SFGAdv offering free rides on Kingda Ka with donation of toy or food.

Oops. Yes, it was 2006; my wife and I did an anniversary trip to the wine valleys in Pennsylvania, and hit up Dorney Park and SFGadv while we were in the neighborhood.

It was actually El Toro's "debut" weekend that we were there.

Wouldn't you know, we waited in line for Kingda Ka around 3:00, only to have it break right when we were on the platform.

At Cedar Point, I am welcome to wait in the line while the staff diligently works to get the ride up and running. At SF, they told everyone to leave the line, and did not start working on it until 10pm when the park was closing.

The message sent to the guest?

Cedar Point: We'll do everything we can to get this ride running for you. We may not get it going in a time-frame you like, but we will do everything we can for you.

Six Flags: Get out this line. We'll get to it when we get to it. Sheesh. We've got a million rides to look after.

OhioStater said:
The message sent to the guest?

Cedar Point: We'll do everything we can to get this ride running for you. We may not get it going in a time-frame you like, but we will do everything we can for you.

Six Flags: Get out this line. We'll get to it when we get to it. Sheesh. We've got a million rides to look after.

Yep. That sounds about right. Most of the time CP even puts a poster in front of the gates about a big ride's inoperation.

Once again, how does this particular worthwhile event have anything to do with what some of you are talking about?

This isn't a normal operating day situation with a coaster.

Seriously,,,,,

I was simply explaining where, from my own personal perspective (based on my experience), a small part of how I formed my conceptualization of the reputation of this park, which had become part of the conversation.

I would have to think that it is (or should be) stressed continuously to park employees that they have one shot at making an impression on a guest, and that a park's survival and growth depends greatly upon a guest returning...not necessarily visiting for the first time.

They failed the day we were there.

Stater, the fact the emplyees have one shot and ONLY one **** at making a guest or customer happy and giving them a postive vibe is ALWAYS the case across ANY C/S field or anytime you deal with people. It doesn't matter if you're a mechanic working on a pice of equipment for a customer, or flipping burgers.

Oh I understand that, Hopman...I should have elaborated.

What I meant was that it seemed to me that, as a company, SF had not adopted that fundemental basic principle to their company. There were (and perhaps things have changed in 3 years) clear structural flaws in how things were run...not necessarily insurmountable issues with individual staff.

Crazy Horse - - - > And this year they even had watermellon queens with big pits!

Maybe they will hang on to the food that gets donated and use it next year at the July 4th barbeque...

Seriously...I am sure they will have a few opportunities for people to buy seasons tickets or gift bucks or something as stocking stuffers for next year. They rarely give away anything.

The donations will make a nice PR story in the local papers if they do well. If it doesn't work out too well they won't promote what happened.

On another subject...I saw that Hurricane Harbor is getting a funnel next year. Is that the extent of the new stuff? They badly need a few more things in the water park, but a themed funnel is at Splish Splash and several other competing waterparks.

Just the Tornado and the repainted Parachute Tower (I know it started this year but it never reopened once they painted it this season). There were rumors of the bumper cars being relocated from Old Country to elsewhere in the park which would be nice to see.

Chitown said:

OK, I am confused here since you said that you wish Nitro wereopen instead but then say that KK stops families? Nitro is 54" to geton.

Since the ride was down alot this season, maybe that is whythey are picking it since it is running and it will get people to comeout for a ride or two that they missed earlier in the season.

I said Nitro since personally I'd rather have that open (too many Kingda Ka rides gives me a headache), plus it isn't quite as intimidating as Kingda Ka is but I know Nitro really isn't family friendly either.

OhioStater said:
Oops. Yes, it was 2006; my wife and I did an anniversary trip to the wine valleys in Pennsylvania, and hit up Dorney Park and SFGadv while we were in the neighborhood.

It was actually El Toro's "debut" weekend that we were there.

Wouldn't you know, we waited in line for Kingda Ka around 3:00, only to have it break right when we were on the platform.

At Cedar Point, I am welcome to wait in the line while the staff diligently works to get the ride up and running. At SF, they told everyone to leave the line, and did not start working on it until 10pm when the park was closing.

The message sent to the guest?

Cedar Point: We'll do everything we can to get this ride running for you. We may not get it going in a time-frame you like, but we will do everything we can for you.

Six Flags: Get out this line. We'll get to it when we get to it. Sheesh. We've got a million rides to look after.

No offense, but are you a mechanic?

Maybe it was something that could not be fixed right away. The staff probably knew this and told the line they had to leave. Would you have rather of waited in line for 7 hours, or go enjoy the rest of the park? I am sure a lot more people would have been pissed off if they were able to wait in line, when the staff knew that the ride would not reopen. I have been in line at six flags when a ride has broken down, and they never made us leave. Call me silly, but I would rather be told to leave the line if a ride was going to be down for a while rather than waste my time in it for no reason.

Being from ohio, you should know how reliable this type of coaster is. Cedar point still has issues with dragster, and the same goes for kingda ka. There has been several time this summer where I have been at cedarpoint and dragster was down for one reason or another. There is a reason you have not seen this type of coaster popping up in parks all over the place. Cedarpoint and six flags have found this out the hard way. If anything, I give props to both of these park chains for pushing the envelope. It's too bad it did not pan out too well for them this time around.

Disney does the same thing(make people leave the line) when a ride breaks down. Does that make them a bad park?

Lord Gonchar said:

SFGAdv in 2003/2004 was probably one of the worst parks anywhere without a doubt. (the absolute worst was SFWOA circa 2001/2002)

At any rate, if anyone gets there, let us know what was up.

That explains a lot for the reasons I dislike the chain. I went to Great Adventure the first year that Ka opened (it was closed, btw), and SFOhio the first year it changed to a SF, where I had the worst experience at any park ever (and I've heard that it got worse the years after that).

crazy horse said:

I only remember 1 time durring both visits that someone cut in line.

I doubt that. Didn't they rent any Q-Bots during your visits?

Oh, and good for SF if they are really changing their service and value issues. It's still not for me though. There are plenty of amazing parks out there that are not sporting the Six Flags brand of service and value.

^You should come up to Great America :) It's the shining star in the chain as far as I'm concerned. I never thought I would go as many times as I did this year.

I have been told that SFMM has a list of "minor" and "major" technical problems. If they have a "minor" problem the ride ops are instructed to give the guests the option of staying in line or leaving if they choose to. If it is a "major" problem, the people in line have to leave. It is considered "minor" if there is a high probability that the ride can be fixed in less than 15 mins. and "major" if it is a problem which usually takes longer than that to fix. I have experienced both situations.

KA ran solid the whole month of Oct. I worked it 3 times and we had no issues the day I worked. It was shut down a few times however, do to crappy weather conditions.

What would be interesting to me would be to hear from someone who has experience working inside both the Six Flags chain and the Cedar Fair chain...for example, someone who worked as a ride operator at both Cedar Point and Great Adventure, etc...to get their perspective on what is/was different from the "inside out".

Anyone like that out there?

From the "outside in" the differences get more and more negligible each season.

Visiting a SF park and a CF park yield virtually identical experiences these days.

Do you think that has something to do with the recent expansion of CF (the acquisition of Paramount)...or are there other variables at play? And how would you rate these experiences?

Are you implying that the SF experience has gotten incrementally better while the CF experience has gotten incrementally worse, or that SF has stayed where it was, and CF is inching closer?

OhioStater said:
Are you implying that the SF experience has gotten incrementally better while the CF experience has gotten incrementally worse...

Not just implying it, fully believe it.

Pretty much anything that people complain about SF for can be said for CF these days and vice versa (with the exception of a virtual queue system - you're welcome, Lost Kause :) ).

Big parks with big rides, big crowds and the big prices to match.

I know some people that have worked for Cedar Fair and I know some people who have worked for Six Flags. The ones that I know that have worked for both Cedar Fair and Six Flags are currently working for Six Flags rather than Cedar Fair. A number of reasons are at stake here a lot of which has to do with living situations and other outside issues.

OhioStater said:
What would be interesting to me would be to hear from someone who has experience working inside both the Six Flags chain and the Cedar Fair chain...for example, someone who worked as a ride operator at both Cedar Point and Great Adventure, etc...to get their perspective on what is/was different from the "inside out".

Anyone like that out there?

I did! I worked at CP from 1991-1993, then as an 'intern' (barely!) at SFOT in 1995. I only worked in rides at SFOT for a day or two (got to sit up on the Texas Giant brake, that was cool.)

At the time, CP was light years ahead in terms of safety and operations. At SFOT, it was much more 'anything goes' - jumping across coaster tracks, riding with single riders (I did like that!).

At Cedar Point, everything was taken super seriously and everyone was proud of their job (especially the female 'sweeps').

Luckily for me, I worked on the Blue Streak 92/93, and we knew we had the most 'difficult' ride as well as the coolest. It was an honor (at that time) to be chosen to work on it. Manual brakes, lightning fast operation, etc. It's really a shame that changed in the couple years after.

If you guys want to know the toughest gig at CP, it's also the dirtiest. It's Group Utility. I know because I worked it, and survived it proudly! Pulling garbage, squeegeing the midways, and skimming ponds!

You'd be surprised at how much garbage a park generates per day. Unlike the ride ops who got to go home when it rained, we were out there in all of the nasty weather. Plus, you had to be pretty limber to move around the cue lines. I dropped three inches off my waist and about 25 lbs over the course of the summer. I also ended up with legs like a draft horse, but that was a bonus.