Any of them and none of them-- depends on the economy, and whether the new combined company can execute the turnaround they promised. I think it's more likely we see the sale of some of those smaller waterparks than closing anything else.
News Six Flags America & Hurricane Harbor to Close Following 2025 Season
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My list in no particular order:
Dorney Park - Land is in a good place, there's a nearby SF park, and it's attendance is ok. Coaster Count: 8
Michigan's Adventure - I'm not sure on overall performance, but it's on the small side, and now both CF and SF flank it, but I would hope for a sold rather than closed. Coaster Count: 7
Six Flags New England - It's not a huge draw, its also not in a high tourism area, and it's in the middle of lots or residential areas right on the river. Coaster Count: 11
TBD - Valleyfair and Worlds of Fun. They are both smaller parks in areas that aren't really super high impact money wise so there's the downside. The upside is they are in areas where there isn't really much competition so they would likely stay open because of that.
If Great Adventure gets fixed up, it certainly seems like Dorney's days are limited. There's not much reason to keep two parks that are largely cannibalizing each other, as the parks don't complement in any sizeable way.
I think Great Adventure and Dorney can easily coexist. It’s a situation much like Busch Gardens Tampa and SeaWorld Orlando where they can sell passes to both markets and get a lot of crossover. The key to doing that is scheduling festivals and special events at each to give people a reason to visit both.
If things get bad for the company, I think we do have to start worrying about Dorney. That said, Dorney definitely isn't in the same boat as SFA. Dorney is a good, stable park. SFA is a trainwreck. They can let Dorney stagnate for years (as they have previously) with little penalty. SFA requires major investment to bring it up to minimum Cedar Fair standards.
The concern for Dorney is if SF continue to have cash flow issues, it will be like the end of last year where the company heavily cut costs across all kinds of areas. Even if Dorney can putter along as is, the combined company has problems and may need to close lower performing ops to get their finances in order.
The amount of money they’ll get from SFA alone if it goes through will put them in a much better spot. Hate to say it but SFA’s death would be a second life for the company.
Agreed - Dorney Park still pulls decent crowds for their season. Halloween is particularly busy for them.
The Lehigh Valley where the park calls home is actually third largest metro in population after Philadelphia and Pittsburg. Philly doesn’t really have its own regional park to call home, so you kind of hear Hersheypark, Dorney, and Great Adventure as splitting the market - and Dorney-Great Adventure being on the same pass makes that a little more attractive, IMO.
Add to this, Dorney was acquired in 1992 and has basically kept itself in excellent condition since the 2000’s. Compared to some of the more rundown areas of SFA, there’s far fewer projects needed at Dorney to bring it up to the chain standard (repaints, restaurant refurbs, bathroom/infrastructure projects, etc). Not that Dorney is immune to budget cuts - they recently slimmed down entertainment offerings, and did remove Apollo and Meteor in the 2024 off-season. But I think they can tread water for a few more years getting some small additions while removing a few things (Demon Drop?).
I wondered if six flags america closing was something six flags planned since red zone takeover of six flags back in 2005
As much as I don’t want to see Demon Drop go, it wouldn’t be a surprising removal by any means. It’s the last Intamin Freefall in North America, and one of 5 left worldwide (3 being in Japan, and the other in Italy). It’s outlived all other North American installations by nearly 2 decades, and its time will come eventually.
That definitely could be moved. And I'm not saying that none of the rides won't be. It's just the way the company is penny-pinching at the moment and trying to offload debt, there's no telling what they will do with the rides once the park closes. The one pretty solid thing I just heard was none of the coasters will be relocated within the chain. However we could see something like Mind Eraser/Skywinder being sold to an obscure park overseas.
The way people are suggesting Knoebels should buy stuff it might soon have more coasters then Cedar Point. Not that I am apposed to any of the suggestions.
A sale of that land will most likely take years at minimum. It has to be rezoned and a buyer will to take it. Outside of another recreational zoning type use, there's going to be considerable cleanup and rectifying for a different use e.g. housing.
Most likely the closure removes the operational costs of the park, and if SF is lucky, shifts enough customers to its other parks that they only take a minor hit on revenue.
No real love lost for me. This park always drew the worst individuals. I just hope they don't come down to KD or BGW now that it's closed.
Clearly, eventual closing has been considered for some time, though I expected them to wait for more suburban sprawl easing the path to rezoning. Since their last new coaster in 2001, they've only put in used coasters and new flat rides that would be quite worth moving. Practically the entire park is reaching expiration date.
I've now seen 2 different videos with Wala Blegay of PG county (see post 110) saying it is not zoned residential and inferring it will not be, they will be looking at something of equal community benefit, but don't know how authoritative that is. I've noticed that very few coasters are operated by local governments, but water parks are definitely a thing. PG county operates several pools and calls one a water park, and across the Potomac, NOVA Parks operates full-blown water parks. Some form of the water park may survive, perhaps handed over to ease rezoning.
Whenever I hear of land being too valuable for a theme park, my thoughts are that part of that value's due to the park, but of course it doesn't have that big an effect. Still, between the local population opportunity cost, a few dollars property loss per home, and business losses surely the combined loss to the area is in the millions, maybe even on the order of what the sale will bring. Even heavily depreciated, people will lose access to over $30M of rides.
Sad. But it's not closed YET. Probably not a good sign for operations this year though.
My current prediction is that the water park a possible some of the existing main park get converted over to a combination of water park an family fun center type thing allowing the council to claim they kept their word and didn't rezone it finding a new amusement vender also allowing SF to sale it off without it going to any serious competition. Maybe a public park around that as a buffer and then significant residential rezoning and development. I really think that some hybrid plan like that is the most likely situation here. That might also be a way to save Wild One.