And that meant looking at areas that usually are dark, or back in the park where we had to decorate. It meant having to create a circular route to get vehicles through the park. The stay-at-home order had us pivoting from a walk-through to a drive-through, which had never been done here. I just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly after I got here. You’re constantly adapting, evaluating and re-analyzing. I was already accustomed to operating in a pandemic. What was that like?Ī: It was a baptism by fire. Q: You arrived here in October and - bam - just weeks later the park had to make a major holiday adjustment. It’s a different experience, but we try to make it as pleasant as possible. We can’t currently operate the park 2019 style. Unfortunately it’s not like it used to be. It’s an escape for our guests and it’s a big responsibility for us. You can only do so much Netflix, right? We offer an opportunity to get out of the house and enjoy a day in this gorgeous California sunshine. So I think our impact is huge - especially when out-of-home entertainment options were few and far between. ![]() Generally speaking, what role do you think this and other parks play in our lives?Ī: Our job is to offer a memorable day for our guests. Q: A lot of theme park junkies were deprived of their “fixes” during the pandemic. Here, Durette talks about adjusting on the flying, teamwork, the thrill of roller coasters and why animals are so therapeutic: That had Durette’s team scrambling to redesign the attraction to entertain guests while in their cars - complete with millions of twinkling lights and festive music. But four months later, it reopened with an animals-only “Marine World Experience.” Then, in December, just as organizers were preparing for their annual “Holiday in the Park” walk-through celebration, a surge in infections triggered shelter-in-place orders. ![]() Like other California theme parks, it was shuttered in March 2020. Throughout the pandemic, Discovery Kingdom also has been a model of reinvention. Although the park, as of this writing, is operating at a 15 percent capacity (Solano County is in the red tier of the state’s pandemic recovery system), it at least can again stake its claim to being the “Thrill Capital of Northern California.” It was a gratifying moment for Durette, a native Canadian who became president of Discovery Kingdom as well as Hurricane Harbor in Concord last October after serving in the same capacity at Six Flags Le Ronde in Montreal.
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