Having a pretty bad time of things on Sunday, I decided to go again to SFA today (you may question my sanity). This time I went with fellow Buzz member GoWithGravity (GWG). Our first stop was Superman Ride of Steel. The line wasn't too bad considering the amount of cars in the parking lot. Again, what could’ve been a relatively short wait was made much longer by sloooow attendants. We had a very good ride in the 2nd row. Next we decided to ride Krypton Comet (Chance Chaos). This was our first ride since the Michigan’s Adventure accident. I felt a little nervous, but two things kept that emotion in check a) Chance has done their own investigation and claimed that the ride had no defects (according to a ride accident webpage) b) we have the park version of the ride, whereas MA had the carnival version. There’s not too many people in line, but Paul (I usually don’t mention names, but this guy stood out) is taking forever to load the ride. It seems he can’t figure out how many people can fit on the ride. Normally this wouldn’t be too hard, but since some of the seats are out of commission, it’s taxing his brain. All is forgiven though because he’s giving double rides! We try to break our record of 8 flips in a row and we can’t do it. We ride Joker’s Jinx next and we have a pretty comfortable ride, surprisingly. Our next ride is Roar, and it gets stuck going up the lift. I’ve never seen anything happen on Roar. How bizzare. We decide to come back later. We start to get into line for Mind Eraser, but we decide the line isn’t worth the wait. We hit one more flat ride, The Octopus, before our lunch break. Our first ride after lunch was Roar, which is open again. We ride close to the front and it’s great as always. Next it was onto the Southwest Territory and our first ride Two Face the Flip Side. While waiting for the back row we see it miss the catch on the return trip. This was my third time seeing that happen and the first for GWG. He was actually a little excited to see it in person. The problem was pretty quickly resolved. It also gave the attendants a break to clean up the overflowing trash can (yes, there’s only one) and trash in line. We ride it all the way in the last row, which the ride op refers to as the front car. I refer to it as the skull crusher from the high G’s going back through the vertical loop. We journey over to Gotham City and go to ride S:ROS again. We’re excited because no one is waiting for the front row. That is, until we get into the first row of the queue. Then of course it fills up. We ride twice in a row, and the line gets pretty long by the second ride. I can see from the lift that Joker’s Jinx (another ride that is usually problem-free) has stopped running. That would explain the increase in people. Of course, each wait is made much longer by the slow attendants. Lastly we ride Batwing. Again the queue isn’t that filled, but the ride is experiencing a temporary breakdown (something we heard quite a few times today). Not too much longer after, they start loading again. I notice that dispatches are taking much longer than they usually do. Five minutes or longer is probably not an exaggeration. Again, the dispatch problem is due to a lack of staff. Normally they have four people loading, but today they only have two. I once again hear an attendant say that people aren't showing up for work. GWG is happy though that he’ll have his first dark ride on Batwing. He yells pretty loud throughout because it’s hard to see most of the track. Awesome.
Breakdown
Positives-Good coasters and other rides. Ride ops kept the public informed of breakdowns, and were apologetic. Pirates Flight operates for the first time in months.
Negatives-Several flat rides weren’t working, most likely due to lack of staff. Iron Eagle, Rodeo, Alpine Bobs, Sky Escaper, Riddle Me This (Roundup) and also Typhoon Seacoaster were all closed. Slow staff.
