The Penny-Pinchers Guide to Amusement Parks
CedarPoint82 said: Honey,
If I had a computer capable of downloading a picture, it'd be up already and you'd be drooling....trust me, I'm not the normal sterotypical computer/coaster geek.
Unless you very much resemble Janet or Halle, I doubt you'd get any of my drool.
Please. Not the normal comp/coaster geek? Five little words for ya, maybe you can follow me: Put up or Shut up.
I can't stand people that think so highly of them selves, but are so insecure they can't show you what they look like.
Congratulations, you've just recieved "Tekno's Troll o'the week award" for being obnoxious, rude, and a straight up wanna be.
1) Tayke Piccher
2) Save up extree $4
(lotta pennies! Bessy Da Piggie Bank gawta haves a BEEEG 'ol tummy)
3) Hitch up ya ol' Mare Sally and ride to Wally-Mart.
Be sure ye orange triangles fixtened on!
4) Ax fer fancy Fotomatic Picchers on CeeDee Rawm
5) Go to public Lie-Breeery
6) Do one a dem fancy 'upload' things.
Ax someone with lots o teeth and a 6th grade ejacashin
7) Tell everybody here to stop laughin!
8) Repeat step 7 until Blue in Da Face
Yer welcome. Have an extree swig a cider on me.
-CO
NOTE: Severe fecal impaction may render the above words highly debatable.
Nitro or Medusa and work it from there.
Now onto the food issue. At my home park I very rarely buy food there. I always have snacks/drinks in the car sometimes I bring them in sometimes I dont. When I travel I usually have one meal in the park. Once you guys get older and have kids (yes, I'm a stroller nazi mom) You may want to stay onsite because of those kids. So when they start screaming you can have your husband take them back to the room and you head for the closest coaster.
Ajrides said:
When most of you have kids,carpayments, mortgages you will learn how to save money.
The funny thing is most of the people arguing the "spend for fun" side have at least two of those three things...or in my case - all three! :)
Its common sense to stay at a cheaper hotel, lets face it your just going to sleep and shower there.
See, I totally disagree there. There's plenty to be said for quality and service. Heck, I have an old blanket and cot in my basement and a nice green garden hose. I'll let you stay for $10 - you're just going to sleep and shower, right?
There's a general appreciation for quality (and/or comfort) that needs to be considered. Think of cars. They just get you from point A to point B, right? Then how does BMW or Jaguar or Mercedes stay in business selling $80,000 automobiles with 'useless' features like heated leather seats, navigation systems and such luxuries when anyone can get a new Chevy for under 10 grand? Or a used car for a few bucks?
When it comes to hotels, I openly admit to being a 'snob' - you'd probably die if you knew how much we were spending on rooms on the trip I'm currently in the middle of. I can't even begin to list the pros of this room over some crappy Econo Lodge hotel nearby that would have cost half as much. I'm using the complimentary high speed access in my room to post this. I'm not counting the hairs in the shower, toilet or bathroom in general because there aren't any. I'm not afraid to let the kids get a bath and play in the tub for a while with the cool set of sea animal toys we picked up at Marineland a couple days ago. I won't think twice about snuggling into a freshly made bed wondering if the sheets had actually been changed and if not, what exactly happened on them last night. The room is very spacious with nice amentities and we don't feel stuck on top of each other. Tomorrow morning the kids will have a quick bowl of cereal before we leave courtesy of the hotel. The list goes on and on. You have to stop and think of all the corners being cut by a hotel to offer those cheap rooms - I do and frankly it makes me cringe.
As the theme of the thread seems to be - not everyone has the same needs, wants or capabilities. Someone with a 20 year old car pushing 150,000 miles on the speedometer will still get somewhere the same as the guy with the brand new car with all the upgrades - there'll just be a difference in the ride. You either appreciate and choose to pay for that difference or you don't.
But still, there is a huge difference between someone with personal preferences and/or a thrifty spending sense as opposed to someone like the article was advocation who pinches every penny and is probably not going to have a good time because they're too concerned about saving $$ and not having fun.
Are they going to have the same experience as someone who is more of a “free-spender”?!?! Absolutely not. But to say that they won’t have fun because they watch how they spend their money is plain wrong.
Those who pinch every penny, generally do so because they have to, not because they want to. (Granted there are some who pinch because they are just too damn cheap and if they do, that’s their personal preference. But for the sake of this argument, I am not going to concern myself with them because I don’t think those who are defending “penny pinchers” are referring to those who are pinching by their own preference.)
Those who have to penny pinch can have just as good of a time as those who don’t. What the “free-spender” may perceive as the experience of the “penny pincher” will almost certainly be completely different than what the penny pincher actually experiences. The reality is that what each of these two “groups” have a different set of life experiences that make them appreciate certain things more or less than others. While the “free-spender” may see a “penny pincher” who couldn’t afford to eat inside the park and play $50 worth of games and ride the $30 worth of upcharge attractions and say that they didn’t have as good of a time as me because I got to do all these things that they couldn’t. But they look at their experience and feel that they had a great time because they got to go to a park and enjoy the rides and shows that they saw. They may not have been able to experience those other things, but to them, just going to the park is a “luxury”. For the “free spender”, that is not as luxurious. For them, a vacation requires a little more to be a “luxury”.
Don’t get me wrong, that in and of it self would not be snobbish on the part of the “free spender”. It’s just what they perceive to be luxurious based on their life experiences.
There has been a lot of talk on this thread about personal preferences, but this really isn’t an issue of personal preferences. It’s more an issue of perception and what each person perceives as fun.
Gonch…
While I agree that generally speaking, the more expensive the hotel, the “cleaner” the room. But don’t think for one second that the more expensive hotel is “clean”. Just because it looks clean doesn’t mean that it is. Shortcuts are taken at the higher end hotels too.
Also, many of the lower end hotels that are also offering complimentary continental breakfasts where kids (or adults for that matter ) can get a bowl of cereal….but I get your point.
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."
And I don't know where you get the $5 figure from...but that is not what this thread is talking about. The kind of savings that the "guide" is talking about is a week or so's savings for a family. That is a lot more than $5. And for the families out there that live paycheck to paycheck (and there are a whole lot of them), those savings are the difference between taking a "theme/amusement park" vacation and going to someplace much cheaper or even not taking one at all.
You make it sound as if everyone can afford a park vacation.
To me, it's nowhere near a "how to make that park trip a reality" guide at all.
An exact quote from the article:
"Take heart. There may be no truly cheap way to visit an amusement park, but there are plenty of ways to save money and still have a good time."
Read through it again. This isn't ways to make a trip happen when it otherwise wouldn't (although I suppose it could be used that way), it's a list of tightwad tips.
It really reads like it's for parents stuck taking the kids to a park - save a few bucks, get it over with quickly and go home.
*** Edited 8/25/2004 8:35:16 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***
While you're there, check out Satan's Helper, aka, "the Bunny with the Bad Attititude"...:)
I suppose that the target audience of the article is open to one's interpretation. And if you read it as a list of tightwad tips, that's fine.
However, there are some (Note that I am not referring to you here.) who responded on this thread with some "rude" and/or "unenlightened" comments about lifestyles and life experiences. I was merely trying to shed some light....despite the fact that I know that is usually taboo around here.
In Related News, Poster Receives Boy Band-Like Adoration From Female Fans Due to Announced Policy of Doing Nothing All Day But Looking at Park Websites and Wondering Whether His Mommy Will Make Him Dinner
I think I should be ummm....flattered?
Just for the record, and no one has to reply to this, but I sometimes may do these things on MY VACATION/ paid time off of work. I bust my butt at work every day, and cook my own dinner regularly. Everyone enjoys Mom's home cooking when they visit her, right? I just don't want anyone to think that I am some guy who sits all day at his computer and has his Mom wait on him.
ARN&R is a very humorous site of which I enjoy a lot. I know that it's all in fun and I, of all people, am laughing hardest. I guess they have to find something to laugh at. Life keeps giving me another 15 minutes of fame; it's wierd.
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