Your thoughts about food at parks

^Right. I agree. :-)

Even with season passes you are still going to pay one way or another. I usually get a Six Flags pass (cause they are so damn cheap!) and a CP pass every year (although I AM going to get a cheaper Knott's pass if I attend Solace again). Every now and then I will get a Paramount pass although I didn't get one this year.

I visited PKI three times this year for free and don't plan on making it back up there before the season ends so I saw no use for a season pass (plus I had a free ticket to Canada's Wonderland).

I live close enough to PKI and CP (among many other parks) TO justify paying for season passes but not necessarily parking passes, thus the handful of times I do visit each park every year I pay the $9 or $10 parking fee (unless I am with a local who will use their pass to pay for parking).

To me food is just as important as coasters. ;-) I usually travel with my cooler (which usually holds nothing but beer, bottled water, and soda) but sometimes I am just too damn lazy to walk out to my car when food and sodas are RIGHT there. :-)

pkidelirium,

I agree, Stricker's food was awesome AND very cheap, especially the burgers. The corn was OK. I have never had to husk my own corn at an amusement park before. Good times! :-D

The butter (or what I thought was real butter) was awesome as well. :-) Gotta love it!

-Tina

*** Edited 9/27/2005 7:33:02 AM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

Random Thoughts:

I prefer the Busch System, buy a season pass get automatic free parking :)

I wish more parks would offer free soda but that will never happen.

The only exception to big chains=bad food are Disney Universal and Busch Parks; you will pay for that service though.

Hmm i only know about six flags great adventure and the extremely small adventureland park by me.

I know most of gadv's food stinks. you have to know where to go .

the only place in gadv that has reasonable prices is best of the west and there prices are equivalent if you went to like a bbq or steak house place.

mmmm pulled pork lol anyway the rest of the prices stink .

wait also the funenl cakes are worth it at like $4 they are priced wich is the same at the street fairs and stuff by me.

The last park I ate at, for the whole park experience was DollyWood.
1. They didn't offer free drinks, which is okay because every time we got something to eat, they gave us free refills regardless of the cup we were carrying (we didn't get the souv-cup til we were leaving.)
2. They gave out water like there was no tomorrow. There was no huffing or puffing, they just smiled and said thank you.
3. We weren't carrying food, so I don't know about this one.
4. Prices were reasonable. There were a couple of times I wanted a Italian sausage and they gave me two for one (with a free refill).
Best park experiance ever and the food was great!

At SFWoA the park knocked out drinking fountains to force people to pay $4 for soda. The problem was the lines for soda were so long the public didn't have enough access to fluids. Since SFWoA had a bunch of people pass out from heat stroke most parks will not refuse a request for a cup of water. The size of water cups unfortunately vary at parks. I hate getting the Dixie cups.

I was happy to see Lake Compounce offer free soda this summer. Hopefully this is a trend we’ll see at more parks.

I'm not so concerned about the food issue at parks. The parks that charge too much for food while providing a horrible product in a bad, non-air-conditioned environment often invites competition. A better product will not be far away when a park’s product becomes terrible. Then the decision to have a cheaper, air conditioned lunch at a nice restaurant near to the park is an easy choice.

The independent parks that offer better food at better prices often offer a better park environment to eat in as well. Knobels is a great example. Why aren't there any nice restaurants around the park? None can compete against the great priced, wooded environment, and amazing food Knobels offers. Why would anyone want to eat anywhere else?

When parks give customers plenty of reasons or invitations to go somewhere else to eat, then consumers need to accept that invitation. That is until parks stop readmitting people for parking. Michigan Adventure now charges $8 for parking every time someone reenters the gate that day. That is one trend I don’t want to see more of. *** Edited 9/27/2005 1:48:14 PM UTC by rc-madness***

If you are worried about dehydration, a sugar-filled caffienated drink is probably the second-worst thing you can pick. The worst being alcohol.

A lot of it still comes down to line control.

Ok, so let's say the imaginary park charges $30 gate with free parking and free sodas.

Now you're parking further out because of people who want to take advantage of a free place to park their car. A group of 4 friends who live near the park but are going on a day trip.. why not park for free in that lot, and then carpool from there? The cars are safe in the lot and covered by the park's insurance, and they don't have to pay any money. So, you're parking further out, thus walking farther to get to the gate... but at least you got free parking, so you don't mind it as much...
Now you get into the park, and you're thirsty from a long drive, so you head to the nearest food stand for your free soda. You wait in line over an hour because everyone wants their free soda, the lines are so long.

All of a sudden, free sodas and free parking doesn't seem so great, does it? At $9 to park your car, you're discouraging people from using it as a cheap/free place to park their car. A park's parking lot is intended for their guests - not as a general purpose lot. Instead of forcing everyone to pay for soda in hopes that not everyone cashes in, keep the lines short by charging only those people who want soda... and by charging a lot, you shorten the lines even more because of the people who try to scam the system by smuggling their own drinks in. Either way, they make the same amount of money, but people aren't grumbling about "how much the foodservice sucks because I waited an hour for a soda". Or a hotdog, etc.

^ ^ ^

This seems like one of those population control agruments, encouraging high prices to discourage those who can't afford to spend a ton of money. Interesting attempt to explain how free soda hurts the public. I've never encountered lines at a park offering free soda. And it certainly hasn't caused Holiday World's stock to drop. Also, I don't see how the public has been negatively impacted by Knobels or Kennywood's free parking.