm always sad when any park closes. Especially one that had been in business for 50+ years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timetrial3141592 Posted December 19, 2011 Author Share Posted December 19, 2011 I don't think there is a credit at Santa's Land. Are you sure you're not confusing it with Santa's Village (one state over in New Hampshire) or Santa's Land (the one in North Carolina)? Either way, it's always sad to see little amusement parks like these go. There's just a certain charm to them. Thanks for sharing! You're right. I was thinking of Santa's Village in New Hampshire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 Looks like we do have a trip report from this park: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=57480&p=965910 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 This was a quote from roadsideamerica.com about the place... If you don't know about Santa's Land USA, don't feel bad. You won't find a brochure for it easily in Vermont (you might instead see flyers for Santa's North Pole in NY or Santa's Village in NH). The official Vermont Attractions Map does not list it. It has no billboards. Even the publicity material for Santa's Land USA's home town, Putney, VT -- which carries glowing descriptions of local businesses like Basketville and the Putney Food Co-op -- fails to mention Santa's Land USA. The only reason we even knew about this place is that one of us visited it in 1985. Goes back to what I said earlier, I want to feel bad about this place closing, but it's sorta hard to when the owners cleary did nothing to even promote it's existence in their own town. And they blame "gas prices?" Perhaps they should have bought a tank of gas and driven some brochures over to the city and states welcome center. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wumbology Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 So I'm not a huge poster over here (mostly a lurker) but the one trip report I ever posted on here was from Santa's Land last October. You guys should know, this park is literally run by only a husband and wife and three or four of their closest friends. You enter and exit through the gift shop, and the woman in there is one of the most friendly people you'll ever meet. The wife runs the bakery and the husband drives the train- then they have friends running the snack bar and the book shop, and their mechanic friend running all four kiddie rides. Being that the park's only employees are elderly Vermonters, it's surprised they even knew what Facebook is. At least they kind of tried. They definitely could do a lot for themselves if they were to get someone to help them with that. The current owners did just buy the park eight years ago, but the park was apparently in disgustingly bad shape before that. There's a trip report from Roadside America from this time. When we rode the train, the owner told us about how the previous owner (I believe the fourth in it's time) was terrible and let the park go to ruin, and abused the animals. The park improved a lot under the new owners. Oh wait, I just remembered: I don't know about the "recession" and "theme parks not being popular anymore" but Vermont is in a really bad place right now. I'm there every weekend (including a few hours ago,) about forty minutes south of Putney. A lot of the southern part of the state was ravaged by Hurricane Irene, and now they haven't had any real snow yet to get the ski season started. All that on top of an already bad market can't be good for this park. I wonder how much damage they got from the storm in August. All in all, the owners are getting old and don't really know what they're doing running a theme park, (if you even want to call it that.) Being that the park has been open since 1957 and there have been four owners before them, I'd like to think there's still a future for this park. Hopefully the State of Vermont might give them some help, and someone will come in and take over. It would be nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 ^ I hear ya. Not saying the people aren't nice or the place hasn't improved, but if you don't want your business to fail, you HAVE to put forth the effort and do something about. Just saying "I don't know much about Facebook, but at least I tried" gets you an A for effort, but an F for foreclosure. I hate to see little places like this go as well, and my comments were purely such that if any business owners out there who happen to read them might put a few thoughts into their head. But then agian, if they don't know about the internetz, how will it help? --Robb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
canobie#1 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 It had it comming. But it is too bad because it is an older park. The only santa themed park now is my second favorite park in the world. SANTA'S VILLAGE N.H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larrygator Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 (edited) I've been to Santa's Village and Story Land in New Hampshire and they a fun little parks. This place looks nothing like their quality Edited December 19, 2011 by larrygator Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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