News Sesame Place San Diego Moves to Seasonal Operations
- Thread starter CoasterRattler🐍
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Per rumors I've heard, this is long overdue.
My visit out there over the off-season near the start of the year also really suggested to me that this was desperately needed. When the water park can't operate, this park has essentially nothing. Really was probably a horribly misguided project from this start, but hopefully this will stop some of the bleeding.
My visit out there over the off-season near the start of the year also really suggested to me that this was desperately needed. When the water park can't operate, this park has essentially nothing. Really was probably a horribly misguided project from this start, but hopefully this will stop some of the bleeding.
Wasn't the whole point of converting Aquatica to Sesame Place that it would enable year-round operations? I could understand maybe one or two months of the year being unprofitable, but this sounds like half the year the park is gonna be closed. That's worse than Adventure Island.
If it's going to be open seasonally like a water park, then it should be converted back to Aquatica. Right now probably >70% of would-be visitors are under the impression that Sesame Place is only for little kids and choosing--understandably--not to go, so if the singular business case for the Sesame conversion (year-round operations) is taken away, then the only way to save this park is by rebranding it as a park for all age groups.
If it's going to be open seasonally like a water park, then it should be converted back to Aquatica. Right now probably >70% of would-be visitors are under the impression that Sesame Place is only for little kids and choosing--understandably--not to go, so if the singular business case for the Sesame conversion (year-round operations) is taken away, then the only way to save this park is by rebranding it as a park for all age groups.
The whole point was that they signed a deal with Sesame Workshop to make another Sesame place by a certain date, and their backs were against the wall on that deadline so they converted Aquatica to Sesame Place.
Still it was a better idea than that Sesame Place they wanted to put in BGWs parking lot.
I super disagree. I don't know that a third VA gate would have been a massive success, but I'm confident it would have gone much better than this has.
The operating costs in Williamsburg would have been DRAMATICALLY lower than SPSD making the bar for financial success, similarly, much lower. The ability for the two parks to share a ton of staffing, supply chain, infrastructure, etc would have been a financial boon for a theoretical SPW.
Should the project fail, there was also an easy bail-out option for the Williamsburg plan—simply reintegrate it into Busch Gardens Williamsburg. Worst case scenario, they will have just over-invested in a massive children's area for BGW.
BGW still sees a notable number of weekend trip-type visitation from people in the surrounding states—it is reasonable to believe that some percentage of that market would have loved to have added on a Sesame Place visit. Similarly, there is no similar dedicated children's park in the region and it would have enjoyed some level of support locally as well.
The path they chose—eliminating a broad-market water park and replacing it with a super-limited-market, super shitty Sesame Place located 30 minutes south of San Diego all by itself right near the Mexico border has created a bad, limited-audience park with zero support and no bail-out plan.
From what I've heard from people familiar with the numbers, SPSD has been an enormous financial failure and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's part of the reason United Parks may be reevaluating Sesame Workshop as a partner all together.
The SPSD plan was selected to fulfill a contractual obligation with the tiniest initial investment possible with very little care for the long-term prognosis for the park. Those chickens are very much coming home to roost now. This is currently likely one of the most endangered parks in America.
It’s still pretty popular as a water park during the summer but when the water park is closed it’s dead and theres nothing to do this was a long time coming unless they add more rides
BGW or SeaWorld San Antonio would have been better choices for this kind of thing. Both had spaces that could have connected to larger parks with a plaza or walking path, and were already primed for multi-park ticket options. Although I'm still not 100% sure it could have survived too long.
This makes me wonder if inevitable happens, how the heck they re-theme SP Philly. I can see SPSD reverting back to a Water Country or Aquatica, but Philadelphia was purposely built as a Sesame Park, and it could take a lot more work to remove all that than it is to just change the license back to only that park, or just sell the part with the license).
If only a Philly-based megacorp, who also runs theme parks (and is trying out regional entertainment now) and would love to get their hands on this IP (and already used it in International parks), was listening...
Ah, I forgot about that part. Well if that's the case then United Parks needs to flesh out this park with more non-water rides to draw in families outside the summer months (so far there hasn't been a single new ride built since the park's opening). Something bigger than just another kiddie ride; a proper family attraction. Obviously a dark ride would be a big draw, but even something simpler like a family coaster or boat ride would look great in advertisements and get people to start thinking of SP as a real theme park like Legoland.
And start marketing the park better. If there isn't already, there should be a shuttle bus between SWSD and SPSD and multi-park + hotel packages. Right now the only consistent advertising for this park is the billboards at SeaWorld and the zoo/safari park.
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