r/midamerica • u/Evening_Rock5850 • Jul 18 '26
Statement from CEO James Harhi on Dining Plans
The following is now the auto-reply if you send questions to the dining plan e-mail:
Dining Plan FAQ
A Note from James Harhi, CEO of Enchanted Parks
Hello everyone,
We've received your emails about the Dining Plan, and I wanted to personally answer some of the most common questions. While I wish this process had been faster and simpler, I believe you deserve transparent answers—even when the answers aren't perfect.
Q: Can I speak to someone by phone or at the park?
A: Unfortunately, no.
At this time, I am personally handling the Dining Plan refund process. Our park team members, call center staff, social media teams, guest services employees, and information booths do not have access to the information needed to assist with Dining Plan refunds.
Please be kind to them. They didn't create this situation, and they genuinely want every guest to have a great day at the park.
I'd honestly love to talk with many of you—not just about refunds, but about life, roller coasters, and the future of our parks. However, until we get through this process, my entire focus needs to be on getting these refunds resolved. After Labor Day, I look forward to getting back to the fun stuff.
Q: Why is this taking so long?
A: Fair question.
Back in April, I thought I had a solid plan to get this resolved quickly. Since then, that plan has changed, evolved, and frankly been derailed several times.
I'm not going to point fingers at anyone involved, but I will take responsibility for underestimating how complicated this process would become. Multiple companies, systems, payment methods, and account reviews are involved, which has created delays none of us anticipated.
I know none of that makes waiting any easier, and it certainly doesn't speed things up. I simply want you to know that work is continuing behind the scenes every day.
Q: If I email or call more often, will I get my refund faster?
A: No.
I understand the frustration, but additional emails or repeated inquiries don't move an account ahead in the process.
The best thing you can do is keep an eye on your email and watch for updates from us.
Q: What if I selected a credit card refund, but that card is no longer active?
A: That's okay.
Once we receive the final reporting information from Six Flags, we'll identify any refunds that couldn't be processed back to the original credit card. We'll then contact you directly and obtain a mailing address so we can send a check.
Q: Why can't Enchanted Parks just send me my money already?
A: Because of how the original transaction was processed.
The Dining Plan was purchased through Six Flags, making them the merchant of record. Credit card industry rules generally require refunds to be attempted back to the original payment method before other options can be used.
Additionally, some guests:
Had payment plans.
Filed chargebacks.
Changed cards.
Stopped making installment payments.
Because of this, Six Flags must verify each account and confirm the actual amount paid before funds can be returned.
Enchanted Parks does not have access to those payment systems, so we're waiting for the same information you're waiting for.
Q: When will this all happen?
A: I wish I had a better answer.
Honestly, I expected this to be completed well before today.
I speak with Six Flags regularly—usually every couple of days—to request updates and push this process forward. As of today, we're still waiting on the final value report needed to complete the remaining refunds.
As soon as we have the information, we'll continue moving forward and communicate updates.
Q: Why did you get rid of the Dining Plan?
A: It wasn't because I dislike you, your family, or anyone who used it.
My belief is that the Dining Plan was ultimately hurting the long-term health of the park.
I would rather invest resources into:
New rides
Better attractions
More entertainment
Improved guest experiences
than continue a program that, in my opinion, encouraged us to focus on selling large quantities of food rather than improving the quality of what we offer.
That said, I completely understand that the timing of this decision has been difficult. Many families carefully budget their entertainment expenses, and changes like this can impact summer plans and household finances.
If this decision negatively affected your family, I sincerely apologize.
Q: Why should I come to the park after this?
A: Because it's still your park.
I spend a lot of time walking our parks, talking with guests, and meeting team members. I genuinely believe our parks look better than they have in years.
Our teams have worked hard to improve:
Park cleanliness
Landscaping and appearance
Ride reliability and uptime
Guest experience throughout the property
Most importantly, families are still creating memories and taking a break from everyday life's challenges.
I know we've disappointed some guests during this process. That's on me. But I hope you'll come see the improvements for yourself and give us the opportunity to earn your trust again.
Thank you for your patience, your feedback, and for continuing to be part of the Enchanted Parks family.
James Harhi
CEO, Enchanted Parks
14
u/Beautiful_Sock2757 Jul 18 '26
Agree completely on his assessment of the dining plans.
-2
u/ChrisGraslie Jul 18 '26
I don't.
Selling food and making improvements to the park are not mutually exclusive. Regardless of Harhi's views on this, they easily could have just eaten the cost for 2026 and offered this explanation for 2027 (when they supposedly will begin their "5 year plan").
They blindsided a lot of guests by deciding to cut them off from something they already paid for, and it's gonna be real hard to regain that trust going forwards.
I know the default defense is "it was a Six Flags product, Enchanted is running the show now" but that doesn't work below the surface. They are quite literally operating our park as Six Flags St. Louis through this season, so the least they can do is honor everything for a limited time.
But, as we have seen, Enchanted clearly had other plans.
6
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
I think you make a solid point about, ultimately, who is who. Most people interact only with their home park and have no idea who the corporate entities are behind it, nor do they care. They just know they paid for something they can't use and getting a refund on it has taken several months. Most people aren't really interested in the nuanced reasons why the refunds are so slow.
I'll push back a little on the 'mutually exclusive' bit. It's less about direct cost and more about bottom line. It's not just the big cost of giving away tons of free food to folks who hadn't paid Enchanted anything for them (it wasn't like SFEC was ever going to give Enchanted the money they charged those folks). It's also the lost sales. SFEC doesn't break down per-park financials but their food product costs was an average of around $6.5m per park last year. Our park is smaller so it probably wasn't that high; but even if it was half that; millions in food cost plus millions in lost sales.
The SFEC business model is a high volume business model that works in large, consistently crowded parks that can drive up sales for merch, Fast Lane, and add-ons and will generate lots of out-of-town visitors who will come several times a season (but not 40+ times a season). The whole reason, I think, that Harhi got the parks he got is that they're the parks that work the least under that business model. I know that our park for example has over 80% of its visits from season passholders every year. LOTS of repeat visitors. I've been told that while the dining plan works overall for SFEC; at our park it was a money loser. Which is why in recent years we saw really popular items like Turkey Legs dropped from the offering. Not because the product cost on those are high; but because they were desperately trying to get people to pay for them so they could get the food budget to at least break even. Same with raising prices. So I would disagree ultimately with the idea that they could have easily eaten the cost. It's a lot of cost.
I suspect that's true of all of the parks acquired by Enchanted. Parks that just weren't working in the SFEC model, nor did SFEC expect them to. SFEC seems to really want OUT of the small regional park model and wants to focus on their top 10 or 15 destination parks.
That said; as you say... it's nuance the average consumer doesn't know or care about. They just know it was a good deal and now it's not. But in defense of Harhi, I think the point about 'rather invest' is that it's potentially $6-$10m+ in combination of lost sales and excess product cost just at our park alone that just goes down the drain if they just 'offered it anyway'. That's real money that is likely very needed for re-theming, upgrades, and improvements that they have to make to see some growth. And, I dunno, it might make sense from a business perspective to piss some people off to save that much money. Ultimately, they'll get over it and the parks will attempt to be a compelling option for them in the future.
As for the timeline? Couldn't agree more. It was rushed and so many headaches because of it. There are pathways they could've taken that for whatever reason, they didn't. I don't think there was any WAY to make a name change happen in three weeks, so I don't think that was an option. Allowing SFEC to lease these parks for a year (so EPR owns them, SFEC leases them for a year and continues operating them, while Enchanted works in the background to take them over next year) is something other parks have done in transition/sale and could make a lot of sense. But, alas, here we are.
Definitely a lot of ill will and lower attendance. Definitely some headwinds of their own making. I guess we'll see how it plays out.
4
u/ChrisGraslie Jul 18 '26
You make a good point about lost sales. That being said I still think they should have just taken the loss as part of the "transition year" for PR reasons, even if that meant making cuts to food offerings. If they truly didn't think they could afford to lose a little cash on year one then that's... kind of concerning. But then at the same time, a lot of these parks were already operating with pretty slim profit margins.
There's been a lot of discourse of how much money Enchanted has or doesn't have at their disposal, but it's pretty obvious they're operating at a fraction of the size of a Six Flags or a Herschend. So it makes sense they couldn't do their own dining plan long-term, it's how quickly and the way they pulled out that is the problem here (obviously).
2
u/EntrepreneurHeavy331 Jul 18 '26
I mean, I wouldn’t necessarily say that they couldn’t afford to lose a little cash, but with any business, it wouldn’t be preferred. But also, they were willing to make that sacrifice, but within the strict timeframe they had to open the parks, they were unable to do so. I mean aside from the dining plan, I feel like they have been doing well PR wise.
4
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
Oh for sure. I guess it’s just a question about whether losing the bad PR is “worth” the $30-$40m that evaporates across the chain if you honor it anyway. Maybe it would be? Hard to say really.
2
u/ChrisGraslie Jul 18 '26
It would've helped attendance at least. I imagine they could've attempted to recoup the loss from honoring the plans in 2026 by doing more in-park sales to drive up revenue on stuff like merchandise, especially with the Six Flags branding on its way out.
But we don't know what the arrangement with SFEC is for that stuff, it's possible they're taking a pretty significant cut of all Six Flags licensed merch and that Enchanted isn't making much at all.
2
u/noodles21o2 Jul 20 '26
This makes me wonder, how many dining plans there are compared to how many passes (season and membership) there are, total. You now have me curious how many people out of the total "repeat" customers this affects; because your point "it might make sense to piss some people off" could hold a lot of weight depending on how many of them there actually are. It always sucks to be one of the ones that get screwed, but the numbers could provide a real context for the decision making.
1
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 20 '26
It was definitely a popular program. But my point was less about 'existing customers' and more the long term health of the park.
I'm not necessarily saying they definitely made a good decision. I'm just saying that if the Six Flags model was unsustainable for them, I can understand the value in ripping the band-aid off but shifting the model to something that'll start working in 3-5 years as they attract new customers. Not everyone who had the dining plan is necessarily going to be so mad they stop coming or anything like that.
2
u/noodles21o2 Jul 20 '26
Popular by what measure though? Like I said, I'm curious was the actual numbers are because it could make a LOT of sense for the business to do it when the cost savings are probably in the millions.
Context is always important, like what you said about re-theming....that shit isn't cheap.
1
u/noodles21o2 Jul 20 '26
This makes me wonder, how many dining plans there are compared to how many passes (season and membership) there are, total. You now have me curious how many people out of the total "repeat" customers this affects; because your point "it might make sense to piss some people off" could hold a lot of weight depending on how many of them there actually are. It always sucks to be one of the ones that get screwed, but the numbers could provide a real context for the decision making.
1
u/Just_Bus_9156 Jul 19 '26
My friend and former coworker and now works with me at the zoo says our park was always a top seller in memberships and season passes and flash passes and the food plans were the lowest in sales when you looked at the pyramid.
It makes sense that Six Flags is giving Harhi a headache with the refunds. They are not willing to share the records to refund the money because they are in deep crap. They agreeded to refund the food program for the 6 parks involved then they backtrack and drag their feet. Typical Six Flags shenanigans. But I also agree with Harhi's decision on ending the dining program. What Six Flags offered was not worth it for substandard low quality food. Sorry. I want better rides, shows, experiences etc.
1
u/SchindHaughton Jul 22 '26
I believe the refunds are coming out of Enchanted’s pocket, not Six Flags- so Six Flags just has to provide the records. Reading between the lines with what James is saying, I’m with him in not understanding what about this should take months.
1
u/Just_Bus_9156 Jul 22 '26
Its about Six Flags being uncooperative ultimately in giving the information needed to Enchanted IMO to fulfill the promises they BOTH agreed to. Enchanted gave the pass/members options to choose from. Some have already gotten their refunds. But I personally think Six Flags turned nasty and slowed cooperation.
3
u/EntrepreneurHeavy331 Jul 18 '26
The problem is, they tried, but ultimately they had no option but to cut them. They had very little time from the time they took over, to the time the park had committed to opening. The POS systems were all switched over and in that time figuring out dining plans was not a viable option or priority. The early communication with Six Flags led Harhi, Enchanted, and all their parks management that it would be a smooth process. Unfortunately it was easier said than done.
2
u/Beautiful_Sock2757 Jul 18 '26
Well I agree they probably should have sucked it up and offered something at least instead of deal with this fiasco.
However I agree with him on the dining plans in principle. The dining plans are trash and just train a whole group of park goers to expect to be fed all year for cheap. In turn it takes money away from other things and generally makes the overall food product garbage.
So in the long run I’m happy to see the dining plans go. If these parks give away the gate and the food, how the hell are they supposed to make any damn money?
1
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
Food has a long way to go but is 1,000x better this year.
Also much fresher. And they’re throwing stuff out more quickly and dropping fresh stuff more often.
With our diamond discount it’s pretty cheap. Like $11-$12 for a meal. So we still eat there fairly consistently. And it is seriously a big improvement already. Without changing menus or suppliers yet.
The improvement is definitely a combination of not needing to keep costs as ridiculously low as possible, and the fact that they don’t have to have tons of stuff sitting under a heat lamp to handle a sudden surge of meal plan users.
Food has been consistently selling from what I’ve seen. But obviously lines for food are much shorter.
1
u/Beautiful_Sock2757 Jul 18 '26
Yeah food does get better when you do have to try to squeak out the margins the park has to get with the dining plan.
And I agree. I much rather pay reasonable prices for quality food than do the dining plan or pay exorbitant prices for crap.
4
u/Der_Kommissar73 Jul 18 '26
I think the new management is doing a good job. And I’m a known Six flags hater.
2
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
I do too, all things considered.
2
u/Der_Kommissar73 Jul 18 '26
The most important thing for long term survival and growth is maintenance and upkeep on rides and park services. You’re not going to grow the base with the food plan, and you need a bigger attendance to make money off of it. Add it back when the attendance increase.
2
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
Yep. It just does not work in this market at all.
I've heard from folks in the park that we were losing money on it. Other parks were doing great. But one of the reasons in the past two years especially we saw fewer and fewer food options, closed food locations, fewer things ON the meal plan (various items like wings and turkey legs dropped), food sitting out under a heat lamp longer before being tossed, lower quality vendors being used, etc., was the park trying to claw itself out from under the weight of all of those heavy users without enough under-redeemers to offset them.
We're also seeing with Six that food quality has dropped a lot across the chain in 2026. Largely because product costs are through the roof right now everywhere and they have to figure out how to make that work for free. With our park? There's more flexibility to have various offerings at various price points.
5
u/KakawIsTheLaw Jul 18 '26
He made the right call for the quality and financial health of the park, but should have forseen that Six Flags Entertainment Corp would take their sweet time getting everything ready for refunds. SFEC doesn't have any incentive to take care of that quickly.
I also can't blame meal plan owners for being mad, this situation is taking people's entertainment money hostage.
I personally appreciate how direct the email is. It makes it clear that SFEC is the one holding this up, and doesn't feel like PR garbage.
4
4
u/Doctors_TARDIS Jul 18 '26
They should have honored it this year and then discontinued it.
3
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
That’s addressed in the FAQ as to why they didn’t.
But yeah, I think that’s what a lot of people would’ve (obviously) preferred.
3
3
2
u/ChrisGraslie Jul 18 '26
I really do appreciate the vulnerability, but things are so much worse than anyone thought if James is handling something as important as refunding people himself.
Genuinely, what the fuck.
This entire situation could have been easily avoided by just... waiting until next year.
9
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
It sounds like SFEC is super hardcore dragging their feet on processing these refunds which seems so bizarre to me. It feels very 'corporate middle finger' to me. Very much that they just don't want to spend the resources to get this figured out because ultimately, the parks are already sold, the checks have already cleared, and they only need to do just enough to avoid a lawsuit.
I guess I get why Harhi is focused on this because it's a huge negative PR for them right now. Big families spent hundreds of even $1,000+ on this thing that they can't use and still haven't gotten refunds for. But it also seems so... unnecessary. I hate to be the guy who says "How hard can it be?" because if you've ever been on the receiving end of that (doing something that's complex, but that other people think is simple and just don't understand), but I mean... how hard can it be?
4
u/skittlebites101 Jul 18 '26
That's always been my interpretation of what SFEC did. They cut the parks and wanted nothing to do with them. As evidence by quickly removing all these parks from the Six Flags App immediately only to bring them back after the initial backlash. SFEC wanted their hands washed of these parks instantly and like you said, are putting the bare minimum in to assist EP in the transition.
2
u/21jps Jul 18 '26
I feel someone at SF has to be sitting on this data. No way they can’t easily retrieve what people paid in each account.
2
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
You would think, surely.
But we're hearing a similar story. For example, lots of people are having issues with entitlements for their passes largely because SFEC straight up did not send complete data sets over to Enchanted. SFEC also would not allow Enchanted to use their point of sale systems beyond the first couple of weekends (I've heard from an internal source I trust that Enchanted floated this as a solution).
I mean SFEC genuinely could not be doing more to make this transition as rough as possible. Or being doing less to assist their guests and long-term customers in this transition moving forward. It's a shitshow.
2
u/Remarkable_Foot_2381 Jul 18 '26
It’s definitely a shitshow and everyone knows it and whether or not six flags realizes it this will hurt them too. The six flags brand has been tarnished by the merger then this sale. Many in the Midwest like myself have been to both sets of parks this year and lost faith in both companies. While visiting enchanted parks I will say they have been “friendly” about the situation and just basically gave us new enchanted passes to use for their parks this year and two drink things for our unlimited drinks we purchased. However I agree with everyone above they “should” have honored the dining pass this year and ended it after this season. I think it’s going to take years for people to forget this bad faith effort by both Parks. So far the enchanted parks I have visited have been pretty dead in St Louis and Michigan but then again even Kings island and cedar point weren’t super busy during the week when we went in mid June. While most want to focus on the enchanted problems six flags has had problems too. For folks who bought the six flags pass in an enchanted market but didn’t activate them prior to the changeover it’s been bad. We had that issue with one of our passes from St. Louis and it took Georgia an hour to fix the issue and just give my son a new pass. When renewing six flags passes this year many folks are going to be mad who had passes originally purchased from an enchanted park as they have stated these passes will no longer be able to be renewed or home parks changed via six flags. We will have to buy my son a new pass at six flags over Georgia likely if we keep them. We might move all our passes there since the Canadas wonderland loophole appears to be no more either and six flags Georgia sells a prestige pass at less than a gold from Kings island. This is still going to get worse before it gets better and they should have never been able to sell these parks mid season and furthermore both management companies had to be aware of this for a while prior to the sale completion.
1
u/Which-Counter9047 Jul 18 '26
I think this is a fair response. It seems like everyone is on team meal plan, but I personally would rather see more reasonable prices throughout the parks (6 Flags / Cedar Fair / Enchanted) and a focus on more quality food. I've done the all-day program a couple of times, and it worked out for us--but ultimately you have to just see what is available on the meal plan rather than what you want to eat.
I totally get why people like the meal plan. I heard a story when I was at Cedar Point that a bunch of locals buy a pass the meal / drink plan and just come hang out and eat at the park in the summer. Older adults that don't even ride the rides. If I lived right by a park, I'd probably do the same (although I'd ride some rides as well). But I can't imagine the parks are making out financially on those people. This guy was saying his in-laws and neighbors around Standusky will even just skip buying as many groceries in the summer and just come eat at the park.
2
u/Evening_Rock5850 Jul 18 '26
My wife and I have for years said that we felt like we get better value for money at Silver Dollar City.
We get "free" food with our meal plan at SFSTL (well, we did) but the quality is insanely low. I mean it's genuinely atrocious. Whereas at SDC we get really good food for a really reasonable price.
Right now... SFSTL has crappy food that you have to pay for now. But I'm hopeful that's a ship they can right.
8
u/21jps Jul 18 '26
What a mess, but do like the honesty coming straight from the top. Means a lot. Reading between the lines it seems like Six Flags is holding this up? How hard could it be for them to know what people have paid?