As we watch the roller coaster ride of parks being bought and sold, drama with owners and management, and wild swings in the economy, actually seeing how that impacts the parks has its own series of ups and downs.
Jon and I spent a few days last summer at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Kings Dominion, and Hersheypark. These are three great theme parks, but recent trends are quite interesting. BGW has always been known as one of the best, most beautiful, authentically themed parks in the country. It still is to some extent, but the turmoil at the top of Seaworld is sometimes evident at the lowest levels. After seeing such magnificent attractions as DarKastle and Verbolten, we’re now seeing a new coaster (a really awesome one, to be sure) with little more than a simple metal shed with a few cheap flags or whatever. I mean, really, it’s named after the gods, so couldn’t we find a reasonable way to create a Pantheon-like atmosphere? Maybe a few statues or something? They successfully sent us careening off into the Dark Forest (Verbolten), didn’t they? What’s up with this? And between apparent budget cuts, staffing challenges, and no entertainment whatsoever, they really ought to offer a reduced ticket price here at the end of the season (we still really love this wonderful place, of course, but let’s remember where it came from. And stop with the sneaky price surcharges. It’s beneath a park as magnificent as this).
Verbolten is stuffed full of amazing design details, even throughout the queue. For some reason I couldn’t find one of my own shots, so this is from a Coaster Radio review.
This is the Pantheon in Rome, the majestic inspiration and backstory for Busch’s new amazing coaster. (From World History Encyclopedia)
And this is what we got…this is actually the maintenance shed; for some bizarre reason it’s the first visual you get upon arrival. But the station isn’t much better. I didn’t even bother to take a picture, so this one is from Theme Park Tribune.
Now, Kings Dominion got ravaged from the Paramount years, at least as far as original theming and story goes. A lot of what they did was great stuff, but little in the way of theming a land. Cedar Fair, as I point out in my book, has been wonderful about bringing these concepts back to several of their parks. And boy did they nail it with Jungle X-pedition, their newest re-do of the old Volcano coaster area. Beautiful design, posters, details, gorgeous retail shop, and what a restaurant with Outpost Cafe! Amazing. We had a terrific day at the park and was impressed with operations and how clean it was.
Hersheypark never really had a deep thematic storyline, and the new front gate expansion certainly moved on from the nostalgic, charming Tudor corridor. I really like the tie-in with the town of Hershey, though, with lots of brick, Kisses streetlights, and so on. But more noticeable these days is their branding trends—they figured out they’re connected to a candy company, after all, and so they’re going full-tilt on branding attractions on these types of properties. Bright colors are the rule, as is really evident in the new Jolly Rancher Remix (an old Vekoma boomerang coaster) and the super-colorful, fun to watch Mix'd Flavored By Jolly Rancher (now that’s a mouthful…).
Does this new update fit into the Pioneer Frontier land? Hardly. Does it matter? Maybe. I don’t know anymore. It’s a refreshing, friendly, upbeat vibe. It represents an investment in the park, an initiative to keep pushing the park forward. And after seeing some of the more dismal, discouraging things done to my favorite parks over the years, I’m at least grateful somebody cares enough to do something nice. If only everyone who owned and managed a park really cared about the business, loved putting smiles on people’s faces as Dennis Speigel is always reminding us, then we’d see much more in the manner of Jungle X-pedition, Verbolten, County Fair at Carowinds, and overall “better show,” as Walt Disney would always insist on. But my fear is that too many of the good folks, the ones who love what they do, are getting driven out of the business as the top tier keeps rocking the boat. We’re especially looking at you, Six Flags. Don’t keep shooting yourself in the foot. Hopefully I’m wrong. Let me know.