Kings Dominion Returns to Seasonal Operations in 2024
- Thread starter Zachary
- Start date
I feel that would confuse current passholders and squander a lot of goodwill they’ve built up. Cedar Fair’s dining plan is really the best deal you can get and it’s not even comparable to anything other chains have to offer in my opinion. If they start taking away valid days it would leave a sour taste in my mouth even if I understand those days are technically not apart of the season.
Maybe they could’ve offered a free Bring-A-Friend perk for prestige holders valid only during the off-season weekends. That would at least get a couple meals sold.
Maybe they could’ve offered a free Bring-A-Friend perk for prestige holders valid only during the off-season weekends. That would at least get a couple meals sold.
If they want year-round or anything like that to work, it seems like they have no choice but to change it so that season dining does not apply during this (non-normal operations) part of the year. Some would get mad. They'd get over it. Maybe not right away. Maybe the next year.
Or they could just stay closed when it is cold and miserable outside, since Virginia is not Florida.
I still think that having the Peanuts Celebration in late February or early March would be a fantastic idea, and it’s a crime that the largest Peanuts themed kids area in the world doesn’t host this event.
The options are you either have a higher priced dining plan that covers the costs for the winter months or it has to have some limitations at existing prices such as being seasonal.
I think limiting plan dining options while adding to a strong F&B event that competes with the limited plan options is likely a win.
Basically exactly this. Every department in the park is given a budget to operate on and there's ways that those departments can "profit" through the year off of those budgets. For Food and Beverages, Admissions, Games, Marketing, etc. It's mostly the balance sheet coming up black for all departments through the year, it's also not hard for them to do so due to how much money is earned from guest expenditures.
Operations is a fun one though, because their "profit" is more based on total ridership compared to the staffing and maintenance expense and there's a lot of semantics that go into it because every park treats the numbers differently. Generally though, the lower the expenses on staff and maintenance costs and the higher the ridership the better it is for a park. Looks a lot better on the sheets when a ride gets 10,000 riders a day with only 8 people on payroll compared to one that got 8,000 riders in a day with 15 on the payroll. This is also why you're seeing parks shift more towards rides that only require a skeleton crew of 6 or less employees to operate compared to ones 20 years ago that required upwards of 10.
I attended Carowinds last Feb and would not go back again for winter operations. I would rather save my travel funds for when the park is fully operating.
Carowinds had the whole park (land wise except the construction area) open with I think 5 operating coasters (including Fury)!and most flat rides.
They offered more than KD but it still wasn’t enough to justify the trip. Between slow one train operations, closed coasters, no live shows and short hours, it wasn’t a great experience in relation to the travel to get there. Plus the park looked barren in the winter.
If any additional operating days are just regurgitating season pass holders. I don’t see how they’re profitable.
Those season passes are the reason the parks pull the sleazy trick of closing early when there’s low attendance. It’s mostly season pass holders on those days and they already have their money.
These parks just aren’t built for year-round operations. If Disney’s Magic kingdom was located in the north, it could still operate year-round because it has so many indoor attractions and slow moving rides.
Carowinds had the whole park (land wise except the construction area) open with I think 5 operating coasters (including Fury)!and most flat rides.
They offered more than KD but it still wasn’t enough to justify the trip. Between slow one train operations, closed coasters, no live shows and short hours, it wasn’t a great experience in relation to the travel to get there. Plus the park looked barren in the winter.
If any additional operating days are just regurgitating season pass holders. I don’t see how they’re profitable.
Those season passes are the reason the parks pull the sleazy trick of closing early when there’s low attendance. It’s mostly season pass holders on those days and they already have their money.
These parks just aren’t built for year-round operations. If Disney’s Magic kingdom was located in the north, it could still operate year-round because it has so many indoor attractions and slow moving rides.
The silver lining here is, hopefully, this means a return to a more normal maintenance schedule where more rides will be ready for normal spring operations than were available earlier this year.
Makes sense to me. Only open what you need to scrape by with the "projected" park attendance.
Year-round ops is possible in warmer-weather areas, but going from season to year-round takes patience. It almost would take a multi-year approach from the start, because it's not going to be successful right out of the gate. Same with Halloween and Christmas events... start small and grow as word of mouth spreads. Surely they didn't think that one year of January-March ops was going to immediately pay off?
Well it looks like you were right. They just posted their 2024 operating calendar and they won’t open until March 23rd.
This is a *good* thing! Maintenance is probably kissing the ground right now too lol
I will say the one complaint I am seeing over and over again on many social media post regarding this is that KD waited till after they had sold a large number of season passes to announce. I know that they made the call they needed to make from a business prospective and there is the fine print that says dates are subject to change. I also know that there no released 2024 schedule till today but I do think therebis some fair criticism from an optics point about if you are making the change make it before you sell people on buying next year's pass.
Agreed - I think it’s especially a little shady when we saw that they had quietly removed any reference to year-round operations on their websites over the past few months… almost like they wanted people to not notice.
I mean I saw it coming months ago and wasn't surprised or upset but reading through comments on post it appears that there is at least a significant amount of people who didn't.
I didn’t really feel right being at KD in the middle of January or February anyway. Tho that’s gonna be a long Timbers draught which is probably a good thing too lol
I wish Busch Gardens Williamsburg would close Jan. Feb. too