Dinosaurs and Boats

Why can't they just combine both?

It's already a done deal. Cedar Point has the park planned years in advance. That's a question you have to take up with planning and development!

Ah, but park management have also proven to be rather flexible in the application of their planned development. See: deferral of Shoot the Rapids by one season, its replacement with Starlite Experience during the immediately prior off-season, usage of Geauga Lake kiddie flats in the new Planet Snoopy (following GL's closure the previous season), and so on.

The point is, if the park wanted to do something like that, they easily could do so at this point in time. Not that there's any evidence that they want to.

Don't forget Ocean Motion's announcement that it would be leaving, but it came back better than ever.

TwistedWicker77 said:
It's already a done deal. Cedar Point has the park planned years in advance. That's a question you have to take up with planning and development!

I would have to disagree with you. I think Dinosaurs Alive was planned after Kings Island's success with the attraction.

I have come to peace with Paddlewheel sailing off into the sunset. It was only a shell of what it once was anyway. My children would never have had the same experience I did as a child on it.

I also have relatively high hopes that quality family attraction will be coming in the next few seasons.

While not a ride, DA certainly is something the family can do together.

We can only hope.

It is my understanding that DA at Cedar Point was in the works before KI opened last uear. So, I don't think how well KI's did had anything to do with CP getting it too. However, if KI's was a flop, I would think there would still have been an opportunity to change the plans for CP.

coolkid said:

TwistedWicker77 said:
It's already a done deal. Cedar Point has the park planned years in advance. That's a question you have to take up with planning and development!

I would have to disagree with you. I think Dinosaurs Alive was planned after Kings Island's success with the attraction.

Well, it takes a lot more planning than you think to place such an attraction that will weave through Millennium's supports, trees, and around the island. Cedar Point already knew it was going to be a big success because they are only spending $1million on DA, while charging $5 a person. It's easily going to be a money maker for the park whether we like it or not.

I am sad the boats are gone!I hope the Dinosaurs will be fun for families and ones that don't ride the coasters and thrill rides!

I wonder how much of the $5 Cedar Point gets. From what I understand, the dino company is assuming a lot of the costs.

From my understanding, Cedar Point has a 7 year "lease" with the company. The company comes to the park and installs the dinosaurs at the $1million cost, while the park makes profit off of it after the $1million is paid off (which shouldn't take long at $5 a person). I'm also sure there are some hidden costs we don't know about which will result in the cost to be higher, but once again, this is from my understanding.

So, as I've stated before, with the small investments CP has made in the park such as:

Shoot the Rapids - $10.5million (2010)
Windseeker - $5million (2011)
Dino Alive - $1million (2012)

That equals $16.5million in 3 years, which is still $8.5million less than Millennium Force, TTD, and Maverick. Let's just get through 2012 without the complaints and see what 2013 has in store for us. By looking at these approximate figures, it looks like something big should be coming soon (not to raise hopes)

8.5 less than MF back when it was built. MF would be significantly more today than it was in 1999-2000. I suppose to some extent it's all relative.

Assuming costs are continuously rising, the amount of money they're spending now is even less in relation to past projects.

I'm not sure if this is an accurate comparison. But, using this inflation calculator, here is the cost of projects if they were built in 2010:

Millennium Force $31,332,575.69

Top Thrill Dragster $29,554,815.25

Maverick $22,058,180.93

3 million invested in 1969 $17,636,608.34

Raptor $16,696,316.26

Mantis $16,502,243.01

Avalanche Run $14,792,127.22

Magnum XL-200 $13,884,906.17

2 million invested in 1967 $12,913,148.38

2 million invested in 1968 $12,392,656.80

Mean Streak $11,852,388.97

Gemini $11,234,981.20

Wicked Twister $10,841,888.43

Oceana Stadium $7,833,285.56

Iron Dragon $7,573,994.16

Corkscrew $6,626,639.74

Soak City $6,366,229.48

Avalanche run, thought I was the only person who still called it that..Actually kinda miss it outside.. ya, they do spend a lot then charge more.

Well the money was spent on Avalanche Run. I believe they only spent a couple hundred thousand on the conversion in 1990.

Right! But I wasn't going to factor the inflated costs when I was mentioning the prices. I was just simply stating the cost of the attractions at the time they were built. Regardless, we haven't seen an addition to the park that is more than $15million since 2007.

I'll bet you donuts to dinosaurs that the kind of investment we've seen in the park in the last four years--or really, six out of the last seven--is the new norm for the park.

The park is mature in its state of development. And unless something magical happens to reverse population and demographic trends in Michigan and northern Ohio, it will be very difficult to significantly expand the customer base to continue to make the kinds of investments that we got used to in the 80's, 90's, and early 2000's.

It's quite likely that the Point will receive an occasional banner year investment, as we last saw with Maverick. But if you're expecting to see more than one or two of those a decade, I suspect you're going to be sorely disappointed. And any large new ride that comes in, you can almost certainly expect to see some other ride(s) be retired in the process.

Welcome to the future. You may each receive your complimentary serving of Dippin' Dots at the end of this post.

I think you are absolutely right. Major E-ticket attractions will likely become increasingly rare at Cedar Point for the foreseeable future, and that's not necessarily a bad thing if it means a variety of small improvements to the overall park experience. Perhaps the park will realize how it doesn't "need" to build a major coaster every few years, and it appears they might realize this already.

Jason Hammond said:
It is my understanding that DA at Cedar Point was in the works before KI opened last uear.

That's what I had originally thought as well. But my current, semi-educated theory is that the decision to bring Dinosaurs Alive to Cedar Point was made after the park opened, and what was to be Project 2012 is now Project 2013.