I can say I like Holiday World better than Cedar Point! But that doesn't mean it's better.
SDC IS better than Six Flags Great America in every way other than coasters. The theming is immaculate, the food is way better, the shows are better, and the flat rides trounce Great America's. SDC's coasters are still good, and I rate Time Traveler very high on my rankings.
When compared, Silver Dollar City's dry park beats Great America's dry park by miles. With no doubt in my mind. But I guess that's just me.
There are a total of 7 coasters at Silver Dollar and 2 are family! How can the park possibly beat ours? I'll be the first to admit our park needs TLC in terms of maintenance and the food operations are slow, but our collection of coasters is top tier easily!
As for shows at a park, that's not the reason most people visit an amusement park.
And to be honest most food at amusement parks is comparable in my experience (even at Cedar Point and Dollywood). The only differentiation is speed of delivery and service.
I actually like Kings Island more than Cedar Point ! I think Kings has a better atmosphere, theming and feel to it, and Kings ride collection is top tier.
And Kings Island easily over Silver Dollar and Dollywood
But this whole debate is purely subjective.
Again, I could opine that Holiday World is "better" than Cedar Point, but that doesn't make it so.
Lol..the ridiculous SF Fanboy Homer post would be hilarious of not so ridiculous.
1) There is more to parks than coasters that make them good or great. SDC is a better park than SFGAm. Maybe is SF Corporate could figure that out that there is more than rides to parks they wouldn't be getting lapped by SEAS & Cedaer Fair. They have been absolutely floundering since 2017 not able to produce oranic growth. The issues started well before 2017.
2) The notion that all theme park food is comparable & that speed is the only difference is absolutely nonsensical. Dollywood, SDC & Cedar Fair are far beyond the stuff SF serves as food. You sre lucky to find 1 or 2 half decent places to eat at SF parks, Cedar Fair & Herschend Parks have a multitude & are constantly adding more every year.
Last edited by Sven18 on May 8th, 2023, 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
2023 Q1 call has dropped today, here are some highlights from the call:
-Guest satisfaction is up -season pass sales trends are improving. as of 4/30/23 the pass sales have doubled -highest 1q revenue in company history -attendance down from last year 1q due to unfavorable weather
-attendance for quarter 1.6 million, down 5% -180k lost due to weather which if not present would have increased attendance by 6% -Total guest spending up by $5 on average, or 7% -3.2 million current passholders, don by 11%, however, unit sales for passes are up from last quarter -Deferred revenue grew by 18% in current quarter -Total capital expenditure: $25 million, full year estimated to be $128 million for new attractions and improving infrastructure -2022, attendance trends similar to 2021 attendance trends until summer 22 when it dropped.
-Growing consumer demand for local auto form of entertainment -New app to launch in June (To improve gust convince for food and flash pass) -Extra seating, air conditioning, flowers, and VIP lounges, added to all parks to improve guest satisfaction. -2023 will be used to improv waterpark experience with new wristbands. -Restructuring maintenance to decrease ride downtime
-New pilot pricing program -Increase in events and festivals to be added to parks
Some time, on way to successful, first of steps of all of the steps to being successful steps are hardest of all of the steps to successing.
HCF wrote:2023 Q1 call has dropped today, here are some highlights from the call:
-Guest satisfaction is up -season pass sales trends are improving. as of 4/30/23 the pass sales have doubled -highest 1q revenue in company history -attendance down from last year 1q due to unfavorable weather
-attendance for quarter 1.6 million, down 5% -180k lost due to weather which if not present would have increased attendance by 6% -Total guest spending up by $5 on average, or 7% -3.2 million current passholders, don by 11%, however, unit sales for passes are up from last quarter -Deferred revenue grew by 18% in current quarter -Total capital expenditure: $25 million, full year estimated to be $128 million for new attractions and improving infrastructure -2022, attendance trends similar to 2021 attendance trends until summer 22 when it dropped.
-Growing consumer demand for local auto form of entertainment -New app to launch in June (To improve gust convince for food and flash pass) -Extra seating, air conditioning, flowers, and VIP lounges, added to all parks to improve guest satisfaction. -2023 will be used to improv waterpark experience with new wristbands. -Restructuring maintenance to decrease ride downtime
-New pilot pricing program -Increase in events and festivals to be added to parks
Selim is very good at putting out what sounds good, but is actually bad in context &/or to YoY comparisons. The entire call was full of them, just will go over a few.
highest 1q revenue in company history Revenue was up not because of actual growth, but from accounting The increase in guest spending per capita was driven by higher revenue from memberships beyond the initial 12-month commitment period, which is recognized monthly. Essentially the last group of memberships purchased prior to them being discontinued turned beyond 12 months. That raised admission per caps by $5 & in park spend by $1. Take out the membership accounting of $6 combined x 1.6M attendance revenue drops 9.6M. Revenue was up 4M, so w/o the accounting revenue dropped 5.611M
season pass sales trends are improving. as of 4/30/23 the pass sales have doubled Active Pass Base is still deteriorating badly 2021 4.1M 2022 3.6M 2023 3.2M They had to cut prices again & were running platinum free upgrade to Diamond for awhile & now are running Gold free upgrade to Platinum.
Deferred revenue grew by 18% in current quarter Saying it grew over the quarter is pretty meaningless, that just means they sold passes in Q1, which is what is expected. Deferred Revenue was down 33M compared to 2022(which was down 60M from 2021)
Capex Q1 of 25M was actually down from 29M in 2022. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the overall 2023 Capex is significantly lower than he claimed, he's done this several times since being CEO on other things. Throws out a number & it never happens. He also does that with initiatives & upgrades. Literally most of the stuff he claimed would happen with in park improvements never occurred & the ones that did were done poorly/cheap looking &/or executed at a subpar level.
Coaster Justin wrote:I don't know the last restaurant Michigan's Adventure added
The retort when SF is shown or known to be subpar, pretend the chain Is MIAdv. FYI, MI Adv is far better than SF lowest park of Great Escape, the park closes at 6pm in prime season because nobody hardly goes.
You're welcome to list all the food improvements at SF recently, short list & still lw quality. I can than list all the improvements at a multitude of Cedar Fair parks that are high quality. Selim is still pinning BS anecdotes about how he tastes burgers & pizza while Cedar Fair is adding restaurants with smoked brisket, steak, rotisserie chicken, dry-rubbed pork loin, slow-roasted turkey breast, carved rotisserie sandwiches, Moroccan Chicken, Glazed Pork Shoulder, Shrimp Skewers, Funnel Cake Battered Fried Shrimp, ribs, burnt ends & other BBQ, etc.. There is literally no comparison to the food quality at Cedar Fair to Six Flags
As someone who has seen SFGAm over the period of 40 years and been to all the SF parks and most every major park around the world, i'd say this.
Up until the year 2000 or so SFGAm had a great reputation in Chicagoland. It was one of the best parks in the country, almost always really crowded with long lines, regularly built world class coasters including the world's tallest and fastest coaster twice (Eagle and Shockwave) and got prototypes like Batman and Raging Bull, and had good operations. Once Premier Parks took over Six Flags it got a reputation for being dirty, poorly maintained and operated, ripoff policies, and ever since then Great America became more of a place people tolerated because they wanted to ride roller coasters than a place that people really looked forward to going (that goes for all SF parks).
And as far as i'm concerned Selim Bassoul has done nothing to change that. The parks maintenance/operations aren't any better now than they were in 2001, 2005, 2010, 2015, 2020 etc. You could certainly make an argument they are even worse as the rides never ever used to run 1 train in the up until the mid 2010s.
Coaster Justin wrote:Before Buccaneer Battle and Dare Devil Dive has there ever been a time when a ride was being removed but it was still completely there?
Maybe Trailblazer?
The mostly forgotten Bugs Bunny National Park and it's rides, the Space Shuttle thing that I can't recall the name of.
"I've been told that some part of every wish will be heard but lately I lost sight of the truth in those words."
Yeah, Power Dive stood for some time, the control booth for The Edge was still there next to power Dive until it was torn down, the main support for Trailblazer stood for a few years, and then some of the Sky Ride Towers were standing for 20 years after they were removed. Want to say early 00's is when the last one of those came down.
Favorite Wood Coasters: The Voyage, Ravine Flyer II, Thunderhead, Balder Favorite Steel: Voltron Nevera, Steel Vengeance, Expedition GeForce, Olympia Looping Parks visited: 232, Coasters Ridden: Steel: 894, Wood: 179, Total: 1073
HCF wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuLam6U1Tak For all interested
---Selim is an unbearable fool. Every time he starts talking he sounds like a sleazy used car salesmen trying to hype nonsense thru the entire prepared remarks. The non scripted stuff is just as bad when he went off on an asinine anecdote about SFFT with 11K people at the park.
---The AI hype is a lot of fluff & garbage b/c they just never have & don't want to pay up to staff properly, to have good customer service.
--Active -Pass base is still shrinking year to date comps...Q1 2022 it was 3.6M, 2023 3.2M, 2024 2.9M Claim pass sales up double digits thru April compared to 2023, that just points to how dismal 2023 sales were in Q1. They keep running the free upgrade sale to bolster lagging numbers.
---The one good thing Selim said. When responding about about their new digital loyalty program for SF and its possible incorporation with CF parks.
"I don't know about that. I -- honestly, at this moment, I'm gonna answer one thing that me and Richard Zimmerman have agreed upon. We like to have our parks remain basically autonomous, being able to cater to their local communities. So, we start with something that we've agreed upon.
We're trying to make sure what is best for the guest is first. And if merging the loyalty program is better, we'll make that happen. If it's too complicated and we won't make it happen. So, one thing I love about this merger is that this merger is truly about the guest, and I'll talk about it. We are not, for example, merging anything.
The names are remaining the same. A Cedar Point remains a Cedar Point, it doesn't become Six Flags Cedar Point. Our great adventure remained the same. And I think there is a lot of autonomy of keeping those parks operating very decentralized and operating on its own.
I think they have all different competitors, different communities. They have local competitors from one to another, and we're keeping it very basically fluid and let those parks be run and compete and operate as a stand-alone.
The more this merger is in name & financials & not in operations, culture, etc..the better to not ruin the much better themed, operated, etc... Cedar Fair Parks.
The operational & cultural divide is a gap that isn't easily bridged. Case in point, while Cedar Fair parks have day count down clocks on their website a price increase coming after Memorial Day. SF parks are bringing back a free upgrade where you can get a Diamond pass (access to all parks w/ drink bottle,etc..) for as low as $95, depending on the park. Cedar Fair gold at their lowest park is $99 currently with $100 for passport to get all parks & no drinks are included.
