SFGA, Unbelievable...

SteveWoA said:

I don't rate a Disney or Universal park higher because they don't have ads, for example.

1. Disney does have advertising.

2. Disney parks are essentially one big ad for their IPs.

Jeff said:

I'm officially old or over it or something, because six hours to anything on a frequent basis doesn't sound fun.

We've hit this phase as a family. For us, it's kind of "We're over it" - I look back at years where were drove thousands of miles and would hit 20 or 30 parks in a season and go, "What were we thinking!?"

In the past 4 years we've spent a total of 9 days at 4 different amusement parks and 3 of those were for special events.

We've kind of been there, done that. I've been on upwards of 400 coasters, my daughter had 224 credits before she turned 10. With all due respect to anyone who still has that passion to score 700, 800, 1000, 1500 credits - once you've been on a couple of hundred rides, it's kind of all the same. If I get somewhere, I get there. If I don't, I don't. I'm long past actively seeking new credits and spending an inordinate amount of time and money pursuing different versions of the same things.

Maybe if we were closer to a park we'd become loyal locals or something. Kings Island is just under an hour away and that even seemed like too much of a commitment to worry about season passes. Six hours for the purposes of a park visit...no thank you.

At this point it's the people that keep me in the game.

I currently have my dream schedule (7 on, 7 off) when you have a week off every other week it's great for traveling. Doing 3-4 extended weekends in Ohio is not too big of a deal. Besides, no matter how hard I try, I need to leave town in order to relax. 6 hours is now problem.

I still haven't broken 200. Perhaps I should turn over CoasterBuzz to someone more qualified.

And Disney parks are happy to let the corporate sponsors of their attractions show off their wares, as well.

I'll travel for ACE events, if they're at parks that I either have never been to but want to visit, or at parks I really like (Cedar Point, Dollywood and Beech Bend are in that group, among others), and when I do, I spend a lot of time doing other things in the area. (Let's just say I spend a lot of time on roadfood.com before one of these trips....)

But to just go to an amusement park for a day is something that really no longer interests me.

The only reason I've been to Six Flags Great America the past three years: the free tickets I get through work. I go, I spend two or three hours, I leave. I like the park fine, but I'm spoiled by those ACE events with their ERT.

At this point it's the people that keep me in the game.

Years ago, I wrote an article for ACE's RollerCoaster magazine, about long-term members of the club, and this Lord Gonchar quote sums up the sentiment of everyone in the article. They joined ACE because of coasters, but they stay in ACE because of the people. And whether it's the people I meet at ACE events, or the people here on Coasterbuzz, it's the people that I stick around for.

I think that's probably why I think so fondly of those early BeastBuzz events, because let's be honest, Kings Island in 2002 to 2006 wasn't all that great in terms of coasters. It better be epic this year, or I'm quitting the club.

I had maybe 2 or 3 years of actively traveling around to various parks padding my count (which has been *almost 200* for close to a decade now, I think). And even at my most insane, it was 9 parks and 50 coasters over a three month period, waaaay back in 2000.

Now? I visit maybe one or two parks a year with the family, and if I happen to be on business travel (which isn't often), I'll make a solo side trip to a park if there's one nearby.

I've pretty much come full-circle from when I was a kid; two park trips in a summer was a good year.

Touchdown said:
To just complete the analogy:
Six Flags: Walmart
Cedar Fair: Target
Herschunds Group: Cabellas.
Sea World: Sacks 5th Ave.
Universal/Disney: designer label stores

So which company not mentioned would be K-Mart? (My K-Mart experience as of late is High Prices, Outdated Stores, Dirty Isles with the floors all junked, and empty shelves, I am not kidding about this, K-Mart used to be better than this but they went downhill really bad in recent years.)

At this point, it's probably best to ignore Kmart, and Sears... it's only a matter of time until Lampert succeeds in running both companies into bankruptcy.

(Edward Lampert is the CEO of Sears Holdings, the company that owns both Kmart and Sears.)

Sawblade5 said:

High Prices, Outdated Stores, Dirty Isles with the floors all junked, and empty shelves, I am not kidding about this, K-Mart used to be better than this but they went downhill really bad in recent years.

Recent years? You've described K-Mart for pretty much my entire lifetime.

Lord Gonchar said:

At this point it's the people that keep me in the game.

Have you heard? Six Flags is going to start charging for friends.

Sawblade5 said:
...Dirty Isles...

"Paging Gilligan. Paging Gilligan. Cleanup on Isle 5."

I'm in the mid 300's and still whoring it up. I am a bit OCD by nature, though, and I skip most kiddie coasters, but usually the first thing I think about when I plan a trip is which coasters are nearby, even if I've ridden everything or it's just clones or whatever. That said, when we travel a long way (Mediterranean last summer, China next) we typically don't end up riding anything..but I still look the parks up just in case.

I find the advertising at Six Flags detracts from the experience. Not necessarily the ads themselves, but it's part of an atmosphere that just seems less..."professional"...than a Busch or Sea World or Herschend. We are way more inclined to drop a bunch of cash and a lot more time (perhaps the more valuable resource for us) at a higher quality park with a consistent and immersive atmosphere. I still go to Six Flags and there isn't really another option for coasters in the area (SFoT), but given the amount of other non-coaster stuff to do in the DFW metroplex, I can't help but think the Wal-Martificiation isn't without consequences.

So I guess the small independent parks are like the mom and pop stores on main street.

And then there's Conneaut...

We don't need no water, let the mot... never mind.

They can put the fire out with Pepsi.