BGE 5-19 Griffon is good but the park let me down in some ways

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Intamin Fan said:
What really surprises me I guess is that I make any bad comments about a well-regarded park as though it's their park, and everyone gets all defensive. People, it's my money and my experience. I can say anything I damn well want.

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You can and you did.

You made a number of points, like the music being off on Apollo's Chariot, and made it out like Busch purposely turned it off or have let it fall apart. When I was there in the early spring this year it was working, and was on all day.

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Intamin Fan said:
I just think that certain people can get away with murder and others can't on here. I've read plenty of reports with way too many superfluous details on here, and those people have been praised.

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Murder? Who gets away with murder? When did this suddenly stop being a message board about roller coasters and become so life and death? Would you rather everyone just replied and said, "Great report, better luck next time?"

^ Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? It's his money and experience--let him be critical if he wants. I'm quite the critic, myself, and a friend of mine, who's also into coasters, is probably even worse.

Sure, no park is perfect, but as paying guests, we almost reserve the right to pick apart an experience we're paying for.

Now, if Busch Gardens all of a sudden decided to give everyone free admission, then didn't put on their "best face" in terms of operations, we'd have less right to critique or complain, as we didn't have to pay anything to get in.

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Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"?

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What happened to it? The customer base in general abused their leverage. It somehow changed to, "The customer reserves the right to be unreasonable."

(not actually related to this thread, just a comment on an annoyance in today's society :) )

Continue discussing toilets.

Also unrelated:

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...ya know, the one with "reviews" about "theme parks"

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The funny thing is, I'm not sure I've ever seen a review of a theme park on that site. Lots of user submitted TR's, lots of personal photos and videos, but not really many reviews of amusement parks. Go figure.

The *good* parks, they want to know what they can do better. Doesn't mean they're going to meet ANY request, but it DOES mean they're looking for ways to improve. A well-worded, concise report with CONSTRUCTIVE criticism should *always* be well-received.

Poor writing, endless rambling, unfounded criticisms without mention of avenues for positive change, they're not going to get anything done. (P.S. I shouldn't even have to say it, but I will anyway - that is NOT intended at anyone, and NOT in response to this TR....just an observation I thought might help clarify things).

P.S. I don't recall ever murdering anyone, and highly doubt I'd get away with it if I did. Then again, I'm not entirely sure I'm one of "those people", either....so ignore all of this last part...but NOT the second paragraph. And be EXCELLENT to each other. :)

^^ Haha--Gonch, you're probably right about customers abusing that.

And you make a good point about that site. Not much in the way of reviewing--at least in the critical sense. It actually seems like there is a lot of goofing off and not enough serious critique.

^ Great points, Gator. I do think that BGE is one of the "good parks". And yes, those types of TRs are just as you mentioned.

*** Edited 5/23/2007 8:44:06 PM UTC by rablat5***

Okay, while everyone is arguing each other's contradictions...

IntaminFan, please do not take my comment as an insult. It was a good report, I didn't bash it.

By the way, I am sure as heck not one of the "preferred" people (or whatever) but like you said we all have a right to criticize. Of course parks let us down sometimes, I just never let it get to me. I apologize if I went too far.

I also do not think people get star treatment on here. I mean, some people obviously are going to demand and garner respect, and they get it. I admit some people are too serious and will destroy anything you say, but we gotta remember this is capitalism! I guess we can call the serious ones "coaster-intellectuals". But as long as we abide by the rules on here, we have a lot of free reign.

There was a time on here, where I posted a question, and the next two pages of comments were arguing my question, and creating contradictions with no answer. It seemed a bit immature to me, no matter the question.

What's the point of posting a Trip Report if you can't be critical of things you didn't like about the park?

Ifan finds clean restrooms important when he is at a park. So do a lot of people reading his TR. Thanks Ifan for letting me know.

Maybe every TR should be, "I went to the park and rode some rides, ate some food, played a few games, saw a few shows, and then I went home".

But no one is saying don't post the trip report or don't give your opinion.

Whats worse

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"I went to the park and rode some rides, ate some food, played a few games, saw a few shows, and then I went home".

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or

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Great trip report!

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Its a discussion, disagreements happen. There is no one against anyone else, no one censoring your opinions. There is no murder occurring here!

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rablat5 said:
^ Whatever happened to "the customer is always right"? It's his money and experience--let him be critical if he wants.

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No one has prevented him from being critical. He did post, did he not?

This is the Internet. This is a forum. If you post an opinion, people are going to challenge it, disagree with it, and perhaps rip it to shreds. If you are not comfortable with that, you should start an anonymous blog, with the comments off, and no contact information where people can respond.

First mention of toilet:

Remember when Mark Shapiro said last year that if he went into any Six Flags bathroom and it was dirty, that employee would be fired on the spot? I thought Lord Gonchar and Jeff that it made you happy?

I mention that there weren't one, but two stalls wihout any toilet paper in them at the front bathroom of Saint Louis last year after I went. What was I supposed to do, wipe my butt with my hand? To me, that qualifies as someone who isn't doing their job and the bathroom isn't acceptable/clean. Weren't we trying to monitor if Shapiro's changes were actually taking effect? And isn't a trip report one way to do it?

Second mention of toilet:

Hersheypark TR from August of last year. Yes, I said basically that they didn't have enough facilities to support the enormous amount of people in the park. When you have a sizeable foodcourt with no bathrooms closeby, and I have to keep walking all over the park to find just one stall that's either not occupied or has a huge line, that's what I call piss-poor planning. But otherwise, I love the park to death. I've been every single year since 1998, and a few times before then.

I don't know that I've ever talked about a bathroom in any other trip report besides this one. Maybe in a Six Flags trip-report? I remember praising the Excelerator hand-dryers at SFNE as I had never seen one before.

Here's what made me angry Jeff; it's one thing to rip someone to shreds, but it's another thing altogether to just flat out insult someone with generalizations. When you said "that I never have a good time at a park," that stung and it's simply not true. It's like you just took the few trip reports that you remembered (mainly because they were parks that you love) and said "Yep, that I-Fan is just miserable everywhere he goes."

Not including waterparks and go-kart tracks, I counted twenty-three parks that I've been to, many with multiple visits. There are very few parks that I've ever had a significantly bad time at. And most of those parks are ones that everyone has had a bad time at such as SGADv. and SFA. And even then, I've had some really good times at those parks on other visits.

With the problems parks have seen with rides such as Maverick, Dragster, Wicked Twister, Kingda Ka, Volcano, Perilous Plunge, Superman The Escape, and so on and so forth if I were you I'd be less worried about what people say about your BGW trip report and more worried about your username :)

Well, the username came about as a result of loving Volcano the Blast Coaster and S:ROS at SFA. It's what I've gone about since 2001, and I don't believe you can change your screenname. And anyway, I don't represent the company afterall, I just happen to like their products.

What's the big problem with Intamin?

Everything has problems. If your favorite sports team starts having problems, you just stop being a fan? *Bandwagoner*.

Personally, I would love to see anyone on this site design a better roller coaster than Intamin, or IntaRide, etc.

^That doesn't count with No Limits :)

Um, it was a joke...hence the smiley. Sheesh!

For what it is worth...I appreciate anybody willing to spend that much time on a trip report. At the same time...I've never flinched using the port-a-pot at the Lollapalooza come 10:00 pm! :)

I knew what the smiley face meant Moosh (although maybe I didn't process it), I'm just all too aware of the problems the company has had and there are sometimes I'm thinking "You know, maybe this wasn't the greatest screenname afterall." Of course, no one could look down the road and predict the fatalities, and downtime of some of the rides the company has made.

I guess it's somewhat like being a BMW lover. According to Consumer Reports last year, they were dead-last in reliability and hence, you'll probably be spending a lot of time at the dealership. But I'm sure when they work, there a hell of a lot of fun.

I also think I need to clarify something--it wasn't the toilets that were the problem (although there's the typical male idiot who peed all over the seat which is obviously not the parks fault--probably had one too many beers). It was just that some of the restrooms had overflowing trashcans, and some of the dispensers had no towels.

Wow...you're still taking my joke WAY too seriously. :)

Ahhh...the internet. Things just don't translate the same as the spoken word.

True dat, I-fan! That's why I try to remember to use a smiley. Too bad there isn't a "sarcasm" emoticon, lol.

I wish there was a sarcasm emoticon as well as it's hard to get it to translate to the screen. It's also hard sometimes to get humor to translate to the screen, even with smiley faces.