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William Wonka

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  1. Well, things are looking up here at America's favorite family fun park. We have some cool new surprises for our little park that continues to blossom. We are adding enough attractions in 2018 that length of stay will be up by 90 minutes plus, which is huge. Byron Hughes from our park will give some details at Winter Warm Up. Now don't expect a $10 million dollar coaster cause this baby continues to grow up, which is good, but I know you all will be pleased with the direction the park continues as we ramp up for our May 2018 opening. By the way, did you see we won our wager against Six Flags over Georgia on the College Football Championship. Roll Tide. At Six Flags opening weekend the Alabama Scorcher will be available for all to ride. I will be at Six Flags for that fun event! Then this park opens in May 2018 with the biggest expansion since we restored Rampage and reopened it to the public in 2015. Hope to see any and all here at Alabama Splash Adventure in 2018 or whenever your travel plans might allow. Kind regards, Dan.
  2. Rampage Train is heading back to PTC for its semi annual overhaul, and we are doing offseason track work, so the Rampage is gonna keep a rollin on! I love that coaster. It's our signature theme park piece. Have faith America, more is coming but this is Alabama and we move slowwwwww down here but we do move! LOL, but true, and thank you all!
  3. Hi friends, been a long time. Yes, the little experiment in Alabama continues. In order to drive this park into the future, we must increase length of stay. How is that done on the less expensive side? Answer? Water park attractions and slides. So, here is the basic 5 year blue print, kids slides in 2018, other more thrilling slides and play structures in 2019 and 2020. Add a collection of dry park rides as market offerings allow, looking for classic pieces. Longer term, say 10 years, get a real cool steel coaster that is not even yet designed. For the near term, we must build for the general population with some thrilling elements and increase length of stay. In the next three years that means water park pieces. A scrambler is a 2 minute event. A kids slide complex is a 30 minute plus event. This park is going to take a long time to build out. Candidly,the rebuild of the infrastructure has been depressing and it doesn't drive attendance in any way, but it had to be done to save the park. But we have made enough progress that the future is bright although not growing as rapidly as I like. But it continues to grow in attendance and sales, so here I type away, looking into the best years that are ahead of us. I like to build big stuff. We didn't come here to build a little park, but we gotta take baby steps, then walk and then run. Life is good and the future is bright. Thank you Theme Park Review Family and Friends, we are humbled that you haven't relegated us to a footnote in history! LOl and see you at the park! Regards, Dan and The General.
  4. Up 11% attendance in 2016. Cumulative effect of rounding and compounding is that we are up 40% in attendance in 2 years. We bought the park in March 2014. Nothing big planned for 2017 but in 2018 something is being added depending on the attendance. We are dialing in a few options to push go on (late summer 2017) once we see our 2017 results. Our park has a 20 year build out plan, which depends upon how quickly the attendance grows. Our park is not going in the thrill direction any time soon. It just isn't who we need to be to serve our guests here in the deep south. I believe every great park has a big heart and its own unique personality that fits in with the guest it serves and the team members who run it. Our park is a great park. If you visited us in 2016, you will see even more substantial park guest experience improvements if you visit us in 2017. Watch this little sleeper park in Alabama friends, it is coming aliveeeeee! And this is gonna be one fun ride! The future is very bright indeed. Thanks!
  5. What is up TPR family and friends? We appreciate all the input, good bad and otherwise. The good news is that the park is growing. It may not become the wild teen thrill park during my lifetime, but I think what we are becoming is a fantastic cool, relaxing beautiful place to visit. We are working very hard on 2017, 2018 and 2019 plans. We must add water park capacity. The decision to spend the money on the bombdiggity Pepsi Oasis for 2016 in the water park food court was a great decision. Nothing spectacular is coming for 2017. But that is ok, because good cool capacity fun stuff is being dialed in for 2018 and beyond. And, little stuff is coming for 2017. If a park is adding stuff, good stuff is going on and good stuff is going on here. We bought a tidal wave of negativity here, but we have reversed the tidal wave! Come visit us and see what we are becoming. This park is becoming super cool and within 1/2 a decade you are going to see substantial improvements, but a B & M, etc. just aint in the cards for the next 1/2 decade, but I guarantee you that when you visit us, you will leave with a happy feeling that you have made a visit to somewhere wonderful! Thanks for the comments and support. We love the enthusiast community. You all get it. Dan Koch, son of the "General" a/k/a Mrs. Koch.
  6. We are entering 2018 and 2019 planning and beyond. Look out, we are getting dangerous. Thrilling rides are coming but for now, our friends on this forum must understand that we (Koch family and friends) came here and rescued a corpse. This park was a corpse, right Josh? But now, the park is out of the morgue and out of critical care and moving into recovery! Thanks TPR family and friends. See you at the park for lift hill hikes if time and space allow.
  7. Thanks for all the posts and the photos of behind the scenes and the park guest experience scenes. If you visit the park this summer, you will see a much improved park. Even during the summer season, we continue to make aesthetic improvements as well as guest experience improvements. I haven't had one angry mob of mothers after me yet this season! LOL but true. Check out our Facebook reviews and see the colossal shift that is occurring in the Alabama community. My back, arms, and hands hurt so badly from all this hard work but we love it. The General stood over the french fry frier in Surfside Grill for hours on Saturday to make sure our well attended Saturday June 11, 2016 guests got fed quickly. This place is fun, but it is one very high degree of operating difficulty. Saving a relic park has been extremely tough, but we are here to stay and we do love this park very much too. It has a great personality, like all great parks do. Thanks for the posts Josh and friends. I am off to Channel 6 this morning with the General who is going to cook a funnel cake live at 8:45 a.m. central time today. She is making television history! Thank you all. Daniel Koch.
  8. What is up TPR friends? Owning and operating Alabama Splash Adventure has been quite a ride for 27 months now. We purchased the park in March 2014. We continue to rebuild the park. We are now entering a growth curve. In order to change nearly 20 years of missteps since the park opened in 1998, we have spent substantial money on infrastructure and changed the personality of the park. One simple example is every single HVAC in the park were original units installed in 1997-1998. The maintenance department was in desperate need of all of the must have mechanical equipment to fix and maintain a park, like a Bobcat, forklift, etc. All of the pumps in the water park have been replaced or repaired, etc. etc. etc. Did Yul Brynner say that? LOL. We have improved upon all lines of sight within the park in the past year to remove virtually all of the relic park/look and feel and that existed. In terms of ride and slide capacity we have made a little improvement, but we simply could not even begin to really chase attendance growth until we improved the park substantially. The good news is that 2015 we were up 25% in attendance versus 2014. 2016 is off to a fantastic start. Rome wasn't built in a day. I do know that based on what is going on insofar as our operations are concerned, in ten years, I will be back on this forum talking about more substantial pieces that have been installed. One word of advice to those who might choose to purchase a relic park- just say NO! LOL, but kind of true. This has been a very hard bit of work to reach the point where I can walk through the park with pride about how we look and how we entertain our guests in terms of team member service and friendliness. I run 3 different 5 year cash flow models with varying levels of attendance. Even the worst of the three allows us to grow in the next five years. But candidly, a big roller coaster isn't looming in the five year forecast. It wouldn't make sense for us. With that said, I do believe we need some more thrilling elements and some great family rides and slides are looming in the future. Those rides and slides are coming. Capacity is being added which means something good is going on at our park. We listen to our guests. We are changing local guest perception of the park. Locals now view the park a safe, clean, fun place to visit. For that we are grateful and proud. Hope to see you at the park. It is raining hard here this morning. Going in for a Sunday attendance free fall. But we get back on track Monday when the rain moves out. Someone remind me to post final attendance results on here in August. It will be good. Wherever you visit this summer, have fun and be safe. Hope to see you at the park. Thanks! Dan Koch.
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