Change comes to Cypress Gardens Adventure Park.
It was very cold last night in Central Florida. Below freezing in fact, which is unusual for these parts. Many of the beautiful plant displays at the regions local theme parks were in danger. Some of the parks are trying this new ‘frost-off’ (I hope they’ll still let me through the gates) foam product to try and save some of the floral decor. The Ledger has a video of it in use at Cypress Gardens.
That’s not the only change that was announced yesterday at Cypress Gardens. The above clip ends with a short interview of Cypress Garden‘s new co-owners Rob Harper and Brian Philpot. Brian and Rob have decided to hire an outside management company, Baker Leisure Group, to run the park for them. That means that the park’s previous owner, and its savior from the dust-bin of history, Kent Buescher, has been shown the door. I’m sorry that Kent had to go. I’ve met Kent and his family and they’re very nice and had their hearts in the right place.
It’s not that Kent was doing the wrong things, acquiring the historic Starliner wooden roller coaster was a great move, and without the hurricane damage related debt the park would have been profitable, it’s just that he wasn’t doing enough of the right things. Winter Haven is not Valdosta and much of what worked for Kent up north did not translate to Florida.
Employee retention and moral was low, in part from training and supervision issues and in part from the low pay and odd hours. The food mix in the park is off in terms of offerings, locations, prices, kid meal selections. The over-all foot traffic flow lends itself to guests skipping the prime revenue areas (food courts, shopping, and pass upgrades (plus the water park location needs to be dealt with).
Baker Leisure Group may also want to re-consider some of the ‘themeing’ plans that Cypress Gardens had announced and even take a look at re-configuring the park’s various ‘lands’ to include some of Walt Disney’s famous "Weenie’s". From what I’ve read BLG has a lot of the above already in mind.
It’s important to protect the history and the gardens themselves, but you don’t want to cut off your foot to save your toe. A few, very small, sacrifices will have to be made to allow the park to return to its full glory. Buescher was on the right track with adding some events that would attract locals to the park. The Winter Haven location puts the park on the outskirts of "Orlampa" and a good 40 minutes away from the Disney attractions area (additional traffic lights in the area has made the trip longer recently). So you have to draw the locals in, they’re your lifeblood. Then once you have the locals there you have to make sure you’re offering a product that will make them want to return. It sounds simple, but the execution of it is in the details.
Steven R Baker and the Baker Leisure Group have a 20+ year history of making attractions around the world work by focusing on the details. Baker’s background is primarily at Disney but he’s surrounded himself with people from Universal, SeaWorld, and some smaller attractions to provide some breadth of knowledge. Judging from their portfolio they’re bringing a lot of exactly the right experience needed to save Cypress Gardens and even to make it something special. I wish them all the success in the world. I love Cypress Gardens and want to see it survive for ages to come.
The full press release from the announcement is below the cut. See also coverage in The Orlando Business Journal, The Ledger, and The Orlando Sentinel.
(photo courtesy Josh Hallett Hyku via Flickr Creative Commons)
. I’ve been hearing about this amazing life form for about six months and it’s finally available to the public today. Its sophisticated sensory system of 40 devices enable sight, touch, and autonomous movement just like WDI’s Lucky, but smaller.