localag242 said:

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You come to a dead stop coming north on 6 tonight. All roads around there completely clogged.

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On Broadcastify, the police officers/sheriff deputies sound like they're ready to pull their hair out.

People were driving the wrong way on the feeder road to avoid the traffic jam caused by SW.

It's obvious they need to pay a impact fee. It won't help anything but at least CS can make some money off it ….

They would just pay it with the 150000 city gave them to bring more congestion

Last night was by far the worst I have ever seen. At 5:00, there were cars on the highway shoulder at the southbound exit. Northbound was worse, backed up to FM 159.

We came home after 7:00 and exited to take Peach Creek over to Fitch. Traffic was still backed up to almost the 159 overpass.

I'm afraid it's going to take a multiple vehicle accident or fatality before action is taken.

Dispatch is apparently giving out the SW phone number when they get calls. We have multiple friends that live in the area already at their wits end and it's not even December.

halibut sinclair said:

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I've seen the arguments about how great Santa's Wonderland is for the local economy. I'm wondering - How many of these people clogging up the feeder road are from the local area and how many are from out of town? How many of those from out of town actually stay here in a hotel for a night or two or visit a local restaurant or retail establishment in CS or Bryan? I'm guessing it's not that many after they experience the "fun" of Santa's Wonderland.

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Take this for whatever you want, but in the fall of 2019 I was at a large travel conference in Montana. I was at a lunch table with several reps from Visit Louisiana. They asked where I was from in Texas and I said College Station. They told me, "oh we know CS!". I figured a convo about A&M was about to ensue, but no, it was all about Santa's Wonderland. They spent the whole lunch telling the other people at the table what an amazing experience it is and how they come for a weekend every year with their families. By the end of it, everyone at that table was convinced they should go to SW. And I was just sitting their quietly not saying a word because I've never went and I believe only one of our 4 children have went. I had never until that moment realized how much SW impacted people outside of our region.

We live in Tyler and people talk to my wife about it all the time. We came down this weekend for the last volleyball game yesterday, were looking for some time kill on Friday night so the wife bought tickets online early and we opted to pay for the $20 lot when we got there.

We exited Peach Tree headed south at about 3:45 (park opens at 4:00) and walked into the park around 5:15. Once you're on property it actually all runs really efficiently. The mess is that there is only one main entrance to 90% of their parking (the entrance just south of the main complex). We left at 8:45 after my kids had a blast (and with me slightly admiring that I hadn't been miserable all night) and I was blown away at the amount of cars still trying to get in on both the north bound and south bound feeder roads.

A VERY rudimentary eyeball of the parking lots had me guessing that they cash flow $60,000+ on a busy night just on parking alone. I don't know how many they employ nor what their overhead is but that thing, per hour open, is printing money.

Also, my wife asked the lady at the front desk of our hotel why it was crowded at the hotel on Thanksgiving weekend with an away football game and campus virtually empty of students. The lady smiled and said "Santa's Wonderland". Yesterday at the hotel breakfast, based on listening to the kids sitting in the crowded seating area chattering, it was obvious that the woman was right. They'd all been the night before or were going that afternoon. There's zero doubt it's bringing a ton of money to the community as a whole.

Friends and I had a nice time at the lights in Central Park this evening. Plenty of parking.

They have partnerships with some local hotels, but hopefully they can expand that, set up more hotel shuttles, and really push people to make a night of it and stay in town. It would bring more revenue to BCS and hopefully ease some of the traffic issues. They are getting a lot of heat this year for wait times and traffic, so I expect that they will use the off-season to try and work our solutions. They've grown so much over the past 5 years and haven't been able to keep up.

Their response on Facebook was literally ridiculous in my opinion. The traffic was backed up from Fitch to FM 159. To assume that the accidents and resulting traffic issues were not caused by the SW traffic is hard to believe. I witnessed people cutting across the grass at 5:00 PM. There are also multiple people that have said they did not see any accidents.

SW has been going online and deleting negative reviews and comments on their FB page. Go look at Google if you want to see reviews. I know that some reviews are fake, I get that.

I also know numerous people that live around SW that are beyond frustrated. A family friend said it took over an hour for her to get home Friday night when it usually takes 20 minutes.

SW is obviously overselling both parking and the park. They are not only selling parking online where you pick a time to show up, they let anyone else buy as they drive up. Selling parking in two hour blocks is also unrealistic. No one stays there for just two hours.

Bottom line for me is this season is going to be a huge public relations nightmare for them. Management needs to respond and not keep sending the customer service team to deal with it.