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Topics - shavethewhales

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226
Announcements / Vote For SDC Fans!
« on: October 18, 2007, 01:39:23 PM »
Coasterdom has started up a nifty little poll over the top coaster websites of 2007. We've been nominated for the best new site of 2007 award, and though we probably won't win against the incredible Coaster Capture site (that guy is good) it would still be nice to have a few votes in our favor so the site gets at least a little love.

The poll is here -> http://www.coasterdom.com/coaster-web-awards/2007-coaster-web-awards-voting/

The position we have been nominated for is on the second page, near the bottom.

227
Construction/Rumors / Could things from other parks show up at SDC/CC?
« on: October 13, 2007, 06:11:53 PM »
We all know the bonds that Herschend parks share. When GCII did such a good job at CC, they became to wooden coaster manufacturer of choice for the whole chain, almost every SDC ride that was a success was implemented at DW, and Stone Mountain, DW, and SDC all share the same ball fort contraptions. What works well in one park eventually shows up in some shape or form at other parks in the chain.

Thus, with this noted, is it possible that we'll see animal exhibits at CC soon, as WA features them successfully? Or all-winter-long snow areas at SDC, as Stone Mountain has big plans for such a thing when the drought ends?

I don't know about the snow thing for sure, but I think it's a real possibility that we'll at least see some sort of animal exhibit come to CC - that's just the kind of thing that park looks for.

Are there any other things at other Herschend parks that may make their way over to SDC/CC soon? Other than the obvious G-Fighter and Topple tower, of course.

228
Construction/Rumors / CC's 2008 Project
« on: September 26, 2007, 04:13:41 PM »
So in the Wild Adventures thread, we were discussing how it may be likely for CC to get one of WA's coasters, possibly either one of the kiddie coasters or even the Boomerang, seeing as the Herschends would probably not buy a coaster of much magnitude for the park outright at this point. However, Geauga Lake also has some rides that will probably be thrown up for sale, including another Boomerang and several good flats.

By all accounts, the park deserves to get a little more love than usual next year. SDC is pretty much confirmed to get that big new woodie in 09', so the soonest CC could get anything noteworthy would be 2-3 years from now if not this year. Besides, since it's initiation in 2003, CC has received only a set of Flyers and a Wisdom Tornado besides the Chance Chaos that only stayed for a summer (or was it longer?).

Anyway, CC's latest attraction was a very run-down Wisdom Tornado that had to be completely re-built. It was apparently an advertising success for the park, but as a ride it lacks severely.

This year, I'm really hoping CC steps it up a notch and goes after a mid-sized thrill ride, even though I know the park really needs new shops, shows, and things to attract families. There's a certain point where the best family magnet is a massive new thrill ride. Maybe a brand new Huss is out of the question, but Geauga Lake has quite a few rides up for grabs. If they were able to turn that hunk of junk they got this year around, imagine what they could do with something even bigger. 

So, any thoughts?

229
Announcements / SDCFans Wants Your Stories And Opinions
« on: September 22, 2007, 06:22:11 PM »
The next site version, set to come out early next month, will feature user-written articles. If you have a story, an opinion, or a bit of news about something pertaining to the parks, don't hesitate to send it in. They can be as long or as short as you wish, and present your opinion whole-heartedly; I'll only edit for major grammar mistakes and spelling.

Hopefully, other users will be able to rate and comment on your story, but we'll see how that turns out.

I could use a couple of articles to kick it off, so if anyone wants to throw one in, I'd be much appreciative. I'm writing one myself on FiTH's 35 birthday.

230
White Water Discussion / Future of White Water
« on: September 19, 2007, 06:43:05 PM »
So several things have popped up about White Water on these forums. Firstly, they've bought the massive 90 outlet mall just up from the park, and may eventually expand over there or even move the entire park. It's also been a consideration for WW to move to CC and the two entities to intertwine. As it is, WW doesn't even own the land they operate on, and space is limited even if they have land up the street.

So what will happen to White Water? I'll assume that for now, the park will stay put and any aggressive plans won't even be really considered for several years or maybe even past a decade, seeing as they seem to be doing well, and have just added new slides. Still though, if they have truly bought the 90 outlet mall, destroying the old park and building a massive new one may not be completely out of the question. 90 Outlets isn't far from the current spot, so not only will guests not be lost, but it shouldn't be too much of a pain relatively to hook up the needed infrastructure. The deal breaker is cost. It'll take many, many millions just to clear out the old park and the outlet mall, and building a new park worthy of the move would be quite costly. Seeing as the park is doing alright where it is, it'll be ages before the idea seems profitable.

What about the idea of WW moving in with CC? Again, tearing down the old park and much of CC would be quite costly, and adding in the new park would be hugely expensive, especially seeing as more infrastructure would have to be moved and built for a water park to function. Still, it would solve CC's issue of cannibalizing SDC's gates, would create an overall fulfilling attraction, and both CC and WW would really benefit from one another. Again though, unless CC unstabalizes again, this won't be looked at as a possibility.

Any thoughts?

231
General Silver Dollar City Talk / How's Celebration City Doing?
« on: September 12, 2007, 08:02:09 PM »
Since it's inception, Celebration City has been kind of a slight failure for the Herschends. The park itself is fantastic, but on the business side of things, the park failed to pull in much of a profit from 2003-2006, and during the first two years SDC's own gate was cannibalized by CC as some visitors decided they had to chose between the two parks rather than accept the two-park deal SDC had envisioned as being a success.

Even now that SDC's attendance is back on the rise again, CC hasn't apparently been doing much better. Last I heard during last season, the park was running a low, flat profit, not making much more than it's operating costs.

Several attempts to 'fix' the park have been made, but only a few bare any promise of helping CC become much of a success. CC has long abandoned it's original purpose of truly being a nighttime theme park in favor of attraction younger families which are prolific in Branson, but may not have deep enough pockets for SDC. Indeed, CC has almost become a poor man's SDC. They even tried an experiment last summer, where they lowered the price for a day pass to about $20, but that has since changed back.
 

So has the park gotten better yet? Did their profits go up this season? Unfortunately, they haven't participated in any of the online attendance-releases, so one can't really know how well they are doing except by word of mouth.


Hope remains though, as the park is steadily working to improve itself. Starting out is tough, especially when the situation is as picky as this one. General improvements and atmospheric additions have been a major thing so far, with the addition of new shows, the Circus Gardens, and a new marketing strategy. I expect to see the park focus almost entirely on young families for the next several season, possibly taking out some larger rides to do so. It won't stay like that forever though, as general progress in Branson is bringing exponential increases in visitors, so much so that eventually CC won't have to worry so much about competing with SDC anymore and can go back to it's original purpose.

232
Other Parks / Six Flags St. Lous To Get A Woodie?
« on: September 11, 2007, 03:41:36 PM »
Screamscape seems to think that SFStL is confirmed for a new GCII woodie in 2008. Naturally, there are no sources, no clues, or any info to give us incite onto why this is so, seeing as they just got a new coaster last year, among other things.

Screamscape does have a few good sources here and there though, so at this point, who knows. I'm hoping for another Renegade, but this time with more filling.

233
Announcements / Registration Problems?
« on: September 10, 2007, 04:48:20 PM »
Has anyone been having any problems signing up for the forums? It appears that several people have tried and failed or backed out for some reason. They could just be spam bots though, who knows.

If anyone has any trouble registering, just e-mail me at steve@sdcfans.com and I'll sort it out.

234
SDC Memories/ Park History / Random Stuff Round-Up
« on: September 09, 2007, 03:52:08 PM »
So I've been considering adding a page to the site of all the random and pointless SDC facts out there that are little known and easily forgotten.

Here's a few examples -

The Grand Exposition was originally slated to be take the place of Tom Sawyer's Landing
A Wild Mouse coaster was proposed to take the place of the Waterboggin (Thanks, Copper)
Grandfather's Mansion once had a ladder that lead up to a hole in the ceiling where visitors could chat with Grandpa.

Anyone know any others?

235
Announcements / So Much Stuff, So Little Time
« on: September 08, 2007, 03:14:10 PM »
So by now, You should all know that I like to make lots of promises, but unfortunately I can never keep many of them.
I'm still trying frantically to sort out the rating system, and then I still want to tackle the comment boxes/ add a review stuff, and once all that's finished, I want to start all over again and make a massive site revision.

The thing is, not only do I not have much time these days, but I'm new to much of this programming. I've never built interactive web aps before, so I'm still struggling to learn a lot of what I need to.

I want you all to know that when I say I'm going to do something, I mean it, it's just that sometimes it takes longer than I think at first.

I'm going to make an effort to get that rating system done by the end of this week, but we'll see what happens. Once I do get that done, the comment boxes and review uploads won't be half as difficult, and once those are done the new site version won't be such a massive task.

236
Other Parks / Herschends to buy Florida parks!
« on: September 06, 2007, 06:09:12 PM »
Screamscape is reporting that the Herschends may be looking at buying two florida theme parks: Cypress Gardens and Wild Adventures. However, sources are scarce and this is a very unlikely situation as both parks are a far cry away from what the other Herschend parks are like, but then again, the Herschends are always trying to branch out more and do different things, so who knows what will happen.

If the Herschends did buy the parks... Well, I dunno, I guess the corporation would feel yet more spread out and the fears of the parks loosing their individualized charms may be realized. Who knows though, maybe CG and WA could turn into great parks that would benefit the chain, but with CG's financial troubles that are pretty much unsolvable without massive downgrades, it might be a waste of money.

We'll see what happens on the 25th. Hopefully some park chain will come to the aid of these two parks, as they are really nice places, just not Herschend quality.

237
Branson Talk / Branson Developement
« on: September 03, 2007, 09:19:59 PM »
Ever notice how all those massive, pointless strip malls in Branson just ruin the natural beauty of that area? I mean, look at this photo ->http://bp2.blogger.com/_zOhheIvaFOA/Rty2rUKvWqI/AAAAAAAABDI/A8MpKq_JHmg/s1600-h/100_6063.JPG

They just blast huge chunks out of the hills, then make massive square plots that jut out haphazardly across what once were beautiful valleys. I'm not really a naturalist or a tree-hugger here, but it seems to me that they could at least try a bit harder not to completely destroy the environment with their buildings that will most likely be abandoned in 5 years. I mean, really, it's like everyone thinks they can just plop a giant, bloated strip mall somewhere in Branson and people will just flock to it because of the fact that it's Branson. They could at least diversify a little, most strip malls have basically the same stores. 

238
General Silver Dollar City Talk / PK's Splash Pool
« on: August 30, 2007, 06:01:52 PM »
Have they ever finished PK's splash pool/qater thingy? After the final drop off the lift, you speed through two large concrete boxes that have been painted blue. I was told that a water feature would be here, but here we are two seasons later and it's still just two large concrete boxes. Anyone hear/ see anything about them working on it? Maybe this off-season will allow them to finish it up.

239
Other Parks / Big Developments at FC
« on: August 28, 2007, 05:00:14 PM »
From SuperSteve's:
Quote
Hangman Up For Sale

Hangman, Frontier's Chance Slingshot drop tower, is up for sale Here on ITAL. In possible correlation with this, construction markings have been spotted on Coltrain road, the road that runs between the Wildcat and the old FC ride graveyard and employee parking lot.

Now I'm actually very surprised to see Hangman up for sale, not only because it's only 6 years old and still a fun ride, but because it's location can't really be used for anything grander unless the train is re-routed and the concert area moved. Then again, if they plan on taking out Nightmare Mine and the Rodeo Round-Up as rumored, then that leaves them with an empty plot of land stretching all the way from the train car to the scrambler, a pretty massive area. This area would be more than large enough to hold an area such as SDC's Grand Expo, or even a coaster that's twice the size or more of Silver Bullet. Thus, the few FC fanboys out there should be wetting themselves right about now.

What could the markings on Coltrain mean though? Well maybe they are indeed planning to move the concert area across the street as rumored. This would double the size of the land available for developement right inside the park. Or maybe they are planning on starting the long process of readying that side of the park for developement. That's unlikely however, as they would tackle the zoning issues first, so it's much more likely that they are doing something like moving the parking lot or the concert area there, if they are actually doing anything at all.

Then again, maybe all this means is that FC is just consolidating. I can easily see them taking out both Hangman and ErUPTion, and putting in a two or three tower S&S drop/shot tower combo in ErUPtion's place. This would eliminate the problems with ErUPTion, the complaints of roughness on Hangman, and give them one reliable, efficient, and fun ride in one move. Hopefully we can get both pieces of pie - and we likely will. I can see the new tower coming in later, with a major project occuring in the said area this year or the next.

Well, I may luck out and get a big coaster built near me in 2008 after all.

240
Construction/Rumors / CC - Chaos Replacement?
« on: August 26, 2007, 07:35:00 PM »
Anyone remember early last year when CC's website proclaimed that 2 new rides were coming in 2007? Well one of them, apparently the one that was to fill the void of the Chaos, was dropped due to time issues and the park trying to squeeze in an extra show. What this ride was, we may never know exactly, but there's a strong chance that it may come back for 2008.

So what could fill the void of the Chaos? Well, if 'filling the void' applies to crowd draw, then we're looking at another thrill ride. I'm thinking something along the lines of a Zamperla Hawk or even a Powersurge, though I hope against a Powersurge as they really are more of a carnival ride.

Really, I'm hoping CC really steps it up this year and gets a huge new Huss ride, like a Top Spin or a Topple Tower. If SDC ends up going the route of adding new shops and general improvements for 2008, this would be the year for CC to break out and get some really special attention, especially with the fact that they really haven't had a notable addition since Chaos.

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