Cedar Fair to acquire Paramount Parks

Paramount good theming?are we talking about the same "amusement" park outside of the Nati?sure Nick Verse is quite good and has some creative ideas, but its still taking characters and adapting them to stock rides not the other way aroundTake a trip To Busch Gardens Europe if you want the best mix of an amusemnt park and theme park, but Id rather have no theming than theming that is half assedvery good themeing is Disneyland, whose charm is so much that after one trip during spring break and its now #2 on my park list, and I was born in Sandusky and had a season pass from the time I was 5 till 14 till I worked at CP
*** This post was edited by Sharpel007 5/22/2006 10:51:19 PM ***

^I know the rule wasn't strictly enforced at PKD last year but still I'd like to see them do away with it all together.

Any changes to the parks aren't going to happen overnight so it's not like any major additions are going to be made immediately but knowing how CF likes to do business with certain manufaturers & considering the market that PKD is in it wouldn't suprise me to see them make plans to install some new coasters to the park in the future.

With PKD under their control they can now have bragging rights to the most woodies & launchers in a single park,assuming FOF stays in the park of course.

coasterkitty said:

"I will agree about Blue Streak, but Ghostrider has gotten tremendously rough over the years".

Ghostrider also operates all year long in various temperatures. I still don't get your point. The Beast is rough and overly trimmed, and SOB is almost unrideable.

You need to just quit...

Wow, wonder if this will make it easier for me to get a Co-Op position in Marketing at Canada's Wonderland.

Hey, maybe PCW will finally get an Intamin or B&M! Still thinking that a water park upgrade is in order for next season though, even with CF at the helm.

This is the Kinzel Big bang theory. I think this might be his last big move as a big officer. He also is gonna have a great group of people to leave the parks in hands with. As far as someone mentioning ruining the wooden coasters such as the beast, im thouroughly impressed with the rehab they have done to the coasters at gl this season and the work they are still working on so i dont think neglect will be a problem.

I will say it will be intresting to see what kinda passes they go with especially here in ohio, because the parks will be owned by the same company, but they can iron that all out because they have almost a year for all that. As for the identities these parks carve out should be taken into consideration, i doubt the change will be for the worse.

I can see many great things ahead, this is a tremendous leap of faith for a company to spend over a billion dollars for a few parks, i just think the six flags accuisitions are the worrying thing here to me. They had to get rid of parks, because they lost money in many ways and now borrowing from cedar fair seems to be a tough road, but they can turn profit if the economy changes. Hopefully it works out, because i looks like a good idea here in Ohio, because he gets a big seasonal park which actually outdraws cedar point. The pass thing could be good because it would increase attendance for the parks here, i was really wishing it would have not been the whole package of parks, but that was the asking intent. It will be interesting to actually go into some uncharted areas of the country for cedar fair, no longer a real regional chain, besides knotts.

People have been talking about Kinzel going out with a bang long before CBS announced it wanted to unload Paramount Parks. It's foolish to go down that route; any decisions he makes this year will be purely business, I'm sure. There's no need for him go galvanize his career.

I will continue on what Lord Gonchar said about the designated smoking areas and add this: Will the metal detectors at the Paramount parks be removed when CF officially takes over?

Just wondering. :)

Kinzel said in the past that he would jump at the chance to buy SFGAm if it was available. Now he gets the red headed stepchild out in Cali (PGA) instead. :)

As far as the passes issue goes, I figure we'll see a third level of add-ons for the Cedar Point and Geauga Lake season passes this year for King's Island and the rest will be like every other Cedar Fair park, although chain-wide prices could and should go up. But, being from Pittsburgh where PKI isn't a hop, skip and a jump, but still a possiblity to be included on long trips, I think I'll resume my yearly PKD early-season trip and just get my pass in good old Virginia ;)

I was and still am happy but nervous about the deal. Cedar Fair just nearly doubled the size of their organization "overnight" ... are they prepared to handle that? It's going to take a lot of good solid planning and management to make this work. I'm not saying I don't have confidence in them, I just don't want to see Cedar Fair make the exact same mistake Six Flags made by spreading themselves too thin.

(re: wood coaster maintenance)
This season I have visited two parks so far, Kings Island and Cedar Point. I can report that The Beast is running like crap, the Racer is running like crap, Son of Beast wasn't running at all when I visited, the Blue Streak is insanely great, and in the absolute biggest surprise of the season so far, Mean Streak is actually decent this year. I didn't think that was even possible.

This may be the year to forget everything you thought you knew about wood coasters as it relates to the Big Three chain parks because...possibly for the first time in years...it seems that Cedar Point has got its wood coaster act together while Kings Island's wood coasters have gone to hell in a handbasket.

(re: smoking areas)
Oh, no, not again...

(re: me_al detectors at Kings Island)
Cedar Fair removed those things from Geauga Lake; we can only hope they will do the same at the CBS parks. I'll volunteer to drive the bulldozer. When it takes more time, effort and aggravation to get into an amusement park than it takes to board a commercial airliner, something is seriously screwed up somewhere. Cedar Fair's security model is a whole lot more customer friendly, and very discreet. I watched a take-down once at Cedar Point, and if I hadn't recognized what was going on, I probably would never have noticed. The CPP are pretty good at what they do.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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Well, if you knew the answer, why did you ask the question?

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Because I wasn't sure if MiA started as an old trolley park (which would make it even older than the 1920 berry stand). I'm OK with West Coast park history...a little shaky on anything East of the Rockies. But with the internet, that's not really an excuse anymore. I guess I'm just lazy. ;)

...which is EXACTLY why I'm P.O.d that Paramount removed Great America's train. ;)

If CF is getting their wooden coaster act together, I wonder what that means for GL. The three woodies could become a major draw for this park if they are running well. This would certainly aid GL's comeback.

I'm planning to go to KW with my sister this summer to ride the wooden coasters there. We all know what a good job this park does with these rides. If GL is getting things right, we might go there as well.

A few more things.

Will they retain the chain restaurants(skyline,graters..etc)?

Will winterfest continue?

What will become of king cobra that is in storage at the park? I can think of a park in michigan that could use it.

What will happen to son of beast? Remember herculies(sp), they demolished it because it did not meet the cedar fair standards.

Coke or pepsi?

What will happen to the paramount walkthrue next to the eifel tower?

I am sure it is too early to answer some of these questions, but I was just wondering what you guys thought of this?

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(re: me_al detectors at Kings Island)
Cedar Fair removed those things from Geauga Lake; we can only hope they will do the same at the CBS parks. I'll volunteer to drive the bulldozer. When it takes more time, effort and aggravation to get into an amusement park than it takes to board a commercial airliner, something is seriously screwed up somewhere. Cedar Fair's security model is a whole lot more customer friendly, and very discreet. I watched a take-down once at Cedar Point, and if I hadn't recognized what was going on, I probably would never have noticed. The CPP are pretty good at what they do.

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I actually thought that KIs metal detectors made me feel safer. Whats wrong with them and what does CP use instead? I know they have cameras everywhere, but how do they see what is hiding in clothing or bags? It has never taken me more than 3 minutes to get through the metal detectors at KI.

Crazyhorse, moving King Cobra to MiA would be a great idea.

^They can move Schockwave to MIA just as easily,lord knows I certainly wouldn't miss it if it were removed.

Sorry to keep dragging this out, but I remembered reading a couple of years ago about a park in Japan, set for a 2010 opening, in which Paramount was a partner. Did that fall through? I didn't see anything about it in any of the news items related to the sale.