Schlitterbahn “Best Water Park In The World” Sold
In what the summer entertainment industry is calling "the biggest of headlines," Schlitterbahn Waterpark and Resort New Braunfels and Schlitterbahn Waterpark Galveston is now under the umbrella of Cedar Fair Entertainment. It was disclosed earlier this morning that they had purchased the famed water parks for the cash value of $261 million.
According to
in New Braunfels, additionally, Cedar Fair has the right to acquire a property located in Kansas City, Kansas, for a cash purchase price of $6 million more.“We’re very excited, and nothing is changing for the 2019 season in terms of our staff, we’re going to keep the parks going and full and all that stuff,” said Winter Prosapio, corporate communications director for Schlitterbahn. “There will be renewed investments in the flagship park and that is going to be great.”
“We are very excited about the opportunity to bring these two award-winning Texas water parks into the Cedar Fair family,” said Richard Zimmerman, Cedar Fair’s president and CEO. “These properties represent new markets for us with attractive demographics in the growing Central Texas region, and they align with our strategy to identify compelling opportunities to accelerate our growth and profitability. The investments we have made over the past five years to strengthen our back-of-house and customer-facing systems will support a smooth integration of these properties by ensuring a premium guest experience, strong team collaboration, and superior execution.”
“They’re a very large company and they wouldn’t be interested in acquiring us and changing everything — they like that we are already a very successful brand in Texas,” she said. “They’ll bring some things that are fantastic to our community.”
The fact Schlitterbahn has won ‘Best Water Park in the World’ for 21 years straight and Galveston has won ‘Best Indoor Water Park in the World’ for a decade were mentioned as big points of note by Zimmerman.
As for what will happen with the other parks such as the South Padre and Corpus Christi locations, those will be more localized decisions, Prosapio said. After the 2019 season, decisions on whether to rename/re-brand parks will be made at those locations.