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Talk of the bay

Reopened Cypress Gardens' attendance exceeds expectations

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published January 10, 2005

Call it curiosity, reminiscence or an just unfilled need for thrill rides, but crowds have kept the turnstiles clicking at the recently reopened Cypress Gardens.

"It's been an overwhelming first month," said Alyson Gernert, spokeswoman for the Winter Haven theme park that claims to be the oldest in Florida. "We've been drawing about double what we anticipated."

Indeed, the park has drawn as many as 8,000 people and as few as 5,500 on a recent Tuesday.

Cypress Gardens drew 600,000 the park's last full year. The park's owner, Kent Buescher, needs about 1-million to break even his first year, but his business plan does not count on that many. If he can continue averaging 6,000 guests a day a year, first-year attendance would top 1.8-million.

That's less than half the number of visitors to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay, but at about half the admission price. While skeptics abound about Cypress Gardens' long-term prospects, don't forget that Buescher spent about $50-million - $32-million of it long-term debt - sprucing up Cypress Gardens and buying 38 carnival-style rides. The grand total is about what other Florida theme parks fork out every year for one or two rides.

Whether the crowds can be sustained through the dog days of August is a question that has slipped off the agenda of Cypress Gardens officials. They have more pressing matters.

The park last week held job fairs to add 125 employees to the grand opening payroll of 320.

"We didn't think we would need more people until we added our water park in May," Gernert said. "It's a good problem to have."

[Last modified January 7, 2005, 19:45:06]