Great Adventure - April 6 - Start Happy & Leave Crappy

bigboy said:
I'm a little confused about why you have to stand in that massive line to process a pass. When I purchased my family's passes for SFOT, we had until a certain date to process in order to get the free parking and the upgrades. I printed the vouchers at home, the parking attendant scanned one for the free parking at the booth, we swapped our vouchers for the id cards at the turnstiles, they scanned our finger prints for each card, and we were in the gate ready to go. Less than 10 minutes on a day when the park was pretty busy. I think I can also go to my account online and upgrade to the dining plan if I want. What's different in NJ that requires the cattle call processing?

Great Adventure did this the year I got my membership, but they didn't line people up specially, so the guy with the scanner didn't get to nearly everyone he could have. Then the cards didn't work at the gate anyway, and then you STILL had to get processed and wait in the godforsaken line.

This is not exclusive to Great Adventure or even Six Flags. I've noticed at many parks little to no organization at the gates, pass processing, etc. Seems like entrance and document/pass processing issues plague almost every park I've been to. Great Adventure isn't the only one for sure.

Oh Six Flags, when will you ever get your operations together? One has to wonder why bigger parks like SFGA don't start processing season passes prior to the start of the season? Staff is already hired, it would be great "hands-on" training for them to start season pass processing 2-3 weeks prior to the start of the season so that once the park is open things run a lot smoother. I guess using common sense is asking for too much.

^ Interesting thought. I know Cedar Point opens their Season Pass Center a few weeks before Opening Day. Does any other park do this? How busy is the CP pass center leading up to opening day?

Darien Lake is usually a cluster-you-know-what for season pass processing because they do the same thing where you get added perks if you process your pass before a certain date. SeaBreeze is ways easy peasy lemon squeezy (as my son would say) because their processing desk is inside the park. Your voucher gets you in the first day then you stop by at your convenience to get your picture taken.

Carowinds has season pass processing a few weeks before the park opens.

Kings Island posted on Twitter recently about processing your pass, and they aren't open yet.

I was there the same day. I learned the hard way to get my passes processed first thing. We got in the park shortly after opening and went straight to processing, we still waited about 30 minutes.

Customer service was not the highlight of our day. We got the season dining pass and took our vouchers for our free sports bottle to Kicken Chicken. Although the voucher clearly stated the bottles were free, the cashier insisted that we had to pay for them but we could use the two dollar coupon on the bottom of the voucher. I showed her the bolded word FREE on the voucher. She left and came back saying the manager said we had to pay. At that point, I asked for the vouchers and handed the bottles back. She kept the vouchers and walked off again to see the manager. She came back in a huff saying , the manager said to just give it to you. The line behind us was crazy by now and I heard lots of cursing going on behind me. I took the bottles instead of arguing for my vouchers but didn't get my free refills wristband. Fun times! I hope things improve or it is going to be a long season.

Lines were ridiculously long for everything. We got on three rides and were at the park for 9 hours. We'll try to get there again before the end of the month. Usually lines aren't bad in April. We'll see...

Magic Mountain uses the same process as SFOT. Easiest pass processing I've experienced for any park.

Many years ago, Tina and I tried to get passes processed at SFMM. In the end, we were successful, but it was PAINFUL - slow, confusing, and frustrating, with employees as confused as we were. About 2 hours later we moved along, passes in hand.

Good to hear at least SFMM has a better plan in place....now if only the park next to the US's largest metropolitan area can get on board.