Holiday World and Splashin' Safari announce 2011 improvements on YouTube

I think these are all solid improvements.

Pat Koch is 80 years old? WOW, she looks nowhere near that age. I thought she was like in her 60's.

Sorry if I missed it in the vid, but are they relocating the Santa statue to the park when they re-condition it?

My wish list for the park would be to offer compostable plates and utensils. I became very aware last weekend of how much landfill bound garbage I was creating there, and that made me uncomfortable.

They all sound pretty good investments - I just wonder how marketable they are.

Nice to put a face to the name to Dan Koch, also.

Chitown said:
Pat Koch is 80 years old? WOW, she looks nowhere near that age. I thought she was like in her 60's.

Sorry if I missed it in the vid, but are they relocating the Santa statue to the park when they re-condition it?

I was thinking the same thing about her age. She mentioned maybe move it, so I'm thinking they haven't made that decision yet.

Overall, I'm actually pretty excited for these improvements. Parking lot upgrades sound great and I hope (beg!) they upgrade restroom facilities in Thanksgiving! (i.e. a family restroom would be nice!)

In addition, having gone to the waterpark with kids this year (including 36"ers), they definitely wanted more to do, which in turn would be more beneficial to the girls who stayed behind with them while us guys were riding.

So definitely all very solid, but with that said, for 2012 I'm ready to rock!! Especially with how crowded this year was, having something big with capacity for 2012 would be incredible.

Not too shabby for an "off year". These sound like little things, but year after year they add up be greater than their sum, as the saying goes.

I'm actually most excited for the statue renovation. I like it when folks take pride in their community like that. It should be a nice rest stop and picture spot for the families traveling along I-64, as well as good publicity for the town and park.

So are the new water slides going to be in addition to, or in place of, Jungle Jets? In any case, the kids will now have three slide areas (Monsoon Lagoon, Kima Bay, and now Croc Sam's). Nice.

Something worth noting that I don't think has been mentioned before. I spoke with one of the Koch sons. Which ever one was at Fall Affair during ERT. I had commented on the fact that I had been noticing lots of new trees around the park.

He said they have planted 600 trees so far this year. Even more impressive is that they had just received a shipment of another 1,700 that they still have to plant. They're all saplings. But, I can't even begin to imagine how great the park is going to look in 10 years+.

When I went this year I wrote up how they really really needed some of these improvements to SS. The new bathrooms and lockers are NEEDED NOW. AC is surprising, I thought it already had it. I'm all game for new kiddie flat rides, and parking lot improvements make the park seem more professional.

Marketable? No, but it adds lots of value to the experience from pulling into the lot at 10am to leaving at 9pm.

The restaurant has A/C, you just can't eat inside of it. The addition will make it so you can.

It all sounds great. I like the fact that they are restoring the big santa because I think that shows how much they care about the community.

Jeff said:
My wish list for the park would be to offer compostable plates and utensils. I became very aware last weekend of how much landfill bound garbage I was creating there, and that made me uncomfortable.

I've always wondered about the thousands of paper pepsi cups they go through each day. Do they recycle those?

Presumably not. The problem with those cups is the plastic/wax/whatever coating on them. I don't believe they easily decompose.

Not to get completely off topic. But, Progressive field in Cleveland has been using corn-based biodegradable cups for a few years now. That among other efforts has given them the ability to become the first (and I think still the only) sports venue in the world to get ISO certified as a green facility.

I'm not sure how much extra money the corn cups are. But, given the proper composting conditions, they biodegrade in about 30 days I believe. Sun Chips has corn based plastic for their chip bags now too.

Hopefully - they will use biodegradable refuse bags as well - One business I patronize was so proud to tout their "earth friendly" and "green" ways on signs and placards...

Until I took the box of trash bags off the cleaning cart and brought it to the manager's attention...

Jeff said:
Presumably not. The problem with those cups is the plastic/wax/whatever coating on them. I don't believe they easily decompose.

I don't know if they are the same type of cup but Knoebels has containers set up to recycle their Pepsi cups. They seem to be the standard soda cup.

Pat Koch doesn't look even close to 80 years old.

Additions like this are the reason that Holiday World enjoys so much success. They are sensible, low cost investments that improve guest experience and add to the personality of the park. I like that they are adding some real theme to the kiddie land, and putting some money into kids attractions. They are increasing the value of what they have instead of simply expanding with some half planned, underfunded attraction. To me, that shows that they actually care about the place, not just how much money it makes. That's what people truly respond to.

MrZero said:
I don't know if they are the same type of cup but Knoebels has containers set up to recycle their Pepsi cups. They seem to be the standard soda cup.

That's fine, but recycling and composting isn't the same thing.

They've been doing the compost thing here at work now for two years or something. They just switched the utensils to a new brand that's stiffer and decomposes faster, though the down side is that if you leave them in hot food, the forks get a little warped.

Compost? Why not just eat the corn-based plates and utensils when you're done? ;)