WDW and Universal. Who wins?

[Evita_W]

Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and a few others are taking over Disney's top spots and they aren't even in Orlando. I think it is going to be a couple of years away, but now that the merger is complete, Six Flags will also dominate

 

[Smugpugmug]

Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and a few others are taking over Disney's top spots and they aren't even in Orlando. I think it is going to be a couple of years away, but now that the merger is complete, Six Flags will also dominate

Six Flags would need to do some MAJOR work in order to compete head to head with Disney. They're not even remotely in the same category of parks and that's okay. They serve their purpose in terms of themed entertainment.

 

[Skywalker3]

Per Minion Blast, it gets points off right from the start by being a stand up ride instead of sit down.Our first ride, queue was long, slow moving, waited an hour, people were not spread out on the belt, like the next person was on the dot next to mine, I couldn't figure out how to pair my gun w app, and I had no idea what I was supposed to be aiming at. BUT, I would like to ride a lot more times, as I love those types of attractions. I love that it doesn't have a height requirement, but I sure wish it had seats/cars like TSMM or Buzz. I don't like/ride Buzz much, but MiB and TSM are in my top favorite rides in their respective parks. Since we'll have express in Oct, will probably try and get a few rides on it, maybe can figure it out. The inside queue is great! lots to look at. (outside queue sucks.)

Will check out Dreamworks land for a few mins when we go in Oct. Kids have totally outgrown all of that, but we love Shrek, Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda, so happy to see those IPs in the park, not at all familiar with Trolls, but seems to be popular. What was there before was certainly not the best, but it sure was fun for the kids when they were too short to ride stuff. I think it serves its purpose just to be a place for little ones to run around a bit. A spinner ride, no height requirement, would've been nice too.

 

[Brian Noble]

Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and a few others are taking over Disney's top spots

According to whom?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Dollywood. But they aren’t really in the same game as Universal/Disney.

 

[lowlight]

Now I think I know what your point really is on this thread, thanks for showing that.

Yup. Like the Frozen projection face animatronic of Disney trolls. We need some solid Navi river animatronic level trolling to make it worth responding to.

 

[Minnie1222]

Dollywood, Silver Dollar City and a few others are taking over Disney's top spots and they aren't even in Orlando. I think it is going to be a couple of years away, but now that the merger is complete, Six Flags will also dominate

If this came from a consumer survey, I want to see the questions that were used and the demographics that took the survey.

 

[Brian Noble]

I love Dollywood.

Speaking of Dollywood and SDC:

Parques Reunidos is exploring a sale of their US properties---and that list includes Kennywood. I would LOVE to see Herschend take over that park! Now that SIX and Cedar Fair have combined, they might not have the appetite for any more, and that pretty much leaves Herschend.

 

[mdmost]

Six Flags isn't going to lift a finger to improve their parks. The original park here in Arlington is a shell of its former self and it's the only game in town until the Universal park opens in Frisco. They don't open until 11am each day and typically close around 9pm. The only time it is worth going to is for Fright Fest in September and October. That's not a company that's interested in improving anything.

 

[Jrb1979]

Six Flags isn't going to lift a finger to improve their parks. The original park here in Arlington is a shell of its former self and it's the only game in town until the Universal park opens in Frisco. They don't open until 11am each day and typically close around 9pm. The only time it is worth going to is for Fright Fest in September and October. That's not a company that's interested in improving anything.

That is going to change with the merger. Cedar Fair is now the main company in control of all parks. Their last shareholders call they talked about getting the Six Flags park up to Cedar Fair standard. They want all parks to be similar to Cedar Point in terms of operations.

In terms of theming they will never be that. They were never meant to be that. IMO that's why some look down on them. They grew up going to these parks when they were highly themed and less focused on coasters.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Six Flags isn't going to lift a finger to improve their parks. The original park here in Arlington is a shell of its former self and it's the only game in town until the Universal park opens in Frisco. They don't open until 11am each day and typically close around 9pm. The only time it is worth going to is for Fright Fest in September and October. That's not a company that's interested in improving anything.

The one in MD has been a dumpster fire for the last 20 years (maybe longer). People would much rather drive longer to go places like Hersheypark, Kings Dominion or even further to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.

 

[Smugpugmug]

The one in MD has been a dumpster fire for the last 20 years (maybe longer). People would much rather drive longer to go places like Hersheypark, Kings Dominion or even further to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg.

I live near Six Flags America and see King's Dominion ads way more often. That park is garbage. Doesn't help that tickets are overpriced for what is on offer.

 

[Brian Noble]

Six Flags isn't going to lift a finger to improve their parks.

Maybe. Cedar Fair and Six Flags merged, effective last month. The company took the Six Flags name, but retained Cedar Fair leadership. The general sentiment among the amusement park enthusiast crowd was that CF overall delivers a better experience than SF. For example:

People would much rather drive longer to go places like [...] Kings Dominion [...].

...Kings Dominion is a legacy Cedar Fair park.

There are already a few small things happening. For example, legacy SF parks stopped adding post-price surcharges.

https://coasterbuzz.com/News/six-flags-drops-surcharges-at-legacy-parks

 

[HokieRaven5]

...Kings Dominion is a legacy Cedar Fair park.

There are already a few small things happening. For example, legacy SF parks stopped adding post-price surcharges.

https://coasterbuzz.com/News/six-flags-drops-surcharges-at-legacy-parks

They should stop charging people admission to Six Flags America in general and pay people to go there.

Also aware that Kings Dominion is a Cedar Fair park, just pointing out that local guests would rather travel elsewhere than go to the closer option.

 

[mdmost]

I'll believe it when I see it. Six Flags over Texas would require a multi-million dollar investment to improve the park. Operations are not its sole issue. Theming and rides that are deteriorating. Restaurants and shops that are barely open. They often can't open rides till well past 30 minutes to an hour after park opening. The only things that keeps us going back are a season pass is super cheap and it's the only game in town. But we get our fill of the place in about 4 hours and we're ready to leave. It's a shell of what I grew up going to and that's not just nostalgia talking.

 

[Smugpugmug]

They should stop charging people admission to Six Flags America in general and pay people to go there.

Also aware that Kings Dominion is a Cedar Fair park, just pointing out that local guests would rather travel elsewhere than go to the closer option.

If you look at recent reviews (within the last 3 months), almost all of them mention the park being dirty, the staff are extremely rude and the food sucks. No one cares about the lack of theming or the coasters. It's the...everything else.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

If you look at recent reviews (within the last 3 months), almost all of them mention the park being dirty, the staff are extremely rude and the food sucks. No one cares about the lack of theming or the coasters. It's the...everything else.

I do wonder if that's more about a hierarchy of needs, if you go into a coffee shop and are treated like dirt, how bad the coffee is becomes secondary in my mind to any human interaction, so maybe that's what's going on here. i could be wrong for sure, i know our Six Flags (New england) is one of the biggest piece of garbage parks i've ever been too, for the kids that work there, and some (not all) of the rides seem sketchy

 

[Smugpugmug]

I do wonder if that's more about a hierarchy of needs, if you go into a coffee shop and are treated like dirt, how bad the coffee is becomes secondary in my mind to any human interaction, so maybe that's what's going on here. i could be wrong for sure, i know our Six Flags (New england) is one of the biggest piece of garbage parks i've ever been too, for the kids that work there, and some (not all) of the rides seem sketchy

The park just sucks and there are plenty of better options in the area. It wouldn't surprise me if it closed permanently as part of weeding out underperformed parks in the new merger.

 

[Brian Noble]

The bones of most SF parks are fine. The upkeep, attention to detail, operations, and customer service issues have been much bigger problems, and those are all correctable. Take SFA (the MD park we are talking about). It's been a minute since I've been there. But my recollection is that it has a decent dry side, including a classic wood (Wild One) and one of the top few hypers (S:RoS). The waterpark side is already the bigger draw--something that is not at all unusual in mixed parks.

Wild One needs some serious love in the form of retracking, everything needs a fresh coat of paint, and the landscaping leaves a lot to be desired. The late opens are a direct consequence of staffing levels--probably not enough maintenance staff to complete the overnight inspections etc. quickly enough and handle problems then. More attention to staff quality and morale (plus a slightly higher pay scale) translates directly to a better guest experience.

And if we're all being honest with each other, part of SFA's problem is that it is located in PG County and so it carries a negative stereotype with it. (And I say this with love, because my ex grew up in Laurel.)

The good news is that Cedar Fair knows how to do those things well. I wasn't pointing out KD's ownership because i thought you didn't know it. I was pointing it out because it's a nearby example of a park that has better management--and that management is now overseeing all the old Six Flags parks.

Now, Cedar Fair is far from perfect. Their slavish devotion to iROC has not been kind to operational capacity. They do tend to under-spend a little bit and nickle and dime (see: Top Thrill 2's mandatory but paid lockers). Live entertianment has been cut back quite a bit in several parks.

But there are good reasons to believe that the typical SF park experience is likely to get better under the new regime.

 

[Minnie1222]

I once had the misfortune of going to Six Flags New England. I don't understand how anyone could possibly compare that park to Disney/Universal. Forget about SF paying me to go! How about I pay them so I don't have to go.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I once had the misfortune of going to Six Flags New England. I don't understand how anyone could possibly compare that park to Disney/Universal. Forget about SF paying me to go! How about I pay them so I don't have to go.

Yeah, great coasters even if they look sketchy. Outside of that non of the buildings have AC, food is flat garbage and costs way too much, and employees are usually teenagers who are very uninterested in being there/ working in general (i recognize i sound like i'm 100 years old)