We reached the end of a golden era of KD and we didn’t even know it
Kings Dominion Kills WinterFest
- Thread starter Celticdog
- Start date
Someone on KDFans' Facebook page reached out to Kings Dominion via email specifically about the loss of value in her season pass and received the same canned response as the park has been copying and pasting onto all of their social media channels.
Disgusting, disgusting behavior.
Disgusting, disgusting behavior.
I genuinely dislike (borderline hate) the Xmas season and all of its accompanying iconography, food, lore, music, ect ect ect. However I’m quite disappointed by this.
I really think this is a dumb and ultimately shortsighted decision to make the line go up. If I had stock in this, I’d be selling because I have serious concerns about the long term viability of the chain if they can’t keep seasonal events going.
I really think this is a dumb and ultimately shortsighted decision to make the line go up. If I had stock in this, I’d be selling because I have serious concerns about the long term viability of the chain if they can’t keep seasonal events going.
How can that be if the Golden Summerbration starts May 31st?
Well, that's a huge disappointment. The more I've gone to Winterfest, the more I've enjoyed it. And doesn't help how shitty they handled this and the closing of Anaconda. I still have a season pass and will still visit but it doesn't change the fact I'll be entering those gates with a different view of this place. Is this more of the fault of Kings Dominion, Six Flags or both? Regardless, this is a huge bummer.
Damn, this is a bummer. I feel for y’all as KD fans, this does not seem like a sign of good things to come for the chain. Obviously Carowinds is more profitable and still has its Winterfest, but they operated far less rides during the event this season than in 2023. I think it signals the event could be on its way out across the chain, which truly sucks as it’ll extend the off-season yet again.
Very disappointing but not totally surprising. Event was originally scheduled as if weather didn't matter but they had really bad luck with it lately. The even seemed originally intended for weather to not matter, but of course it did, all the more as people have figured out the ride situation. A few nights this last year they were mobbed, with many complaints of understaffing, when many more nights frankly they were overstaffed. Was it just 2023 they cancelled a bunch of weekday nights, leading to the greatly reduced schedule this last year? They were open all Thankgiving week, but weather was terrible. Then they shortened the schedule despite the 10-day forecast showing better weather, like they were just DONE with trying to get people to go to KD on a weeknight, which is a problem but it wasn't the only one in that case. This year weather was much better when they were closed. The only way it would have really worked is to adopt a fluid schedule based on forecasts.
I was also wondering if the park needs a "Save Sunday Night" campaign after seeing so many slack Haunt and WF Sundays (then the next Sunday had the good weather and they were mobbed). I love it like that but seen it enough times to wonder if it can continue, and we could see changes.
They say they're going to "focus". That makes sense, but we'll be watching. P.S. of course I'll be getting a pass, though I don't do it in advance. Just cancelled my legacy SF membership of 10 years to go with the All-Parks+CF food. They'll have to still have Cinnamon Bread to get much more from me though.
I was also wondering if the park needs a "Save Sunday Night" campaign after seeing so many slack Haunt and WF Sundays (then the next Sunday had the good weather and they were mobbed). I love it like that but seen it enough times to wonder if it can continue, and we could see changes.
They say they're going to "focus". That makes sense, but we'll be watching. P.S. of course I'll be getting a pass, though I don't do it in advance. Just cancelled my legacy SF membership of 10 years to go with the All-Parks+CF food. They'll have to still have Cinnamon Bread to get much more from me though.
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As I said, I don't plan to go more than twice, and probably only once. For one thing my kid can not visit parks as much any more and so we have a lot less opportunities to go to parks. I also want to go to Hershey Park (it's been a number of years), Knoebels (also been a while), and hopefully to BGW which I haven't been to since I was young (trust me, a long time ago). Visiting KD more than once this year is a stretch, let alone 3 times.
I am starting to think @Haunted River was correct about this park being on the sale list. Keep the equipment in good condition while cutting back on operational costs until a sale is completed. 460 of the 740 acres are currently undeveloped.
If it was making money and they still decided to end it, their C-suite needs to be fired. Profit is profit, whether it is $10M or $100M. I would be questioning KD leadership on why they were stopping an income stream if I were an investor.
I think I'm just going to take the family to Dollywood for a weekend this year instead.
Dollywood is amazing. Would love to go back, but it's quite a long drive.... In general I'll visit mostly non-SF parks this year, but I do really want to ride Rapterra.
My understanding is that everyone at the park (even leadership) has been against basically all of these cuts and that they were basically forced upon them. Sounds like real doom and gloom behind the scenes right now. I certainly hope that people point their blame at the right people, and not the people who likely fought tooth and nail to prevent these changes like Bridgette Bywater and her team.
I have tickets for the ACE event in February at the park which is supposed to feature a Q&A with park leadership it should be an interesting time for sure.
so what I’m hearing is that don’t celebrate an 50th anniversary if you’re at the east coast
This hurts more than Anaconda, Berserker, or whatever else closes this year. I was surely confident they wouldn’t just rip out the most magical Christmas event in Virginia. What a shame… Hoping the park proves us wrong with an awesome 50th anniversary, but it won’t be the same without WinterFest.
Looks like they hit Carowinds as well. Calendar shows 09/07 as last operating day
The calendar appears incomplete and not official. Both Scarowinds and Winterfest still are listed under passes. Obviously we know that is not guarantee at this point. But having experienced a 2 hour traffic backup just to get into Carowinds for Scarowind if they cancel it then investors need to stage a major revolt for miss management.