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Food
Cedar Fair Parks have expensive lousy food.
WDW food is expensive and often pretty darn good.
Cedar Point has many rides and some of them are bigger badder and better than anything like them at any Disney Park... and you don't have to make a reservation months in advance to ride them.
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We won't eat at Silver Dollar City. The food is cold and not edible. And the last employee we ordered from was rude!
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I find food prices at any park quite a shock.
Disney World seems to do a really good job at offering more interesting items and using themed settings to make the high charges a little bit easier to take. They really don't have much of a choice really, people spend a week or more at the resort and won't if there wasn't variety and quality to the food.
Universal has been upgrading the quality of some of the new locations and hopefully this will continue to all the in park spots. The two Universal parks in a way have to compete with all the City Walk locations, so I'm surprised they coasted as many years as they did.
Cedar Fair and 6 Flags parks do seem to operate as if they have a captive audience and aren't really trying on the food. I think they are missing out on potential revenue from so many people who pack a picnic, skip a meal, or wait to eat after leaving the park. I was at a catered event at Cedar Fair Kings Island this May that had really great food so its not like they can't do good food when they want to.
I also question the use of outside brands (like Subway) were everyone knows the real would price, it just makes it so blatant that you are being taken advantage of. At least at Disney that expensive hamburger has a topping bar, a great themed location and (at Cosmic Rays) entertainment.
I've always had great luck at Silver Dollar City. I find it to be the one regional park with consistently quality food (prime rib on the Christmas buffet at a price far less than any Disney buffet), pleasant surrounding, and in some instances live entertainment. I have always had great service.