SFA 06.21.2004 Evening

My girlfriend had a business thing in DC on the 22nd and 23d so we decided to hit SFA Monday night while we were in the area. We had planned to get there at 5:00 from Pittsburgh, but stand still traffic on the turnpike held us back from our goal. We were walking in the gates at 6:30.

Our first ride was Roar and we walked up to the station and right into the middle of the train. They were holding the gates open in order to fill it completely. We had a fun ride, but I am still not sure about this ride. It just seems uninspired and the PTC trains dont track all that well on the twisted layout.

We rode Typhoon Sea Coaster next and ended up waiting more ON the ride than for it. Wile it was fun when moving, we bother thought it was a waste of time. We spent about 5 minutes in the station sitting in the boat, and 2-3 minutes waiting to move again after being turned around.

We booked over to Wild One next and had a two train wait for the front. They were cycling the second train empty. The front is a great ride with some good airtime on the big hills.

We went to Blizzard River next which we both really think is fun. The station is just barely understaffed as with most Six Flags rides. If they would just put one more person on the station to tell people which "holding pen" to go to the wait would be much less stressfull. More waiting after the ride is over makes this ride a little less fun.

It was getting to be around 8 so we walked back to Superman for our last two rides of the night. The line was only to the station exit, but it took us around 20 minutes to get onto the ride. The ride was pretty fun, getting more and more rattly around those helixes. Second ride was in the dark and was awesome. Massive airtime. The new restraints are fine, but the only thing that really fixes the restraint issues is the seatbelt that holds the lapbar down. The real problem STILL lies in their checking the trains.

Which brings me to my critique. Six Flaga obviously has a major problem with managing their employees. The sm station was filled with ops as it should be, one at the station entrance, two on each side of the station and one operator. The thing is they were goofing off and NOT performing the right lapbar check. That is until they saw their manager was on the way. You could tell something was up cause they started announcing we were not to fasten the lapbar ourselves. Next thing I know I see a manager walking up the ride exit and all the ops hustling, checking the restraints in the right order and actually going to their posts and signaling they are ready.

All this trouble to retrofit a ride with new resstraints and not address their real problem. If they would just run the ride as they are supposed to, the accident at sfne would have never happened. There needs to be more management at their rides.

On top of that they need to dicipline the guests more. I am sorry, but placing your new toy next to the train so the operators and guests leaving the previous train have to step over them is not acceptable to me. Nor is letting a guest jump over the boat canal on tsc to get their cell phone. Yes it happened, and no one said a word to them. Also, the operators are never in their proper spots when the train comes in, so they are in the way of everyone leaving, AND the exit gate never seems to be unlocked and it causes more confusion and stress than there needs to be.

I had a good time, but could have had a great time.

At least it seems like the park was nowhere near as crowded as it was on the 12th....remind me to never visit the park during a special event again because it can get too crowded for it's own good.

A word of advice for Roar...if you can wait for the black train as it seems to be running smoother than the teal/green one,not butter smooth mind you but not spine rattling either & you're right that they should perhaps look into replacing the PTC's with GCI M-flyers because the PTC's are tearing that ride up.

A funny thing about TSC,I had a similar experience on the 1st turntable,the boat gets up there,turns around & then just sits there forever before it's launched.

As for S:ROS,you're quite lucky to get a couple of night rides.....so far my batting average for night rides is 0 for 3 mainly due to the ride breaking down last time we were there,so far my total for the season has only been 3 rides aboard S:ROS...hopefully that number will increase.

They must've had a bad crew there if they were goofing off as you've said,because while the staff has been known to play around it's never been as bad as you've made it sound & there's definitely something wrong if it requires the presence of a supervisor to whip them into shape.