Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – Friday, May 23rd, 2008
(This review was originally published on CoasterSims.com in June 2008)
Ah, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina… one of the world’s most popular tourist traps, with miles of pristine, white condominiums and beachwear stores intercepting the views of the beach. Every year they feed on millions of disposable tourist dollars to provide some form of artificial self-sustenance for people with no idea what else they can do with their lives before they’re excreted back home thanks to the rising costs of gasoline. It’s like a little slice of the-next-best-thing-to-heaven on Earth, which I guess would make it a little slice of purgatory?
Okay, really, so why would anyone as intellectual and cultured as myself (yeah…) dare be caught spending valuable money and time in a place this superficial and tacky? Because I also happen to consider roller coasters a fine art, and the first real new theme park of the 21st century has opened its gates this past month. Was it worth the time, money (especially money) and personal risks of bodily harm to get there? Hell no! But, really, what is worth it these day?
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Originally I was planning to visit Hard Rock Park on Sunday the 25th of May, to save as a grand finale to the weekend before flying back to Michigan on Monday, but as it happened park management decided to reduce hours on Saturday and Sunday to close at 10:00pm instead of 1:00am. No biggie since 10:00pm was still more than generous especially when Cedar Fair and Six Flags have been cutting their parks hours so they’re hardly open past 9:00 during the summer season. Still, I sent a letter to the park expressing my disappointment since a 1:00am closing time still would have been very enjoyable (I’m a big supporter of the belief that all aspects of a park are best experienced after dark) and figured that’s that. But less than a week before leaving, I found out that they once again cut their hours, closing the park entirely from Monday to Wednesday on both weeks before and after Memorial Day weekend, and further reducing hours that Sunday from 10:00pm to 7:00pm. So a last minute switch was made at some expense from an already booked hotel in Charlotte to visit the park on Friday which still had hours until 1:00am, along with one of their larger concerts for the season.
We arrived at the park about five minutes to opening only to find that there were six or seven other cars in the parking lot. Apparently the Friday of Memorial Day weekend is *not* a popular day to visit. Granted the park was open until 1:00am that night and given it’s a smaller park I figured most people were planning on arriving later that afternoon or evening for the George Clinton concert. Even then, it seemed that if crowds were to pick up later in the day, it would be assumed that a larger percentage would be planning a full day starting at opening like me. While normally this is a good thing since it means tons of re-rides, with a limited number of attractions I was almost counting on longer lines to fill in the day, and of course I was also concerned about the park’s own well-being as I was really hoping to see a new park open this decade as a success story and not go the way of Wild West World or Jazzland. It’s still far more promising than those two examples, but I was more than mildly concerned that these almost non-existent crowds might indicate some failed market research and reduced expansion plans for the future, or raised eyebrows concerning other new park plans across the country when investors see the hard times of Hard Rock. The planned Main Street America park in Grayling, Michigan is just a little more than an hour from where I live which would make it my new ‘home park’, and while I do have criticisms of the plans themselves I’d still like to see it happen sometime, plus it’s no secret the Michigan economy needs something like that.
I unfortunately should also mention that another possible reason for the lighter crowds: Memorial Day weekend is the start of an event officially called “Black Biker Week” in Myrtle Beach. Talking to one of the employees later in the day he candidly expressed some concern that they’ve had problems encountering the huge numbers of bikers (and their many girlfriends), many of whom, whether because it’s part of that culture or it’s just personal, have had some bad attitudes that were partly responsible for the low level of regular tourists to Myrtle Beach and Hard Rock Park. While these large numbers of bikers weren’t present around the Hard Rock area itself, going into town the next day the problems were… I’ll just say more than self-evident, and I’ll leave it at that. This unfortunately also meant a visit to Family Kingdom to try out the classic Swamp Fox wooden coaster had to be cut, in fact Saturday was more or less a loss as we had to call it quits early and head back to Charlotte.
Moving on… tickets were $50 per person without tax included, which really made it closer to $54. It’s definitely on the steep side compared to other parks of comparable size but considering everything is still shiny and brand new and it includes whatever concerts happen to be playing it seemed fair enough for this year at least. However, here’s a large problem with the park’s ticket structure: that’s the only ticket option available, besides the season pass for $150. That’s right, there’s no discounted admission price for those under 48” or for senior citizens, and no evening passes, which I would assume would have been very popular with area tourists not wanting to spend a full day at the park nor willing to pay $50 for only a couple hours in the evening.
Tickets in hand we’re quickly processed and inside the gates of Hard Rock Park.
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