Originally Posted By smeeeko I'm curious what happens to the 1500-ish park employees (a couple of which I think are friends of ours that still work there) that get laid off? Obviously Cedar Fair was also my first guess at what would be an excellent purchaser of the park.. Disney? I don't think so. I'm also in many's agreement that KB homes or whoever could easily build some condos or other housing out there.. assuming the housing market recovers from the oil/gas shortage that is hindering the supply lines and average joe driving to & from work.. Still, who would live in these condos and detached homes if they have to lay off the workers who would be most likely to buy up the condos?? Would they go to work at Disneyland?? (hmmm maybe some but not all..). Perhaps it's not our problem to worry about but in the end the troubles of the many affect us all. Just wondering. Hopefully something smart will come to the table like selling off the ineffective parts of the park and keeping the things that folks come back for. Thrill rides and shops and a few decent places to eat... or create some if they aren't there. Put some of the profit back into the remaining park. I don't see "DISNEY" being outsourced to train the competition.. There are some ex-Disney's out there that could do it though..
Originally Posted By dr jones Does anyone know if Cedar Point is clean and well kept? I've only seen it on TV, on those "20 greatest roller coasters in the US" kind of shows. From those it looks nice, but I don't know.
Originally Posted By oc_dean >>oc, uh, you mean the 405/San Diego Freeway, right?<< oops! Duh! Sorry :j I've only driven some 450,000 miles of LA and OC freeways in 20 years, I should know that. ;/
Originally Posted By smeeeko I went to Coaster Mania in 1995 for the Raptor ACE preview thingy.. it seemed clean but probably not by 'disney' standards. Who knows. It was an exceptionally well run park though.. again, I hadn't been to WDW as an adult yet or to Disneyland so I had no active comparison. I would like to say Cedar Point is a much better park in my mind than say Knotts or Busch Gardens Tampa which I have been to a couple times. =P
Originally Posted By barboy "The park is a bit of a movie star in it's own right -- as Wally World in 'Vacation', in the movie 'Rollercoaster', the opening credits of the sitcom Step by Step, and I'm sure several others." I remember when Susan Dey's character from LA Law referenced Magic Mountain's suspended coaster Ninja to her boyfriend lawyer Mickeal Kuzak(Harry Hamlin). Wasn't Magic Mountains's coaster Viper featured briefly in the movie True Romance when Christian Slater's character Clarence Worley tried to negotiate by phone with a movie mogul? The Beverly Hills 90210 charactors went to Magic Mountain for, I beleive, high school senior cut day.
Originally Posted By BrigmanMT 2 "Hey Kar2oonMan, don't forget that's where they filmed KISS Meets The Phantom! LOL!" This place has a musical heritage that cannot be destroyed. I saw the best puppet show ever here. It was followed by the relaunch of Spinal Tap as a free form Jazz group. It was incredible!
Originally Posted By Dabob2 I can't see Disney buying MM. Geographically, it just doesn't make sense; forget everything else. I last visited in '97 or '99. Superman was pretty new then. It was an okay day, and I didn't see any gangs, but the coasters were not well maintained (especially psyclone - and flashback was downright painful!). Some were great coasters, and I do have some 70's nostalgia for it. But from what I'm reading it has just declined so much that they have to offer ridiculous discounts to get people to come. Seems to me the only way to revive it would be to "gentrify" it a bit - clean it up, theme it at least a bit, and then charge more; you could still discount, but make the effective average price to get in more. Disney needs to concentrate on adding to DCA and keeping DL top-notch. I guess Cedar Fair is out of the running, and I can't see Busch being interested. If we don't get an eccentric real-life roller coaster tycoon, we may have to say goodbye. A pity - we didn't feel any particular need to visit on our last several SoCal visits, but I would have like to have tried X once, at least. By the way, other SoCal parks that have closed: Pacific Ocean Park, the Pike in Long Beach, and Jungleland in Thousand Oaks.
Originally Posted By deadmentellnotales I still say Universal should pick it up, they don't really have much to offer as a park and if they could keep the existing contract w/ dc and warner bros characters they'd have a real start on themeing and alot lore areas for universal type rides. Plus they'd have a better position to compete with Disney on the west coast.
Originally Posted By jmuboy I would have guessed that Cedar Fair might try and buy Tragic Mountain and whip the park into shape. However, they just got Paramount Parks and those parks are in much better shape image wise and operationally.
Originally Posted By deadmentellnotales We have a paramounts great america in Santa Clara, CA. I haven't been there for years, seems like it's just a place for gangs and quite overpriced. Here's hoping that cedar point fixes it up a bit, and if they add magic mountain to their season passes I'd definately think about going again
Originally Posted By Autopia Deb I like the idea of Universal's Magic Mountain, it goes well with Isles of Adventure or what ever it's called in FLA.
Originally Posted By jmuboy NBC/Universal does not even realy want their own parks.....much less more parks. As for Paramount's Great America.....the place has realy cleaned up over the last few years. Much more family friendly. You should give it a try deadmentellnotales.
Originally Posted By ni_teach Here is a strange idea….. Yes, Disney should buy it and then shut it down. Sell the land for houses. They would turn a profit and remove one of their Southern California competitors (I’m not saying that this should but done…. But it is an idea).
Originally Posted By Grumpy1 No, it`s not their type of park. Maybe Cider Points should buy it because it is their type of park.
Originally Posted By barboy DLR is not in competition with Magic Mountain. The two organizations are geographically removed from each other and more importantly they each offer an entirely different experience. I would say that they are in competition as little as Porche's Carrera 911 is to a Toyota's Rav4.
Originally Posted By barboy Local(So. Cal.)teens and Latinos flood MM whereas DLR entertains a much broader guest base. And Universal, too, has very little in common with MM. Universal's experience is much closer to Disney's than to that of MM's. I can't imagine what Universal would do with a place so barren and faceless as anything from Six Flags or Paramount.
Originally Posted By a1stav Somthing like this? I doubt they will becouse they just sold off there shares in Portaventura, but they did a great job with the place. <a href="http://www.portaventura.es/home.asp" target="_blank">http://www.portaventura.es/hom e.asp</a>
Originally Posted By believe >>>Here is a strange idea….. Yes, Disney should buy it and then shut it down. Sell the land for houses. They would turn a profit and remove one of their Southern California competitors<<< Not strange. It's a good idea. Those 3 million former MM guests will go somewhere else - even if DCA picks up a small percentage- it adds up. They could also sell the rides or move some of them to DCA. Or, Disney can run the place themselves until they can make even more by reselling - Just don't have it associated with the Disney name. Just call it Magic Mountain. Kind of like the Queen Mary. when Disney owned it, they never called it "Disney's Queen Mary".
Originally Posted By knoxvelour I vote for selling it to National Lampoon and re-naming it Wally World!
