- September 22nd, 2007, 11:47 am
#22181
As much as I'm disliking CF lately, I certainly don't fear Carowinds going down GL's path. Carowinds stands on it's own, while GL for the last 30+ years has had a symbiotic relationship with Sea World. When that part was effectively closed when CF bought the place, I had a strong feeling it was doomed. People weren't going to drive from Pittsburgh to ride coasters - they had those at Kennywood, or could drive to Hershey, Knoebels, etc. - but they WOULD drive over to see Shamu.
It's pretty funny in reading about this around the 'net. As many of you may have noticed, there's a strong Ohio bias in the enthusiast community, with Cedar Fair usually being praised as being nearly perfect. Some of the usual suspects are giving them hell for this move, but others are blaming Six Flags. Sure, Six Flags was probably misguided in trying to compete with CP, but they were at least trying. They were adding rides - if more than they should have - and moved in some Marine World animals to try to keep the animal side going. No Shamu, but certainly more than CF had - and all for one ticket. World's of Adventure was definitely on my list to visit next time I was up that way. The "new and improved" GL, not so much, especially after they started ripping stuff out.
While I saw this happening eventually, especially after the big attendance drop the first year under CF and then when they started moving coasters, I was really shocked to see it happen this soon. I thought it would struggle on another 3-5 years before this happened. Wonder if CF's Paramount acquisition not going as well as hoped hastened things along?