No, but there's a spectrum, right? Legacy Cedar Fair was impressively steady-state. In fact, I'd argue that some of their properties were reaching new highs (Caro is the obvious example). No, not everything was perfect, but there wasn't some giant quality drop-off post-COVID like we saw at the United parks. It's the merger that caused Cedar Fair to stumble, not being publicly traded.
Kings Dominion Kills WinterFest
- Thread starter Celticdog
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No, but there's a spectrum, right? Legacy Cedar Fair was impressively steady-state. In fact, I'd argue that some of their properties were reaching new highs (Caro is the obvious example). No, not everything was perfect, but there wasn't some giant quality drop-off post-COVID like we saw at the United parks. It's the merger that caused Cedar Fair to stumble, not being publicly traded.
I don't get this. Take the time to fill out a guest satisfaction survey when you're upset with something during your visit. Chances are someone will hear about it. I think it's ridiculous to completely throw in the towel for 6 years based off of principle alone. If you are spending your money at other chains that's understandable, but you know enough to recognize the pressures that come with handling the expenses, debts and obligations of a public company, You are not effectively doing anything but encouraging more cost cutting behaviors by withholding your money.
Parks are going to care more about someone who has shown they are willing to spend some money, that person leaves more valuable feedback than a guy who hasn't set foot in their parks in 6 years and isn't planning to anytime in the future.
My comment was intended to reach more broadly, beyond just the park industry, where I'd argue you'd find far more post-COVID examples of companies behaving the way I described. That said, I do agree that legacy Cedar Fair was a rare exception, though you could argue that the their embrace of the merger is still yet another example of supporting those ideals,
For me, it's less a matter of principle and more of a lack of any desire. My children just turned 4 and 1, respectively, so anything I do is geared towards whether or not visiting these places and the work that goes along with it is worth the effort. Personally, a day trip to the aquarium or a local park like Storybook Land make more sense and allow me to control the expenses much more (we can bring packed lunches to both of these, for example, and don't need to buy food). So admittedly there's more feeding into my decision to avoid visiting larger parks (SFGAdv prob the main example for me given where I live), but they certainly are not doing anything to incentivize me to do so.
See, I don't get this. "Pay me money so the product doesn't suck even more"? Daycare expenses for me are $3,500 monthly and I'm very conscious about where the remainder of my monthly budget goes. In what way should I feel guilty about not handing over an additional couple hundred bucks here or there to these companies? It's not my role or responsibility in a capitalistic society to have to support these places until they maybe get their act together.
I actually have filled our satisfaction surveys and questionnaires in the past with both good and bad feedback as warranted. But keep in mind this isn't some mom-and-pop shop who live and die by every sale. This is a global company with a current market cap of over $1.5 billion. At that level, no customer survey, strongly-worded letter, or social media rant is going to influence change the same way as angry shareholders reacting to a poor financial report.
We do visit Herschend properties on occasion - the Adventure Aquarium is a good way to kill a morning with the kids, and I'd like to take them to Dutch Wonderland next year. I can't think of another chain that's remotely worth it at this point, though. As the kids get older I'll reconsider, but I'm likely sticking to them, Hershey, and local parks for now.
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Not wanting to spend money you don't want to spend is fair. I didn't know what results you wanted out of expressing your discontent. It's fair if you don't want results out of your protest and simply don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to take your family to a Six Flags park. I was just saying it's not an effective way to make any sort of positive change. But since you were speaking broadly, then yeah, cost of living has increased since COVID and it sucks.
To me the choice will never be between the aquarium and the amusement park: I'll get a season pass and meal plan at least for myself if I'm living near a park, because I like going to amusement parks, and I'll make it so the meal plan at least makes financial sense.
To be clear, we do choose both the aquarium AND the amusement park. The one-day tickets I bought for us for Storybook Land last summer were probably right in line with what season passes at Six Flags would've cost, maybe slightly less. I got much more joy out of watching my daughters have a blast at a clean, well-maintained, locally-run park that actually caters to families rather than get nickel-and-dimed at some place with run-down kids sections like SFGAdv does currently. We're even spending more money to go back this month for their holiday events, which *checks notes* they didn't cancel this year out of an effort to wring a few extra pennies out of expenses in an effort to maximize shareholder value.
I get that I'm painting with a broad brush here, but in today's age of private equity firms, corporate mergers, and the ever-expanding wealth gap, if we all start being a little more demanding and expect more for our hard-earned dollars, we might actually get it.
I get that I'm painting with a broad brush here, but in today's age of private equity firms, corporate mergers, and the ever-expanding wealth gap, if we all start being a little more demanding and expect more for our hard-earned dollars, we might actually get it.
For some families it makes economic sense to do the mean plan. Very popular at Cedar Point with the Sandusky locals. If you mentioned Great Adventure because you live close by, and if you ever plan on going just once, I suggest looking into the meal plan, because it costs very little to upgrade to a season pass from a daily ticket and you now have two free meals a day, for the rest of the season. You can logically justify the $90 upcharge for each meal plan if it's going to save you more (or at least break you even) per kid. People love to say the meal plan is taking advantage of the system but the profit margins on each regular $20 meal are massive and Cedar Fair's entire corporate model was structured around a subscription system where people come back. They want you to buy the Meal Plan and come back a bunch of times. They want to rely on the fact that you'll buy a Meal Plan every year.
Use what they give you, and keep buying what they offer if it makes sense to you. And I bet Great Adventure's food offerings are going to be continuously improving for the next two years as well. It's been genuinely exciting having KD's meal plan because they've been opening new restaurants, revitalizing menus, adding new seasonal food items....and it's all free (to me).
I still believe being a faceless person, that offers them no information and refuses to participate, is not demanding at all.
Six Flags recently overhauled their mobile app and ticketing system, with a big emphasis on attaching your ticket/pass to the app for perks. You scan the QR code on your phone and you can buy upgrades like the All-Day Dining Plan, funpix, etc. If you have a season pass, you are encouraged to scan it every time you make a purchase. In 2025, a system like that should have the capability to track metadata and spending trends. Spending trends across ticket types can show them what daily ticketholders typically buy in one day compared to a prestige passholder over the course of the year. There are entire groups of people within Six Flags that are meticulously tracking KPIs like that and using them to influence decisions.
I guess my point with the mean plans can be extrapolated broadly to say: If you want to get more value for your earned money, you can find ways to take advantage of what the system offers you and you don't have to feel bad because there is always a benefit to the system for offering it, otherwise the system wouldn't offer you it.
And while you feed your family / give them something to do a couple days out of the year, Six Flags gets to track your spending behaviors year by year and wonder why you spent much less than last year.
I max out on pass perks each month, so they'd give me 1, sometimes 2 free bring-a-friend tickets each month. If I'm not happy with the product, why even bother bringing friends? But if I want to bring my friends, I do, and the net result for Six Flags is a couple beers, maybe a shirt, a game, whatever.
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Trust me, I've been you before - I used to go to Great Adventure multiple times a week and used my meal plan to basically eat dinner there every time. And at the time that made sense - I definitely was saving money that way rather than eating out elsewhere. I was younger, single, and had both fewer responsibilities and more disposable income. I have zero desire to ever visit ANY amusement park that frequently again, nor would I even have the time, even if they were operating at Disney-levels of efficiency. Most in this world don't. Totally fine that you do, happy for you, but there are far more people like me who would never even be able to take advantage of "perks" like that to make them cost effective. All the more reason to be choosy with where my money is going to go.
I dunno, you tend to wax more poetically about corporations than I do. I certainly don't mind providing my user data and info to companies I shop with so they can better their product, but I'd argue I AM doing that by taking my money elsewhere from Six Flags currently, and if they send me a survey asking what it would take to get me back I'll happily let them know. I guess I'm more jaded to it all based on anything in the news in the last few years. Look at all the examples now of retail stores purposefully marking up prices only to "discount" them once again for Black Friday sales. Only piece of advice I'd give is to never forget that generally speaking, all they really want is as much money from you as they can for doing as little as possible without driving you off completely. Sometimes that still ends up in a product you're satisfied with (I certainly still buy at some of those retail places, for example), but please be mindful of it so you're not taken advantage of.
I fear I've likely taken this thread far too off course, so I'll leave it at that. To bring it all home, if you still think you get enough value out of visiting a place, then great, please do (Kings Dominion is CERTAINLY going in a different direction than Great Adventure is at this point). But never forget that if you're unhappy enough, you also are allowed to just walk away. It's quite freeing, actually.
I dunno, you tend to wax more poetically about corporations than I do. I certainly don't mind providing my user data and info to companies I shop with so they can better their product, but I'd argue I AM doing that by taking my money elsewhere from Six Flags currently, and if they send me a survey asking what it would take to get me back I'll happily let them know. I guess I'm more jaded to it all based on anything in the news in the last few years. Look at all the examples now of retail stores purposefully marking up prices only to "discount" them once again for Black Friday sales. Only piece of advice I'd give is to never forget that generally speaking, all they really want is as much money from you as they can for doing as little as possible without driving you off completely. Sometimes that still ends up in a product you're satisfied with (I certainly still buy at some of those retail places, for example), but please be mindful of it so you're not taken advantage of.
I fear I've likely taken this thread far too off course, so I'll leave it at that. To bring it all home, if you still think you get enough value out of visiting a place, then great, please do (Kings Dominion is CERTAINLY going in a different direction than Great Adventure is at this point). But never forget that if you're unhappy enough, you also are allowed to just walk away. It's quite freeing, actually.
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Also, Six Flags (like now) sell season passes at low prices and attracts low spenders. So they weren’t going to spend money either way. However, if the dining plans weren’t valid, they at least wouldn’t be giving away free meals at the end of the season.
It’s surprising to see the long lines of Busch Gardens to pay way too much for mediocre quality food, but it’s definitely driving profit for the event.
This is a big problem with the Six Flags business plan. They tried to get rid of the meal plans once before and their attendance plummeted. But the people that are coming that are on the meal plans don’t spend that much money. Its a huge double edge sword that is going to be a problem for any CEO to fix.
I use the dining plan and it is financially advantageous to me however, it is not financially advantageous to the company and this is one of the reasons for continuous cutbacks
The whole purpose of a season passes to get people to spend money every time they come in the easiest way to get them to spend money is on food
Geez man, how many times are you going to keep saying this same thing over and over without any evidence? I feel like we need a big CITATION NEEDED flag over your posts. Everything I’ve seen and heard about the meal plans from folks behind the scenes is that they’re quite profitable and advantageous to the parks.
As it’s been explained to me, most people don’t use the meal plan nearly enough to cover its price, so the park gets all the money from their unredeemed meals plus a nice upfront hit of cash. Plus, the meals are all high-margin enough that you probably need to redeem a lot more meals than you think before the park actually starts taking a loss — so even if you use it a lot, they’re likely just making less profit than if you bought every meal at full price, but they’re also locking in a guaranteed lump of revenue from you instead of hoping you buy enough individual meals from them throughout the year.
There will always be power-users who maximize their use of the meal plan and actually do end up costing the parks money. But that’s part of the calculus — these users are massively outweighed by people who buy the meal plan for convenience and then only redeem a few meals with it. It’s sort of like the gym subscription model. The money is made from the people who don’t fully take advantage of what they’ve paid for.
I also find it really hard to believe that legacy Six Flags, legacy Cedar Fair, and now the combined company would all continue to sell the meal plans if they were losing money on them. They’re cutting things left and right; you really think they wouldn’t have cut the meal plans if they were bleeding money? The profitability of the meal plans is super easy to measure, and SF undoubtedly knows exactly how much they’re making on them. It’s easy (and fair) to question some of the strategic decisions the company is making, but I don’t believe they’re so dumb that they can’t look at a number on a spreadsheet and see if it’s positive or negative.
Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I think your repeated claims that the meal plans are “one of the reasons for continuous cutbacks” or were the death of Winterfest or aren’t financially beneficial for the park, are bogus. You’re extrapolating your experience with how you use the meal plans to everyone who purchases a meal plan, and you’re stating your (extremely flawed, I think) opinion as fact.
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I dont agree witb this. Corporations only care when it affects their bottom line. The best way to affect their bottom line is to not spend money. As long as someone is spending money, the corporation knows they can get away with it.
I get it you love the meal plans because they save you money. But they are absolutely a stupid business decision.
The proof is in their business financials. Giving away the gate AND giving away the meals is not working. Their financial statements prove their revenue is going down despite higher attendance.
As stated before the whole reason for a season passes to bring people to spend money. The easiest way to get them to spend money is on food. The meal plans make it VERY EASILY possible to go to the park and not spend a dime. That is definitely happening.
I would like to hear your theory on why the only theme park company that is now using season long meal plans is in the worst financial shape of all of them and is the only company eliminating their holiday events.
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Meal plans can to some degree lock in your revenue for the year. The big downside is they also limit your revenue upside in that your customers have already spent their food money and are going to want their money's worth.
I am not disagreeing that KD's Winterfest did not spend well on entertainment, but their entertainment budget was never even close to that of Christmas Town's. (Per day of course, as Christmas Town operated far more days.)
Let's not blame KD for bad entertainment development, every show was developed by corporate and copied and pasted into different parks. It is kind of weird going to different Winterfests and seeing the exact same show. (Or if you are Canada's Wonderland, you have a phnominal Cirque style show and call it Tinkers's Toy Factory.)
Anyway, I got lost on a tangent there.
The reason for this comment was to emphasize how much money was spent on Christmas Town when it was an upcharge. Remember the days when Gloria had a fifteen piece orgrestra? Deck the halls had an entire orgrestra as well. Am I crazy, or did 'Twas the Night have pyro?
So you think the way to turn around the company is to price out lower income families? There are a lot more poor people than rich people.
No, the main reason for season passes is to make you a return customer for life.
Surely you understand that correlation does not equal causation. You cannot possibly surmise that, because Six Flags’ financials are bad, and Six Flags sells meal plans, then their financials must be bad because they sell meal plans. That’s a nonsense logical leap. By your logic, Six Flags is the only chain in the country with giga coasters; therefore, giga coasters must be bad for business.
They are spending money on food. They’re just paying for it upfront. Or did you think the meal plan is free?
Right now, the dining plan is $99, and that’s before the price gets raised later in the season. If we assume a meal costs $18.99, it would take buying six meals before you even broke even with the dining plan. So the park locks in almost six meals’ worth of revenue from you, right off the bat. And what I’ve been told, most dining plan holders don’t even come close to that.
In other words, for every guest who uses the meal plan 10 times a season, there are three guests who only use their meal plan twice (this is a hypothetical, I don’t know the exact numbers). In this example, that’s 16 meals for $396 in revenue with the meal plans, versus $304 if those 16 meals were purchased individually. So $92 extra profit for the park.
Your argument is also based on the faulty assumption that if it weren’t for the meal plan, guests would just pay out of pocket for those same meals at the park instead. In my case, I would do what I do at BGW: eat before or after I visit the park, leave the park, redeem my Busch bucks, or share a meal. I absolutely have not spent anywhere close to $99 on food at BGW this year. If KD got rid of the meal plan, I wouldn’t spend $99 on food there either. So because of the meal plan, KD got $99 out of my that they wouldn’t have otherwise.
All that said, I don’t know why I even bothered to write this up, because the faulty logic and shameless presentation of opinions and assumptions as fact makes me think this will all be ignored, and in a few weeks there’ll be another spree of repetitive posts deriding the meal plans — and maybe complaining about a lack of transportation rides and about weather closures too.
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Paying $99 for even 10 meals in this current economy (low estimate) is not profit driving…… and these things are being used more than that.
Defend it all you want, but SEAS realized it was not a good idea and dropped it quickly after implementing it.
The problem with Six Flags is they have engrained it so far in their low spending customers that now they expect it and think they’re entitled to it.
I really don’t care one way or the other. People get what they pay for and they’re obviously getting what they’re paying for at Six Flags these days a lower quality experience because they aren’t spending enough money there……
You seem to be a wonderful person who throws insults just because they don’t agree with someone’s opinion, but I’m thankful for not knowing you personally
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I totally believe the meal plans are profitable. I think @Mushroom is clearly right and @Thriller is clearly wrong there. They wouldn't continue to exist if they weren't currently good business. I think they're good business for most regional amusement parks in the short-term as long as adoption rates are high (that was the problem with the United Parks pilot program).
The issue I have with meal plans isn't that they're not financially healthy programs for now—my issue is that I believe they create a horribly perverse incentive structure for parks that I think is likely to severely harm in-park dining in the long arc of history. If they've already sold a substantial portion of their likely-meal-buying audience all of their meals for a whole year, the park is dramatically less motivated to offer good, high-quality, unique, interesting, seasonal dishes and high service standards—things that, in a more traditional setup, would be beneficial to drive sales. The financial incentive is to chase margins, cut availability, standardize, and optimize, not create strong, compelling, food and beverage programs.
I believe the race to the bottom that these plans incentivize are likely to do long-term damage as interest in pre-paying for a year of chicken tenders isn't likely to drive strong renewals long-term and the decrease in quality, selection, service, etc discourages non-meal-plan guests from paying for food at all. Without strong guardrails in place, it seems to lead to a pretty clear spiral. Eventually you end up like the legacy Six Flags parks—parks that seem to almost exclusively sell inedible, trash food overwhelmingly to people with cheap, monthly-subscription-based meal plans—parks that have zero interest in attempting to drive any F&B sales in-park because, short-term, it's easier and more profitable to cash in on the margins from the pre-purchasers.
The issue I have with meal plans isn't that they're not financially healthy programs for now—my issue is that I believe they create a horribly perverse incentive structure for parks that I think is likely to severely harm in-park dining in the long arc of history. If they've already sold a substantial portion of their likely-meal-buying audience all of their meals for a whole year, the park is dramatically less motivated to offer good, high-quality, unique, interesting, seasonal dishes and high service standards—things that, in a more traditional setup, would be beneficial to drive sales. The financial incentive is to chase margins, cut availability, standardize, and optimize, not create strong, compelling, food and beverage programs.
I believe the race to the bottom that these plans incentivize are likely to do long-term damage as interest in pre-paying for a year of chicken tenders isn't likely to drive strong renewals long-term and the decrease in quality, selection, service, etc discourages non-meal-plan guests from paying for food at all. Without strong guardrails in place, it seems to lead to a pretty clear spiral. Eventually you end up like the legacy Six Flags parks—parks that seem to almost exclusively sell inedible, trash food overwhelmingly to people with cheap, monthly-subscription-based meal plans—parks that have zero interest in attempting to drive any F&B sales in-park because, short-term, it's easier and more profitable to cash in on the margins from the pre-purchasers.
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Im sure the make more than enough profit. I always wonder how the hell buffets make profit but appearently buffets make huge bank. So if they gain from that im sure these big meal plans make enough
Food is really cheap when it comes from Cisco. It probably costs any regular regional theme park about 2 or 3 dollars to feed a guest a full meal.
To be fair, seas also charges $22.99 at SWO for tenders & fries, NOT INCLUDING the $6 soda. They would rather make the money hand over fist