From family fun to capitalist america

I went to Schlitterbahn today as the last stop of my family vacation, a vacation that reminded me of the difference between holiday blues and holiday stress. Holiday blues is when you aren't able to spend the holidays with your family, and holiday stress is when you are.

Anyways, I've been going to Schlitterbahn about every other year for the past 10 years, and things have changed a lot. I remember when you could go to Schlitterbahn on a weekday and you wouldn't have to spend more than maybe half an hour to ride a ride, and could see just about everything the park had to offer in a day. When I went today it was packed, especially strange since it was a Thursday. Lines for some of the new and more popular rides were up to about 2 hours long, and there were so many people you could barely get from one place to another without running into someone else, especially if you were in the water and everyone had huge inner tubes. In just a few years, it has been transformed from a nice, local waterpark to the best waterpark in the world, visited by several thousands of people each day. It was also sad that almost every attraction is now sponsored by some national restaurant chain or other kind of business.

But it still wasn't quite as bad as Six Flags was yesterday, where most of the concession stands had changed to brand name foods like Papa John's Pizza, Johnny Rocket's hamburgers, Cold Stone and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, and even Panda Express. TV monitors that were once used to show cartoons that matched the theme of the ride now displayed advertisements.

It's shocking to see what has happened to our theme parks. But at least the french fries are still awesome.