No re-entry at Sux Flags this Year

From what I've heard, they're not stopping reentry into the park. However, they will make you pay again for parking if you drive from the park and return.
When GL was SFWOA, we'd always leave the park, eat somehwere else and return. I guess this would curb that a bit.

That's a good point with parks that are a little more well known for that problem.

I guess this means they would do away with the parking passes and charge the local season passholders each time? Now THAT would suck, er, sux. ;-)

-Tina

*** Edited 1/9/2006 6:45:43 PM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

Also, the dog kennels are outside the park (at SFMM anyway)...want to take your dog out for a potty break? Too bad.

Goofy rumor.

*** Edited 1/9/2006 6:45:40 PM UTC by janfrederick***

Back in 2000 when I lived in FL, I would eat a McDonnalds lunch when visiting BGT. It was just across the street from the park entrance. This ended when the park put up a gate, forcing guests to walk all the way around to get to the fast food resturaunt. From then on I just didn't eat lunch on BGT day.

My point is that I could see SF adopting a repay to repark policy. Parks want to keep you, and your money, on their property...Obviously.

Truth be told, I've *walked* all the way down the hill at SFMM to go to Wendy's.

Still, I don't see why any unfavorable guest policies would be a good idea for a chain already struggling with its customer service.

Devil's Advocate Hypothesis: the vast majority of parkgoers don't leave and re-enter the park. The ones who do are the ones pulling down your per-capita. Ergo, it *could* be a good business decision to do this. Drive away the cheapskates? Who cares! They don't contribute enough to the bottom line.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled enthusiast whine-fest.

(And no, I still don't think this rumor is worth the network bandwidth it is consuming.)

I go to wendy's on every trip I make to Magic Mountain. Not one food stall in the park has better food than what's at wendy's. I bought a chicken sandwhich at the park by goldrusher and I thought I was going to need dentures after eating it. It was so hard and tough, I threw it away after only about 3 bites, there went my 12 dollars! The only thing good that came out of the deal was the sport bottle. They would seriously have to do a double take on the food if they want this to work and not end up a total disaster. I would love to pay my 12 dollars again for food that was capable of being eaten and didn't feel like I was bitting off pieces of a tire.

Now that I think of everything that Snyder was saying about outsourcing the vending and restuarants, the repay to park seems more valid now.

Well personally, making McDonald's off-limits might not be a bad idea. I ate my usual meal of a 1/4-pounder with chesse meal and I seriously did not feel good for hours after.

But McDonald's is just one of many options available to people at SFA who are willing to go five minutes out of their way. You've got a Safeway, Giant, 7-11, Wendy's, Popeye's, Jerry's Pizza & Subs, plus some I don't remember. And, if you're willing to travel about 10-15 minutes out of your way, you have a few of the chain restaurants, plus a Chick-Fil-A. So yeah, I could see an incentive to keep people from leaving the parking lot.

I-Fan: There's also a KFC and this wonderful little take-out 'soul food' place in that Mitchelville plaza area (the name escapes me). Anyway, while I have left parks before to eat, I'd be more than willing to eat in most parks (even at the higway robbery prices) if I could get good 'original' food. I just get a bit angry buying Subway for twice the regular price. At least dress it up like it came from elsewhere. And is it asking for a Herculean effort to get a g-damn corn dog?

I'd actually like it if they brought in Sodexho. The run the caf at my job and while high, the food wont make you mad, and is often marginally "good".
lata, HH1

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coasterguts said:
They might want to update their website if this is the case:

http://sixflags.com/parks/america/ParkInfo/parkpolicies.html[/quote]

"PARK RE-ENTRY: Same-day re-entry is not allowed.".......this from SFA website!

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The guy certainly isn't telling a fib, but the idea was definitely discussed (among other things) at a meeting (open to all employees - part time or full time) with Mark Shapiro on January 5th at Six Flags Magic Moutain for an hour before park opening.

The idea was that the no re-entry policy, if adopted, would be implemented either starting the 2007 season, or when all of the parks open their gates for business in the coming months this year. It was discussed that the idea behind the policy would eliminate guests leaving the park to purchase food for their lunch or dinner elsewhere - and the more time the guest spends his or her time inside the park, the more likely they will purchase items in the park.

This doesn't mean the policy will be adopted, I'm just saying it was discussed and upper management is serious in considering implementing it. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I bet you could put a few dozen fast food and sit-down restaurants within walking distance of parks such as Holiday World, Knoebels, Kennywood, Indiana Beach, and many many others with a re-entry policy and most people would stay in the park and eat.

Why?

Because the food is good and isn't overpriced! If Shapiro & Snyder want people to stay and eat in the park there is a simple solution: Improve food quality and stop charging so much!

This kind of situation would be IMPOSSIBLE to enforce at a park like The Great Escape (a Six Flags property) just for the sheer fact that one of their only sit-down restaurants, The CoachHouse, is across the street by the new adjoining hotel. This restaurant has always been advertised as a place to eat on their web-site and is/has been owned by the park for as long as I can remember.

So it's not a matter that there are a couple near-by that people normally would walk-to... it's a matter that it's a part of the park located outside of the actual park-property across the street & in order for that to work, one would need to be granted re-entry into the park.

It's a policy that will definately not float well with ANY guest, and I can guarantee that if something like this is implimented at any park... it will shortly be retracted within a week or two.

There's many reasons that many have already named...

But just off hand, another Six Flags park I know of... Six Flags Darien Lake... they have their picnic grounds OUTSIDE the park in the middle of the parking lot at Sunshine Lake. In order to use those grounds, you have to leave the park gates, and there's no way to impliment this as part-of-the-park. They could maybe deny you access for re-entry if you leave with your vehicle, but it's just impossible for leaving & re-entering the park with the way current parks are setup!

If they want people to stay inside the parks and eat, they need to offer quality food at reasonable prices. If they are trying to "bully" guest into buying food at the park, and then try something like raisng prices even more, or reducing the quality, I think it will just drive people away. Of course, maybe that's what they want so that it would be easier to justify selling off parks. It's strange that they would talk of building hotels on site at parks like SFGAdv, and then say you can't leave the park and return the same day. One would think that SF would want to entice people to visit their parks and stay at their hotels by advertising, come to the park, take a break at our hotel and then return to the park later in the day. *** Edited 1/10/2006 3:15:12 PM UTC by Rescue131***

http://biz.yahoo.com/fool/060110/113690169201.html?.v=1

The "Motley Fool" has something to say about this rumor...

Seems SFA is the only SF park I can find that has already updated their website with the new policy...

SFA: "PARK RE-ENTRY: Same-day re-entry is not allowed."
http://sixflags.com/parks/america/ParkInfo/parkpolicies.html

I REALLY hope they change their mind about this...

The question is, was SFA's information updated or is it that it is only being noticed now because people are looking for it?

Tough to say when it was updated, but it had to be sometime in the last few months because that was never there before.

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DawgByte II said:

But just off hand, another Six Flags park I know of... Six Flags Darien Lake... they have their picnic grounds OUTSIDE the park in the middle of the parking lot at Sunshine Lake. In order to use those grounds, you have to leave the park gates, and there's no way to impliment this as part-of-the-park. They could maybe deny you access for re-entry if you leave with your vehicle, but it's just impossible for leaving & re-entering the park with the way current parks are setup!

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but, at darien lake, there is nothing within miles (other than expensive truck stops) that people would leave the lot for. out of towners fresh off the thruway would be lost on the back roads tryin to get to batavia

Well, the Motley Fool is right... it IS just a rumor basically.

It only makes common sense... a big part of Six Flags flaws were based upon customer service. How is this customer service by restricting re-entry? Where does it make business sense by saying "no, you can't come back in! Too bad, so sad"... it doesn't & would turn off a lot of people.

Even though SF America might say it... it's just simply not true & probably NOT enforced...