Upcharge Rides and Attractions

Even Conneaut has an Upcharge attraction with its Mini-Golf. Granted, the price for it is comparable with the area, (there are several putt putt courses around conneaut.)

Considering they don't charge an admission, I have no problem with this upcharge. I'm surprised they never put in a bungee jump on their lawn by the hotel, I'd pay extra for that.

I never understood why parks charge extra for things like go carts. Sure, many think it's because they run on gas, and thats not cheap. Problem is, most antique or turnpike cars run on gas that there's no uprate there. Maybe it's insurance reasons that they charge more.

I think most go-karts are upcharge to keep lines under control.

At some parks, especially the smaller ones, the upcharge attractions can give visitors more things to do once they have done enough of the other attractions. Sometimes, if the park has a free gate or upcharge attractions outside the gate, people will come just to do such things. Places like DelGrossos certainly are enhanced because the Go Karts and the minigolf are there. In addition, such attractions often stand alone or are a part of FECs.

There are a number of minigolf courses scattered around my area in addition to the ones at FECs. One that is less than 3 miles from where I live started operation during the big minigolf fad in the 1930s. By the way, during my college years, I worked at an amusement park minigolf course. And yes, it was an upcharge attraction.

They offer deals on the Screamin Swing at Dorney often (at least during non peak times). I see Buy 1 Get 1 free offered a lot in September and October. They also offer a combo of Screamin Swing and Go Karts for $10 which doesn't seem that bad. With the horrible capacity and gasoline using "bumper cars" they have (picture bumper boats but on the ground), I'm almost surprised they aren't an upcharge. They really need to get real bumper cars because capacity is around 150 an hour (10 - 12 single rider cars on the arena and each full cycle with loading and unloading is close to 5 minutes) *** Edited 3/19/2007 8:59:11 PM UTC by YoshiFan***

I have to say I was very upset when SFKK added Skycoaster as an upcharge atttraction and took out Vampire AND those slides. I'm not against upcharge attractions, but it does make me sick when they replace other attractions included in the POP .

I think Dorney has the buy one get one free deal every morning for like two hours. I know when we were there, they lady at the desk told us about it. We went late in the day, so obviously we didn't get to take advantage of that. I'm not sure if they still do this or not.

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Ride of Steel said:
Ok...?

You do realize how long the line for a Skycoaster would be if it were included with admission

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2nd post in and you hit the nail on the head with why ANY upcharge is an upcharge.

It's line-control, plain and simple. Anything that is inherently low-capacity has a price to match. Otherwise, the waits would be 1-2 hours long, while everything else (including people-eating coasters) would be just several minutes.

This is why Dorney offers lower-priced deals in non-peak times (mornings, weekdays, and slow weekends like the beginning and end of the year). They can lower the price without ballooning the line too much.

Knott's and Dorney - 8 seat screaming swings and upcharge

CP, KW, Lake Compounce (etc) - 32-seat versions and thus not upcharge.

It gives the illusion that they charge extra because of it being extreme, but usually it's because those extreme attractions only accomodate between 2-4 people per cycle.

This is why things like mini-golf (not exactly a speedy activity) and go-carts (almost *EVERYONE* wants to drive a go-cart)

Just take a look at the pricing at Dorney:

$5/person for screaming swing (seats 8, that's $40/ride). Now remember back when they had the skyscraper, and charged $22 for a 2-rider ticket. seats 4, $44/ride. Coincidence? Highly doubtful. Dorney's smart and knows the cut-off level to maximize ridership and revenue, while minimizing wait times in line.

Once the bigger Screamin' Swings become available to any park that wants to buy one, it will be interesting to see what happens to the smaller swings at KBF, DP and Moreys. Will they end up as POP rides at smaller parks where the low capacity is not an issue?

Wild Adventures' has their 8-person Screamin' Swing as part of POP. One time on New Years' even the Skycoaster was included with POP - of course, there were under 100 people there....it was really QUITE cold.

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Intamin Fan said:
I think you just start topics to talk about Kennywood.

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whats wrong with talkin about kw??? i mean kw is my home park and i rarely see topics about it. everyone else can talk about their home parks ie CP SFMM DW etc...why cant we bring up KW every once in a while to see peoples opinions about it? no one ever talks about sand castle..the water park right down the street from kennywood that kw owns. just cause its not a big place. ok im done, i just wanted to talk about KW lol

I really believe that smaller parks who won't have a line anyway due to lower crowds will have the smaller version as part of POP.

...unless the demand is high enough to result in larger crowds, then you'll see a pricetag on it pretty quickly. :)

For the person who wanted to talk about KW:

It's my home park too and it has two upcharge rides: paddle boats and a skycoaster. I see nothing wrong with this. The Skycoaster provides intense thrills for those who want them and are willing to pay the price. It has become a regular part of most larger parks. It doesn't have that big of a footprint. KW could put a flat or a show there but the park might do that elsewhere if they expand in the future. Meanwhile. many visitors enjoy watching the riders take the plunge. The paddle boats and the lake add to the parks atmosphere and don't displace anything.