Cypress Garden files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection

Whoa...another park in trouble.

I visited in July (think I did a trip report or maybe dreamed I did?) and had a lot of fun. This was perfect for my 2 year old with very liberal height restrictions.

However, I did note that the garden and animal section seemed ill repaired as did a few rides that seemed to have not run for weeks. This is usually a good sign that not all is well.

Anyhow...$25 mil for the weather is a lot, but still only a third of their $75 mil debt. The math in the article does not bode well.

Maybe they can cut hours, hold their Christmas Spectacular in October, close months early for the season, raise their parking prices, and "talk" about clean restrooms and "family atmosphere"...;)

This is Amusement Park 101 for turning profit...no?

Thinking (hoping?) that this is a mechanism to buy more time with creditors and maybe even get the State involved in terms of trying to recover money from the insurers....I still have money *outstanding* from Jeanne - you'd think there'd be some sort of governmental oversight to make sure the Insurers are paying that which they owe...(but you'd be WRONG)... ;)

edit: I meant Frances...wow, '04 was a busy year...thankfully we SEEM to be getting a break this year. So much for global warming? ;)

Maybe if you wrote a thoughtful letter to Jeb...you could work on your writing skills. ;)

^ Muwahahaha, the power of the delete key....too many edits vs. the News board made for a messy post!

My *riting skillz* are the bomb-diggity...hater! :)

^^

I don't think the math is that bad... If they can get the insurance company to pay up, the balance of that debt would be within their original budget - and with attendance coming in well above the projections, and the all important per caps in a reasonable range the rest of the debt can be easily serviced.

Hmmm, I actually didn't see this one coming. Even after 2004 with the hurricane damage, it seemed all was fine and well. I guess the insurance companies changed that outlook. How ironic that the reason for this filing is due to the same name they gave one of their coasters.

New for 2007: The Triple Hurricane rollercoaster will be changed to "Chapter 11, The Ride". :)

It's news to me as well, I thought they were getting record crowds in still.

Hmm.. Chapter 11, The Ride? Not bad, but you'd have a lot of trolls asking what happened to Chapters 1-10. ;)

Don't give up your day job, Tim! ;)

Here's more detail about the specifics.

Wow, Buescher has an uphill battle on his hands. I wish him luck and hope we don't see the demise of 2 more parks.

I am going there in about a month for the 1st time, interesting news, hopefully the park can survive.