It’s been a couple of years since we went to the Dells, and things have changed a lot. It used to be a place where you could go, nearby to suburban Chicago, and (relatively) cheap – compared to places like Hawaii or Disney or so forth. It’s still nearby.<\/p>\n
Driving down the main strip (Wisconsin Dells Pkwy), you feel a real sense of Deja Vu if you’ve ever been to Vegas. Not that casinos are taking over (although there are two nearby) but because, like Vegas, big players are taking over the strip and making mega-parks that must constantly expand in order to hold bragging rights to the "Biggest waterpark". <\/p>\n
For instance, Treasure Island used to be a big player with a large indoor & outdoor park and an onsite hotel. Suddenly, a small start-up from up the street, Mount Olympus, owns Treasure Island (and everything else on that side of the strip for that matter). I’m not saying that’s bad – big parks can be good – but it does change the landscape of things a bit.<\/p>\n
The Dells attractions are traditionally a pay-as-you-go affair. You buy as little or as much entertainment as you want. Like the old Vegas. But now with the mega-parks knocking down the old players and building huge all-inclusive parks, it’s a bit harder. For instance, we would have liked to have ridden the "Trojan Horse" go-carts. A few years ago, when Mt Olympus was a newcomer to the strip, TH was a pay-as-you-go affair. Now, you have to buy in to the Mt Olympus mega-park in order to ride it, whether you want to ride anything else or not. Maybe that’s fine if you want to do the roller coasters and rides and water park at Mt Olympus. One price, and you get it all. But if you just want to ride Trojan Horse, you’re out of luck.<\/p>\n
Condos are also taking over, and I think in a bad way. Timeshare sales is tainting the Dells, and they’re knocking down some good family entertainment in order to build. For instance, the old Native American dance show at the top of the hill near New Concord, across from the Indian Trading Post, is no more. They’ve knocked it down to build condos. No more Native American dance show. <\/p>\n
Same with Big Chief go-carts – gone, soon to be something else, probably a condo. In fact, in the old days you couldn’t drive a block without tripping over a go-cart place. Now, only a few go-cart-only places exist (like A-Dare), otherwise you have to buy in to a park to ride go-carts (and the selection is still very limited). <\/p>\n
Wis Dells is still a fun place, and it’s still (just barely) cheaper than Disney, but I’m afraid if they keep developing this way, soon it won’t be. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s been a couple of years since we went to the Dells, and things have changed a lot. It used to be a place where you could go, nearby to suburban Chicago, and (relatively) cheap – compared to places like Hawaii or Disney or so forth. It’s still nearby. Driving down the main strip (Wisconsin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/famille.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}