Q Funding wants two new board members for Cedar Fair

Why does it have to come down to Disney money or nothing? Just because the Mouse throws kajillions at every new ride it installs doesn't mean that every other park need follow.

Ghostwood Estate at Kennywood was built for about $2 million. It's a perfectly fine, enjoyable ride. Something of this caliber would fit in beautifully at the Point.

You'd miss the 5 year old, but what about a Gerstlauer spinning mouse?

The perfect ride for the entire family is a traditional log flume, a ride that Cedar Point promised to replace, and yet put in yet another Chutes style water ride instead. The new water ride can not accommodate younger, shorter children. Cedar Point removed TWO of these family-friendly attractions over the years. If Dollywood can have one, why can't Cedar Point?

..And along the same lines, there are parks out there that have completely ripped out their kiddielands in recent years, yanking out decades of historic but worn out Hamptons and Herschells, replacing them with all new rides. The big difference with the new rides? Mom and Dad can ride on the new stuff. The first park I saw that had this kind of a kiddieland was MarineLand, which has perhaps one traditional kiddie ride. The rest can handle the whole family. Not that the whole family would *want* to ride, but it is a step in the right direction.

That's one of the things our family went through a couple of years ago. We were all going to get together with my parents, and my brother's family was trying to decide: Disneyland or Knott's Berry Farm. I went through the ride lists. There was ONE ride at Disneyland (Indiana Jones) that the older kid could not ride, and about half the rides can actually accommodate the hand-held infant.

Meanwhile, over at Knott's, there is a handful of rides that the older kid could ride by herself, without the rest of us, and absolutely nothing that would accommodate the infant.

We went to Disneyland.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

But, handheld infants are not going to remember going to a park when they are older. They wont remember riding the rides. I wouldn't have taken that into consideration.

Once again, Dave perfectly crystallizes the discussion with a spot-on anecdote.

LostKause said:
But, handheld infants are not going to remember going to a park when they are older. They wont remember riding the rides. I wouldn't have taken that into consideration.

So you'd leave the baby while you rode? Maybe rent a locker? ;)

I think that was Dave's point. Disney had rides that everyone could enjoy together without someone staying behind with the infant.

We'll be traveling with Simon this year, and really, who cares if he doesn't remember any of it? We will.

Lord Gonchar said:
Maybe, but what about all the families that can do thrill rides?

Seems to me they would be 'older' families with tweens/teens - and I would guess that those families are more likely to be more established and able to spend.

Just playing devil's advocate, really. I totally see your point. Seems like there's a middle ground they're potentially missing. They have multiple kiddie areas. They have the big bad rides. They just don't seem to have a huge selection of stuff inbetween.

With that said my family is totally looking forward to visiting this year as the kids are finally old enough/big enough that we can all do pretty much everything together.

The trade off is that it makes it harder to carry the camera(s) around when no one is left behind to "watch the stuff." :)

It's your new idea, Gonch: The "Personal Park Valet." For a reasonable fee, the valet travels through the park with your family or group, watching your stuff while your family rides unencumbered. Those families with infants too young to ride can utilize the services of "Personal Park Nanny." Remember folks, you read it here first.

To answer Hawkeye's question- there are plenty of flats that can be enjoyed by all, like the Whip, Tilt-a-whirl, Teacups (Cuddle-ups), Train Rides, Skyrides, Ferris Wheels, Dodgems, Scramblers, Balloon Ride, Flying Bobs, Himalaya. Maybe not every family enjoys these, but I've seen plenty of multi-generation families riding these together at different parks.

I definitely, and defiantly, agree with LK about the Flume. It's a water ride that doesn't get you soaked, has a reasonable height requirement, and everyone from toddlers to grandparents enjoys them. Not every water attraction has to be the tallest, steepest, wettest, or require you to bring along a suitcase with a change of clothes for the whole family.

I'd love to see more parks return to the Old Mill style ride, like the old Lost River at Hershey or Journey to the Center of the Earth at Dorney. The potential for an accident like happened at Rye could be almost totally prevented, along with concerns about vandalism or other misbehavior, skanky water like the old style rides had to deal with can be dealt with, and the possibilities for theming and effects are light years ahead of what they had in the 60s and 70s.

Wow, RGB,. You just gave me a great idea for an amenity with a ready made market.

Imagine a small, enclosed wagon with a locking door. Said wagon would have some sort of hitch assembly that could be coupled to permanently secured docking stations around the park. One key, provided on a convenient elastic wrist band, would both open the wagon to provide access to its contents, as well as detach the wagon from the locking dock.

Stations with multiple docks could be scattered at strategic locations around the park. The result would be a much greater convenience than a stationary locker; it would be like taking the locker with you. (And the bigger the park, the bigger the convenience.) No more backtracking half a mile just to get your sunglasses or put away your cell phone.

Customers could pull their locker wagon to a docking station, lock it, then enjoy all the rides in the vicinity without having to move it each time. Then, when they want to move on, they simply detach the wagon and pull it to the next station.

It's so simple, I'm surprised parks haven't thought of it yet. This kind of convenience would easily be worth $20/day or higher for many families. On selected days, I would probably pay for it myself.

At first I thought you were going to suggest leaving small children inside of it. :)

That would have been a fun trip to Family Kingdom last year at Myrtle Beach if we didn't let my 3-year-old son on any of the kiddie rides because he'd have little to no memory of it later on...

That Disneyland's rides could accommodate the hand-held infant just happened to be a neat coincidence; in truth, most of the time, Mommy would stay with the youngest while the rest of us rode, and that worked fine.

The real key was that the six-year-old was able to ride everything in the park, and I don't think there is anything in that park where we had to watch the six-year-old ride. Many newer kiddielands "get" this. Disney has the added benefit that there are not a lot of rides in their park where not only can the six-year-old ride, but the rest of the family can also *enjoy* the ride. Just because you can fit an adult into the back seat of a Venture 4x4 doesn't mean the adult will enjoy the ride. But a Rockin Tug, or a Tilt-N-Hurl, or a Scrambler, or a tea-cup, or any number of other rides, classic or modern, is literally fun for the whole family.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

RatherGoodBear said:
At first I thought you were going to suggest leaving small children inside of it. :)

That would be completely up to parental discretion. ;)

^Just make sure there are airholes in it. :)

At first, I thought Smith was going to suggest leaving infants in the portable lockers too...

...And that's an ingenious idea, by the way. The only problem that I foresee, and it's easily fixed with design, is not having enough space to accommodate a whole bunch of wagon-lockers in the lockup area.

About the hand held infant discussion, I don't have children, so I kind of overlooked that the rest of the family may want to enjoy the park with their baby. That's a very valid point.

RatherGoodBear said:
At first I thought you were going to suggest leaving small children inside of it. :)

I had a vision of the "Pet Check" just when reading that LOL

Now we come back to the "penalty boxes" on the coaster platforms at Kings Island. Does any other park have those? You know, the little "playpens" where young kids can wait for their families to come back?

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Well, lets see. My daughter is 36 1/2 inches tall. Going to other parks, she can:#1 Ride a family coaster (Comet at Waldameer, Goofy's adventure at Disney, Matterhorn at Disneyland, or Meteor at Little Amerricka.) We can ride all of these as a family. Granted, they are not the most thrilling, but... At CP, she could ride Jr Gemini. But, we couldn't really ride that as a family (and it certainly isn't terribly comfortable for adults.)#2 Ride a dark ride. She had a ball at Disney on Buzz Lightyear (though she was a terrible shot), loved the "ghosties" in the Haunted Mansion, and liked the Pirates as well. This summer we'll planning a Walameer trip and I think she'll like the dark ride there. CF used to have decent themed rides: think of Earthquake and Pirates...#3 Log flume... Said before.#4 Movie(s). She loved the 3D of Philharmagic. Now does CF need that type of show? No. But until a few years ago (well, more than a few) they had Imax. Is there some form of similar entertainment that would work? probably. 4D movies run at the Busch Gardens parks.#5 Small World... Again, she loved it. How about something along the lines of Flooded mine at Silver Dollar City? Yes, this is again crying out for a dark ride of some sort.I think the other problem CF has in this regards is lines. When we were at Disney, my wife and I specifically didn't do Space Mountain (though we wanted to). Why? We didn't want to wait 1 hour for something our daughter couldn't do. If we were at KI and we waited 10 - 20 minutes, we might use the "penalty box" on Beast. An hour wait? Probably not. But that is typically what the waits run for the major rides at CP (MF, Dragster, etc.)

LostKause said:
The only problem that I foresee, and it's easily fixed with design, is not having enough space to accommodate a whole bunch of wagon-lockers in the lockup area.

Yeah, I thought of that. Since it wouldn't be very practical to stack these things, they would definitely take up more of a footprint than stationary lockers. However, since the unit cost for these babies (probably on the order of $150 - $300 each, guessing) would be paid for within the first few weeks of usage, the park could limit the number in service solely on the basis of how many they choose to or can accommodate.