Kennywood, Lake Compounce, Idlewild sold to Spanish firm

^^ That's part of the problem, but not all of it. A big issue is getting other countries to take our products like we take theirs. We want Hondas but the Japanese don't want Chevys... Americans like the Nintendo Wii but the Japenese wouldn't take an Xbox 360 if we paid them to take it.

If the value of the dollar continues to fall, then our products become bargains.

Anyway, a lot of products that we think are foreign, are actually produced here. A lot of things we consider American products are manufactured elsewhere. The only products you can really trust are made by Junior Achievement. ;)

Does this company own any other theme/ amusement parks?

Rob...our workers must build better cars and games. If Americans don't want to buy American...why blame the Japanese?

I have only ever owned American-labeled cars but let's be realistic...most of the Ford's and Chevy's I've owned have been loaded with foreign built components.

I disagree. I don't think our workers build cars worse than any other workers. I think our companies design cars that don't last as long. Or at least they have in the past. On that note, I STILL would never buy a Hyundai even though they supposedly build more reliable cars.

But having a car with 170K miles that still runs like a clock, and having owned a car that would have gone well past 250K had it not been for an accident, you could imagine I would continue buying cars from that company.

And I don't think these cars lasted that long because the bolts were tightened better.

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crazy horse said
Does this company own any other theme/ amusement parks?

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According to News Plus Notes, "Parques Reunidos is really quickly becoming (or is) a heavyweight in the industry. They're the ones that acquired Palace Entertainment this past year. They have all the Boomers FECs, the two California Raging Waters water parks, several other water parks in the U.S., 10+ zoos and aquariums, and many European parks like: Parque De Atracciones, Bobbejaanland, Mirabilandia, Parque Warner Madid, the insane BonBonLand (home of the "Dog Fart" coaster), and also recently purchased TusenFryd."

I found out a little more about parques reunidos.

There is a list of the parks they operate on the bottom of there web site(It's in spanish though).

http://www.parquesreunidos.com/

They are also the company that is operating warner bros mandrid..

http://www.parquewarner.com/ This site is in english.

On the parquesreunidos.com page, just click "English" in the top right corner. The entire site magically is translated into English. :)

There's also a really good section on "The Group" and "Our Parks".

Of interest is also the news section. They've acquired three large "chains" in the past three months. One each month actually. First it was Palace Entertainment in October, then TusenFryd in November and now Kennywood Entertainment in December.

That's a LOT of expansion in three months.
*** This post was edited by halltd 12/12/2007 5:29:57 PM ***

Lol...I looked everywhere for an english link, and coulden't find it. It was right there the whole time.

By the way, what kind of coaster is this?(first picture) http://www.parquesreunidos.com/parques-de-atracciones.php*** This post was edited by crazy horse 12/12/2007 5:30:30 PM ***

^That's a Maurer-Sohne Skyloop... http://www.rcdb.com/id3185.htm

Same pic, different angle... http://www.rcdb.com/ig3185.htm?picture=48

I am not too worried about Kennywood...for now at least. However I do have big concerns over the other parks they picked up in the deal.

So sad. It seems like as time goes on, more and more things are bought up by big companies. Not just in the amusement industry, but anything really. There will come a day where there are no mom and pop family owned parks left at all. They will all be owned by huge companies or closed. Mark my words...Holiday World, Knoebels...only a matter of time.