More water slides at ma

Personally, I would love to see all of the Kiddie Rides moved together in one area, with some shade, and a theme. Planet Snoopy, Camp Snoopy, ect. with a few more Kiddie Rides added.

If you look at the daily business at MA, maybe a fraction of the daily guests are toddlers or small children. Do you see families with toddlers or small children lined up for 2 hours for the kiddie rides? The rides for kids on the other side of the park rarely if ever have anyone waiting. And, if you look at the rides they have added in the last few years, they have all been water attractions. The only non water ride they have added since 2008 is the gliders, which can have a wait time of a half hour. because that is what people go to the park for. Not boring kiddie rides.

I would not be making this comment at all if Cedar fair would give MA the attention it is giving to it's other parks.So lets take a poll. Who goes to Michigan's Adventure to ride kiddie water slides made for 5 year olds? Certainly not me. Do you go because the park has a water park? or do you go because MA has some good roller coasters. Final question, would you go to MA from where you live if they pulled a Geauga Lake and removed all the rides and coasters?

I live in Michigan and I wouldn't even go. I also know a guy who lives in a 6,000 suare foot 16 room house, who thinks that Michigan's Adventure isn't worth the drive, and he only lives 25 minutes away in Spring Lake.

Also the only reason the water park is so packed during the day is because it is hotter than hades at the park during the day due to the lack of shade. Go on a cool day, and everyone is on the ride side of the park.

As for the taco comment. I go to certain taco bells, the same can be said for Burger King or McDonalds. I go to the one that has the best service, and I don't go to the ones that have bad service. I will drive past several McDonalds to go to the one that I like. The problem with MA is, they don't offer close to the service that the other Cedar fair parks do, yet they charge the same prices for non admission services like food, which is way over priced at MA, and no where near the quality of parks like Cedar Point. And the same people own it!

Note. I just found a 1998 MA brochure in my collection. Admission was $18.00 and parking was $5.00

Timber-Rider said:

I also know a guy who lives in a 6,000 suare foot 16 room house, who thinks that Michigan's Adventure isn't worth the drive, and he only lives 25 minutes away in Spring Lake.

Because the size of his house is relevant.

Good thing that guy won't go. Now I won't have house envy going down the unnecessary water slides while waiting in an unshaded 30 minute queue for the flyers before eating overpriced Cedar Fair crap food and walking past the fraction of guests who are under 5 who are not waiting in line for the kiddie rides.

Timber-Rider said:
If you look at the daily business at MA, maybe a fraction of the daily guests are [families with] toddlers or small children.

Based on?

Do you see families with toddlers or small children lined up for 2 hours for the kiddie rides?

No, because they're all over in the waterpark.

.....they have all been water attractions.

Silly MiA adding attractions to the most popular part of the park....

I would not be making this comment at all if Cedar fair would give MA the attention it is giving to it's other parks.

I remain fascinated by your belief that Cedar Fair is not paying 'attention' to a very profitable park. They add attractions, etc, that research and analysis suggest will be popular with customers.

Timber-Rider said:

I also know a guy who lives in a 6,000 suare foot 16 room house,

I think somebody of overcompensating for something. On a similar note I know a sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea.

CF knows what they are doing. They know the market and they know the parks and patrons. They know not everyone will be happy that are potential guests of the parks. The ones that really matter though, they are all very happy with what CF is doing. " Based on the momentum coming out of our record performance in 2016 and the strong early-season trends in long-lead indicators this year, we remain confident in our ability to execute on our long-term strategy and expect 2017 to be another record year for Cedar Fair." YOY records, that is performance any publicly traded organization would love to have.

You want a new ride? Learn economics pertaining to the entertainment industry with a focus on amusement parks. Create a presentation detailing how a multi-million dollar ride will not only attract X% new guests it will create X% demand increase for season pass sales and X$ in branded product sales. Detail where those guests will come from and how much money those guests will have to spend in the park. Detail how many average visits the new guests will make to the park and how much annual revenue each new guest is worth in year 1, year 2, etc. Contrast any risks to existing properties that are not MA and examine if the impact is nominal or significant. Come to the conclusion that the investment is in line with the long term vision of the park and that the capital outlay will be best spent on this expansion. I guarantee you that somewhere in a file cabinet (likely on a sparkling new speedy fast server somewhere) CF has already done all this research and more with the exact opposite conclusion that you wish they would have.

I liked Sears and being able to purchase trustworthy items from their stores. In my city they ran a crap house of a store. Would have been easy to make changes that would have increased their image and positively impacted their bottom line. Heck a K-Mart is just a quarter mile down the road competing for business. My Sears location closed this year. Bad management of assets and slow to adapt to a rapidly changing marketplace are the biggest issues they continue to face. They are old and slow and just waiting for someone to take them out behind the shed and put them out of their misery. Poor direction and poor management have done terrible things to great organizations. CF is an example of what great direction and great management can do for a great organization. It could always be instead of a new water slide you get a Meijer and park gets closed. I would probably opt for what you have. I know nothing will change your opinion, you have a very negative outlook, but life is what you make of it. Look for the positive, not the negative.

Now, I am trying to give birth to a 6mm kidney stone, you want negative give this ride a try! The positive part about it? I creeped out my urologist by telling him that he is the only guy I want inside me when he advised me that he recommends he going in and removing it. That laugh is almost worth all the pain. Almost!

You do know that Sears & K-Mart are both owned by the same company, right?

Captain Hawkeye said:
You do know that Sears & K-Mart are both owned by the same company, right?

That is the significance of it. They are competing against themselves for market share and diluting profits with an already struggling business model. It's an example of poor management. This is especially true in markets like mine where the strategy was to drop grocery from K-Mart. After that there just is not enough differentiation between the two.

I have a friend whose job involved putting together the Sunday newspaper fliers for Sears. She told me each department had to bid to be on the front cover, which led to situations like a Sunday before Mother's Day cover featuring lawn mowers; that department had made the highest bid. (She's since moved on to the more satsfying, if less lucrative, business of being in a band.)

Lampert is running two great companies into the ground.

The new family water slides are not used surprisingly. They are brand new slides from Vortex International, a Canadian company that until recently specialized in water play areas, pop-up jets and the likes. They bought a small American water slide manufacturer a while back and started marketing slides under their own name.

ldiesman said:

You want a new ride? (snip) detail how a multi-million dollar ride will.... (snip) where guests will come from.. money guests will spend... visits guests will make... annual revenue... risks to existing properties... impact... Come to the conclusion that the investment is in line with the long term vision of the park... Somewhere in a file cabinet CF has already done all this research and more with the exact opposite conclusion that you wish they would have.

They not only did the research, they carried out the experiment in full.

It's called "Shivering Timbers."

I don't have access to the books, but I'm not sure it was the rousing success that they hoped it would be after the initial excitement wore off. Most of us can see that. That's why after Shivering Timbers, the only coaster they got was Geauga Lake's sloppy seconds.

But it's like arguing with my 14 year old here. No matter what I say, he'll find a way to justify his own opinion. Usually that's where I say "Yeah, you're right, I'm wrong, nevermind."

Timber-Rider said:

If you look at the daily business at MA, maybe a fraction of the daily guests are toddlers or small children. Do you see families with toddlers or small children lined up for 2 hours for the kiddie rides? The rides for kids on the other side of the park rarely if ever have anyone waiting.

The only park I ever see will people lining up in droves for kiddie rides is Disney/Legoland. I don't think that Cedar Fair/Six Flags etc. are a huge draw for someone with young kids.

That couldn't be further from the truth. Millions of dollars have been spent at both Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks nationwide on kids' areas. Cedar Point has three. They're full of great downsized rides, cute themes, and character tie-ins. Families with age appropriate kids spend a lot of time in those areas.

I don't think you've been paying attention.

Anyone that thinks that theme park kiddie areas aren't busy doesn't spend time there.

And perhaps more importantly, a family with small kids has to have a substantially higher per capita then whoever is just riding the big, new coaster. My per capita probably literally triple or quadrupled when I started coming with kids: less visits per season on my pass, some non-zero amount of food and drinks, the occasional souvenir or photo...not to mention the number of season passes and tickets grandma and grandpa have bought so they could spend the day at the park with the grandkids.

I recently found an article from 2005 in the muskegon cronicle, where MA claimed it had 400,000 visitors. I assume they have a few hundred thousand more than that each summer now. But, if you do the math on today's admission price. That is 18 million in one summer. That does not include money made on parking, water park lockers, food, and merchandise. They are easily making close to 20 million a year. If you multiply that by 9 years or boring attractions, that is 180 million dollars.

You would think they would do something with that money. The fact that they continue to add nothing exciting to the park, proves to me that it is nothing more than a cash cow. I would hope that they would do what they do with their other parks, and invest that money in the park, instead of funneling it to their other parks.

people say its just business. This could have easily been done at Cedar Point. Take away all the rides and attractions that Cedar Point has added in the last 9 years, and replace them with MA attractions. No gate Keeper, no Dive coaster, no change to Mantis. All you get is upgrades to Soak City, a petting Zoo, and Lakeside Gliders. How happy would you be with that? With nothing but increases in admission and price increases on everything else.

You do know that what you make is then offset by the operating costs, right? That's not all profit.

Your comparison to Cedar Point is ridiculous. CP attracts 7 times as many people per year, operates four hotels, a separately gated water park and a marina. It can build a $20 million ride every year because the income is exponentially higher. You did the math yourself... if MA had income of $20 million by your estimate, how do you afford to buy a $20 million ride with that when you haven't paid for any of your expenses?

But if CF puts a Millennium Force coaster in at MiA, then millions of people will move to Muskegon to make the place busier and more profitable....

And then a hotel is the next logical move. Right after Great Adventure builds theirs...

Or Maverick.