Michigan's adventure will make an announcement soon.

From Facebook:

New for 2011-Giant Beach Party interactive water play attraction at Michigan’s Adventure. Beach party will feature the first of its kind giant geyser, which blasts water over 90 feet in the air. Full details and a press release will be available soon at www.miadventure.com.

Seriously? Guess the speculators were correct - this is disappointing. Although the architect in me is curious where there are going to put it and what it will look like.

I for one am glad that it is not a coaster or something else that I would want to do. MIA had to be one of the worst parks I have been to.

Nothing says you have to go back if it was a coaster.

^"Turn in your enthusiast badge and gun."

Should've been a 4th wave pool ;)

Honestly though, this will only bring good things. They have a really awesome water park and this will surely help for when it gets super busy

That's true, but if it were something that I would want to ride, I would probably go back. Till then they can keep it in Michigan.

DaveStroem said:
That's true, but if it were something that I would want to ride, I would probably go back. Till then they can keep it in Michigan.

But if it's the worst park you have been to, why would you go back?

ApolloAndy said:
^"Turn in your enthusiast badge and gun."

I turned in my badge a long time ago. Is the gun for shooting enthusiasts? If so, I think I'll hold on to it.

The gun is to protect yourself while in line at the buffet. :)

I went to the park pre and post Cedar Fair, and it has greatly improved from what it was.

On a real bright note, here, they are not raising gate admission it's still going to be $26. I am sure people would pay more......I'd say $30 admission is still a bargain for this park.
I am curious if they are going to tear out the existing structure like this near the snake pit to put it there?

Jason Hammond said:
The gun is to protect yourself while in line at the buffet. :)

hahahaha...sad but true! :)

Jo
Lifetime Raptor flights: 2300 :)

I don't understand all of the hate for the park... given its location, its of a pretty decent size. Plus I love Shivering Timbers and enjoy Wolverine Wildcat.

I don't understand all of the hate either. MiA is a nice regional park, and will probably never get bigger then that. If it ever grew to ValleyFairs size I would be surprised.

Another thing I don't understand is why people think it is in the middle of nowhere or hard to get to. I have been to quite a few well-named parks that are quote/un-quote in the middle of nowhere or hard to get to.

So you're saying you know of many other parks that are surrounded on three sides by inland seas?

3 Sides?

It's near "lake" Michigan, just like cedar point is near(on) lake erie. The other side of the state(like 250-300 miles away) has lake erie. Cedar point is surrounded by water as well.

It feeds off of Detroit, Chicago, Toledo, Grand rapids, Muskegan(sp), and a lot of other medium sized citys in between.

The park will never be the size of cedar point or magic mountain, but it may grow to the size of a park like dorney.

Being where it is, has not stopped people from flooding the park. It's numbers seem to grow every year.

If you want to talk about parks that are in the middle of nowhere, look at parks like holiday world, indiana beach, knobles, sfga(nj), and even cedar point to an extent. I don't care where a park is located, if they have things that interest me, I will go there.

Calculated mileage (courtesy of wildtexas.com):

Michigan's Adventure:

Chicago - Muskegon: 186 miles
Detroit - Muskegon: 197 miles
Toledo - Muskegon: 224 miles
Grand Rapids: 42 miles
Lansing: 107 miles
Muskegon - Muskegon*: 0 miles

*2009 population approx. 39,000.

Holiday World:

Louisville - Santa Claus: 75 miles
Evansville - Santa Claus: 42 miles
Indianapolis - Santa Claus: 144 miles
Lexington - Santa Claus: 147 miles
Cincinnati - Santa Claus: 174 miles
St. Louis - Santa Claus: 204 miles

Indiana Beach:

Indianapolis - Monticello: 90 miles
Fort Wayne, IN - Monticello: 99 miles
Chicago, IL - Monticello: 113 miles
Toledo - Monticello: 199 miles
Cincinnati - Monticello: 201 miles

Note that Toledo is actually 25 miles closer to IB than it is to MiA!

Knoebels' Grove:

Harrisburg - Elysburg: 66 miles
Allentown - Elysburg: 75 miles
Philadelphia - Elysburg: 126 miles
Baltimore - Elysburg: 151 miles
New York City - Elysburg: 162 miles
Washington, D.C. - Elysburg: 187 miles

Six Flags Great Adventure:

Philadelphia - Jackson: 60 miles
New York City - Jackson: 59 miles
Trenton, NJ - Jackson: 29 miles
Allentown - Jackson: 103 miles
Baltimore - Jackson: 151 miles
Harrisburg - Jackson: 154 miles

This one is especially egregious to use as an example of a park that's "in the middle of nowhere". Jackson is about as not in the middle of nowhere as a place can be.

Cedar Point:

Toledo - C.P.: 63 miles
Cleveland - C.P.: 59 miles
Detroit - C.P.: 113 miles
Akron - C.P.: 87 miles
Columbus - C.P.: 116 miles
Pittsburgh - C.P.: 181 miles

Yeah, um, I'm not buying it. About the closest you come to being accurate is with Holiday World, but even there there is no comparison for the driving mileages from the nearest big cities.

I doubt very much that MiA is making huge draw from Detroit, and especially not Chicago. Its location is one of the reasons that I'll probably never, ever get back there. It's just too damn far from everywhere.

Like I said, if it's so far from everywhere, why are they just getting buisier every year?

People are starting to really notice the park. Granted, it's not cedar point, but it's a good park for what it is. I did see quite a few plates from Illinois when I was there last time, so they "are" pulling some people from the chicago area.I don't put much stock in the "how far from the major city" argument. That is not always true. A few examples would be astroworld, kentucky kingdom, and even riverview park in Chicago. All were in or near a major city.

They do draw a lot from the detroit area as well. If you drove thru detroit the last few years, you would notice all the Michigan's adventure billboards. There was a LOTof Michigan's adventure commercials in the detroit market as well.

If a park builds something that people want to experience, they will check it out even if it is an extra hour away from that other park.

A lot of people go there for the water park. The water park at Michigan's adveture is the best water park anywhere near detroit. Soak city at cedar point sucks and is $30 to get into. Michigan's adveture is only $24 and has a much nicer water park.

I can see this park growing to the size of dorney park in the next 30 years. Cedarfair keeps investing in the park every year.

^^^Well, while your short list of cities is a good start, it's fairly subjective. If you really want to test your theory of "middle of nowhere" you'd have to test all parks on all of the same city centers, weigh in population, and test it over a network;

Just so happens, I've done similar GIS work in the past year or so. What you'd want to use is a gravity model (easy description -wiki link- at bottom). But, in order to use that correctly you'd have to create an "importance factor" for each location. This could potentially be population (people don't live inside theme parks...), but this would need to be factored by something else since NYC is large enough to impact EVERYTHING, but wouldn't in actuality

What I'm getting at, even though a lot of people live in OH, IL, MI, ON, NY, etc., it doesn't mean that they go to at least one park per year, it doesn't mean they shop around to see which park has the best rides, and it doesn't necessarily make the argument of location valid. It's a lot more complicated than that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_model_of_migration