Price of Voyage - CoasterBuzz

With the news that deconstruction of Myrtle Beach Pavilion has begun, I decided to check out RCDB to see what coasters they had. When I saw the price for Hurricane ($6 million) I remembered that Voyage at Holiday World had a pricetag of $6.5 million.

How is it that Voyage, a coaster nearly twice the size of Hurricane and built six years later, cost only $500,000 dollars more?

Just a guess that proximity to the ocean and the fact that footers are going into SAND instead of something more...substantial....might have added a LOT to the cost of footers...

Remember, there are several factors that can come into play when determining the cost of a ride. Location is a prime example. Of course it would be more expensive to have a ride engineered to withstand the beach climate then it would be for the ride to be inland.

Also, the two parks probably used different construction companies, and where labor can have a small affect on it as well.

Also, voyage is very low to the ground throughout the course of the ride. Although the amount of materials used to build Voyage was definitely higher than that of Hurricane, I would be willing to bet that the difference is a lot smaller than you would think.

Voyage was 8.5 million. Time to go back and check your holiblog

Still a hell of a bargain considering comparable sized Intamins and B&M's are 20 million plus.

You could retrack voyage every year for 30 years and still not hit the 25 million mark.

Charles Nungester said:
Still a hell of a bargain considering comparable sized Intamins and B&M's are 20 million plus.

And really a bargain when you compare them to the $250 million Airbus A380's. What's that you say?... You can't compare a wooden roller coaster to an airplane? Then why did you comare it to a steel coaster?

Welcome back, red train, how was your ride?!

HUH?

What it means is you got just as much thrill or more in most cases for 8 million vs 25 million.

Chuck, who considers 37 dollar visit for a voyag ride a hell of a deal over the $2,500 airplane ride that gives you weightlessness.

Charles Nungester said:
HUH?

Apples and oranges is what I was getting at.

Welcome back, red train, how was your ride?!

I would say comparing Voyage to a B&M makes much more sense than comparing a B&M to the A380. Voyage is a large, thrilling roller coaster (like a B&M) that obviously had a huge return on the investment. It would be safe to say Voyage was a bargain in comparison to a "comparable" B&M. Obviously they provide very different experiences, but it is still a fair comparison since they are both built for the same objective.
*** Edited 10/12/2006 8:38:20 PM UTC by GoliathKills***

Nitro vs Voyage? I bet Voyage wins by 90%

Not fair? Oh well. They both claim to be large airtime coasters with big drops, Problem is, One delivers and the other doesn't and cost three times as much

Dude, the airplane analogy was kinda out there--wood coasters and steel coasters are way different than airplanes :)

And I do like Voyage better than Nitro :)

On another note--ATTENTION ALL ENTHUSIASTS--the correct term is "footings", not "footers". This came from an architecture major, a friend of mine who is also a coaster enthusiast.

Ok, now back to your regularly-scheduled program.

coastin' since 1985

Footers is quoted by TGG so your analogy is moot.

Chuck

HA! HA! HA! HA!

He said moot! ;)

When comparing prices I think one of the major factors that kept voyage so cheap was manufacturer. You have a newer start up company in the Gravity Group, working on some of there first projects as a new company, trying to get their nam / reputation out there. They are of course going to give a better deal than a more established company like CCI did for the hurrricane.

There is something really funny about that last statement. ;)

AV Matt
Long live the Big Bad Wolf

You have a newer start up company in the Gravity Group, working on some of there first projects as a new company, trying to get their nam / reputation out there. They are of course going to give a better deal than a more established company like CCI did for the hurrricane.

No offense but if you had the slightest inkling of how Denise Dinn ran CCI you'd never had made that statement. :)

Not to bring up a dead issue just so I can kill (it is Halloween, after all) but few people ever have to decide between riding a wooden coaster or an airplane. A lot of people have to decide between riding a wooden coaster or a steel one.

Apples to apples to oranges.

Hobbes: "What's the point of attaching a number to everything you do?"
Calvin: "If your numbers go up, it means you're having more fun."

The majority of the people at parks just ride whatever is there. It's up to the park to decide between wood or steel, and different parks like different things.

I thought the Voyage was by far and away the best rollercoaster I've ever ridden. I honestly cannot imagine anyone building a better coaster. On the other hand, I can appreciate how it would be way too intense for a lot of guests. Even smaller, less intense wooden coasters are often perceived as rough or unsafe by some guests.

I also thought that Sheikra was a fun ride, but had almost no intensity. The drops were sick, but I am not rushing to go back to BGT to ride it. However, I'm sure it's right up most guests' alley and they think it's great.

It's all about what parks want to do with their money based on the market they're in. HW can't afford a ride like Nitro or Sheikra, but it can afford the Voyage and its guests happen to like it. A park like CP can afford just about any coaster within reason, yet its guests expect a little more than a wooden coaster and they can get a return on their investment in a B&M or Intamin that HW can't.

The bottom line has nothing to do with whether a B&M or Intamin has a better bang for the buck than a TGG woodie, but rather that each park that builds any new coaster is building what's right for them at that time.

If there was a wooden coaster that would have gotten my butt from FL to PPP, you better believe it would have been a weird decision to have to make...

Gerstlauer airplanes? Yikes! ;)

To the original poster, the reason why the Myrtle Beach Hurricane cost $6M had less to do with the footers than it did with their lack of space. As a result, the station had to be elevated above the midway by almost 40', greatly increasing cost. Additionally, the Corkscrew had to be dismantled and its station demolished, and the Scrambler, Calypso, Chaos, Top Spin and Gravitron all had to be moved to make room for the structure. Finally, the go-cart track and rock work on the Hydro Surge had to be modified slightly to make room for the footers. I think the ride would have been more in the $4.5M range if it had been built out in a field.

rablat5 said:
On another note--ATTENTION ALL ENTHUSIASTS--the correct term is "footings", not "footers". This came from an architecture major, a friend of mine who is also a coaster enthusiast.

Right...yeah. Uh, good luck with that.