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Everything changes. There is no future otherwise.

SDC has never been about the future:  it is--or has been--explicitly about the past. 

I would be perfectly satisfied--nay, delighted!--with the SDC of 1970, prior to ALL of the coasters.

JJH, you persist in insisting that all accidents can be prevented.  This assertion is not true.  All mechanical things fail.  It is not possible to predict the failures all the time no matter what inspection is done or how much management hounds the people who actually know what they are doing (i.e. the train crews).  Your assumption that the people have failed is not only unjustified, it is insulting to those dedicated crews. 

Shave is dead on:  ya gotta operate with who you have or close down.

Would that I were retired!  I move there and take a sunset job.

Sections of track are in the process of being replaced

Uninformed speculation to the contrary, track is most likely culprit.  A soft spot under the ballast, a few rotten ties, spreading of the rails on the curve.  People looking for spectacular causes are likely to be disappointed.  Simple things like these generally end up being the cause.  SDC doesn't enjoy teh sophisticated methods Class I RRs use to detect these things, and THEY DON"T NEED THEM.  Speeds are so low as to already qualify under the strictest kinds of slow orders.  Loads are laughably small in relation to what real narrow gauge mining roads carried.  The equipment is, the gag spiel notwithstanding, as up-to-date as can be expected.

The simple fact is, the excrement sometimes impacts the rotary air circulation device through no fault.  A pox on all ambulance chasers and their jackdaw clients!  And, no, had my family been on that train, we would not being suing or joining in any other suit.  it is purely greed, and the tort laws in this country need serious and sweeping reform.

I would never go to Six Flags for any reason, but it does do one thing better than SDC at this point:  Six Flags is honest about its nature.  It is a nasty collection of lousy food offerings followed up by machinery designed to make people sick in an effort to relieve those people of all the money they have.

SDC started off as something different, something special, but it has slowly been dragged into emulating Six Flags, but it isn't honest about it, at least not yet, and the transformation isn't quite complete yet, but it is getting there.

Three things keep me coming back to SDC:  FM, the Silver Dollar Line, and the Pickers.

Now, the word is that FM is in jeopardy.  People are whining about the train being somehow unsafe.  And the park is replacing all its its decent music with garbage.   

No new memories to make; soon there will only be memories made years ago.

What would make me happy?  An SDC that evolved without turning into Six Flags over Branson.  A place for mature people to go and enjoy the time and atmosphere, not an orgy for thrill-seeking children.  As it is:  SDC is on borrowed time for me and my family, including the 20-somethings, who demonstrate that not all youth object to the time and atmosphere.

Being in NWA, We never ever go to the park via Branson if we are just going to the park. Always via Kimberling C and B West. If they make it easier to get to B West, Folks will just go past the light and U turn.

We usually do the same, but we're coming from central MO.  I'd rather drive down 13 than 65 unless we have a destination in Branson itself (which is rare anymore).  We stay in a little resort south of Kimberling C:  it's a little more drive but a LOT less headache.

Our '23 passes are rollovers from last year since we didn't get to go.

They sent us the normal cards without any mention of photos.

Digital is a NO GO for us.  I do not have--and do NOT want--a smartphone.  Therefore the regular old cards are just perfect for us.  We always have our IDs on us anyway.

People sure love lights. I feel like the light festivals are the only thing keeping SDC going at this point. It's often dead during the summer (with some exceptions on certain weekends), and spring is often hit and miss with Spring Break being super busy and it being dead the rest of the time. Other parks have tried and basically failed to copy SDC's light bonanza. The setting and the scale of what they do is indeed impressive, but it sure feels like basically every other aspect of the SDC experience has fallen off hard over the past few years. I just wonder what it will take for the crowds to stop coming for the lights. I'll be watching the 2023 crowd levels with interest...

I tend to agree with Shave here but for a much different reason.  I can't speak to numbers of guests at any one season, but I think that the rides--at least most of them----ARE the problem.

SDC is becoming a generic 6 Flags over Branson, and there is just no point.  So little remains to differentiate it from other parks, bigger ones with easier access and cheaper surroundings or bigger ones with much more crowd draw (a la the monster that is Disney).  Left with only a small selection of quirky rides, SDC struggles to find a place.  Having invested so much in all that infrastructure, the city is stuck with bad decisions made years again and doubled and quadrupled down on more recently.

My thoughts will be labeled reactionary and silly in the "Modern Economic Climate," but SDC would have been better off not trying to become all things to all guests but rather should have focused on its core, smaller but true to its nature.

You're a class act, HB!

SDC's 1st engine had a tender.  Steam engines with tenders have been pulling trains for almost 200 years.  Blaming the wreck on the engine for having a tender will indicate incompetence among the investigators.

I think another Great idea would be to replace the Christmas Carol with "Santa Claus is coming to Town."

There is already far too much emphasis on the twisted figure who is the antithesis of the real Reason for the Season.  Santa Claus stands for everything Christmas should NOT be.

I agree. I might get crucified for this opinion but I'd like to see almost every Christmas show get some refreshing. Including the train and the parade. Before the haters come at me, I'm not saying don't tell the story of Jesus. Keep telling the story of Jesus, just in a new way.

I do not believe it is possible to improve on Luke 2.

it really would make sense to me to restrict silver passes from Saturdays October-Dec.

Ya know, some people actually work during the week and have no option but to go on Saturdays.  You have just cavalierly prevented then from attending the Harvest Fest and OTC.  Not everyone can afford the up-scale passes.

Does no one go to the park anymore or are these boards just dead?

Still here but haven't been this year yet.  Work, Covid (or family), and weather have conspired against us.  Hoping to go once in Oct and once between Christmas Day and New Years.

Nothing exciting is going on:  it is beginning to look as if the Great Past is indeed Past.

I am definitely a pre-gun guy, but I will live with the guns IF we don't lose the ride.  And by that, I mean the ride we have, not some recreation of it.