The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- Thread starter CoasterTalkBob
- Start date
Why can't they just call it Aquitaine....
At this point, I wouldn’t put money on anyone at the park knowing that the hamlets even have specific names.
I'm at the park and I know that they have specific names
it definitely added to part of the charm of the park when they were used.
Give it 5 years, Griffon will be renamed to "Coke Claw: The Soda Drop."
How cheap is this park going to get?
How cheap is this park going to get?
Not sure theming a ride to coke claws is a good idea.
I mean Nickelodeon got away with it for years without any issues.
Is something going on with SEAS lately? Seems like we’re seeing glimmers of a return to form.
Based on pictures and reports, Christmas Town looks better (on preview weekend!) than it has in years. Squire’s is not only getting a culinary upgrade, but a thematic one that amplifies the hamlet’s original theme. And of course, they’re spending millions to improve a beloved 45 year old coaster and give it more theming than it’s ever had.
Then, look at the rest of the chain. Jewels of the Sea at SWSD looks almost like an AB-era animal attraction. SWSA is building a new animal habitat too. And Penguin Trek at SWO has actual theming, at least in the plans.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. HOS was still a disaster, staffing is still generally abysmal, food is still garbage, there’s still a 5% surcharge, etc. But for the first time in a long time, it seems like there’s actually good news coming out of the SEAS parks — at least from this perspective of this perhaps-too-purist fan who still holds hope that BGW can make a comeback.
Did someone with a different vision join the team at SEAS HQ? Did the financials and guest feedback start looking bad enough that SEAS realized they needed to course correct? Did SEAS find that there’s a limit to how low they can go?
And optimistically: has the decline of the SEAS parks finally bottomed out?
Based on pictures and reports, Christmas Town looks better (on preview weekend!) than it has in years. Squire’s is not only getting a culinary upgrade, but a thematic one that amplifies the hamlet’s original theme. And of course, they’re spending millions to improve a beloved 45 year old coaster and give it more theming than it’s ever had.
Then, look at the rest of the chain. Jewels of the Sea at SWSD looks almost like an AB-era animal attraction. SWSA is building a new animal habitat too. And Penguin Trek at SWO has actual theming, at least in the plans.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself. HOS was still a disaster, staffing is still generally abysmal, food is still garbage, there’s still a 5% surcharge, etc. But for the first time in a long time, it seems like there’s actually good news coming out of the SEAS parks — at least from this perspective of this perhaps-too-purist fan who still holds hope that BGW can make a comeback.
Did someone with a different vision join the team at SEAS HQ? Did the financials and guest feedback start looking bad enough that SEAS realized they needed to course correct? Did SEAS find that there’s a limit to how low they can go?
And optimistically: has the decline of the SEAS parks finally bottomed out?
I would say this is the most likely case. But agreed on some of the small things being a movement in the right direction.
I just wabt to caution that budgets for this stuff are often done well in advance and that what we are currently seeing probably started being planned and budgeted fir as early as the end of 2021. We all know that in 21 and 22 we saw park packed come out of Covid. What we are seeing right now might actually because of those good years and we could possibly even see another reversal in a year or two if the economy continues to tighten.
I actually disagree with that take. Budgets are very fluid and the lead time on some of these things is probably shorter than you're imagining.
If I had to guess, there was a lot of blowback heard in the wake of the SEAS 2022-debuting attraction regarding their presentation. I think that unanimous chorus across the chain of "this ride is great but..." actually did strike a cord.
I also believe that parks are realizing we may be entering a less-travel-booming economy which means that they must maintain their pass base to ensure they don't take a notable hit. There have been some whispers/tea leaves suggesting that pass visitation/in-park spend has been softening lately. That's probably a five alarm fire for SEAS right now if true. In that world, investing in the types of things that keep local, repeat visitors happy may look a lot more appealing all the sudden.
Realistically, there are a ton of factors at play I'm sure and the larger narrative is still likely one of local management vs corporate as far as BGW is concerned. That said, even at corporate, it does feel like the tides are changing a bit.
If I had to guess, there was a lot of blowback heard in the wake of the SEAS 2022-debuting attraction regarding their presentation. I think that unanimous chorus across the chain of "this ride is great but..." actually did strike a cord.
I also believe that parks are realizing we may be entering a less-travel-booming economy which means that they must maintain their pass base to ensure they don't take a notable hit. There have been some whispers/tea leaves suggesting that pass visitation/in-park spend has been softening lately. That's probably a five alarm fire for SEAS right now if true. In that world, investing in the types of things that keep local, repeat visitors happy may look a lot more appealing all the sudden.
Realistically, there are a ton of factors at play I'm sure and the larger narrative is still likely one of local management vs corporate as far as BGW is concerned. That said, even at corporate, it does feel like the tides are changing a bit.
I sure hope you are right I am just trying to say we shouldn't get our hopes up on it till we see a lasting trend.
Just an interesting take I’d like to add to the conversation. The other day I was reading an article about SEAS about them actually hitting their mark for the 3rd quarter. But to sum the article up shortly, it’s actually really in bgw/seas best interest to get aggressive about fan satisfaction with the current economy, the theory behind that is during the last recession that regional theme parks didn’t have to weather quite the storm larger destination theme parks had to handle. Mainly because people shifted to cheaper day/short trips to local parks instead of expensive travel filled trips to Disney or universal like parks. So this might be a style of thinking going in to prepare for a potential economic down turn and trying to convince in every customer they can, compared to the past few years of the post Covid customer desperate to go anywhere at all regardless of where or quality.
Being in a customer service/entertainment related industry it's been a huge topic of conversation.
First off, if you look at pre-COVID there was a lot of effort going into how do we maximize profits? At that time the look was basically the people that want to do this stuff did it. The people that don't won't. So how do we get the most money from those we have. The idea was just have good staff, have them be attentive, but get by being as low on spending as possible.
Then COVID hit. The entire industry shut down. But when it came back it was easy. You didn't have to care about your product, the quality, or the price. People were coming anyways. Employees were coming and going so fast there was little need to work hard to train them because you might be wasting your time. So this lead to a poor outward appearance even if people kept coming.
Now coming out of the entertainment industry bubble - it's swinging hard to needing to be an experience. So that means they need to get into the details. The wow factor things will pull in people (aka new coaster) but they aren't coming in for just anything (Pantheon). In my industry they've talked about having a target profit, not max, and looking at what you need to hit that. Do you need a better product that charges more, or do you need a lower price point. Basically how do we give our core customer a fantastic experience while still being accessible to newcomers?
I think BGW is still somewhat in that second spot. They in a way are still getting away with the boom to some degree but it's starting to fall off. They are starting to pull into that last part of this cycle where they are seeing that people won't just show up for something new, rather you have to execute an experience for that new thing.
I was pretty vocal when various things opened through the last two years that if something was improved over what was there lately to go support it because that's what would get the sign across that BGW needs to do more of it. I don't know if this has happened here, but it seems like they are learning that things like that are important.
According to sources, the 5% surge charge in Tampa is non existant the last few days/ weeks. Can anyone confirm in Wburg?
It was removed in Tampa a while back. Still remains in Williamsburg as of last weekend.
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That sounds about right. You are a well known troublemaker.