SFA for a few hours - 8/14

Since I’m too lazy to write a whole trip report, I’m just going to discuss various observations I made. This was my third trip to SFA. I haven’t been in about 3 years or so.

- Apparently the park abolished preferred parking. It’s still listed on the park’s website as costing $25, however, at the parking booths signs say it is available for no additional charge on a first come, first serve basis.

- The first ride I went to was S:RoS. I was happy to see that there was no wait for any seat except for the front, yet 2 trains were still being used. I got in line for the last row as the blue train was pulling into the station. The ride attendant informed me that the back car in the blue train is closed. I thought it was no big deal and I would just wait for the red train to come back. When the red train returned to the station, she told me the last row in the red train is closed too. What? Why didn’t she tell me before? Frustrated, I ended up riding in an empty seat towards the middle of the train

- After S:RoS, I went to Batwing which was running one train. No interesting events to report here.

- I next went to Joker’s Jinx and rode in the front seat. The ride was fun and smooth. Later in the day I returned and rode in 5.1. There was a terrible vibration in this seat. Are all the seats other than the front like this now? Also, one of the attendants was reading a book as she was checking restrains! I must say I’ve never seen that before.

- After Joker’s Jinx I rode Penguin’s Blizzard River, Roar, and Mind Eraser. I rode Mind Eraser for the credit since I skipped it on my other two visits to SFA. As I got in line for row 6, another single rider was just getting on the train in the station. He saw a sign on one of the seats that said something about the seat being closed by the maintenance department. He asked the ride attendant if the other seat was safe to sit in. The attendant did not know, and had to go ask the control op! When the other train came into the station, I discovered that both seats in its row 6 were closed. What is it with so many closed seats on the coasters in this park? There should at least be a sign or something saying if you aren’t a single rider, don’t bother to wait for this row.

- I wanted to ride Rodeo (Breakdance) next, so I walked into the line up to the gate where the operator’s booth is. The operator said the ride is closed. What? Why isn’t there any sign saying the ride is temporarily closed at the ride’s entrance. I think the op probably said it is closed because she didn’t feel like working.

- I then went to Wild One. Here, the blue train had its front row closed. This park must have a terrible maintenance department.

- I skipped Two Face since I’ve been on it before and wasn’t too crazy about it.

Overall, SFA has the worst operations of the four Six Flags parks I’ve been to this year. It is just a good thing SFA doesn’t get as crowded as SFGAdv or else it would be a disaster. I still managed to have a good time though, since most of the rides are walk-ons. I think everyone was in the water park.

I don't think the attendant was lazy on Rodeo, I think Rodeo was really broken. There have been a lot of problems with Rodeo this season, it's even been down for a couple of weeks at a time. I think SF is broke and your seeing rows on trains closed at just about all of the parks. I'm pretty sure I saw some closed seats last week at SFFT.

From what I am told from a reliable source, SFA stopped preferred parking during weekdays for the last two full time weeks. Since the attendance usually drops during that period - local schools are back in next week and people are out shopping for supplies and things - they just rolled back for the two sets of week days. But, it is here to stay I am told

With the red poles they use to seperate the prefered parking from the regular parking being removable (they are simply posts placed in holes drilled into the pavement) it allows the park to quickly and easily have prefered parking on the busier days and still use all that parking for regular parking on the slower days. I'm sure it was always in the plans to only have prefered parking when most of the first and second lots were expected to be filled.

LOL Person,I still havn't posted my PKD TR yet, I'm probably not gonna bother as nobody really reads,let alone replies to the TR's that I do post.

Don't forget that Rodeo tends to go down for cleanup whenever someone loses their lunch.

Ah, Six Flags. At least I know that the crummy operations are at more than just one park. I haven't been to SFA I think since the beginning of June, and they were already showing signs of crappiness.

To have 3/20 ticket booths open on a Saturday in June is ridiculous. The concert by the wave pool was having sound issues. The "speaker stacks" weren't even all speakers! Some were just boxes.

SFA was even performing kinda lamely on opening day. Those Joker's Jinx ops needed some help or training or reprimanding or something. At least opening day was better than last season, when at least half of the coasters were down at some point.

Six Flags and Shapiro tend to be part of some of my joking these days.

The ticket booths are one thing. I'm sure for a concert the park is busy and should have had more of them, but I don't necessarily believe they need more than three on every Saturday.

I'm pretty sure the concert speakers aren't the responsibility of the park. Every group brings their own. Some more, others a lot less.

Opening day is opening day. You can't expect perfection. The park was operating a lot better in April/May/June than July and August.

^Don't remind me of how bad opening day 05 was.

SFA's operations have really gone downhill fast under Shapiro's reign,it almost makes one think that red zone wants the parks to fail on purpose so they can sell of the land & rake in the potential profits.

^^ Perfection--no. Professionalism--yes. The JJ ops were so bad, it was basically a joke.