Another amusement park chain might be for sale

Questions: Will they sell all of their assets to one company? Or will they sell off each park individually? And who would buy these parks? Merlin?

I think they would make the most money from selling their properties in categories. I could see Herschend buying the theme parks, Ripley's or FunSpot buying the smaller properties, & Premier picking up the waterparks. I have to give credit to Lance Hart at Screamscape for some of these ideas. Outside of Kennywood, the properties are not going to be big ticket sellers to other competitors though.

If Herschend could manage such a significant expansion, that company would appear to be the best fit. The amusement parks are family focused properties compatible with the company’s existing portfolio. And Storyland and Living Shores, Dutch Wonderland and Cartoon Network Hotel and Noah’s Ark are in popular regional resort areas like Herschend’s properties in Branson and Pigeon Forge.

Sea Life fits neatly into the company’s existing portfolio of aquariums while giving execs a reason to visit Oahu. My family visited that park last year, and while we enjoyed the gorgeous location and the swim with dolphins experience, it could use some tender, loving care. The FECs would probably be sold off, but the rest of the Palace Entertainment properties are a great fit with Herschend Entertainment.

While I haven't been to any of the other parks I will say corporate ownership has been detrimental to Kennywood and Lake Compounce. They went from having all the good aspects of being family owned to all of the negative aspects of corporate ownership (loss of charm, price increases, apathy). It doesn't help that this company has been basically a dumpster fire for its entire existence, I have never heard one good thing from anyone who has worked for them.

Having visited most of Palace's properties over the past few years, I honestly have to say that they're not in great shape. With the exception of Dutch Wonderland, none has had all their attractions open even in June/July, and other than Kennywood attractions are operating at pretty low capacity (i.e. one train on coasters or a third of the ride units out of service on other attractions). I find it hard to think a new operator wouldn't improve these aspects, plus I'd hope they'd actually invest in them (Adventureland is the only Palace park that's gotten anything noteworthy over the past five years, during which timeframe half a dozen international Reunidos properties got major investments).

The tricky thing here is that there isn't really any existing park chain that seems likely to buy. Herschend would probably be the most likely to show interest in a full chain buyout as many of the parks are family oriented and the chain also owns quite a few properties that aren't full amusement parks, but that would be a pretty big purchase for a company that doesn't seem interested in expanding their footprint so rapidly. Otherwise, I could definitely see the parks being pieced out to different operators, which could get interesting and have some pretty different results from one park to the next.

the owners that sold the park to palace already had the new rides bought before palace took over. Palace is all about appearance’s. Took a very popular park and basically ran it into the ground. It’s the one thing palace is good at is taking something good and ruining it