$15 to park at SFMM!

If you go to the park, get slapped with a ridiculous parking fee, get slapped with a high admission fee, get slapped with expensive bad food, and get slapped with slow moving lines, its going to have a lasting effect on guests opinions of the park, and their decision to come back...IMO.

In the end, if the experience is great, the price will not be noticed, but if the experience is still a "Six Flags" experience I doubt it will do much but fill in the price gap from the falling attendance. *** Edited 1/19/2006 2:01:25 PM UTC by eightdotthree***

From checking the site just now, for my local SF parks, SFDL is still $7, SFNE is still $10, but TGE is also listed at $10. I thought they were going to start at $5, particularly since it was free before.

Seems like the new regime is fairly customer hostile. If they are going to start charging premium prices, they better have a premium product to back that up. Imagine spending 15 bucks to then park in the gravel pits, with limited tram service. I will be really interested to see if Disney follows suit, or Knotts.

I"m going to stop complaining about $9 parking at Cedar Point.

Even at $ 180.00, a season pass to a park like SFMM would be a deal. Assuming, of course, that the rides all ran, and ran consistently.

A well used season pass to CP with all the trimmings is the cheapest entertainment you can buy in NE Ohio.

When I heard that Snyder would only allow you to buy Skins Season Passes with an AMEX card I figured we were in for it. The only thing that has truly surprised me so far is that they're not charging crazy prices for Season Passes themselves. If the park attendance doesn't tank this year, I guess we'll have that to look forward to for next year.

Any chance they are making as fast a buck as they can before the land sell-off?

Anyhow...this is interesting! Supply and demand will tell the tale. I've always felt the Disney parks were way underpriced...but I have not been to a Six Flags in 2-3 (?) years! I wonder if a place like SFMM is indeed an "inelastic" entity when it comes to pricing (think cigarettes)?

As far as the term "class-ism" goes...I guess this could be applied to anything that has a price. Some people can and are willing to pay for a product/service...some are not! Seems like the smart business guy gets the maximum return on investment!

...for all of you guys *****ing...I might suggest ...not going? I made this decision for myself 2-3 years ago and felt a little bad since I liked SFMM's coasters...but now I do not miss it a bit! I'm not even going back for Tatsu unless I read about a lot of customer service changes...It is really not that bad.

This is just rediculous. I guess they are going for the "screwevery dollar possible out of the guest" mentality.

Can you imagine what soda and food prices are going to be? Care to buy a $13 shot glass, or pay $4 to smash your penny as well?

Jeffrey might have a point there.

Sadly, it looks like it will be a while before I return to Magic Mountain in spite of Tatsu. We just can't afford that.

Fortunately, this is Magic Mountain we're talking about, not Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. ;)

All I know is that when SFGAm screwed me out of $10 to park at the far corner of their parking lot, I decided *before I even entered the park* not to spend another dime there that day...

...and so I didn't.

There is a reason I didn't buy dinner, didn't buy a snack, and didn't buy a T-shirt or mug before I left that park. It's not because I didn't like the product, it's because they got me mad at them before I even entered the park. Basically, I figure it's about $30 I *didn't* spend in the park because of the $10 they charged me before I went in, based on what I spent at SFStL on the same trip (where parking was, I think, $6 that year).

SFOG was the interesting one. Their parking lot is surrounded by private lots charging $4-$6 while the park charges $10. Even more interesting is that the private lots are *closer* to the park gate than the official parking area (although the park supplies tram service).

And, no, I didn't buy anything at SFOG, either.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Wow, I could understand raising admission and seaon pass prices, but a 50% increase in parking prices doesn't seem like a good idea. There better be a security guard every 100 feet for $15.

How many parking spaces do you guys estimate are occupied on the weekends? The total amount made on parking per weekend is going to be incredible. With this high of an increase on admission and parking, they can probably have a 20% drop in attendance, and still make a profit. (Completely uneducated, non-scientific guess)

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Jeffrey R Smith said:
Any chance they are making as fast a buck as they can before the land sell-off?

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The little cynical voice in my head was wondering the same thing. But lets leave that argument...

Concern about season pass hikes have been mentioned.

Face it... SF passes are CHEAP. Too Cheap.

Personally, it was only because of this cheap price that I purchased a SFA pass last season. And why was that? Not certainly to go to SFA multiple times, but as a way to get into SFGrAdv and SFNE for (basically) nothing! (granted, the SFNE trip didn't come to pass... but it did save me $23 getting into Wyandott lake for a 20 minute coaster credit stop)

I really could care less about going to SFA. But for basically the price of admisison there, I could get into any other park in the chain for FREE.

Had I not had the pass, the SFGrAdv and SFNE trips would still have been planned, but the SFA trip would not have occured.

Look at it this way... a SFA one day ticket is basically $50 (today). A SFA season pass, that will get you into ANY PARK IN THE CHAIN is also $50 (if ordered today). IF the price for a Season pass would be increased to $125, we have NO ROOM AT ALL to complain.

Why? At $125 a pop, it would take you 3 visits to break even (2.5 acually, but you can't go the park .5 times). If there is a park and you are not going to visit it more than 3 times a seaon, why buy a SEASON pass. (in SF case, if you are not going to make more than 3 SF visits... either 1 park 3x or 3 parks 1x)

Face it... they might just as well have called them "Rip us off for free" passes and not Season Passes. We have been spoiled by the UNREALISTICALLY cheap SF season passes.

Same with the following "What IF..." If SF would announce that Season passes would remain hideously cheap, but would only get you into the park they were purchased at (or would get you in to parks other than the one they were purchased at for a REDUCED, but not FREE, price)... we again would have NO RIGHT at all to complain, except for the fact that we are spoiled to what we have right now.

I guess everyone has their price... and mine appears to be Season Passes that cost no more than the price of 2.5 or 3 individual visits.

I didn't think $10 was so bad, but $15 is just too steep for an amusement park. Knott's did a big increase two years ago raising their parking from $8 to $9, but $10 to $15 is... wow. Will they retract this, too, like they did the no returning guest? Do they just want to see how the public reacts? This could maybe be their way of testing the water.

$15 would keep me away from the park if it was in my backyard.

This feels eerily like RCT. You would build that great coaster and peeps would flock. Then you'd slowly raise the price until they ran away complaining. The question here is whether or not they are going to stand firm or back down. I frankly don't care either way because SF is not going to get my money this summer.

at least martin's fantasy island still has free parking. imagine that, parking your car for free!

I'm expecting the season passes to be 2-3 times the normal gate price next year.

These new managers are definitely starting to push the envelope of gouging with some of the ideas, No reentry and this parking fee hike. If it's only one weekends then I can see the idea. You get your larger crowds on weekends so the extra money per car will help but it will also chase some people away which will lessen the crowds a little. They just are hoping the lessening of ticket sales isn't that much compared to the increase in income from parking. In other words they hope the season pass people hit on the cheap parking days and the regular ticket buyers arrive on weekends.

Don't be surprised if sometime down the line these guys decide to eliminate the chain-wide pass and make people buy a pass for each park separately.

I seem to remember saying somewhere, if only to myself, that Snyder is intent on creating 30 more Fed-Ex fields.

I don't have to imagine that DLSlave...I go to a park every year that has that..and free fountain beverages...free sunscreen in the waterpark...and top notch customer service, too!

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matt. said:

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Lord Gonchar said:

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Do other parks follow?

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I doubt it. Disney, Paramount, CF, and Busch all seem to have a business model that works, I'm not sure what they have to gain, whereas SF hasn't seemed to work since the Premier buyout.

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Don't be so sure, PGA was the first West Coast park to charge $10 for parking years before any other park out here.

I still think they're shooting themselves in the foot. Price gouging your guest before they even get out of the car isn't going to win them any fans, and bad word of mouth will be their worst enemy. Like Dave said, if people feel they're being gouged from the get go, they're not going to be so willing to spend money inside the park, or return to that park anytime soon. And will make sure everyone they know knows.

I don't see the admission and pass increases as such a problem, you're getting something of eqaul value for your money. Jacking up parking fees on the other hand, there is no added value to a parking spot, and people will look at this as nothing more than price gouging. And just watch, I'll just bet their next move will be to eliminate in and out parking privileges.

*** Edited 1/19/2006 6:36:14 PM UTC by jomo***

I don't know much about business but I would suppose this: (Similar to rideman's situation)

Happy guests spend money

Pissed off guests spend less money

If piss someone off by gouging then from the get-go, you're just asking for trouble.

For $15, my car should be valet-parked by Jeff Gordon, and I should be personally carried up to the gate by no less than 6 Playboy bunnies.