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Credit: Inside the MagicSix Flags and Cedar Fair have officially merged, creating a behemoth theme park chain that could finally act as a viable threat to Disney. But if you think that means you have more access to parks than ever, corporate is here to tell you otherwise.
On July 1, Six Flags Entertainment Corporation and Cedar Fair Entertainment Company officially merged, creating what the new company describes as “the largest and most diverse amusement park operator in North America.” The new theme park conglomerate will operate 42 locations, including icons like Six Flags Magic Mountain, Cedar Point, and Knott’s Berry Farm.
Related: Six Flags Merger Begins Historic Purge, Officially Removes Markup Cost Across All Theme Parks
The Walt Disney Company is unquestionably the dominant force in the theme park industry of North America (not to mention the rest of the world), with the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando far-outstripping their competition in terms of millions of visitors received each year and billions of dollars of revenue.
However, in recent years, Disney has faced Guest backlash over hugely inflated prices and constantly changing attractions, meaning that Six Flags has the perfect opportunity to gain an advantage.
Unfortunately for Six Flags and Cedar Fair fans, the combined theme and water park company doesn’t have a current interest in making things easy for them. While the new company offers entertainment at 27 amusement parks and 15 water parks, it is refusing to offer a season pass that would allow customers to access all of them.
According to Six Flag’s official website, “It’s clear our guests see tremendous value in the season-pass programs. There are no plans to offer a new season pass with access to all parks in 2024. However, we believe there may be an opportunity in the future to offer expanded park access to season pass holders. Please check your home park’s website for updates on Season Pass product offerings and all park access options.”
This means that Six Flags and Cedar Fair customers are going to be actively restricted from visiting all of the parks the company is boasting so much about offering. While the wording of the site implies that it might figure out a way to work this out in the future, there is no indication when and if this could actually happen.
Related: Just Weeks After Merger, Six Flags and Cedar Fair Are Already Starting to Fray
Theme Park Insider editor Robert Niles suggests (via KTLA) that an all-access Six Flags Cedar Fair pass could actually make things worse for visitors and drive prices up:
[I]ntroducing that pass would be the worst thing that the new Six Flags can do for the company, its parks, its employees and – yes – even for its fans. If a park’s pass holders account for a small minority of guests through the gate, there’s a healthy margin for error on that trade-off. The park continues to bring in substantial per capita revenue from admissions, supplemented by food and beverage and other upcharge spending.”
“But with more and more visitors entering parks on annual and seasonal passes, many parks’ per capita admission revenue is crashing. That narrows the margin for error and pushes risk-averse park executives to raise prices on parking, on food, on drinks, and wherever else they can inside the park to bring up that per capita overall revenue number.”
If Six Flags wants to ever take over from Disney as the country’s premiere theme park chain, it needs to strike while Guests are dissatisfied with the Mouse. But it doesn’t sound like that’s the plan at the moment.
Do you think Six Flags should offer an all-access season pass?