Kings Dominion lets go of employees, offers severance

Synergies at work.

From the few folks I have spoken to who work at one of their properties, the culture and vibe there is at an all time low and just about everyone is walking on eggshells wondering if they are going to get the next pink slip.

Not a fun environment to be in at all and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

as predicted, this is going to be a sh!tty year for the parks, with cost cutting and other service reductions.

To be blunt, I’ve resigned myself to it and have made other summer plans besides my local home park. We haven’t even begun to see the curtailed park hours and other service reductions yet, so I’m not wasting money on big trips to Cedar Flags this year. Hopefully i’m proven wrong.

I'm not really surprised. I've been through phases like this at various companies, and it's the worst when the company does not appear to be materially at risk in some long-term way. I suspect they'll repot some measure of growth in EBITDA this quarter. When I have worked at companies engaged in this "cost control" stuff, at the point of a turnaround, what happens is that they end up going on a hiring spree within the next few quarters. I bet that's what we'll see here. Which only makes it suck more for the people who get let go.

In this case, I don’t think the merger was the primary cause of these layoffs. The experiment of year round operations at KD did not work, and it no longer makes sense to have as many full time staff.

But with that said, the Cedar Fair of just a few years ago would not have laid these folks off. The version of Cedar Fair before that wouldn’t have hired them in the first place. I guess it’s better to have tried, but I’m sure these folks who were let go didn’t know they were signing up for an experiment.

I'm curious to see if this is an isolated event specifically at Kings Dominion or if the chain is about to go through mass layoffs at the park level. There are a lot of folks at these parks with decades of knowledge and losing a lot of them won't be good for the parks. And articles like this won't be what folks in the Legacy Cedar Fair markets want to see after already being skeptical about the simple perception of Six Flags coming to town to take over their park.

Let the cost-cutting begin.

In honor of those lost, here's a toast to the workers at Kings Dominion, especially that time they let my wife and I drink our beer on the ferris wheel.

Kings Dominion is a beautiful park, located on a highly traveled interstate with moderate climate. Yet it does not get the attendance that it should.

Paramount management decided that it is a park for coaster riders and kids and removed attractions and show venues that appealed to other markets of customers (the type of customer that lets Dollywood operate almost daily during school season)

Cedar Fair did nothing to attract that kind of customer back. In fact they eliminated live entertainment last year to make it worse. BGW has a it’s issues but at least it’s maintained it’s major non thrill attractions and show venues.

Rapterra is just going to regurgitate the same customers that already go to the park

This is a chain wide problem for the Six Flags parks. The high majority of the parks have 2 types of customers. Thrill riders and children. They miss out on a huge piece of the population.

The cost cutting can only go so far to prop up the stock price. The company has no oath to growth IMO. It’s a poor investment

Your point is spot on (for us).

We visited Dominion for the first time in over a decade two years ago and we both were underwhelmed, personally.

It's not a bad park, by any means. It has a really good collection of rides obviously and this year it gets another, but it's more the lack of park vibe and things to do outside of the coaster collection. It lacks 'depth' and after walking the park once and riding stuff we left after a few hours. There just was nothing else to do once we rode what we wanted, which was quick because the park was quiet on the beautiful day we were there. I think we were in the park for just shy of 4 hours total and were done, including a few re-rides and such.

We literally left and drove back to BGW for the rest of evening, where we spent 2.5 days at on that trip and it was a complete 180 from the Dominion experience. You can just walk around and enjoy the park atmosphere, see shows, hang out at some much nicer food/drink establishments, etc... The ride collection IMO is just as good (if not better). We had no plans to spend as much time there as we did and could have honestly spent even more time there and been happy about it. In my mind at least, why would one even go to Dominion when BGW is down the road?

Dominion feels too "intense ride focused" and doesn't have much going for it outside of those rides. There has to be more to round off the guest experience.

What is curious about that is how its once-near-twin Kings Island has made itself into a well-rounded park. The kids’ area at KI is huge and comprehensive, and they keep adding to it. There are plenty of good flats including some new ones. They’ve maintained at least some shows. And it appears to be working.

“We’ll keep adding coasters until attendance improves” seems a dubious strategy.

(Hoping to do my own KD trip this summer to see for myself. Expectations are being set.)

The kids' area at KD is solid, too. Not sure what everyone's talking about. KD has always had a good selection of rides beyond coasters, and last time we were there (albeit pre-pandemic) they had pretty elaborate live entertainment.

KD has always been a park for me that just misses the mark, and does so mainly because it invites comparisons to two (in my opinion) vastly superior parks, KI and BGW.

Say what you want about its decline recently I would still rank BGW as my favorite seasonal theme park, there might be some times of the year when some other park festivals might cause some parks to be elevated above it (Dollywood) but vanilla BGW beats every other vanilla seasonal park. It still has phenomenal shows (Celtic Fyre,) great coasters, great water rides and a small but respectable flat collection wrapped up in some of the most gorgeous landscaping and theming you can find anywhere. I’m also going to hope that the Nessie refurb and the fact new BBW is also getting a good theming package is a sign of better days to come. For the purposes of this thread though, that park is less then an hour away (along with Water Country USA and Collonial Williamsburg) and every time I visit KD at some point I ask myself why in the world am I visiting KD when I could be at BGW.

As far as KI is concerned, from the Eiffel Tower to the layout to the similar attractions it invites the comparison and loses yet again, KI has a better wooden coaster line up, steel coaster line up, better flats, better food, better and more entertainment. KI is a Cincinnati institution that the guests take pride in and is so loved by everyone there it makes the guests on average happier there it’s weird to quantify. When you are so familiar with KI it just makes KD look worse even if in some ways (landscaping, theming) it can be argued is better. CP, KI, and KBF have for years just been another category then any other domestic CF park in terms of quality (finally getting to CW this summer, and I’m hoping that gets added to this list) that it makes parks that should on paper be comparable with those three (Carrowinds, KD) look worse.

Living in Northern VA for the first 40 years of my life, it made more sense most of the time to drive a little over an hour to KD than it did to drive almost 2.5 hours to BGW. That drive at night after a full day at KD was a lot easier than the latter. Clearly BGW is the better park, but it's always been that, even when KD was at its best.

What's keeping KD from being as good as KI? The obvious answer is attendance. But what else? Why can't KD copy some of the traits that have made KI one of the best parks in the country (in my opinion?)

Last time I was at KD was a few years ago during their Halloween season. The haunts were probably twice as good as KI's haunts. That's the only thing I can say was better than KI.

It has so much potential. It has it's lackluster stuff, but it's not a truly bad park. Between DC and Richmond, you'd think it would have more enthusiastic fans like KI does.

Having made KD along with Dorney as my home parks the last few years. I have to say the one show that was missed this last season was "Let's Get Wild" and I bet it will be back this year as it was located in the area Rapterra was being built. Crowds seemed to love it and it was located right in a midway so if you weren't watching the show it was a tough path to get back to Intimidator/Project 305/Pantherian or Flight of Fear when the show was happening. The set pieces were still in place last season even with the construction happening.

Dorney on the other hand turned their stage area into a lounge. So I doubt the live entertainment returns there. Other than the stage where Grand Carnivale was held.

"It's all gone downhill since they took King Kobra out!"

Teehee :) But really, people loved that ride. And the lake, and sky ride.

At least we have singing mushrooms!

I mean ... knowing that Gold Reef City has the old White Lightnin' from Carowinds has not diminished my desire to go there ...

Schwarzkopf76:

"It's all gone downhill since they took King Kobra out!"

I was just talking to my brother about the vitriol I've seen in social media comment sections toward the park recently, primarily about Berserker and Anaconda being removed, and he made a similar comment, in jest of course. It's as if the park hasn't been removing rides for decades, or hasn't changed every single year it's been open.

We've seen some crappy headlines (like this thread) since the merger, but we really have yet to see what the future looks like for this park and the rest of the chain. I'm holding off on the doom and gloom for at least the next year or two.

We were at KD in 2023. The last time had been 2003. Yeah, 20 years went by, but it felt much more like a nigh and day difference. In 2003, the park seemed to have a decent crowd. Not packed by any means, but a fairly decent crowd. It seemed to be very balanced and overall on par with Kings Island. Volcano was unique and seemed to have the kinks worked out of it. OK, the same could not be said for Hypersonic XLC.

When we were there in 2023, we were shocked at how empty the park was. With a few rare exceptions, everything was very close to a walk on. But then again, as we looked for restaurants to eat at, many of them were closed. (OK, it was a weekday). Many more were closed than you'd expect. Dominator was, OK, well, a ride, though we'd ridden it at Geauga Lake. Tumbili just didn't feel impressive for the wait (it wasn't a walk-on). The only ride that really, really stood out was Twisted Timbers. Avalanche / Reptilian was unique for the kids who hadn't been on it before, but overall, it just did not stand out. Now, the heat of our visit may have played into the emptiness. It was hot. But it also was hot a few days later at BGW.

If I lived in the Richmond area, I'd definately think of BGW as the place to be a season pass holder - even if it is a bit farther away and occasionally visit KD. KD feels to me to be more on par with a Six Flags park than a CF park.