Has anyone been to Michigan's Adventure this year? or plan to go?

Raven-Phile said:
Woah. Woah. Woah... So, guys in their 30's are forbidden from seeing the animals?

Goddam Bronies ruin it for everyone...

My family's from Ironton, O. and Camden was my first park. I loved it then and for those same fuzzy reasons love it now.

Timber-Rider said:

....the lack of posts about it shows how little enthusiasm there is about the park that is supposed to be the most profitable park in the chain.

False equivalency. A small, well-run park quite literally in the middle of nowhere drawing mostly locals and Chicago-based tourists just isn't going to get the attention of Cedar Point or Carowinds or how much Walt Disney World hates poor people.

I guess I'm hoping someday someone will be able to say that MA is a great, fantastic, awesome park, with amazing rides and roller coasters

Happy to oblige. MiA is a great, fantastic, awesome park with amazing rides and coasters. Clearly Cedar Fair wouldn't be letting the park sit there making money if it wasn't appealing to the many customers each year who are not T-R.

And, year after year they dazzle us with lame attractions...

So the problem isn't that CF doesn't add attractors, it's that CF doesn't add attractions you like.

and charge more for the same old same old.

Welcome to the world of supply and demand. There's a reason a bottle of Coke costs you $1.68 instead of 5 cents.

I know the same old argument will come up about raking in the dough, which they have no problem at doing, and excelling at. But, don't you agree that the park needs something new, something exciting?

But why add something new and exciting when you can raise prices and count the increases in attendance?

By adding something (e.g. refurbing Breakers) you can raise prices and increase attendance MORE.

It really never hurts to add something new and exciting every once in a while. Just saying.

Captain Hawkeye said:

By adding something (e.g. refurbing Breakers) you can raise prices and increase attendance MORE.

A) MiA, a tiny regional park catering to a very specific market and Cedar Point, a destination resort that offers multiple opportunities to increase attendance and profits, are two different beasts.

B) If you can raise prices and see increased attendance without adding anything new, why add something new?

Again: MORE. Breakers was getting regular price hikes before the refurb. They got bigger ones--at least last year. Don't know about this year.

If Cedar Point is Meijer, MiA is Gale's IGA in Hart. They're businesses operating on very different scales. Gale's is never going to operate on the scale of a Meijer, and MiA is never going to operate on the scale of Cedar Point, no matter how much money you drop into either business. Let MiA be MiA: a small, successful park catering to locals, tourists and people who own/rent cottages along the lakeshore.

I didn't say add a $20m coaster, but Adventureland in Iowa--not exactly a huge population center--usually adds something new that they can promote every year. Even CP promoted Christmas lights on the Frontier Trail as their new addition one year.

^Nice to see somebody actually "gets it!"

I can appreciate MiA for what it has been relegated to at this point in my life, and if they never add anything else, it's no skin off my back. I'll take my kids every so often, and enjoy the water park and some epic Shivering Timbers rides! But some of the things people people around here say to "defend" its lack of capital investment since CF bought it, are massively face-palm inducing, and frankly, are borderline insane. And I'm a Mental Health professional, so I am qualified to make that assessment! ;)

To me it seems, after looking at Michigan's Adventure's website, that they would draw more of a crowd for their water park/water attractions than any thrill rides/rollercoasters.

Which they do. The one time I was there it was summertime hot and the waterpark was jammed. The rides were not so much and that observation has been made by many.
I think most vacationers to that area are camping, boating, etc. and that might be more of a waterpark kind of crowd. I don't know, but for whatever reason it seems to be working up there.

I think a major reason people complain about Michigan's Adventure not getting anything is simply because it's part of the Cedar Fair chain where other parks get stuff. If it was a stand-alone, nobody would say a thing about it. After all, Knoebel's was really just Phoenix, Twister, and Whirlwind for how long? Holiday World didn't even get its third major coaster for over a decade after Raven was built, and MiA still has more than they do.

To reiterate what cmingdayton and RCMAC said, the waterpark is MiAdv's primary attraction by far. You could add a hypercoaster to the ride side of the park but the queue lines would diminish quickly once the waterpark opens. There's a reason why the park is only open for one weekend before Memorial Day and after Labor Day (when the waterpark is open). If they had data that said people like to visit with only the ride side available, they would be open for business more frequently but obviously they don't.

A water coaster ala Wildebeest at Holiday World would get much more ROI for the park than any flat or coaster could and would probably be cheaper in cost too. Until people vote with their wallets by not buying tickets, then the park will be forced to adjust it's business model. However, as long as West MI residents are content to keep paying for the same offerings year over year, it would be risky to invest in a new attraction and only receive the same usual number of visitors as previous seasons. Not a bad situation to be in, honestly (for Cedar Fair anyway).