Cedar Fair to acquire Texas Schlitterbahn water parks

Makes me wonder what, if anything, will change to their flagship park. New Braunfels' homegrown slides with precarious drops and usage of river water would seem to conflict with Cedar Fair's buttoned-up operations.

I don't entirely understand the option part about the Kansas City park. For $6 million, I would think it would be worth that for the land alone.

I'm pretty sure the home park got out of and sold off their slide manufacturing business awhile back.

PhantomTails said:

Makes me wonder what, if anything, will change to their flagship park. New Braunfels' homegrown slides with precarious drops and usage of river water would seem to conflict with Cedar Fair's buttoned-up operations.

Cedar Point draws water from Lake Erie for Thunder Canyon so I dont know why using river water would be that much different.

For one, swimming in water is a lot different than getting some splashed on you. Second, some of the slides actually dump people into the river which has wildlife (water moccasins anyone?) and whatever hazards decide to come through.

The river isn't some wild and raging untamed and unkempt waterway. Thousands of people go through there a day on tubes. If it were full of hazards and dangerous wildlife, they wouldn't. It's probably as clean and safe as any waterpark lazy river. And my memory may totally fail me, but none of the slides dump into the river itself that I can recall. Some of the tube chute rivers interact with the river. I'll go out on a limb and guess that Cedar Fair knows what they're getting into and won't do too much to screw up something that's been humming along fine for decades.

I'm surprised no one asked this yet... Will my Platinum Pass work at the Texas waterparks?

bigboy said:

If it were full of hazards and dangerous wildlife, they wouldn't.

Well, if it was designed by the same guys who built the slide that killed that little boy in Kansas, I think a little skepticism is reasonable.

I did a tube float on that river with a large wedding party. It’s definitely full of urine.

Jeff said:

bigboy said:

If it were full of hazards and dangerous wildlife, they wouldn't.

Well, if it was designed by the same guys who built the slide that killed that little boy in Kansas, I think a little skepticism is reasonable.

Point taken, but the river and the activities on it aren't a part of the park.

I adore Schlitterbahn and fulfilled a lifelong dream by visiting a couple years ago. It was one of the best days of my life.

By no means did I feel unsafe at the park, and I don't think that their activities pose any more risk than any other form of water recreation. However, the point I'm trying to make is that Cedar Fair is risk-averse which means that how the Schlitterbahn parks are constructed and operated seem to go against the Cedar Fair way.

People don't die in droves by swimming in natural water, but doing so creates a non-zero risk with things like bacteria and amoebas, snakes and other animals, and debris among other things. If you swim by yourself in a lake or stream you assume that risk, but because it's part of the attraction Cedar Fair is going to assume liability for anything that happens.

I think the best equivalent in the amusement industry to Schlitterbahn would be Knoebels. They made their own coaster over seven years, run ancient bumper cars that hit hard, and take seat belts off of coaster trains. As a result, my understanding is that they're self-insured. Is Knoebels an unsafe park? No, but at the same time I'd never expect Cedar Fair to keep operating that way in the hypothetical scenario that they buy the park.

All unresearched speculation here: Maybe based on the recent tragedy of the KCK property it is truely no longer viable as a profitable waterpark attraction. Hence why Schlitterbahn never planned to open this year before the sale.

6 million might be a deal for land (maybe? I don't know the market) But that still puts Cedar Fair in the bad publicity of buying a property to redevelope. Not their business line and lessons learned from Northeast Ohio.

The option allows them to make a power play in the case an actual operational competitor comes around. But chances are its sits for a while to put some distance of time behind the stigma. Or another buyer with different use comes in and washes away any Ocean of Fun competition. Win-Win without spending a dime preemptively.

All unresearched speculation here

I mean, isn't that what the internet is for? Throwing in my purely baseless speculation as well.

Could CF be angling for a land swap deal with Hunt?

Hunt owns the underground land rights under WoF/OoF for SubTropolis, along with the land bordering the park to the east. If Hunt was interested in development near the speedway and casino, CF picking up Schlitterbahn cheap might make acquiring the surface-level rights to that eastern parcel feasible for whatever the park might want to do down the road.

Kstr 737 said:

Not their business line and lessons learned from Northeast Ohio.

You have to remember that the ENTIRE upper management of the company is different now.

Yeah, and I would say the current management seems to and is hopefully more interested and apt to focus on operating successful parks, not efforts to swap real estate (Soak Cities, PGAm and SFWoA) like the previous admin did. Hence the only interest in KCK should be ulterior ultimatium (if that makes sense)

How does this sound: Sports Force Park Kansas City?

I think it likely the waterpark is dead. Too much bad PR. But based on the fact we are seeing continued investment in Cedar Point's Sport's Force, it must be a fair money maker. Kansas City is far enough away it would not be cannibalizing business from Sandusky.