Snake River Expedition Closing?

But why is Cedar Fair cutting the Live Entertainment budget chain wide? Kind of interesting since CP itself seemed busier than usual last year once we progressed past Memorial Day Weekend.

That’s good that they offer different levels for season passes, but ever since the gold pass was introduced, it seems like there’s more people at the park than usual. Although that said what do I know?

I understand Covid played a lot of “what-if” factors in the Amusement/Entertainment industry, but it would be nice if they can get the live entertainment budget back on track. Yes I am all for the rides most definitely, but I really enjoy the shows also.

Does anyone know if CP did their Live E in house or if they contracted to a company to put on the shows?

As far as I know they do/did everything in house unless something has changed. But don’t quote me on that.

https://chng.it/Cbh67Wt2rr I created this petition for those who want to see snake river expedition return. I know the likelihood of it being saved is highly unlikely, but if there’s a huge support maybe it will persuade management to reverse course like what happened with the whizzer at great America.

No thanks.

But perhaps this coaster where Shoot the Rapids used to be can finally happen 🤔

djDaemon:

The livelihood of what makes Cedar Fair parks special is being cut across the board. Those unique experiences that made Cedar Point a well-rounded entertainment park are being removed.

djDaemon:

This cut is a further progression of Cedar Fair cutting live entertainment costs at the expense of the guest experience.

What a hilarious line. You would think by the wording of the article that SRE was some bastion of theme park entertainment.

It's simple. Does it cost more money to operate than it is worth? If the answer is yes, it closes. If SRE added a better guest experience to going to CP, I'll eat my shoe.

Did I miss something? What is SNE?

BleauxJays:

if they contracted to a company

I know they used Haut Vol for the acrobatic parts of some shows.

^^I think SNE = SRE in Frog Hopper King's post. Though I find it hard to argue that SRE didn't add anything to the guest experience. While I thought my last ride on it was very poor indeed, it at least still provides a different experience than the abundance of high thrills throughout the park. Said in other words, the park experience certainly isn't better by having nothing than having a cringe-worthy boat ride. Commence shoe-eating.

You just said that your last ride was a poor experience. Variety is not a good enough argument for keeping an attraction. Your argument is quantity/variety over quality and cost.

I would prefer nothing over something that is 1. poor quality and 2. Eating the cost that CP could use to make anything else.

Let's use your same argument in a different scenario. "Wow, everyone hates this menu item at this restaurant. It takes up space in the fridge, No one orders it, and when someone does it always receives negative reviews. But at least it adds variety to the menu, therefore it's worth it."

Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be eating my shoe anytime soon.

Part of the reason why I'm personally glad to see Snake River Expedition go is I've always wanted to abbreviate it as "SNE" as opposed to "SRE" for some weird reason. I said from the beginning that the ride's story was too complicated for me!

^^Now you're saying something different. Before you said it added nothing to the guest experience. Now you're saying that there is better value in something else. While that may be true, my point was only that SRE certainly is better than nothing at all, from a guest experience standpoint.

No I'm arguing two points. I'm saying having a poor ride experience doesn't add to the guest experience. And I'm saying that from the park side, why would they continue to run an attraction when the money used for staff and maintenance could flow to literally anything else.

Your argument seems to be that having a bad experience is worth having just because it's different from roller coasters. Personally, I disagree, I think a bad attraction distracts from the overall guest experience. Nothing is better than. Something that is subpar.

For another example: stiches great escape.

I suppose it could just be anecdotal and outlier experiences, but each and every time we visited last season the line was too long for us to ride it. For us, it had been put in the "we will do it if it's like a 15-20 minute wait tops" category.

Sure looked pretty popular.

Just because us enthusiast-weirdos are constantly critiquing the park doesn't mean the typical guest (especially families who have few-and-far-between choices to pick from) didn't see it as a nice slow-paced attraction.

Would have ridden it with my girls many times last season if the line wasn't so long every time.

It's the one-two-three gut punch of losing Forbidden Frontier, the Highgrounds playground, and SRE in a span of a few seasons. All that progress the park made towards becoming more interesting and exciting for families has been wiped clean.

Maybe its closure this year could be tied into any future plans for Millennium Island.

With regard to the Live E department, it is nice to take a break and watch all of the shows. But I find a majority of the Live E shows to be corny. I loved when they had the Skeleton Crew, All Wheels Extreme, and the shows in the Red Garter Saloon are decent. I know a lot of you like the Midnight Syndicate shows too. The shows in the Jack Aldrich theatre are just straight up not good, and the Lusty Lil’s shows were equally bad IMO.

The amount of money and time they keep wasting on re-designing the old Luminosity stage is wild to me. I keep waiting for the day they finally remove that thing, because it is in one of the worst bottleneck areas that causes horrible traffic while closing Iron Dragon for it every night.

Yes, I try to avoid that midway just because of how crowded it gets even when there isn't a performance ongoing.

Kevinj:

It's the one-two-three gut punch of losing Forbidden Frontier, the Highgrounds playground, and SRE in a span of a few seasons.

Included in those first two is a nice food service structure sitting unused. But most of all, the restrooms near the Highgrounds were the absolute best in the park, private, A/C, very good when ya' gotta gooooo.

Kevinj:

Sure looked pretty popular.

Did you need to re-open the everlasting debate of what metric means a ride is popular?

Long lines, of course.

But no, not really. Whether the ride was popular or not, however one chooses to define that, it had a significant wait on every visit we took last season.

I'm also not saying I personally loved it (see my less-than-stellar review somewhere above), but it was still a nice diversion, and would have happily hopped in a short line and enjoyed the experience with my kids.

Cedar Fair is a floundering company. Their attendance is decreasing, and they only are maintaining profits by cost cutting.

And cost cutting leads to more attendance decreases…….

With decreasing attendance they now appear to be limiting their customers to thrill seekers and kiddies. Cutting live entertainment and rides like the boats alienates adults that don’t like thrill rides. so instead of trying to expand their target market to those people, they are making it more limited.

Dollywood is able to operate almost daily now because they have shows or rides that appeal to everyone. They don’t depend on school age customers or labor. Whike Cedar Fair does and leaves their park, sitting empty and unprofitable half the year.

Cedar Fair stock is a very bad investment right now. They have no plan for growth whatsoever. Their only plan is to cut cost, and to gouge as much as possible out of the current shrinking customer base

The merger is just going to sink the company farther down.