Giraffe encounters on an elevated walkway. The roar of close by lions from a non-public veranda. Early morning recreation drives with elephants and rhinos. These experiences, usually reserved for safaris throughout the huge African continent, will quickly be discovered at an amusement park in New Jersey, which additionally provides entry to the world’s tallest curler coaster.
Six Flags Leisure Corp. is venturing into luxurious hospitality, with a 20-room safari lodge slated to open on June 14. Situated simply 15 miles from New York Metropolis, contained in the safari park at Six Flags Nice Journey, the Savannah Sundown Resort & Spa will perch company above Ankole cattle, wildebeests and black bears that roam the property’s 350-acre African-themed expanse.
The corporate’s first foray into luxurious lodges comes amid its deliberate $1.88 billion acquisition by Cedar Truthful LP, which owns 17 theme parks and 11 lodges, together with Carowinds exterior Charlotte and Cedar Level in Sandusky, Ohio.
Stays at Savannah Sundown start at $599 per evening through the summer time season—with a two-night minimal—which places it inside vary of a few of Walt Disney World’s most high-end lodges. Right here, that may embrace trendy conveniences reminiscent of avocado toast and Starbucks chai lattes delivered to your canvas tent for breakfast, in addition to tickets to Six Flags’ parks.
That provides to the sights already bringing thrill-seekers to this nook of New Jersey, the place Six Flags operates 510 acres crammed with 14 hair-raising curler coasters, the Hurricane Harbor water park and the aforementioned Wild Safari Journey. On the latter, company are taken on 45-minute recreation drives to see 1,200 animals from six continents. Whereas Six Flags doesn’t launch information for visitation to its particular person parks, analysis from AECOM monitoring attendance at international sights reveals that the New Jersey complicated welcomed a file 3.5 million company in 2019; in 2022, the newest 12 months for which AECOM information can be found, that quantity was greater than 2.1 million.
The brand new lodge is a method to leverage the prevailing safari park for longer and costlier stays, which in flip would drive spending in the remainder of the parks. Whereas the suites are modeled after the camps in, say, Botswana’s Okavango Delta or Tanzania’s Serengeti, the layouts function kitchenettes and Keurig espresso machines to cater to American households.
“We needed to really deliver things that were special,” says Edithann Velez Ramey, chief advertising officer at Six Flags.
A Firm in Transition
Six Flags’ enlargement into lodges comes at a essential time. This 12 months a survey of three,491 US-based vacationers by Bloomberg Intelligence confirmed that greater than half deliberate to go to theme parks for journeys of at the very least three days, the second-most-popular trip selection, after all-inclusive resorts.
Courting guests for a number of days is a bonus that such firms as Walt Disney Co. and Comcast Corp.’s Common have lengthy held over Six Flags, which has traditionally been centered virtually completely on day company. The hole has solely widened, as Common Orlando Resort readies a trio of latest lodges across the 2025 debut of its Epic Universe theme park, and Disney continues to refurbish and launch new lodging for its loyal Disney Trip Membership members.
Till now, Six Flags has operated only one lodge: Nice Escape Lodge, with 200 Adirondack-themed rooms surrounding an indoor water park in Queensbury, New York. Rooms begin round $340 per evening throughout prime summer time weekends.
The choice to experiment with luxurious lodging was spurred by Chief Govt Officer Selim Bassoul, who took the helm in late 2021. It’s his most formidable transfer as he shepherds the corporate forward of its merger. (The shut is predicted to happen by the tip of June, although some analysts and antitrust specialists anticipate regulatory delays.)
Advertising chief Ramey says the glamping idea was a part of a method that encourages increased spending. The query Bassoul was asking, she says, is “How do we do things that allow us to elevate the price—and, by extension, revenues and profit?”
In lieu of competing with Florida’s vacation spot parks by constructing extra sights, Six Flags is utilizing its proximity to the New York metro space as an benefit. Providing safari-like lodging with out a journey to the airport is exclusive, however as a one-off lodge, it’s an enormous concept that speaks to Six Flags’ present efficiency gaps. In keeping with analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence, the corporate’s money technology dropped in 2023 as per-person park spending decreased to $64 from $66, all whereas attendance remained decrease than anticipated. Throughout all its 27 parks nationwide, Six Flags noticed 22.2 million guests final 12 months—nonetheless far shy of 2019’s 32.8 million.
What to Count on From a Six Flags Safari Keep
Savannah Sundown Resort & Spa is loaded with intriguing options and facilities—and likewise a heavy handful of contradictions.
Nowhere else within the Northeast can you discover rooms outfitted with real, handcrafted African wooden furnishings and huge savannah views. Day by day giraffe feedings, made out there completely to lodge company, are the type of factor some individuals affiliate with a bucket-list journey to Nairobi. An on-site restaurant, Mahaba Grill, will serve breakfast and dinner. Entrees, reminiscent of lobster ravioli or slow-roasted brief rib, value from $25 to $40. An on-site spa provides deep-tissue massages with a picket African rungu stick.
Every keep consists of park admission, non-public transportation to the parks and expedited skip-the-line entry on curler coasters and waterslides. Visitors at Disney’s $300-a-night Animal Kingdom Lodge, which claims the biggest African wine listing exterior the continent and gives in-room views of animals roaming close by, need to pay additional for such perks.
However there are important challenges. Savannah Sundown requires all company to be age 5 or older—a critical caveat for households with animal-loving preschoolers—and a restriction that’s virtually inconceivable to search out anyplace on-line.
Six Flags additionally has to construct this new enterprise with out the assistance of its most core demographic: Most of its company are native and arrive with season passes in hand, which suggests they don’t want a lodge.
This location can be the one Six Flag theme park that features a safari park, so it’s unclear if this technique can develop.
After which there’s the difficulty that Savannah Sundown’s most senior employees have little expertise with luxurious lodges. In cost is Elizabeth Bransky-Cannata, who most not too long ago served as touring interim basic supervisor for Vacation Inn Membership Holidays areas.
She’ll want to ascertain the lodge as a must-visit locale shortly, given its brief seasonality. Six Flags Nice Journey is barely open day by day in summer time (which means, till Labor Day), and the lodge will likely be open solely on choose dates within the offseason. That’s a logistical challenge that neither Disney nor Common, which profit from sunny Florida climate year-round, has to deal with at their resorts.
Regardless of these caveats, Six Flags nonetheless sees huge alternative.
“It’s one of our biggest, largest properties, so we knew we wanted to invest,” says Ramey. “And we’re thrilled that it’s happening in New Jersey.”
