Theme Parks that Havent Received a coaster in Years

[CanobieFan]

Funtown Splashtown U.S.A. can be a great candidiate for this,

I think with Funtown they don't really have space for a lot and I really don't think they have that much as far as cash flow is concerned. All of their last additions have been for what was a tiny water park and it's still rather small. I don't even think they have put in a flat ride since Dragon Descent and that was like 2001!
But also being the only real amusement park in the entire state of Maine they probably don't have to try too hard. People in the Saco / Old Orchard Beach area are going to go regardless and I bet your Portland locals do as well.

Look at my beloved Canobie Lake. They went what, twenty-five years without a new coaster before getting the Eurofighter. Although they do consistently add new attractions they when basically my entire life living in New England without adding a coaster but being the home park for Boston as well as a whole bunch of other large population cities in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, people are going to go regardless of new attractions. They don't really have to try but thankfully they do

 

[Pokemaniac]

I thought Parques Reunidos were really starting to invest more heavily? The last 5 years have seen many of their parks get big things (for instance, MPG has had Movie Park Studios & Star Trek, Bobbejaanland has had Fury/Land of Legends, and Mirabilandia has had Ducati World, as well as Gold Rush at Slagharen), and I know many more are in the pipeline (for instance, TusenFryd’s Gerst invert or Parque Warner’s alleged launch coaster). I’ll admit it always makes me scratch my head a little when people say that Parques Reunidos doesn’t invest, as from where I’m standing, a number of their parks have certainly had big things in recent times?

It's true that many of their parks have received some investment in recent years, but you have to look at the broader picture. Those coasters are mostly mid-size shuttle coasters from the cheapest manufacturer around, and they've come after a total drought lasting more than a decade - and it will probably be just as many years until the next one comes along (except Movie Park Germany, which I'm starting to suspect to blackmail the Parques Reunidos leadership, or at least having negotiated a better contract). I mean, Gold Rush at Slagharen cost €5 million, which is peanuts for a coaster, and it was their biggest investment in many years. For Ducati World, I think Ducati was footing most of the bill as the attraction's sponsor. Same with the Pittsburg Steelers for Kennywood. In general, the chain has been reluctant to invest in improving their parks, and while some of them have received new headliner attractions, the rate of new addition is not enough to meet the general wear and tear of the parks as a whole.

Meanwhile, the parks are clearly run at minimal expense levels, with small- and mid-size attractions being thrown out to save costs, every surface in the parks screaming for a lick of paint, and overpriced game stalls being the only well-staffed facilities on offer. I can't personally vouch for other Parques Reunidos parks than TusenFryd, but at least there the degradation is overwhelmingly noticeable, and this is well reflected in the visitor numbers. The same tale can be heard for many of the other parks in the chain, which seems to have instated a policy of not releasing the visitor numbers publicly since 2016 or so. The visitor numbers, where available, show a steady decline almost everywhere I've looked. We had a quite extensive thread about this a couple years ago, where I think this chart posted by @TheCoasterCruiser shows the main argument in the most concise way (Parques Reunidos took over BonBon-Land in 2008):

So yeah, they are a phenomenally crappy theme park operator.

Also, what is it with this idea that coasters have a set shelf life, after which they must close, meaning that certain parks will have a substantial overhaul of the lineup to do at a certain point in time? These coasters surely won’t all “expire” at once in some big “death wave”; I get that things wear out over time, and things will of course need maintenance as they get older, but coasters can last a long time, and I think lifespan very much depends on the ride. For my money; while we’ve still got the likes of Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland (365 day park) plodding along at 62 years old without having had any major work done to it, and both of WDW’s headline “Mountain” coasters (365 day park) having exceeded 40 years of age without major work being done, as well as some of Cedar Point’s Arrow coasters having hit 50 years of age or being very close to it without any major work, then I don’t think we need to worry too much about some substantial redox of substantially younger, less operated (cycled less) coasters any time soon.

This is a bit complicated, but the gist of it is that it gets more and more expensive to keep a coaster running over time, and its value in attracting guests is not likely to rise as time goes on.

It's not like a coaster suddenly breaks down irreversibly one day (bar the rare accident, of course), but maintenance costs do add up. Eventually some expensive part will be worn out or need a big refurbishment. Lift hill motors, launch motors, brake hydraulics, lift chains, and several other pars take a lot of wear, and eventually they have to be replaced at some cost, which may add up to several percent of the original construction costs of the coaster. The park will have to make the decision of whether to purchase the new parts to keep the coaster running, or to put the money towards a replacement attraction instead. It's also possible for even more expensive parts to be worn out, such as trains or parts of the track or supports. Microfractures are formed all the time, and may grow over time. Ground subsidience is a thing as well. I guess a worst case scenario is pit corrosion in the rebars of footers in some inaccessible place, beause then you'd have to dig them out and pour new ones.

Meanwhile, the value of keeping the coaster open is another factor. Maintenance isn't very exciting. Old coasters may be less popular with guests, have less of a value in marketing, and take up land the park would rather use for something else (the latter is a slightly moot point for parks that have no plans for further investment, of course). They also require staff for operation and maintenance, and if nobody rides the ride you could have better use of the staff for other things (or just lay them off, I guess). The staff has to be trained too, which takes time and resources. To use TusenFryd as an example again, I've heard that Loopen is partially kept open because one senior mechanic knows it inside out, but he's up for retirement soon and the park doesn't seem likely to train somebody to succeed him. I predict that Loopen will close when the new coaster opens and the mechanic retires. It is less popular than it used to be, the hardware is old, and the benefits of keeping it open are dwindling relative to the costs of operation.

The point is, the rides will eventually come to a point where the park has to make a call: Spend a ton of money to keep the coaster open (without much fanfare), or saving the costs by retiring the coaster. Just like there are examples of old coasters having operated for many many years, there are many examples of coasters that were retired, even if the park had no immediate projects for the land they occupied. Volcano at Kings Dominion, for instance. Drachen Fire at BGW. Wild Mouse at BPB. Hulk at IOA was torn down in its entirety and rebuilt, suggesting the old coaster had aged beyond saving.

It is a cost/benefit issue, as so many things are. One day, that fraction becomes lower than one, and the park will have to evaluate whether they want to keep the coaster running or if it makes more sense to close it. I doubt the headliner coasters will be the first to go, but the "supporting rides" will probably leave quietly one by one as they age. And knowing Parques Reunidos, they won't all be replaced.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Double posting here (I think that's fair since it's been a week since my last post) to mention a few parks that built very notable coasters, and then suddenly didn't build any coasters at all.

Everland was briefly mentioned in my other post, but more South Korean parks fit here. Lotte World built the now infamous AquaTrax Atlantis Adventure back in 2003, a ride type we've been expecting to see exported to the West for many years now. Since the park built such a great, big, novelty coaster, and since it's the 17th most visited park in the world (it gets more annual visitors than Europa Park!), one would think they'd have the apetite for more. But no, their most recent coaster was ... Atlantis Adventure, actually. 18 years after opening, the AquaTrax is still their newest coaster (cue a joke about once a park has got an AquaTrax, it has no need for further coasters).

At a height of 80 meters, Thunder Dolphin at Tokyo Dome City is the 11th tallest coaster in the world, sporting the 7th tallest lift hill. It is also the only non-kiddie coaster the park has received since 2003. There was an absolutely tiny family Gerstlauer installed in 2019, but the park has also closed three coasters since Thunder Dolphin was built. The park had the finances to build what was the third tallest full-circuit coaster in the world back in 2003, but since then things have really gone downhill.

Back in Europe, PortAventura in Spain is Europe's 6th most attended park, featuring several legendary coasters. Dragon Khan was the Steel Vengeance of its day, featured in just about every top 10 list this side of the Atlantic. Furius Baco achieved infamy with its speed, seating, and smoothness (or rather, lack thereof). Shambhala is still a favourite coaster for many, and still has the tallest lift hill in western Europe. Shambhala is also still the youngest coaster in the park, 9 years after it opened. Apparently, they piled together the money to build a whooping giant B&M in 2012, and rested on its laurels since.

Marineland in Canada deserves a mention. In 1983, they built Dragon Mountain, a giant, unique, custom Arrow looper with four inversions, several terrain elements, a fake mountain, a height difference of almost 60 meters, and until Steel Vengeance opened, it was the longest coaster ever to feature multiple inversions (Son of Beast and California Screamin' were both longer, featuring one inversion each). In many ways, Dragon mountain is a beast of a coaster. It is also the newest coaster in the park to this date, almost 40 years later. They haven't had so much as a Wacky Worm since 1983.

Disneyland is an absolutely legendary theme park, and the second most visited park in the world. It features four coasters, including the legendary Matterhorn Bobsleds, the original Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a kiddie coaster with a strangely barren RCDB page given the circumstances (doesn't Duane know anybody who has been to the park with a camera since 1994?), and of course, Space Mountain. The latter coaster opened in 1977, but was replaced in its entirety back in 2005, and that's still the newest coaster in the park. But if you consider the new hardware to be part of the same attraction, that 1993 kiddie coaster remains the newest coaster attraction at Disneyland. Almost thirty years old. Of course, Disneyland is so crammed with limited room to develop that it would have a hard time fitting in a playground seesaw, so I don't expect the park to be building a new coaster any time soon.

Beto Carrero World is the most visited park in South America. It is home to a couple of Vekoma loopers (one sit-down, one Inverted), and a pair of family coasters, and last saw a new coaster built in 2008. Interestingly, the park had purchased three more coasters over the years, including the infamous Chiller from Six Flags Great Adventure, but none of them ended up built at the park.

Another honourable mention to Fuji-Q highland, which features several of the largest and most notable coasters in Japan, but whose most recent addition was a decade ago. But at least they seem to be building another coaster for next year. Tokyo Disneyland is another, with its most recent coaster being in 1995. That's notable since the park is the most visited park in Asia and the third most visited in the world, but then again coasters isn't their main focus.