SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Tamps introduce free preschool pass

Cool idea.

Makes sense... they're not going alone.

It's a "kids 5-and-under get in free" business plan dressed up as something special.

Brilliant, really.

The real money comes when they start selling the kiddie ride line cut pass.

+1 to Aamilj.

Took them long enough to do this - they've had this at BGW for a couple years now. ;\

I just now noticed the headline..BUSCH "TAMPS" Getting pretty casual now, eh?

Not fair in my opinion. I compare this to colleges. Go to an in-state public school and you get a break on tuition because the parents are paying state taxes to fund that school. Go to an out of state school and you pay a premium because you have not payed any taxes into that school.

Is there a theme park tax that Floridians pay which gets them the special discounts that the rest of us non-Floridians cannot get?

If you're travelling to central Florida, chances are you were going to go to amusement parks anyway. If you live there, this could make you go when normally you wouldn't. That's the only incentive. It's not to give back to those who pay their taxes.

I know. It has nothing to do with taxes, that was just the best example I could come up with to show how this is not fair. I have always wondered how this doesn't trigger a discrimination lawsuit from someone.

Discrimination lawsuit? Give it time.

What does fairness have to do with anything? Florida has always had to work harder to get locals to come to their parks, and this is how they address it.

How does one class of people get a discount while others do not? I know this is a can of worms with discounts for military and elderly. In my mind I can accept those classes of people gettting discounts. But giving a 5 year old Floridian a discount but not giving a 5 year old Ohioan the same discount seems different.

Has anybody ever met a 5 year old with state id? Seems to me that ANYBODY paying for their little ones are as honest as my grandma, or not too smart.

Future news... Sea World is experiencing a sudden demographic change. They are not sure why so many out-of-state aunts and uncles are bringing their nieces and nephews...

On the lawsuit front...I would argue that if you accept out-of-state welfare money...you should honor out-of-state snot noses too. But that is only if I were a paid litigant. ;)

Shades said:
How does one class of people get a discount while others do not? I know this is a can of worms with discounts for military and elderly. In my mind I can accept those classes of people gettting discounts. But giving a 5 year old Floridian a discount but not giving a 5 year old Ohioan the same discount seems different.

Not that this changes your point, but they've been giving in state adults huge breaks (especially on season passes) for years.

Geography != social class. (West Virginia and Idaho excluded, of course. :))

Yeah the adult thing annoys me as well. And I might as well add Busch Gardens Virginia into the mix as well since they give VA residents discounts too.

Disney does it with their CA parks all the time - I'd say it has proven to get "locals" to come to parks more frequently than they would without the discounting. Let's face it, we *can* live without visiting any of our in-state parks (not referring to those of us on this board, but Floridians in general). Discounted rates fill up parks at off-season times when an empty park is a huge drain on resources without decent revenue.

For Gonch...."market segmentation" maximizes revenues. :)

You would be surprised at the amount of people in Central Florida that hate the parks and basically refuse to ever step foot in the gates. When I was there back in 04 for a family wedding I really wanted to go to Universal and figured my cousin would know a bit about the parks, but his response was that they really didn't care too much to go, even with the resident discounts. They ended up coming with us and had a blast and said they probably wouldn't have gone to the parks without me as the driving force. There is a large segment that without the local discounts, would never see the inside of a park, and thus a large segment of business they would be missing out on.