Cedar Fair: sounding like Six Flags?

I found this on Cedar Fair's website. Now I know it's marketing or whatever, and is "technically" the truth, as there aren't very many floorless coasters, but it seems like it's stretching it. Also stretching it a little with the inverted coasters and Steel Force.

"Situated on approximately 200 acres, Dorney Park features more than 75 rides and attractions, including Hydra The Revenge, one of the world’s tallest and fastest floorless roller coasters; Talon, one of the tallest and fastest inverted roller coasters in the world; Dominator, a 200-foot-tall thrill ride; Steel Force, one of the tallest and fastest roller coasters in the world; five additional roller coasters; and Camp Snoopy, a family play-land themed around the popular PEANUTS comic strip characters."

Technically, isn't Hydra the "shortest" of the floorless coasters, as well as the "slowest"?

Yes, a group of enthusists know that, but do you think the GP knows that? Or even cares? All they see is a fast and tall rollercoaster, that has no floor.

Would it be better if they claimed it was among the top 10 fastest and tallest Floorless coasters on Earth?

That's an entirely true statement.

I still don't get people being annoyed or angry by the way parks use 'grey area' to market these rides. Anyone who cares probably knows the facts already and anyone who doesn't know the facts probably doesn't really care that much.

Like I said, I know it's marketing. But with Hydra, it's kinda the exact opposite of what they are claiming.

I guess it's like a city having 8 skyscrapers, and the smallest one claiming it's "one of the tallest skyscrapers in the city".

Reminds me of when I was in 4th grade. I ran the 444 yard dash. I came in 4th place--not bad, eh? Well, there were only 4 runners :)

Does this mean since they sound like SF, they are going to go into the crapper and then rebound with higher pricing? :)

I'm pretty sure if CF said Hydra was one of the "shortest" and "slowest" floorless coasters out there, not too many people would be willing to ride, let alone visit.

It's advertising, truth has nothing to do with it. The whole idea of advertising is to sell something. Does that make sense? :)

-Tambo

*** Edited 6/1/2006 6:48:57 PM UTC by tambo***

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Lord Gonchar said:
I still don't get people being annoyed or angry by the way parks use 'grey area' to market these rides. Anyone who cares probably knows the facts already and anyone who doesn't know the facts probably doesn't really care that much.

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And then there's the majority of us on Coasterbuzz, who do know the facts, and don't care. :)

Let me clarify, Vater. :)

Anyone who knows that Hydra isn't one of the fastest or tallest, isn't going to be misled. (enthuisasts, CB'ers and folks of that ilk)

Anyone who doesn't know the facts, isn't going to think twice about the claim. They won't know or care that it's stretching the truth. (everyone else)

Its for the attention of the public. It is a selling point for people to come. Attractive advertising catches the eye. Although maybe not the tallest and fastest to enthusiasts, to some people that may be the tallest and fastest things they get to ride. The GP have no idea what the stats are they are there to ride, we however know alot about things and still ride. When i went there i wanted to enjoy the rides and the park as a whole, not to find the newest and biggest thing, although hydra was new and i wanted to see how it stacked against the dominator.

Heck, they should lie as much as possible to keep the patrons coming. It means more goodies for us to ride. :)

I'm with Gonch. Who cares? Even as an enthusiast, it's just not something I can use a lot of energy thinking about.

You know what the bigger problem with that 'advertising' is? It sounds like it was written by someone in Grade 6. No creativity, repetitive use of the same phrases over and over again. Oooooh, they mixed it up with "world's fastest" and "fastest in the world".

Seriously, invest in a thesaurus.

There are so many creative ways to push products, you'd think an amusement park of all places could spice up the copy a little bit.

And do you see me making a big deal about it? I found it on their webpage and brought it to your attention.

I know that others have brought stuff like this up, and the parks probably aren't gonna change this stuff 'cause we "have their number."

Odd Todd has a point, though. Why weren't they more creative with their marketing? They could have brought the JoJo roll into it somehow if they wanted--it truly is the only one in the world with that element.

One another note, personally, I don't like Hydra. The JoJo roll kinda ruins it for me. I usually at least like every B&M that I ride, except for the standups and Hydra. Not that I hate these rides, I just put them at the bottom of my B&M pile.

You made a "big deal" because you took the time to copy and paste it into this page and ask a question about it. Most of us would see it and be like "oh, advertising" and move on. Comparative, what you did was a "big deal" ... just saying.

-Brett, who ranks both Dorney's B&Ms at or near the top of his list ...

I'm aware of the hype that parks use to make things seem more impressive than they really are. When I lived in Texas, the now defunct SFAW counted their drop tower as a coaster so they could advertise a higher coaster count than they actually had.

Naturally any park will claim any record that they have for a coaster. An example of this involved the world's first two hypercoasters. KW couldn't call the Steel Phantom the highest coaster when it was built because that honor at the time still belonged to Magnum XL200. What they did claim (legitimately) was that they had the world's fastest coaster with the world's biggest drop. Naturally CF was calling Maggie the worlds highest coaster at the same time. That left the parkgoers with the question, which park do I go to if I want to ride the ultimate (at that time) coaster?

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rablat5 said:
Why weren't they more creative with their marketing?

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Because "creative" isn't really what you want to go for when you're trying to illustrate to your average park goer what Dorney has to offer.

I don't think its the best written copy in the world or anything but highlighting Hydra's Jojo roll isn't going to mean anything to the average soccer mom who wants to take her family out for some fun this weekend.

Then again if she wanted to know MORE about the new(est) coaster at Dorney that's when (hopefully) your website will be able to point her in the right direction. Its all about prioritizing your information. *** Edited 6/1/2006 8:10:41 PM UTC by matt.***

This is not the firt time I have heard Cedar Fair compared to Six Flags since the Paramount acquisition. Frankly, I think it is a little overboard.

So what if CF takes a little creative freedom with the truth, should we all stop going?

I'm sorry but I'm with the original poster on this one. I remember the 1st time I read that about Hydra. I pissed my pants laughing. I mean theres a difference between marketing and advertising and flat out lying to simply appeal to the vast majority of the general public. I mean why do the worlds "tallest, fastest" have to be used as luring words? Why can't they talk about what makes the ride stand apart from other floorless coasters because when it comes to Hydra it has plenty of unique characteristics. But to use the words they did use, give me a break yeah? and yes the repetitiveness also. *yawn*

Would you suspect a comment like this from someone with my name? haha

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coastern3rd said:
So what if CF takes a little creative freedom with the truth, should we all stop going?

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Absolutely. I'm pretty pissed that what I thought was one of the tallest, fastest floorless coasters turned out to be...not one of the tallest, fastest floorless coasters. Technically, at least. I mean, I thought I enjoyed it, but I was wrong. Now that I know the truth, it sucked.

*** Edited 6/1/2006 9:09:43 PM UTC by Vater***

Haha exactly. Who likes lyers? How can you market a ride thats clearly height challenged as one of the tallest?

Thanks, DorneyDante. I appreciate the support.

Arthur Bahl, I get what you're saying, but those claims from KW and CP were legit. Dorney's claim with Hydra is definitely stretching it (see my analogy with the skyscrapers above).