2012 Amusement Park Ticket Price Per Coaster

There are a lot of variables that go into amusement park entrance ticket pricing but from the viewpoint of a roller coaster enthusiast – someone only going to the park to ride the coasters – might look at the ticket price as cost per coaster. I decided to do a little quick research and proceeded to go to a few amusement park web sites to see what their one day ticket price at the gate is and then went to RCDB to confirm how many roller coasters they have. I charted out the results shown above (I use Excel spreadsheets a lot).

A few interesting notes from my research:

• Six Flags has an affiliate program with 5% commission for selling park tickets. Very smart. Why don’t more parks do this (or maybe they do and I've never heard about it before?)
• Six Flags has one of the harder websites to find out how to buy tickets while Kings Island was by far the easiest.
• Holiday World has the highest cost per coaster while Cedar Point has the lowest.
• I omitted the heavily themed parks such as Disney and Universal for obvious reasons (extremely high cost per coaster).
• Lagoon Park seems to be pretty good value as it's the same price as Holiday World but offers 5 more coasters. That is until you actually see the roller coasters that they do have to offer.

Of course this is just all fun and games as I stated to begin with there are many other factors which go into ticket prices like what other perks are included - water parks, parking, soft drinks, world class shows, etc. At the same time, those folks complaining about how expensive Cedar Point is need to realize that Cedar Point is very affordable compared to other parks as well as alternative forms of entertainment.

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The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman ride layout

I love looking at ride layouts or diagrams. If you've ever wondered what the overhead ride layout of the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman at Universal's Islands of Adventure looks like this is the best one I've seen. Attached is a diagram of what is probably the layout, at least it looks like it is pretty accurate from what I can remember. It's a very disorienting ride. Number 50 is the unload and load stations. How does Spiderman work? The ride basically uses a six axis Stewart platform  mounted to a vehicle chassis with the added ability to rotate due to a ring and pinion gear system. Attached are a few drawings from the patent for this amazing amusement ride vehicle.

How to Design a Roller Coaster

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Vintage Park Pictures: Universal Studios Hollywood 1985

Time for a new series of posts titled "Vintage Theme Park Pictures." I discovered a treasure trove of pictures in some of my parents old photo albums. First up is a set of photos taken at Universal Studios Hollywood taken in 1985. The first picture is actually of the house used in Leave it to Beaver and Marcas Welby. These were all taken from the studios tram tour. I'll be bring many more of these vintage pictures to you soon so be sure to follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my YouTube for the latest updates.

 

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Why Disney's Customer Service is Better than Universal

On our recent vacation at Universal Orlando Resort, we waited over an hour in line for Rip Ride Rocket and they closed the ride right before we were about to get on. At that point, the park was closed and we didn't get to do anything else and had essentially wasted the last hour or two of our time in the park. There was no compensation for us or any others waiting in line. We left the park very disappointed and frustrated, along with countless other guests- not a good lasting impression for first time visitors. I understand there are mechanical problems, no big deal, especially if they are early in the day. My issue is that it was the end of the day and there was no attempt at correcting the feeling that our time and money had just been wasted- the two most important issues for me as a park guest. At Disney, they give you fast passes good at any park for x number of days. Thus their customer service will always be better in my eyes. Read More...