CoasterBuzz Podcast #17 posted

Holiday World WAS the first theme park NOT Disney! The proof is in the pudding. Construction on Santa Claus Land began in 1945. Disneyland began construction in 1954 and Disneyworld in 1955. There you have it Holiday World has ten years on Disney. Too bad people would rather go to Florida than a corn field in Indiana.

And that's why I gave HW the shoutout. :)

I want a shoutout! ;)

LG, I know just wanted to clarify for those who did not catch it. Thanks for giving credit where credit is due.
*** This post was edited by a_hoffman50 1/9/2006 7:10:33 AM ***

Dick Kinzel = Walt Disney?

No.

I guess theme park needs defined before we can really argue the "who was first" point.

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I want a shoutout!

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Is that what they're calling it these days? ;)

this is the way I look at it: An amusement park is a collection of attractions in one location open for public use. A theme park is an amusement park that has one or more themes common to one or more areas of the collection. I hope that makes sense. It does to me anyways.

While Kinzel may not equal Disney, but you gotta admit he has made something of himself and is successful.

Dick Kinzel has done what he does probably better than anyone else.

Walt Disney did what no one can ever do again.

That's why I think it's an invalid comparison.

And while Indiana may have had the first true theme park, Walt brought the concept to the masses and to ridiculous levels of success. That's why he gets the credit.

I don't want to diminish Mr. Kinzel's impact on Cedar Fair or even, to some degree, the amusement industry. But, Walt Disney left a lasting impact on the world and I suspect even Mr. Kinzel would back away from any comparison.

In both cases though, the people who did much of the heavy lifting under these two leaders are massively overlooked. No doubt Mr. Kinzel did a lot for Cedar Fair. But the company had great success because of him and in spite of him.

Concerning the Disney tickets, when they changed the ticket pricing last year, the tickets do expire now. They have to be used within 14 days of the first time you use them. However, you can pay an upcharge to make them non-expire tickets. You also now have to pay an upcharge if you want to be able to park hop between parks.

Those $1500 deals are awesome but are for the value resorts during value season and include base tickets. If you want park hopper or non-expirary, or a water park day, you have to pay for those. If you want a moderate resort during regular season, you are easily looking at $2200+ (that's for 3 people, not the 4 that the $1500 is quoted for, I've been checking already for our next trip). A Deluxe will run you $2800+. I can't even begin to imagine what you'd pay during peak or holiday season.

We actually rented a house (4 bedroom/3 bath with it's own pool) about 15 minutes from Disney last year which ran about $900 but we were able to split that 3 ways. We would've had to have gotten at least 2 rooms if we would've stayed at a resort or paid out the rear-end for a villa. We were there during "holiday" season and 2 rooms at a value resort would've have run us about $1300 and that was for 5 nights, we had the house for a week. So if you are going with a group and don't mind sharing a place (and little bit of driving), renting a house is more affordable.

We had bought our tickets before the new pricing went into effect. They were 5-day non-expire park hoppers with essentially 2 extra days free to be used at the water parks, pleasure island or disney quest. They cost a little over $200 and our daughters was around $180. A similar 5 day ticket today would cost around $300 for adult or $265 for a child. The more days you buy, the cheaper per day it becomes. http://allearsnet.com/pl/ticketchart.htm#MYW3 shows how the ticket pricing works now.

You really have to research all options available or have a travel agent that has gone to Disney for their travel training seminars to get the best possible deal.*** This post was edited by loriu 1/9/2006 5:17:38 PM ***
*** This post was edited by loriu 1/9/2006 5:18:14 PM ***

Unless the best possible deal is not what you're after.

I've often sacrificed the 'deal' in the name of convenience.

Unfortunately, at Disney, their "package deals" are for convenience. We are going with an on-site package for our next trip for the convenience. It's really sad too when my brother-in-law lives a half hour from Disney but we don't want to drive that much every day.

That convenience is the difference between 'a vacation' and 'getting away'

Hey I'm famous! ;) Thanks for the podcasts guys I'm a devoted fan. I'm stuck with my screen name, what can I say? A few years back I got this bizarre email that said something like "I know that most CP workers have had macho nachos...." ? My mind is usually in the gutter so that cracks me up to this day..... ;)