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Definitely a sad day for Kennywood fans. Nothing may change, yet, everything may change. The outgoing owners offered a high quality family experience and should be commended for operating the park like that for over 100 years. I just hope Parques Reunidos doesn't alter that experience in any way.
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Sad...I really would hate to lose yet another fine traditional park to a heartless corporation. I don't know much about Parques Reunidos, but I can only hope they're nothing like Six Flags or Cedar Fair.
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I'm surprised, because I was pretty confident that the families would come to an agreement and ultimately decide to keep the park. Still, I'm remaining cautiously optimistic, at least for now.
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I assume the reason that the state of Conneticut has a say in what happens has to do with Lake Compounce. I seem to recall there is an official historical status to the property that the state has control over.*** This post was edited by Dutchman 5/17/2008 10:41:00 AM ***
*** This post was edited by Dutchman 5/17/2008 2:31:31 PM ***
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76 is just way too many hands.
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Wouldn't it actually be 152 hands? 
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Jumping to a few conclusions, are we? You guys have no reason to believe they're going to do anything to screw up the parks.
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It's the unknown factor that is causing this self-conflict. Change can be very scary. The park has a great integrity and if it is compromised because of the new owners, it will suffer along with everyone who enjoys it.
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As far as Kennywood, Lake Compounce, etc. are concerned, these parks were semi-corporate already since they were part of a chain of five parks. This made them different from HW and KG which are totally independent. What was special was that Kennywood Entertainment was not al all like Cedar Fair or Six Flags. They respected tradition even while keeping the parks up to date. KW and Idlewild retained their picnic areas. All of the parks had reasonably priced admission and food. Lines were of reasonable length and there were no pay to cut schemes. Hopefully this is the way things will remain.
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What if they don't remain the same, yet this sale to Parques was the only way to guarantee the KennyCorp parks remained open for generations to enjoy?
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Kennywood Entertainment had the best balance sheet in the business, hands down. They purchased rides after years of planning, and everyone got paid in the fall. Those are hard facts that can't be disputed by anyone on this site. The concern basically is not for Parques, its for the Candover investment company who just purchased Parques last summer. God only knows what will, or could happen. Its such a big gamble when family held parks change ownership, since the older parks are an institution to the communities. Kennywood was known in our world as a conservative company, buying only established rides, steering away from prototypes, getting high capacity to reduce lines, and always always investing in your infrastructure. Their philosophy of Groups First hs worked, and propelled Kennywood ahead of its competitors in that field. There are only a handful family parks that the actual family members create policy, direct entire divisions, and create a sound master plan, and Kennywood was one of them. The 'First Team' ownership club should be commended for their excellent century of ownership. The next 100, well, may lead another direction.
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I wasn't inferring that KennyCorp's balance sheet was bad or that the ran their business poorly.
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of course you were not inferring it, but you could have been implying it.
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