CNL Lifestyle Properties parks?

Elitch Gardens, Darien Lake, and Frontier City are former Parc Management parks; They are now owned by CNL Lifestyle Properties Inc. I too went to Elitch a long time ago back in the 98.

www.cnllifestylereit.com/pdf/CLP-Property-Portfolio.pdf

Here are the current Parc properties.

www.parcmanagement.com/ourparks.aspx

Overbanked said:

Elitch Gardens, Darien Lake, and Frontier City are former Parc Management parks; They are now owned by CNL Lifestyle Properties Inc. I too went to Elitch a long time ago back in the 98.

www.cnllifestylereit.com/pdf/CLP-Property-Portfolio.pdf

Here are the current Parc properties.

www.parcmanagement.com/ourparks.aspx

Ohh, I must have miss read it on Wiki.

Smooth thread title change. :)

* This post was modified at 11/3/12 5:46:04 PM *

Overbanked said:

Smooth thread title change. :)

Thanks, I'd figure i'd do that before people had thoughts about the wrong parks. =P

The original Elitch Gardens was the first real "Amusement Park" I went to outside of Great Adventure. This was around 1973-75. The two wooden coasters there....Mr. Twister and the other one is escaping me...were the first large woodies I ever went on. The wife of a colleague of my Dad took me on (Thanks, Sue!) That was in the pre-Six Flags days, and I've never been back.

I visited Darien Lake a coupla years ago. So-So woodie in Predator, Intamin Hyper that's, IMO, far inferior to its Maryland cousin, and one of the better examples of a boomerang and Arrow looper I've been on. Their Top Spin gave an awesome, longish cycle. I also really enjoyed the Moto-Coaster.

Frontier City? Can't help you there.

Mike

I've been to Darien Lake, in 2000, when it was a Six Flags park. I thought the park was gorgeous. Ride of Steel is their only signature coaster, although I did like Viper. We have plans to visit Darien Lake next year. I'm curious on how the park has changed since 2000. I drove right past Frontier City on my way to Texas back in 2001. I was very tempted to stop, but didn't due to time restraints. I really wish I would have stopped and at least rode the coasters. I never been to Colorado.

I was just at Darien Lake. After riding all the coasters, I didn't really have much else to do. And even only two of them were all that good - Ride of Steel and Moto Coaster. When you are only a medium size park, having a boomerang, SLC, Arrow looper, and rough wooden doesn't give you a ton of friends.
Magic Springs in Arkansas is another one of theirs that I have been to. It was a little better. They got rid of the best coaster though - X Coaster. Their SLC has had upgrades making it the best of those and almost as good as the smaller B&M Batman inverts. The wooden is an average wooden but is far less rough than many. This park has some nice flat rides and the waterpark is part of the whole place. (I didn't go on the slides because that was where the crowds were and the weather was going to get me wet anyway.)
I am still working on a trip out to the Rockies and Elitch Gardens. The rumor is they will get Magic Springs's old one with the "skyloop". This park has that, an Intamin half pipe, an Arrow launched loop, and what looks like a good wooden. Throw in some good flats, add a few water rides, put it in the mountains, and you might have the best park by that company.

* This post was modified at 11/4/12 8:08:44 AM *

theRock-steel said:

Their SLC has had upgrades making it the best of those and almost as good as the smaller B&M Batman inverts.

Can someone explain this SLC "Upgrade thing". Really! comparing a Upgraded SLC to a a B&M invert? C'mon. That is like like saying my upgraded Acer is almost as good as your Mac Book Pro.

Regards,
Kevin Reid

* This post was modified at 11/5/12 12:09:41 PM *

Reminds me of a funny story. When Six Flags bought the former Premier Parks in the late '90s, they wanted to rename all the SLC's to Batman. But B&M objected strenuously: they didn't want a Vekoma piece of junk to have the same name as their inverts! SF actually backed down.

* This post was modified at 11/5/12 1:44:50 PM *

BigShotRoz said:

When Six Flags bought the former Premier Parks in the late '90s, they wanted to rename all the SLC's to Batman. But B&M objected strenuously: they didn't want a Vekoma piece of junk to have the same name as their inverts! SF actually backed down.

Interesting, I never heard that.
A good number of those SLC's were named Mind Eraser. They started out fine/fun when new (I rode SFNE's its first year; was my first ever invert).

Who knew that over time that name would portend to describe the actual ride experience!

Good call by B&M.

BigShotRoz said:

When Six Flags bought the former Premier Parks in the late '90s,

Actually it was the other way around... Premier bought Six Flags and branded the Premier park with Flags.

Regards,
Kevin Reid

* This post was modified at 11/6/12 9:18:09 AM *

I believe that only on Gauntlet at Magic Springs there was a redesigned wheel assembly expecting to give it a more comfortable ride. I have also seen improved more comfortable OTSR's on other Vekomas-- Flight Deck, Bat, and Sidewinder. Only the one SLC is that much better, and only two boomerangs can be ridden without pain. Please don't get the idea that I think that Vekoma is anywhere near the company that B&M is.

Actually Darien Lake and Elitch Gardens are both managed by Herschened Entertainment, and have been for at least the last 2-3 years. But they don't manage Frontier City. Not sure if it has a different owner or not.

you can see some of the information at http://www.hfecorp.com/properties/

So the same company that own silver Dollar City & Dollywood owns Elitch Gardens & darien Lake, I find that surprising.

So if I were to buy a season pass at one of those parks, would it work for all the other parks?

Fatsoccerguy191 said:

So the same company that own silver Dollar City & Dollywood owns Elitch Gardens & darien Lake, I find that surprising.

15 years ago, we were saying the same thing about the same company that owns Elitch Gardens and Adventure World owning Six Flags, now didn't we?

Paul

SirWillow said:

Actually Darien Lake and Elitch Gardens are both managed by Herschened Entertainment, and have been for at least the last 2-3 years. But they don't manage Frontier City. Not sure if it has a different owner or not.

you can see some of the information at http://www.hfecorp.com/properties/

True, Darien, and Elitch are both owned by CNL, and operated by Herschend.

* This post was modified at 11/11/12 5:35:15 AM *

Fatsoccerguy191 said:

So the same company that own silver Dollar City & Dollywood owns Elitch Gardens & darien Lake, I find that surprising.

they don't own Elitch and Darien, they manage them. They only took over the management a couple of years so, so pretty recently. It also means they aren't the only ones that have say on what does or doesn't get added or on some of the operations. I know they are working on improvements, but it will take some time yet for a full transition in some areas.

SirWillow said:

Fatsoccerguy191 said:

So the same company that own silver Dollar City & Dollywood owns Elitch Gardens & darien Lake, I find that surprising.

they don't own Elitch and Darien, they manage them. They only took over the management a couple of years so, so pretty recently. It also means they aren't the only ones that have say on what does or doesn't get added or on some of the operations. I know they are working on improvements, but it will take some time yet for a full transition in some areas.

Darien Lake has very little land.

I heard Darien has lots and lots of land to expand.

Darien Lake has very little land.

Darien Lake has an enormous amount of land - 980 acres that it owns, with approximately 1/3 of that developed. One problem they don't have is space for expansion.