letter to editor attacks SFWoA

Danny, this IS Bill we are talking about now........lol. He's too rotten (and spoiled) for his own good. :)

-Tina

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thepinkdoomofmonkeys said:

Man , do you guys know how repetitive these posts get?

The standings.

Against
People who will argue for hours about something that everybody knows they already believe in.

Indifferent
People who had a good experience , and will argue for hours about something that could be said in three words.

For
People who argue for one post , then see the better arguers beat them , and decide it's a lost cause.

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Yeah, but you forgot one group:

Bored
People who claim that the topic at hand doesn't intrest them and think that opinion matters enough that the others discussing said topic care that they're not amused. These post are usually accompanied by various internet typespeaks for sleeping - (i.e. {snore}, yawn, *sleeping*)

This is the real world equivalent of a group of people at a party having a discussion and someone walking up and interrupting to tell them their conversation is boring.

Who says the internet doesn't develop social skills? :)

You're too funny Gonch , too funny. :)

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Now back to the (needed and not nearly as sloth-inducing) highjacking at hand.

When a park treats it's guests like WoA has to me and others, I leave. Six Flags has fallen into a ditch in how they maintain and add rides. Most places they are the only park for hours. There is no competition. There is no spoon. They can get away with adding a new flat ride every 3 years. They can get away with having lousy service. It's the whole ignorance is bliss idea. The people don't know there is something better. As for WoA, it has huge competition. And Six Flags screwed it up big time. They took the guests for a ride (no, not an amusement ride), threw out advertising money, and called it a day, expecting people to fly over from CP. They thought they didn't need to add rides. They didn't have to in their minds. Look at their advertising the first year! It was like they were saying behind the scenes, "All those idiots are coming over now." The attendance is dropping not because of the new rides at CP, PKI, or other parks, but because Clevelanders and others around the area have experienced better, and know this is not right, compare that to the other Six Flags parks where the only park those people have ever been to was a Six Flags.

Six Flags thought it could treat WoA like all their other parks, but it can't. Six Flags needs to suck it in and call amends. Say you screwed up, and give us a good B&M hyper. Give us what CP won't. You'll get attendance.

*Note: WoA did spend money on Batman, but that was when it was Six Flags Ohio and it wasn't targeting itself against CP.*

The one and only time I went to the park under the SF title was 2000, I believe. It was whatever year X-Flight was new. Anyway, I had a great time, and I would glady go back. Sure, it had it's problems, but the overall experience was great.

Worlds of Adventure also has a great coaster line up that can compare with parks in the surrounding area. B:KF (floorless) and X-Flight (flying) are both something neither PKI nor CP have.

By the way, for all of those who think Six Flags can't run a park, Six Flags Great America is a great park. It's always clean, has a good atmosphere, and the rides are almost always open (exception of Deja Vu, but that's not expected to be).

I was just going to respond with that CobraRoller to The Mole's post above.

The problem is, Six Flags obviously isn't gearing customer service towards the parks that are in competition with others.

You constantly hear complaints about SFWoA and SFMM and both of these parks have strong competition.

On the other spectrum you have SFGAm. Absolutely no competition within the area but yet the customer service, ride capacity, cleanliness, etc. are top notch.

Explain this butt-backwards thinking from corporate. :)

It has a lot to do with the people running each park I think, and having some remnant culture from the previous owner can't hurt. Most people seem to agree that the Mariott culture still lingers at SFGAm.

At SFWoA, the Busch folks are gone, and Geauga Lake was prior to its Premier Parks acquisition was seriously mom-and-pop. I don't know who SF has running the joint now, but it's clearly not the right person.

I'm not sure about who's in charge now that the flags have been hoisted out front, but at one point Geauga Lake's GM was a former Kennywood GM. He came to Kennywood from an upper management position at Cedar Point.

At least at one moment in history, there was someone there who knew successful customer service. Where he's gone now is a mystery to me.

I've sort-of sat silent for a lot of this... not much else I can add, but what the heck:

The good: While sitting overly-long in the X-Flight station waiting for the cars to rise/unload/load/recline, my wife was wondering what took so long... I explained to her how the ride was supposed to recline and rise during the ride cycle. The ride operator walking past quipped a bit sarcastically "Yeah, it's supposed to, but it's a Vekoma!" After the ride he was wondering why I knew so much about the ride, and I explained that I was a ride inspector in PA. Seemed like a great guy, friendly and conversational.

The bad: Possibly the least friendly ride crew ever... S:UE. A guest drinking his beer in the queues below the ride was repeatedly harassed by ride ops above that he wasn't allowed to drink in line, and he'd have to get out (after spending 15 minutes of a 40 minute line) or spill it out. It was one of those big ones that they charge a newborn for, and they were harassing him big time. "If you'd bother to read the park guide, you'd know you can't do that" "I'm calling security if you don't get away from my ride!" He left. I checked my park guide, signs out front of the ride and out front of the park... I saw no such guideline. I did, however, see security come at least two times while I waited in line to haul people out for various offenses. The crew was pissed and had a vendetta. Simple as that.

Unfortunately, the latter happens more often in my eyes than the former.

I GET IN FREE to SFWoA. I haven't been in two years. I've paid to go to Hershey, Dorney, IOA, CP and many others in the same time. Tell you anything? If I'm not willing to go for free, I certainly understand why others wouldn't pay.

Their service sucks. Period.

(Edited to fix HTML, like you care.) *** Edited 1/4/2004 4:46:12 AM UTC by kpjb***

Jeff you have to have heard me by now.

It's the BEC folks running Retail, Entertainment, Landscaping and of course the Zoological Depts. That's about half the full time staff. There are a hand full of GLP staff left (Director of Finance, a HR Staff member, Manager of Games, of course the Rides and a couple of PR/Marketing types). The rest (including the GM) are from elsewhere in the company. At any rate it IS because of the BEC management that the park is in the bind it is today, (IMO) considering BEC management was at the helm of nearly every department (Gate, Park Services, Retail (games/gifts), Foods, HR, Animals, Entertainment, Landscaping) in the critic 2001 season when any and all of the old regime was swept out.

The "mom & pop" managers from GLP/SFO only ran that park at a profit for years despite little to no investment by Funtime and the crazy business model of Premier. They suceeded where the current regime cannot to this point. When running a park (at least owned by SF or Funtime) you have no control over certain things like final budget amounts, capital improvements, ticket priceing; but you can control operating costs, how the budget is allocated, how the people are managed, etc. But i digress because i am doing what i do so well, which is get off topic at hand.

Oh and to 1ej, there is NO way that the park saw an attendance increase. Like Jeff i have several sources that have the park WAAAY down. They seemed to have trouble beating Six Flags Ohio's 2000 numbers this year.

I like hearing the specific examples of problems in the park.

Anyone complain to guest services, and if they did how did they react. What suggestions issues were you bringing up?

BTW many departmental managers are from the GL days. Oh and to you CP purists (don't get me wrong I love CP, except for some of the snotty ride ops) some departmental managers worked for CP, and came to Six Flags because there was more room for full time positions.

The problem lies up top when you have a park grow at the rate SWOA did and have a corporate office that doesn't know how to handle this experiment (it really is no other park offers three parks for one gate price) plus managment that has seen thier park change so much......it will take a while to get it right. I'm talking close to ten years. I know that sounds insane but SWOA really is unique. However employee rudness has no excuse.

Again, saying it's all corporate's fault is nonsense, another scapegoat. While certainly Oklahoma City has the final say on budgets, it's still up to local managers to do what they have to with what they got. That's what managers do... they manage.

You want to talk about shrinking budgets... I've been in IT for the last six years. I've done it in everything from a retail, to mom-and-pop, to public company environments. Somehow, we always managed to get the job done and keep our internal customer happy. Not bad considering we didn't even have the pressure of being a profit center (not in a direct way, anyway).

Your right, it isn't only corporate, but you miss my point. The fault lies at both ends. Old management along with corporate did not no how to handle this "esperiment." This is a new thing 3 parks one gate. It is a allot to handle.

Anyone have complaints specefically how did the park handle them once you brouhg it to your attention.

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Anyone have complaints specefically how did the park handle them once you brouhg it to your attention.

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With my justified complaints during the late 2000 and most of 2001 season, I could not tell a difference as the same problem happend 3 different times to me personally, and continued to happen to many of my freinds as well.

I won't go into details as that is irrelevent at this point but the times I did talk with GR, I got three different responses. Communications could have done wonders with my complaints but when it happend two more times, I knew things weren't discussed.

Now, I did have a good time at the park the last two times I visited in the last two years. I didn't "test" to see if my complaints had been looked into as I don't go to parks looking for negative things to whine about.

-Sean

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mlariccy said:
...corporate did not no how to handle this "esperiment." This is a new thing 3 parks one gate. It is a allot to handle.

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First of all, the notion that the water park is in itself is a park is a joke, and nothing but marketing. They have water parks included in the gate all over the chain. Furthermore, they made many public statements about how they knew exactly what they were doing with regards to operating animal attractions, citing SFGAdv and SFMW.

There's nothing new about it.

Jeff,

I think you misunderstood what I said, or I didn't make it clear enough. To begin, I would qualify the water park is a different park, especially with new slides put in. Many saw it as another park when Funtime owned it, and now it is bigger with more attractions. It is what many consider the highlight of their visit.

Six Flags thought they could handle three parks in one. It was different than any other park because of the Sea World acquisition. Which included employee acquisitions. Which meant a conglemerate of ideas and management. This set back plans because restructuring of managment would take a while. Mixing and matching who stay and who would go. This also caused a chaotic environment.

I still think if they would have held out opening the Sea World side, things would have been smoother. But hey, Jeff.......sorry to break it to you but things have gotten better. Even on heavy days complaints are down and compliments are up. Even on this page this summer more positive comments appeared.

You make good points and I agree with you on the management complaints, but don't completley discount corporate in the mix either. But I have a feeling your gonna lock this topic now as it has gotten very large.

Anyone have complaints specefically how did the park handle them once you brouhg it to your attention.

I don't want this post to be another one of my long ones so I'll be basic.

The first visit ever to the park was after the flagging (SFO). Villian was down. Big Dipper was down. I read the downtime sign in front of the entrance and no rides were listed. All remaining coasters were running with 1 train with exceptionally long waits(except for batman wich was about 20 minuts). A quarter of the rides closed hours before the park was to close. The park closed one hour early due to an invisible thunderstorm.

Most of the ride opps were inattentive while their rides were running and some of the food service employees were just plain rude (throwing food on the counter with a mad face, arguing about a cup of ice, inattentive to the customers.)

The garbage cans were overflowing and the grounds were unkept. The paths were also too small for the amount of people in the park which caused a lot of clogging and bottlenecks

I stoped at the guest service window, as I always do when I visit a park, and told them in detail why I felt that the park didn't meet even my lowest expectations. I got a free ticket to come back another day and give the park another chance.

The second chance was about the same as before, except Villian and Big Dipper were open (Villian was great by the way), but with long waits due to 1 train opperation.

I told guest service again and they noted it, but I didn't accept any of the offered freebees that time.

The third and last time I visited was a year later (still SFO) durring Octoberfest. It was a Friday afternoon and I think that the hours of opperation were something like 6-10PM (only a few hours). the gates opened 45 minuts late. I ran to Villian first and waited over an hour for them to open it up. All coasters ran only 1 train (except for batman, which had 2 I think) and the park was very crowded.

I remember it being somtime after 8 PM and I had only rode Villian and Batman. I was about 15 minuts into the long line for the monorail (I wanted to relax) when it was announced that the ride was going to be closed down for ten minuts so that they could work on the electricity for the venders, whatever that meant.

I got out of line and marched to the guest service window, and waited in the long line. Like I said in a previous post in this thread, the girl at the window replied to my calmly explained complaints with only "Okay, bie bie now." Her tone was rude and belittling

I vowed never to return.

It's pretty hard to make me mad; I am fairly easy going. I also usuially don't hold a grudge. I left that park for the third time with a negitive experience.

If a hotel screwed up my reservations and had a rude desk clerk all 3 times that I stayed there, I would probably stay at a different hotel next time. If a pizzarria deliverd me the wrong pizza 3 hours after I had ordered it, three different times in a row, I would probably call a differant pizzarria next time. If a car machanic overcharged me to fix my car and it wasn't fixed the three times he supposedly fixed it, I would take it to a different machanic next time. Is it just me...

Looks like I wrote a novel yet again. I feel very passionate on the subject of service, wether it be retail, food, amusement, or whatever. Thank to all who read my entire post.

We KNOW and the park KNOWS it was bad in the SFO days. We know that's why people won't go back.

I have had bad steaks at Outback, yet I know it won't always be that bad, so I go back. Same with SFWoA. Have I had bad days yes, do I know other people have bad days yes. I have had just WAYYyy many better days than bad. But I do know that you can't keep making a bad steak. SFWoA knows they have to have to improve the product they "burnt" for a few guests.

Some people wonder why I defend the park a lot. I do and I don't just like other parks. I have just seen many of times this past year and others what this park can do when the park pulls things together. Just from what I have seen and watching the guests smiles, and comments when they say they will be back in a heartbeat next year...it's a great thing to see that at SFWoA (and any other park.)

IMO we need to focus on the future from learning from the past. 2003 learned from 2002 which made DRASTIC improvements, and hopefully 2004 will learn from 2003.

It's a fine line saying that management "doesn't care." I even have video from two SEPERATE days of a certain GM and a Ride Director walking around the park with the prongs picking up trash (yes, the MANAGERS were picking up trash) in 2003.

I do agree though in any business all management has to care and have the same goals.

I wonder what SFWoA would have done with the long term plans if the "Stuborn Aurora" people would have sold that little piece of land at the lake there...It would have made it a lot easier for a monorail, people would flow easier, less congested midway by BKF, less people in areas lead to less trash, less trash leads to happy guests, happy guests lead to fewer complaints, fewer complaints lead to more people prasing SFWoA

;)

"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
http://OhioThemeParks.com

*** Edited 1/5/2004 1:21:43 PM UTC by RollerCoasterGod***

Boy, I sure am glad I didn't start this thread. Everything has been said already.

I have a great fondness for SFWoA. I worked there for many years as a kid, I have revisited on many occasions. I just hate to see the park run in the state it is in. That property deserves better. No, it demands better.

I just wish some decision maker somewhere in the chain would admit their shortcomings and take reasonable steps to correct them.

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mlariccy said:
I think you misunderstood what I said, or I didn't make it clear enough.

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I didn't misunderstand anything, I just don't agree with you.