Snake River Expedition Closing?

My guess is that the park does see the value in the museum. It just so happens that the value they see in it is much different than what people on this site see it as.

Every stinkin' time I ventured in the place and attempted to play that awesome looking Baseball game, it wouldn't work! Same with that machine that predicted my prospects for love. Laughing Sal looked on mockingly. Well, they did have a bunch of teacups behind glass over by the Merry-go-Round horse that had plenty of mouse poop around them.

I say all that in jest as I enjoyed the artifacts, pictures, maps, gizmo's, and talking to Ken.

If the argument is: “the general public vs. enthusiasts” for the billionth time with regard to the Town Hall project then that’s a pretty weak stand to take. If there had been no value in the project for general park visitors why bother putting any time or effort into it to begin with?

There’s value in preserving history no matter how any one person feels about it. Would a new town hall opening create a mass spike in attendance? No. But neither does introducing fruit sippers for (checks notes) about five operating days out of an entire season either.

I think the problem with opening the town hall back up, is that they completely gutted the building before the remodel. I don't know the exact timing, but I'd guess they gutted it right before COVID ramped up, and they paused the project while pausing the rest of the spending they could. I'd bet had they not gutted the building, they would have just opened it back up as is.

The Farmhouse helped with congestion in that area quite a bit, but as others have mentioned, it was sure nice having a place you could stop in for a while, rest, and cool off. The previous town hall was proof that we don't need a lot, but anything is better than the "shack" they have guest services stuffed in.

I wouldn't even think about it in terms of history or whether or not it contributes to profit. What we're talking about is stuff to do, and everything from roller coasters to walk-throughs to live entertainment to a museum are in that category. It's short sighted to believe that anything not a roller coaster or large ride doesn't contribute to the experience, which is what your ticket ultimately is paying for. But what did something like the museum really cost per day? A hundred bucks in pay to the guy sitting in there, the electricity, and some modest care in the off-season? As I recall, they had a turnstile, so they knew how many people entered. On a cost per capita basis, I'm sure it was low.

Ouimet talked a bit about setting up future generations to be regular visitors a dozen years ago. If you look at what was going on back then, it was a lot more than just Gatekeeper. There were so many little things that rounded out the place. Having a 2-year-old at the time, I totally understood what he meant, because as a first time parent I looked at the park completely differently.

Even now, people are shocked to find out that living next door to WDW, we got to Epcot more than any other park, despite having the fewest "rides." Why? Because of the live entertainment, the food festivals, and yes, the occasional ride on Guardians (my favorite roller coaster, probably). No park can separate me from my money like Epcot can. To argue, "Yeah, but that's Disney," is a cop-out. I'm not going there for the IP, I'm going for all of the things that Cedar Fair seems to be deemphasizing.

There’s something to be said that for my family and I, we go to Universal several times a year every year, (we are annual passholders) but stopped going to Cedar Point and no longer have passes for much the same reason as Jeff describes the Epcot experience. (The Wizarding World will never get old for us). Universal isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it sure offers far more bang for your buck over Cedar Point. CityWalk at night alone is great for my wife and I. We just came back from Mardi Gras and had a blast.

Edit: once Epic opens next summer we will be visiting more frequently than we do now.

Not trying to derail this thread so I'll leave it at this but yeah, Epic Universe is going to be a game changer. Very excited for this!

mgou58:

If the argument is: “the general public vs. enthusiasts” for the billionth time with regard to the Town Hall project then that’s a pretty weak stand to take.

To be clear, my question wasn't limited to Town Hall.

Fair enough. I just am looking at it from the perspective that’s there’s been a clear shift of priorities since leadership has changed, and I think right now there’s a lot of uncertainty as to what direction they’re headed. Based off of what I see right now, they’re going backwards and not forwards. Time will tell I guess. But it is truly a shame that the entire FF and associated investments were abandoned entirely.

I am not trying to defend the elimination of the museum, nor the removal of any of the other non-thrill attractions. But I have to believe that the park has some sort of method to their madness. I just can't believe that they are so short-sighted that saving a few bucks a day by not opening a museum will pay off at the bottom line.

Based on their moves in recent years I wholeheartedly believe that's their strategy.

Cut, cut, cut, show "improved" revenue, deploy golden parachute as they abandon ship.

Cedar Fair just built a beautiful, thoughtful museum from scratch at Worlds of Fun last year (that will also be open this season). For Cedar Point being the "flagship," it is surprising that they won't resurrect the museum project for that park.

Normally you don't go private equity model until you're taken over by private equity

I have often wondered how much of this comes from Zimmerman and that he came from Paramount and Kings Island. Cedar Point's closest rival.

Tim Fisher (second in command) also seems to be a problem. He ran the Village Roadshow parks in Australia into the ground by using a similar cheap season pass strategy. Pretty sure he is also a former Paramount guy that got canned when Cedar Fair bought Paramount.

Shades said he believes the park has a method to their madness. I'd argue that "the park" probably has very little to do with this anymore. From everything I've gathered, it has become command and control from Charlotte in recent years and the local park management has very little autonomy. The bean counters are in charge now and they seem to think no one will notice their cuts.

I enjoy making money on my investments and I recognize that it can't always be about the feelings, but they are running amusement parks. Their continued success literally depends on people feeling like they had a good time, creating memories, wanting to share the place with other friends and family. If the place isn't special, people will find something else that IS special to them and they will spend their money there. Then all of those cute Power BI widgets these jerk offs are staring at in Charlotte instead of being out in the parks won't look so pretty.

Someone mentioned turnstiles in passing. I think in relation to Town Hall. Reminded me of a small but simple example of the current Cedar Fair priorities.

One of the current major rides at the park has had broken turnstiles for awhile now. A few years now I think. They spin but don’t actually count up. Instead of fixing or even buying a couple of turnstiles, the powers at be have said no, just use a hand counter. So instead of the tried and true method of automatically counting people in the background, the staff has to count every rider by hand after the boarding process is completed. I don’t want to say what ride, but doing this all manually adds a not insignificant amount of time to each dispatch over the course of an hour and day. Not that we really needed anything more than iROC to show that efficiency was no longer a priority for Cedar Fair, it do believe it further demonstrates their penny-pinching and priorities.

MDOmnis:

Their continued success literally depends on people feeling like they had a good time, creating memories, wanting to share the place with other friends and family. If the place isn't special, people will find something else that IS special to them and they will spend their money there.

Quoting just because this is more succinct than what I said earlier, and it is what the business is. If your entire approach to growth and improving EBITDA is framing everything in transactions, you're doing it wrong. Connect with people, and you will connect with their money on a long-term, repeating basis. Optimize for the transaction today, and you will lose.

Mr. Potato:

They spin but don’t actually count up. Instead of fixing or even buying a couple of turnstiles, the powers at be have said no, just use a hand counter.

To play devils advocate, a hand-counter is much cheaper than a new turnstile and could be more accurate. If you don't monitor the turnstile, throughout the day you will have kids spinning it constantly, adding few hundred extra riders. A much more efficient, and accurate way to count is to just count the total number of empty seats on each train/cabin/vehicle each cycle.

I wouldn't count the empty seats. I would count the seats with people in them ;)

That's the goal, but you can still arrive at that number by doing

number of cycles * number of seats and then subtracting the total number of empties.

Less clicking on your tally counter since usually the number of empties is going to be less than the number of filled seats.