Great Adventure - OK Shapiro - I Brought The Family This Time - 7/9

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RatherGoodBear said:Plus they intersperse the kiddie rides in among adult rides, so they aren't off in a separate kiddieland. Good for you as a parent too.

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Can SOMEONE tell me why RGB sees this, why I see this, and why virtually anyone WITH kids sees this, but parks don't?

I saw some parks website the other day, there was a little icon on the side with various tidbits, and a header read: "Advice for moms". If Red Zone wants FAMILIES, mom is the key. ;)

Richie, it doesn't matter that you got complimentary tickets. What should matter to Mr. Shapiro is that based on your latest experience, you're hesitant about coming back again as a paying customer.

gator, how Hershey mixes their rides makes perfect sense to me. The little ones have something to do while the older kids are off on some nearby "big" rides, and the older kids don't have to wait around watching toddlers on baby rides waiting for their turn. Plus. the two parents aren't that far apart with two groups of kids.

Kiddielands worked fine in parks when they had only 20 or 25 rides altogether. But most modern parks are too big for that now. Pity the poor parent stuck there for hours.

I just wanted to add that I think SLFAKE has hit the bullseye. If SF wants to keep the rowdy teens away from the parks, they need to raise the season pass price to the $125-$150 mark as he suggested. Raising the prices of food and parking doesn't affect them, because as someone pointed out above, mom drops them off at the gate and they tend not to spend large amounts of cash on food and trinkets at the shops. When mom is faced with the stark reality that the babysitter has raised their rates, she will start dropping them off at the mall instead.

But, let me ask, is even $150 too much to pay for a summer-long babysitter? While I understand the theory, looking at current day care prices ($800/month for toddlers at my job's daycare) even season passes comparable to other parks does seem too expensive.

^ Still sayin'... personally, I'm still in favor of "The Lake Winnie Solution".

"Oh, your mommy isn't coming into the park WITH you? Guess you'll have to go to work WITH her"... ;)

"not simply using the parks as a place to kill time, loiter, and perhaps catch a ride or two on a coaster."

Isn't that the beauty of Knoebels though? And the gate is literally non-existant. I haven't seen this "mob mentality" there before, and people only go because they want. I guess maybe since Knoebels isn't really in the same "league" in some respects and in a completely different location, but based on Shapiro's "new cliente", Knoebels is now a good model for what they are trying to achieve. *** Edited 7/13/2006 8:09:22 PM UTC by P18***

Unfortunately, even requiring a chaperone to get in isn't going to solve the behaviour problems unless the chaperone keeps a constant watch on the kids. Only consequences of bad behaviour will work

I hate to say it, but parks near big cities are going to have a rougher crowd of teens, whether you like it or not. There is a reason why the two amusement parks in the Detroit area became defunct.

The only way to control teens is to have better security and ENFORCE it the way CP does. You screw up, you aren't just kicked out for a day. Your season pass is revoked.

As for long lines, that is to be expected at the larger parks. Even Cedar Point in July has long lines, especially on water rides on hot days. My son was 48" at age 6, and whether he'd stand in a long line or not depended entirely on whether he wanted to ride a particular ride of not. The more a kid wants to do something, the more patient they will be. It's the parents who are less likely to want to wait in a long line. My son was lucky to have an amusement park nut as a mom.

Based on my recent SFMM trip, a chaperone wouldn't make a huge difference, because most of the rowdy groups were seemingly 16-30 years old. A very rough and unfriendly set. I'm so glad neither of us had kids there that day.

*** Edited 7/13/2006 8:37:35 PM UTC by Peabody***

There is something to be said for the most recent posts which do sort of shoot down my $125-$150 season passes (though I still think the passes are TOO cheap to be cost effective)

Knoebels does NOT have a price at all, and you don't get that behavior (though most of the folks at Knoebels are there because they want to be there... not because they were dumped off at the front gate like they have been for almost every other day this summer... its called boredom!)

But that is correct... the parks reflect the demographics of the areas where they are located. SFGrAdv between Philly and NY is a good example, as is SFA near DC metro area. Of course they are going to have a different demographic going there than SFDL or The Great Escape. Face it... they are in "tougher neighborhoods".

While location is certainly one of the biggest factors in crowd demographics/type, I think it a little of it goes back to exactly which park these kids prefer to visit.

You can say that SFGAdv has the problem of being in that whole NYC-Philly corridor, but there are tons of small parks squarely in that corridor as well (often much closer to one of those two cities) that don't have the same unsupervised group of kids running about. (or at least as many)

Why? Because they don't want to go to those smaller parks.

As I insisted in CPLady's hijacked TR, the GP (and especially the average teen) see the big chain parks as 'better' because they offer so much more in terms of big rides...and lots of them. Which is exactly the image I think Shapiro is trying to shake.

As far as contacting SF brass - well, they already know what people think of their parks. :)

Six Flags parks will always attract the "rowdy" set, due to the rather large selection of thrill rides and fairly cheap prices.

I suspect Shapiro will deal with both of those issues significantly beginning in 07. It's going to be tough though because, like it or not, the reputation has already been established as part of the brand. And believe it or not, not all park scumbags are lower class kids dropped off at the park. Some have cars, decent jobs and come from middle class parents. So you can't price all of them out of the park no more than you can a football, hockey game or summer concert. But I guess you can cut their interest by building more family oriented attractions.

18-30. You got that right. ;) *** Edited 7/14/2006 4:42:23 AM UTC by DWeaver***

The bad behavior takes place in parks that tolerate it and can't or won't do anything about it, whether it's close to a big city or not.

Hershey in the early 70s had a lot of "behavior" problems, as in people didn't feel safe there, and I think it cost them a lot of business. But look at them today. They have a reputation as one of the best family oriented parks going. Even Shapiro mentioned them in one of his conference calls.

It's comparable to these neighborhood watches and take back the streets groups forming in many cities. When people-- in this case the parks-- say, you're not going to pull that crap here, the troublemakers will either stop or just stop coming.

KW was another park that once had problems because of its location. Gangs were becoming more common back in the late 80s and early 90s. That is a major reason why they eventually changed their pricing to a POP only system with no season passes. (For many years they had general admission but excluded the teens from this option) Now the families dominate and even the unaccompanied teens are there to have fun, not to cause trouble.

Besides the admission policy changes, the park also started enforcing a stricter dress code and showed no tolerance for inappropriate behavior such as rowdiness, unsafe riding habits, or line cutting.

This is what I mean't by how in a way Knoebels is in the same league as SF GAdv based on what Shapiro is trying to achieve (family wise):

http://www.familyeducation.com/whatworks/item/front/1,2551,1-15920-14051,00.html

An average review from a family GP. Specifically this quote:

"...It is similar to Great Adventure but 10x better. I can't wait to go again..."