SFGadv FrightFest 10/15....things have to change

i too was there sat. I didnt agree with the attitude of the op. but the sttendants that checked the train were trying to talk to the guests and make the best out of a bad situation. I dont feel that the attendants were rude or ignorant in any way.

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Mamoosh said:
Y'all have to understand that a lot of people only visit the park once a year, and its to experience the Halloween event. Because this is their one and only visit of course they're going to want to try some coasters, too...so naturally lines will be much longer than during other times of the year.

The Fright Fest attractions are only availble a few weeks a year; the coasters are there the whole season. If you're going to visit a park during their Halloween event doesn't it make sense to enjoy the attractions that are special for that time of year [i.e. the haunted mazes] and leave the coaster rides for another day when the lines are much shorter?

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I can see your point.

Believe it or not, though, I take the majority of my trips each year during October not due to any specific interest in Halloween or Haunted Houses, but due to a love of night rides (as Rollergator mentioned) and cooler temperatures that you can't get in the summer.

If a park closes at 10 PM in the summer and sunset is 8:30 (or later!), you won't get many night rides. But at a Halloween event at that same park with a midnight close and say, 7 PM sunset, you'll get 5 hours to ride at night! On non-packed "Fright Fest" nights at some parks, I've not only gotten 2 or more night rides on EVERY coaster in the park, (with SEVERAL on my one or two faves that I focused the most on) but also got night rides on most of the flats, log flume, train, antique cars, etc.

MUCH better than heat and glare, IMO, and completely impossible to do in the summer unless there is a special upcharge "all-nighter" event, which I also love!

So I leave the Haunted Houses for the "GP" to wait in long lines for. They help me out by making it easier to rack up night rides on the coasters and other rides ;)

Frontrider

PS. I REALLY appreciate the parks that make the Halloween events included in the season pass, and not an "upcharge". Since my reason for going is simply to get night rides that I can't get during the summer, I'd be paying the upcharge fee for Haunted Houses and shows that I wouldn't even be attending. *** Edited 10/18/2005 11:02:53 PM UTC by Frontrider*** *** Edited 10/18/2005 11:05:33 PM UTC by Frontrider***

Not that it is really an excuse but a lot of the issues last weekend had to do with all of the rain NJ received that week.

I'm sure they were short staffed to begin with but adding in break-downs makes things much much worse.

Unfortunatley, the weather doesn't look much better for them this weekend either.

My one and only trip to SFGAdv resulted in my group leaving by 10am and going to PKD because only things open were Nitro, Medusa, the ferris wheel, and the rotor that I didn't stick to the wall on. You came with us, Tim.

You still had a better trip to GAdv than Danny did, though.

*** Edited 10/21/2005 8:34:25 PM UTC by Michael Darling***

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Mamoosh said:
All the staffing in the world won't help if the crowds is extrememly large. Knotts had upwards of 6 ops working each coaster and all available trains running during Haunt and lines were still 3+ hours.

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Your logic is flawed; If Knott's didn't have 5 or more ops working on each coaster, the line would have been even worse, no?.

Do you really want just two bar checkers on a coaster when there are 40,000 people in the park? Operations management has to respond better to crowds. It's just another difference between Six Flags and the rest. They put no more than two bar checkers on their coasters regardless of how busy their park is. Knott's obviously stepped it up a notch.

Hershey had just about every ride open this past Sunday except the water rides and Roller Soaker. The only flat we noticed not operating was the Kissing tower, and that may have been because of the high winds. Every ride seemed to be adequately staffed-- even overstaffed by the end of the night when the crowds got really light. Knoebels had no problem with staffing for PPP weekend, although i will allow that's a one weekend event that's known well in advance.

I couldn't imagine going to a restaurant and being told to wait two hours to be served because the place was only partially staffed even though it was expecting a large crowd. Same with any other business. I can't see why people "expect" or accept that kind of service-- actually lack of customer service-- from a park as just being part of the routine. Bulls***!

It's not rocket science, folks. If you're expecting 40,000 people, and more importantly, if you're going to charge 40,000 people at a price comparable to your regular season admission, they should get the same kind of service, and have access to the same number of attractions as they do during the regular season. If not, then close. Then they won't have to worry about paying anybody anything.