Curse of DarKastle

[Zimmy]

i do not think Thomas was suggesting that CP and BGW are the same thing. Of course CF and Seas are different. I believe the objection was to the blanket statement:

...a regional theme park needs more than just "world class roller coasters" to survive in such a competing industry...

Clearly regional parks can operate successfully without high dollar shows, dark rides, and extensive theming. That does not mean they should.

 

[Lord Robert]

I stand corrected.

 

[b.mac]

Clearly regional parks can operate successfully without high dollar shows, dark rides, and extensive theming.  That does not mean they should.

*Coughs loudly* Great Adventure!

But on a serious note BGW could've afforded the time and money to maintain Darkastle. Instead they chose multiple times to invest in other things. High-budget shows, a roller coaster with a price tag equivalent of a Disney ride, and a drop tower that would've been more suited for a manufacturer the park holds a 20 year grudge with.

 

[UncleDuncan]

You do realize that a regional theme park needs more than just "world class roller coasters" to survive in such a competing industry. Right?

I'm not going to argue with you because while I disagree with your statement, i agree with your sentiment. I think BGW needs more than just roller coasters (arguably). I love dark rides. I like other experiences in general. That being said, their track record since they stopped installing big-ticket coasters hasn't just been bad. Its abysmal.

In the last ~10 years we've been blessed with: terrible similulator rides, boring kddie coasters, clone coasters, a broke dick drop tower... And that's just the rides installed. Upkeep as noted has let otherwise good rides turn to shit. And then there's the money well spent on loathsome entertainment that consistently induces vomit by most who are subjected to it for even the shortest periods of time. Million dollar shows based on British acid trips - the fact I even had to type that last passage gives me the sads like no other. Ironically, the one show universally loved for its performance and iconic stage was essentially dragged out behind the barn and given the business end of a shotgun. For no good reason except the confetti addict running things hated live music?!

Just great. All this money and time just pissed down the drain with so much glitter. For comparison, look how far KD has gone in the same time frame. Tem years ago, if you were to predict the state of affairs today you would have been pelted with tomatoes.

And meanwhile, despite failure after painful failure, Apollo still tops national coaster lists. Griffin is still a behemoth. Nessie beloved. Hell people love Alpengeist for some reason too.

It is high time for BGW to do something great. They need a win. And as much as I wish they could have gotten anything I mentioned above right, they simply haven't. Family coasters aren't going to save the day. Pouring money into Broadway-lite shows won't either. No one trusts SEAS with animals so that's out too. They just don't seem to get anything else right, except for maybe landscaping. And it has been what, 15 years or so since Griffon was installed?

Yeah, it's time.

RIP DarKastle. Hopefully your maker learns from their mistakes.

 

[WDWRLD]

Incidentally, so far as I can tell, BfE is also an epic fail.  (just my opinion)

When I said that everyone gave me a ration of crap about it. But I still stand by what I said.

 

[Lord Robert]

Regardless of what we all think of BfE, I've been hearing nothing but positive things people (families included) have been saying about it. I think Nicole said somewhere that the GP is going to really like the ride in spite of our own issues with it.

As for DarKastle, sure it's own success would sadly lead to it's inevitable downfall; but I will say that when it was there, it made it's mark on Busch Gardens Williamsburg ride history.

 

[Zimmy]

...
In the last ~10 years we've been blessed with: terrible similulator rides, boring kddie coasters, clone coasters, a broke dick drop tower... And that's just the rides installed. Upkeep as noted has let otherwise good rides turn to shit. And then there's the money well spent on loathsome entertainment that consistently induces vomit by most who are subjected to it for even the shortest periods of time. Million dollar shows based on British acid trips - the fact I even had to type that last passage gives me the sads like no other. Ironically, the one show universally loved for its performance and iconic stage was essentially dragged out behind the barn and given the business end of a shotgun. For no good reason except the confetti addict running things hated live music?!
...

Have I ever told you, you are my hero?!

This kind of VERY painful reality that they, BGW NEEDS to hear and face. Its not the aughts any more. People are no longer re-financing their mortgages 2 and 3 times to pull out thousands of dollars as if their houses are ATMs. AB is no longer, allegedly moving money over to Seas to show loss and minimize corporate tax responsibility. If they want to continue to exist they must take a hard look at who and what they are and who and what the paying public wants. Without selling their soul they must re-prioritize, quit being reactive, and perhaps, get everyone in the choir singing the same tune.

Frankly it would help if we, their loyal fan base internalize these facts and embrace the new new.

 

[Lord Robert]

DarKastle's closure did show me a sign of a very, very uncertain future and it's scary. I do sincerely hope that SEAS gets a wake up call sooner rather than later; I'm staying optimistic but it's hard when things like this do happen.

 

[BGWPinGuy]

This is extremely interesting that the park is choosing to remove the rail from the building. I genuinely thought they would re-utilize the ride system and track layout as it's still fairly modern. Spiderman and Transformers both use a slightly more complicated version and are still considered cutting edge.

The only option if this is building is re-purposed once again as dark ride space is a trackless ride system. Then again after the flop Antarctica was with a decrease in attendance I question if the park would be willing to do this. Either way, some extremely interesting developments are coming out of the Burg.

I was talking to an event install technician and I was told that during the frostbite install one of the technicians broke a part of the track.;{

 

[UncleDuncan]

Next day thoughts: If I upset anyone in my rant(s) I just want to be upfront and apologize. I'm coming from a good place even if it may not seem so obvious from my posts in this thread.

I hope everyone understands I'm not a pessimist and I try to refrain from mucking up the forums with naysaying contrarian BS (unless I'm complaining about rice in burritos - y'know, serious shit). I know some people thoroughly enjoy raining on other peoples parade and criticizing every thing parks (and park fans) do down the tiniest of minutiae. That's not me. In reality, I try to read every new thread and entry on the forum because ultimately I want BGW (and in general, all parks) to succeed and being informed helps formulate complete thoughts. Even if it's topics I don't really have much opinion on (like Entertainment or Food). To be really honest, I keep most of my negative feelings to myself, if I have a negative opinion at all. Most of my negative thoughts are flickering moments in time. Also worth mentioning, if I have nothing good to say, I don't say anything at all.

How does all that relate to DK? (trying to stay on topic ) Here's how:

Only speaking for myself, I think DK closing is the latest sinkhole on a road inundated with potholes. And it's just too much to stay quiet over. There's a reason I haven't gone to BGW in recent years yet I'm at HP every year, KD every year/every other year, hitting up the Orlando parks sometimes multiple times within a year, and traveling off the beaten trail to places I've never been before to try their offerings. It boils down to this: I have no desire to visit BGW, a park I love, when they see it fit to charge near Disney/Universal prices and close down or neglect attractions. I'm sick of the money I've spent there in the past going to experiments in stupid. Nearly every decision they've made in the name of innovation and expansion has left me either indifferent (best case scenario) or shaking my head. I've waited year after year for BGW to give me a reason to show back up but instead get handed new reasons to stay home. And I have a sneaky suspicion I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think history validates much of my current and ongoing criticism. If London Rocks (exclamation point) brought in droves of people, I would have gladly eaten my hat regarding my initial critical thoughts I shared. Same goes for anything I've scoffed at in the past. And if these are things you enjoy, I'm happy you're getting more out of it than I am. Again, I want the park to succeed even if that means the things I would like to see taking a backseat to current endeavors. But I hope that we can all agree that whatever it is that BGW has done over the last decade, it's not working. Gutting DK with no replacement epitomizes everything going wrong.

I hope someone is reading this besides Super Fans. BGW - fix your shit. Please. Give me a reason to give you my money.

 

[jpcommons]

Nothing to do with DK. So I removed. Feel free to delete.

 

[SLC Headache]

Only speaking for myself, I think DK closing is the latest sinkhole on a road inundated with potholes. And it's just too much to stay quiet over. There's a reason I haven't gone to BGW in recent years yet I'm at HP every year, KD every year/every other year, hitting up the Orlando parks sometimes multiple times within a year, and traveling off the beaten trail to places I've never been before to try their offerings. It boils down to this: I have no desire to visit BGW, a park I love, when they see it fit to charge near Disney/Universal prices and close down or neglect attractions. I'm sick of the money I've spent there in the past going to experiments in stupid. Nearly every decision they've made in the name of innovation and expansion has left me either indifferent (best case scenario) or shaking my head. I've waited year after year for BGW to give me a reason to show back up but instead get handed new reasons to stay home. And I have a sneaky suspicion I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think history validates much of my current and ongoing criticism. If London Rocks (exclamation point) brought in droves of people, I would have gladly eaten my hat regarding my initial critical thoughts I shared. Same goes for anything I've scoffed at in the past. And if these are things you enjoy, I'm happy you're getting more out of it than I am. Again, I want the park to succeed even if that means the things I would like to see taking a backseat to current endeavors. But I hope that we can all agree that whatever it is that BGW has done over the last decade, it's not working. Gutting DK with no replacement epitomizes everything going wrong.

I hope someone is reading this besides Super Fans. BGW - fix your shit. Please. Give me a reason to give you my money.

Same here, I had the fun pass last year - not this time. This year is a Cedar Fair year, and 2019 will be Missouri +1 (either Hersheypark or Dollywood) since Project Madrid is most likely 2020. My 2021 trip all rests on Project Madrid and whether it restores BGW's former glory.

And now my updated thoughts on BGW's 2010s additions:

Europe in the Air: Wasn't around for this. Sounds like it had an atrocious and well-deserved reputation...

Mach Tower: It's hard to screw up a drop tower when you have a view like BGW's, but they managed to build one of the worst drop towers. Should have gone to S&S if the park didn’t want to work with Intamin. The closest S&S towers at the time were at Dorney (now Hershey got a set).

Verbolten: They had an impossible task, building a highly themed family ride to take on the Big Bad Wolf's role, but also a thrill ride to keep up with Cheetah Hunt. The end result was a compromise, the worst of both worlds. For a family ride, it's brutal and so is the 48" minimum height. For a thrill ride, it has all the ingredients of a great blitz-type coaster - punchy launches, whipping transitions, and heavy speed turns, but all watered-down and awkwardly executed. For a park known for landscaping, replacing a lovingly landscaped area with a cheap show building was the worst thing they could do.

Killing the Wolf just set Bolt up to disappoint. If they still had the Wolf for the 42" crowd, they could have put Bolt in Drachen's place, and not held back on the intensity. Such a ride could have launched Zierer's career in extreme coasters, and given the Mid-Atlantic a Cheetah Hunt rival if not a Maverick rival.

Tempesto: Fun enough and a smart use of space in Festa Italia. Honestly, it's better than the previous three, but it's still not classic BGW. It would be much better received at a low-tier regional like Six Flags America or Worlds of Fun. Ruined by those silly comfort collars - especially the capacity.

InvadR: If they had to kill the Wolf, they should have built a GCI like this in its place. A great family ride, far better at the job (of thrilling but not tramuatising youngsters) than Verbolten, and long overdue after the Wolf's untimely demise, but eleven years after Griffon at this point and we're starting to want a true thrill ride.

Battle for Eire: From what I hear, this seems to be a far superior replacement for Europe in the Air - but not a direct replacement for DarKastle. Hard to be worse than EitA, though...

Looking back, the loss of the Big Bad Wolf was the single worst thing for this park, but the loss of DarKastle is sure up there. I'm with you, this was a decade of decline and decent-at-best wasteful-at-worst additions for BGW, just as KD held steady before rocketing ahead. SFA sure began the decade with a pretty poor reputation, and sure didn't add much, but from my 2017 visits, I found it to be a pleasant enough place (the back of Gotham City, lacking infrastructure, aside), and it's more than ready for something new.

My dream for the park, after a worthy Project Madrid (as in, not a SkyCoaster or StarFlyer, you're not Six Flags) would be an indoor family coaster in DarKastle's spot if not feeling like restoring DarKastle, and bringing back the Big Bad Wolf (in all its swinging glory, we already have a top-tier inverted coaster) and letting Verbolten be remembered as an ambitious flop next to DarKastle. Oh wait, DarKastle doesn't have the blood of a beloved predecessor on its hands.

 

[warfelg]

So I've been thinking of a contrarian thing here:

Closing DarKastle was a good thing long term for the park.

I know, I know....put the pitchforks away. But we often talk about the financial issues that SEAS is having, and how it's bad they are going SBNO with rides, yada yada. But my mind went wandering some last night while reading this thread.

I think closing these expensive to run and maintain rides is a good move. Yes I said it. These are good moves. I don't think these closures are about "we don't have money to do this", but rather I think these are moves of the "where can we trim operations to invest better in the park". And these closures aren't just about the day to day operations cost (running the ride, staffing the ride); but the maintenance of the ride, value to the space it's on, and frankly the merchandising of it.

DK when it opened was a great idea. This is something that only had a few competitors at the FL parks so there was a novelty to it. But I think as time went on, UO doubled down on not just making more of them, but finding ways to make them even better. DW found ways to put their twist onto the style of ride and making something even better.

And I wouldn't look at DK closure alone. How much have they saved closing Gwazi, Jungala? What about adding DK in it? What's closed at SW parks? Water Parks? You put all of that together and it could be enough to start to pick away at the debt. Maybe it's enough to afford Project Madrid. Maybe it's not enough to afford it, but the daily savings offsets the projected daily operating cost of Project Madrid.

So it this is a closure, not because they lack the funds for daily operation, but because the savings can make it easier to install something new or to take off some of their debt; then I'm ok with these moves.

Yes I get that SBNO things are a bad look, but overall I think in the long run these can be benefits for the park. BGW now has space to expand to a new ride without having to clear out any trees, like BGT is doing with the Tidal ride to put in their 2019 project. The daily ops savings can give them the ability to afford a new ride. I have a short list for BGW of "Do no touch" rides, and DK was not on that list, so I have 0 issues with this closure....as long as they use this savings for something positive.

 

[SLC Headache]

As far as SBNO attractions go, hollowed-out DarKastle sure looks a lot better than the rotting bones of Gwazi (or further back, the rusting skeleton of Drachen Fire).

It's really the best-case scenario if an attraction has to go SBNO.

 

[..…]

So it this is a closure, not because they lack the funds for daily operation, but because the savings can make it easier to install something new or to take off some of their debt; then I'm ok with these moves.

That's definitely a positive way to look at it, and deep down I hope you're right that the savings will go towards investment in new and better attractions for BGW.

But, if the savings go instead towards paying down the company's debt, I believe all that will accomplish is placating SEAS's creditors and other investors while sacrificing even more of BGW's prosperity. When a company begins funding its debt payments in any other way than through its operations, (in this case by purging a subsidiary's assets such as DarKastle), that's not a good sign.

 

[warfelg]

That's definitely a positive way to look at it, and deep down I hope you're right that the savings will go towards investment in new and better attractions for BGW.

But, if the savings go instead towards paying down the company's debt, I believe all that will accomplish is placating SEAS's creditors and other investors while sacrificing even more of BGW's prosperity. When a company begins funding its debt payments in any other way than through its operations, (in this case by purging a subsidiary's assets such as DarKastle), that's not a good sign.

To me it depends a little. If paying down the debt and placating creditors means that they open up more paths to loans to make even bigger investments than they could have made otherwise it's a good move. If it's to make the park more intriguing for sale it could be a good thing.

I think of it this way. Let's say SEAS looks to sell SP, BGW and BGT as a package (of course this is completely hypothetical) along with their water parks. IMO having a new woodie at SP help make that park more valuable. BGW having an open indoor flex space is more valuable to me purchasing as opposed to a nice ride that is sucking some of my finances. BGT having the closed area with expensive to operate rides that I can keep or ditch, the standing structure of Gwazi to RMC or rip out is more valuable.

Maybe I look at it a little different. But I rather have the space to do something right away than have a ride that's going to hurt my pockets in place. Especially (if it's true) if the exclusive licensing has run out and I can't reup that deal.

 

[..…]

To me it depends a little.  If paying down the debt and placating creditors means that they open up more paths to loans to make even bigger investments than they could have made otherwise it's a good move.  If it's to make the park more intriguing for sale it could be a good thing.

I think of it this way.  Let's say SEAS looks to sell SP, BGW and BGT as a package (of course this is completely hypothetical) along with their water parks.  IMO having a new woodie at SP help make that park more valuable.  BGW having an open indoor flex space is more valuable to me purchasing as opposed to a nice ride that is sucking some of my finances.  BGT having the closed area with expensive to operate rides that I can keep or ditch, the standing structure of Gwazi to RMC or rip out is more valuable.

Maybe I look at it a little different.  But I rather have the space to do something right away than have a ride that's going to hurt my pockets in place.  Especially (if it's true) if the exclusive licensing has run out and I can't reup that deal.

I agree that other scenarios are possible, and hope your scenario is closer to the truth than the doomsday one swirling around in my head. If SEAS were preparing the parks for sale, I think that would be great. In my opinion, the further BGW is from SEAS, the better. On the other hand, maybe I should be careful what I wish for. I don't want to be too optimistic about the quality of a hypothetical buyer, only to see that buyer turn the situation into an "out of the frying pan, into the fire" scenario.

 

[CastleOSullivan]

Yet Apollo's Chariot? Griffon? Nessie? Still killing it after all these years.

I think Busch Gardens finally killed Nessie this year, sadly. (dodges tomatoes) I agree with the rest, though.

But you're right in that they don't seem to be able to maintain things like DarKastle, Verbolten, Escape From Pompeii (or anything else driven by "magic.")

Unfortunately, I would say that even a world-class rollercoaster is no substitute for an occasional attraction that pushes the boundaries of technology while retaining something that keeps it from being just another gimmick. Their ability to do this, I think, is what separates them from an ordinary regional park. They don't have to be Disney or Universal.

Edit:

I was talking to an event install technician and I was told that during the frostbite install one of the technicians broke a part of the track.;{

I'm sure the whole department took a jack-hammer to it and said "Oops."

 

[Zimmy]

I would think closing DK is more akin to balancing their annual budget rather than pay down or even servicing the debt. Frankly I am really okay with a balanced budget. Of course without a deep dive we are only speculating on actual individual park's budgeting.

 

[Mushroom]

I think something that might really speak to the desperation of SEAS' financial situation is the hasty way DarKastle was closed without any warning. It makes me think it's possible that the decision not to open DarKastle for 2018 came at the last minute because the company literally couldn't afford to operate the ride for one more season.