Breakout year for SF
I have had two bad experiences at SF parks. They were at SFOG, and SFKK. I don't like SFKK because of the rides. There is nothing else out there to really complain about, but the rides. It wasn't the workers, or some other lame excuse. It was the rides. They aren't good.
At SFOG, it had been not running multiple trains, and closing the park earlier than the time posted. That has changed the next time I went back to the park.
For SFStL, I don't have any problems, and at SFGAm, my one day problem was very dinky (reriding). I'm constantly at SFGAm, and what problems do we have? I do see them????
We do have low staffing days, and which not all the rides are open. That's just the fact that it's not that crowded that day. It something you have to deal with. If there are only 8,000 people in the park compared to 15,000, what do you expect. I get on rides in 10 minutes which normally would be 40 minutes each.
If all the rides were open, it would be BAD during low staffing. The reason is because it would be more packed. I think more people go in June, July, and August for a reason. ALL the rides are going to be open, and especially the new ride.
Will SF improve highly this year. I don't think SFStL is getting enough. They say it doesn't get enough money, and the reason is because they don't have enough rides for teens/kids. They have much more land than they want to use. They don't want to expand.
I wish I could go to every SF park, and see what's wrong with each one. For SFOG, they have great roller coasters, but they don't have enough flats. Tear Ninja down, and put flats over there. They could do it somehow. For SFStL, they don't have enough roller coasters and flats. What's wrong with SFGAm? I don't see anything. SFKK is just messed up. I don't see a reason to go there anytime soon. There is nothing that good there!
Do I want to go back to SFOG, and SFStL? Of course, I do. However, if you are a GP, they are going to get bored really easily at SFStL. The problem is that too much money gets poured into SFMM, SFGAm, and SFGAdv. We don't need anything more for awhile. And if we did, it would be more thrilling flats.
I don't count Tony Hawk as a roller coaster in which the teens are going to go for. It's family friendly, but there aren't enough teens things to do. Teens ride most roller coasters, one water ride, and thrilling rides. Smaller kids can get on some coasters, ride water rides, and ride a bunch of flats.
SFStL has more for the kids to do without this roller coaster than the teens do.
Teens
Mr. Freeze
Screamin' Eagle
Batman The Ride
Excalibur
STOP
These are horrible, and I'm not a teen. I don't count them.
______________________
Boss
Ninja
Tweens and Kids
Antique
Train
Ferris Wheel
Yo-Yo
Carousel
Scooby-Doo
Joker Boat
Bumper Cars
Falling star
The Orbit
Shazaam
Mine Train
Some can ride the woodies.
14 (Tweens)-5 (Teens)
Everyone
____________
Water Rides, and Water Park
It's rooked toward the tweens. Another "family" coaster rooks towards the tweens. How about having more for the teens than the tweens? Everyone thinks they don't have enough for the tweens, but they have too much for the teens. I think it's the other way around.
However, there are more rides than roller coasters for teens!!!! There is even more than the drop towers for the teens!! Wake up amusement parks!!! Spin Out, Freak Out/Fireball, Power Surge, Shocker, Extasy, Orbiter, Remix, Himalaya with music, Alpine Bobs with music/lights/fog machine, Tango, Space Rollers, Zippers, and so on
So, will SF make more money just by adding characters, and raising prices. I don't think so. I go to the park for rides. That's it. If there aren't enough, or they stink, I don't like the park. It all revolves around the rides for me.
If I pay $15 to park my car, and up to $300 for my family to get into the park, I expect the rides that they advertise to be open.
Sfmm is a year round park, but they are closed durring the week, and some rides like x are down for months at a time. That is sad.
what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard.
Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.
I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Rob Ascough said:Demanding free tickets to a park because they messed up on the size of your soda might be taking things a bit too far
I think you are either misunderstanding what I I said earlier or are misrepresenting what I said on purpose just to make me look bad...or maybe you weren't paying attention.
I'll need to repeat it so I don't look like some kind of loser...I did not "demand" free tickets from HP because of the soda incident. I was offered free tickets, to my surprise, because I added my one negative incident among all of the positives while commenting on how much I liked the park at the GS window.
And that is the difference between how HP treats their guests and SF treats their guests. I have, among many occasions, complained (meaning make a special trip to the GS window to tell them my normal expectations of a park visit wasn't met) at the GS window at SF and have them pretty much say, "Deal with it. We already have you money, so we really don't care to fix the problems you have experienced today. Bie bie."
Rob, Other than your obviously wrong accusation that I demanded free tickets, I think we are on the same page.
Ajrides said:
...The way most of you are talking you want a park that is never crowded, all rides open, not one peice of trash on the ground, good cheap food with no wait, it never rains and is always sunny,no line jumpers, and they give you a refund if you didn't have a great time.I always get a seasonpass for SF so I never feel I have been ripped off...
I don't want a park that is never crowded, I want a park that can handle the crowds with simple management skills. Hire enough people to run the rides and schedule them all on busy days, then make sure the rides are open by providing enough maintenance workers to quickly fix the rides when they are broken.
All rides don't have to be open, but most of them do. If they show 15 rides in their advertisements and 7 or more of those rides are down, than the desired activities that I planned on participating in are only going to disappoint. I can forgive 1 or 2, but not nearly half.
It's understandable that someone, somewhere is going to drop their trash on the ground. The problem isn't that there is trash on the ground, the problem is that there are not enough people to pick up the trash and therefore the trash accumulates (or the people who are hired to do the work just don't do it). Also another problem is overflowing trash cans. I have walked past the same overflowing trash can many times throughout the day and noticed it had not been touched at all. I don't want to look at garbage all day. Proper management could fix this problem as well.
You don't want good cheap food with no wait? Why not? I can understand that the prices are going to be high for food at almost any amusement park, and waiting in a line for the food is possible, but making it so that the "valued guest" doesn't feel like they are getting riped off is one way of adding value to the visit. All I ask for is quality food, enough food stands open to accommodate the amount of people in the park, and enough employees to operate those food stands. ...Management?
Rain and bad weather seem to be a perpetual excuse for sagging attendance for SF. I guess it always rains there, and that something no one can control (lol).
Line jumpers are somewhat controlled at other parks by having one or two security guards monitoring the lines of the big rides. Again, it's simple management.
And finally, I will ask for a refund from now on if my expatiations are not met. I want to go to SF because they have fun rides, and I am tired of the crap I have to put up with to get on those rides. If they are going to charge that much money to enter, I am going to raise the expectations of their park to the same level I do at other parks (who almost always meet those expectations).
AJrides, you have a season pass. I don't. I can't come back every week or so. It takes a lot of planning for me to be able to visit any park. I feel that the money, effort, and time I spend on a park visit deserves me a positive experience. I shouldn't have to want to go back because I didn't get to ride the closed rides, I should want to come back because I had a great time.
In a nutshell, SF offers a good product that is not well managed, imo.
*** Edited 2/26/2007 7:01:47 PM UTC by dexter***
Ilovethevu' said:I think more people go in June, July, and August for a reason. ALL the rides are going to be open, and especially the new ride.
Thats definitely an untruth as far as SFMM goes. When I visited in late August last summer, over 10 rides were inoperational either due to lack of staffing or being broken. Also, a restaurant had been shut down by the health board due to rodent infestation.
I have, among many occasions, complained (meaning make a special trip to the GS window to tell them my normal expectations of a park visit wasn't met) at the GS window at SF and have them pretty much say, "Deal with it. We already have you money, so we really don't care to fix the problems you have experienced today."
I didn't know you were at SFDL when I made my first visit there....LOL! I never would have EVER gone back....but I so desperately needed a ride on Supes. Out front, they posted RoS would be down (lift hill motor was down, completely understandable). They failed to post out front that they also *planned* to have Viper down all day as well. That left a Boomerang (1 train, obviously), an SLC (also running one train with almost an hour wait), and a wooden coaster that felt like it hadn't had maintenance since the last millenium.
Poor new kid working her FIRST day, right next door to Viper, was *responsible* for running the arcade/shooting gallery AND letting people know Viper wouldn't be running (since it was NOT posted anywhere). I bet she LOVED her first day.
SFEG had some areas that needed improvement, and I'm hopeful that PARC will address them. SFDL needed LOTS of improvement (mostly in mgt.)....that's going to be a bigger job, IMO.
The parks still in SF...there's nothing new to point out - if Shapiro doesn't get them fixed in '07, I'm not so sure RedZone/Snyder/Shapiro will be the ones running the chain beyond '08.
I guess the difference here is whether '07 proves to be a "breakout" year....or a "breakdown" year... :~P
*** Edited 2/26/2007 7:20:04 PM UTC by rollergator***
You still have Zoidberg.... You ALL have Zoidberg! (V) (;,,;) (V)
But the truth is, I just don't care anymore. If this had happened five years ago, I'd be elated. But now there are many parks out there that are already offering the experience that Shapiro wants for his chain. I don't have to sit around and wait on Six Flags.
And unlike 5 or 6 years ago, I don't need to visit Six Flags to find a top tier coaster! So the one thing that they at one time could use to lure me into their sub-par parks(roller coasters), other parks are doing better.
It amazes me how many people are so indifferent to the idea of going to an amusement park and dealing with a half dozen or so ride closures. It has nothing to do with credit whores wanting to get a ride on everything, it has do to with the overall park experience. Referring back to my comments about grocery shopping, would YOU want to go to a store that was out of many of the things you went shopping for? If you say yes, I'll call you a liar because NO ONE likes going to a store that isn't stocked with what they want.
A few years back I went to SFMM in June. June is right smack in the middle of the summer season, so you would expect the park to be running at its best, right? Wrong. Superman was closed for rehab. Deja Vu was down. I won't even get into Flashback. At least two or three flats weren't running. The tower was dormant, ditto the inclined railway. Of the coasters that were running, only Goliath, Viper, X and Psyclone were running more than one train. Not only did we have to deal with ride closures, we had to deal with inefficient operations as well. I don't like close to California so for me, a trip to SFMM hapepns once in a blue moon. Considering we made the trip to CA, drove from Newport Beach to Valencia and spent a ton of money to get into the place during peak season, there was no excuse for rides to be shuttered. Everything should have been running, and running efficiently. Disney had all their rides open. So did Knott's, Scandia, Santa Monica Pier and Belmont Park. We expected- and received- what we went to those parks for. Why should SFMM be exempt?
Maybe someone can explain to me where this pathetic amount of expectations came from?
Oh, wait... :~P
Seriously, I've always been as bummed about Skytower being perpetually closed as I was about *never* getting that lap on Flashback. But when those two are *just the beginning* of the closed rides list (does SFMM even bother posting one of those anymore?), then you have bigger issues than *a couple* closed rides. The monorail stations sitting dormant all over the place always give the park a nice "who gives a damn" feeling.
For *enthusiasts*, yeah, there's always the gnawing feelings when COASTERS are down at a park thousands of miles from home....
But what's *important* is that the LOCALS who support the parks can't constantly feel like their park is operating at half-staff, kinda like it's in mourning over its own demise. That's how SFMM feels, to me at least, and I strongly suspect many locals feel the same...
*** Edited 2/26/2007 8:39:34 PM UTC by rollergator***
You still have Zoidberg.... You ALL have Zoidberg! (V) (;,,;) (V)
And for what? That's not a rhetorical question. I'd really like to know why people are willing to turn a blind eye to so much of it. Do people just go along like this with other businesses? If so, we are setting the bar really low. If we don't demand good customer service, there's no reason for a company to provide it.
Like the song says, "If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down."
For years, American car companies built rolling piles of trash that broke down on a regular basis, and when it wasn't something mechanical going wrong, it was cheap pieces of plastic falling off the dashboard or hubcaps spinning off the wheel rims. And Ford, GM and Chrysler wonder why people buy Hondas and Toyotas?
How often do you go into a store and see a bunch of employees standing in the aisle, either talking to each other or talking to friends on cell phones while a line of people builds up for the one or two people doing a half-a$$ed job of working the register? Here in the U.S., it's as typical for workers to do as little as possible as it's as typical for workers in other countries to go the extra mile.
I love this country but quality and customer service are clearly lacking. It's an awful situation, and instead of working to correct the problem, people instead lower their expectations. I suppose that's their way of justifying what they do while at work?
And keep in mind I'm making generalizations, not saying EVERY American employee has the wrong idea? I can see the "Rob's bashing all American workers" rants and trust me, they're not needed!
rollergator said:
For *enthusiasts*, yeah, there's always the gnawing feelings when COASTERS are down at a park thousands of miles from home....
Bah! You damn credit whores! ;)
I've voluntarily skipped coasters at parks I may not get back to for 5 or 10 years. And prolific ones at that.
I suck. :)
Truth is, I've discovered over the years that I'm more of a 'park enthusiast' than a 'coaster enthusiast'
Coaster Junkie from NH
I drive in & out of Boston, so I ride coasters to relax!
rollergator said:I didn't know you were at SFDL when I made my first visit there....LOL!...
...I guess the difference here is whether '07 proves to be a "breakout" year....or a "breakdown" year... :~P
lol Gator...I haven't been to SFDL. I was talking about SFGAdv, SFA, and the old SFO. Pretty much the same bad experience every time. I think maybe the employees working the GS window hear it so much that it's just old news for them. Maybe they are told not to compensate or attempt to fix complaints such as mine.
DWeaver said:
...Shapiro is putting his money where his mouth is...
Shapiro isn't putting "his" money where his mouth is. He already got that huge raise or bonus or whatever, so in my opinion, he's just doing his job, overpaid as it is.
Rob Ascough said:
dexter, I apologize. I wasn't trying to make you look bad or anything......Maybe someone can explain to me where this pathetic amount of expectations came from?
No big deal. I'm overly sensitive sometimes. lol.
I think some of those expectations came from years and years of poor management, to the point that people who only visit the bad SF parks didn't know any better.
This is garbage. The reason is because as the GP, we very rarely know what the cause of a ride's inoperation is. We're in the dark, for the most part. What we *can* see is a pattern, and the pattern we see at many SF parks are marquee rides that are consistently closed or not running at capacity.
What's more is that we don't see these same patterns at other chains, for the most part. The bottom line is that when I visit Busch and CF and Disney owned parks with very high uptime, and then the handful of times I visit my local Six Flags things are broken down all around me, their reasons suck no matter what. I don't care what their reasons are, I just care that I've spent money I'd be happier spending elsewhere.
"IMO the cleanliness of any park or anywhere starts with peoples habits, they supply the trashcans and it is up to us to make sure we use them. When I take my kids to parks or the movies I don't let them throw trash on the ground or leave empty popcorn containers on the floor it's all common sence."
This sucks so hard and has no bearing on the trash problems at some SF parks. If my local SF park can't handle garbage, why can most Disney and Paramount and CF and Busch parks do it? Sure some people have bad habits and throw trash around but people do that at *all* parks, not just SF parks.
"I go to the park for the rides and shows not for the food. I either bring a cooler with food and drinks or I leave the park and go to a resturant of my choice and have a relaxing meal."
This also sucks. Just because you personally don't go to parks to eat doesn't mean that your attitude applies to everyone else. I don't see what point there is in saying "I don't go to the parks to eat" and then expect all parks (not just SF parks) with overpriced crappy food to get a free pass. Otherwise they wouldn't serve food at all, yah know?
And right, who cares why rides are closed? It sucks regardless of the reason. When your flight is delayed, do you care why it's delayed? Chances are you don't. Whether the plane needs repairs, the destination airport is experiencing bad weather or the flight crew has yet to get through security, there's an excellent chance you're still going to be pissed by waiting around in the airport or sitting idle on the tarmac.
Rob Ascough said:
Whether the plane needs repairs, the destination airport is experiencing bad weather or the flight crew has yet to get through security, there's an excellent chance you're still going to be pissed by waiting around in the airport or sitting idle on the tarmac.
And parks get an easier break when it comes to the weather. If it storms at your local park they have every right to say "Hey, tough titties." When a storm hits an airline (Jetblue anyone?) they still have the obligation to get you where you're going.
A little bit of a caveat, in cases of bad weather some parks still go the extra mile even when they don't have to. Disney comes to mind.
RatherGoodBear said:
What I find amazing is that it seems that people ARE more than willing to put up with (and pay for) bad customer service, poor quality food, more than the occasional piece of trash, and substandard operations. Not only that, they come up with excuses for the company that not even the company thought of yet.And for what? That's not a rhetorical question. I'd really like to know why people are willing to turn a blind eye to so much of it. Do people just go along like this with other businesses? If so, we are setting the bar really low. If we don't demand good customer service, there's no reason for a company to provide it.
Like the song says, "If you don't expect too much from me, you might not be let down."
I suspect the answer really isn't as deep as people think. When I was much younger, I didn't care so much about the things I do now. I wanted to ride rides, and I was oblivious to operations as a whole. If rides were closed, I assumed there was a good reason(maybe a train fell off the track LOL), and I had no reason to believe that the food I was paying for wasn't the standard, amusement park food.
I wasn't spending my money anyway, it was my parents. The care for things like maintenance and value came as I got older and experienced parks that blew away my low expectations. It's not that we *americans* have such low standards and expectations, it's just that until many of us are old enough to make our own money and experience more than the park in our backyard, we simply don't know any better! *** Edited 2/26/2007 9:19:29 PM UTC by DWeaver***
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