SFGAM new rides? Any?

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...perhaps then you would understand what I was responding to. If you don't know how to read and understand things in context, do not blame me.

And as far as dark rides having to be capacity monsters...what about Scooby Doo at PKI - a very large park - should they have not put it in? Should GAm tear out the Whizzer? it doesn't have as great a PPM rating as Raging Bull. Before enthusiasses go pounding their chests that "We saved the Whizzer from the wrecking ball," remember that the park received tens of thousands of emails, phone calls and snail mail - not to mention news stories asking why they were going to take out a great FAMILY RIDE. Not a COASTER but a FAMILY RIDE. 'Nuff said.

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Does anyone else think this guy is just arguing in circles with himself?

I think the most we will even get out of next year is just overall park improvements. I doubt we will get anything "major" so stop the complaints about dark rides and what not. The whizzer has a few years to go before they can even think about taking that down, and if they tried, I'm sure they'll have complaints from everyone again.

If we do get some type of flat ride(s), that's all well and good, but just because they have taken out two flat rides in the last 3 or so years, doesn't mean they would automatically fill those spaces back up 3 years later. Any ride isn't cheap either these days, espically the way the economy is acting.

I'm not trying to be negative about not getting anything, but as I first stated, park improvements are probably somewhere at the top of the to do list this offseason.

Flat rides don't have to be expensive Frank. I would be happy to see some used flats make a new home at SFGAm. Just refurbish them, touch them up, and presto, you have new rides at the park.

The reason I don't care to much about capacity when it comes to flats is that its just more rides to spread the crowds out.

Dark rides do not have to be low capacity. Many of the Disney Dark rides are capacity monsters. Also Sally is capable of making high capacity dark rides. Labyrinth of the Minatour at Terra Mitica in Spain has a capacity of 1500 pph which is comparable to many coasters. A great dark ride would be a great and welcome addition to SFGAm.

Mike

SFGAm can afford a nice dark ride that would have good capacity and it doesnt have to be as expensive as some at wdw/universal like MIB/TOT etc. Other SF parks, like the one in Madrid with a King Tut theme wouldnt be as expensive as one would be at disney/universal.
As for the go-karts, i know alot of casual fans who do get turned of by them and wonder why something that lame is taking up space in a theme park when they can be found easily elsewhere!!!
And the popularity of Scooby(dark rides), as evidenced by how many parks are adding them is because the whole family can enjoy the ride and the ride has alot of re-rideability and that is why the lines are long and not due to capacity. This explains why boss/Freeze were walk ons and why Scooby had a 90 minute wait!!!!

How about a Power Puff Girls triple tracked dark ride where you take on the villians of Townsville? :)

Bob O. The go-karts don't take up theme park space. It sits in the parking lot. :)

Did no one else hear of the Disk-Os that Six Flags bought at IAAPA? I heard that they bought something about 4-7 of them. I know you all look down upon rumors, but you have to wonder...

Buttercup, Blossom, and Bubbles....look out Mojo Jojo, the PPGs are coming at ya!

Chi, that would be the greatest...and the colors are already near-perfect for the black light effects. Scott's pushing for a job at Sally too, huh? ;)

bill, wouldn't be too surprised if one of those Disk-Os ended up in Parker's neck of the woods...

Whew, at first I thought you said "around Parker's neck."

parker, who is glad Bill didn't say around Parker's neck...

(SF)Great American: Are you forgetting that SFGAm is a business? You honestly believe that they'll add a new attraction just for the heck of it, without any promise of return on that investment? It's not going to happen. Did SFGAm market the Condor and Camp Cartoon Network? Certainly. Businesses don't just spend money if they don't think they're going to earn anything back on that. Take a look at the marketing SFAW did for SWAT, or what La Ronde did with their new flat rides this year. If SFGAm adds a flat (or a family ride or whatever), it will be marketed. The purpose of any addition is to draw in more people (or to keep people coming to the park).

I can think of a few high capacity family attractions. Some are dark rides, some are not. For dark rides, IOA's Cat in the Hat has good capacity. I'm not suggesting SFGAm would build something on calibur with that ride (that is, nothing so extravagant), but the ride system is probably not much more costly than a Sally ride and gets much higher capacity. Adventureland's The Underground is another dark ride with potentially high capacity. I say potentially because the Underground runs just one train, but it could crank people through with two or three. Any family roller coaster in the dark (ala Skull Mountain) would be a high capacity dark ride, and effects could be added if desired. Finally, a Vekoma Madhouse is a high capacity dark ride of sorts. If you're looking for high capacity family coasters, look no further than Mack's Euro Mir. Intamin also has several high capacity family coasters on their site (both spinning and stationary).

PT300: Just because Busch (or any other park) operates a mouse doesn't mean it's a good thing. BGW bought that mouse with the intentions of selling it after one year. For some reason or another, they held onto it. Now that they're stuck with it, they're moving it to BGT because it's not wanted at BGW anymore. Additionally, I might point out that comparing attendance at BGT to BGW is unfair, since BGT has a much longer operating season. Europa is Mack's showcase, so of course they're going to hae a Mack wild mouse. Blackpool's wild mouse was built almost 50 years ago. All of the Paramount parks have lower attendance than SFGAm, except for PKI (which, as you'll note, does not have a mouse). Face/Off has much higher capacity than most wild mice. Again, however, just because one park does it it's not necessarily a good idea.

Chitown: Where is Six Flags to pick up these cheap flats? Most used flats for sale are either (a) already present at SFGAm in some form or (b) in bad condition or are traveling models. Flats are good, sure, but most have decent capacity if operated properly.

Riverview Mike: There's no way SFGAm could justify the spending behind a Disney-esque dark ride. I like Sally's newer higher-capacity cars, but there's still no way it gets 1500 pph. Manufacturers lie all the time, especially when it comes to max capacity. To get 1500 pph, every seat would have to be filled on every car and they'd have to dispatch about every fourteen seconds. If you've ridden a Sally ride, you know that's not going to happen (heck, those rides aren't even designed to dispatch that often).

Bob O: Your arguments against the go-karts are ridiculous. I don't believe there's one single casual park goer who has sworn off going to SFGAm because of them, let along stopped and wondered why they're taking up space that could be used for something else. Sally rides are popular with parks right now because they're affordable. They're also catered toward smaller parks. They have no place in a huge park like SFGAm in their current form. Boss and Freeze were walk-ons because they're capacity machines while Scooby is a capacity nightmare (like I said, Freeze can crank through twice as many people in an hour, and that's with just one train!).

In closing, lest anyone misread me again, I'm not arguing against family rides at SFGAm. I'm arging against adding something low capacity. As I explained early in my post, there are high capacity alternatives.

-Nate

Nate.

I never said I knew where they would or could aquire cheap flats. It was basically an alternative approach so to speak. :)

They could aquire some from other SF parks that are saturated with flats (SFKK, SFGAdv). They could possibly scout closed parks that are auctioning off rides or even view online sites that sell used rides. Heck, they could comb through E-Bay and possibly get lucky. :)

I see your view with capacity, but lets face it, any new addition to even a high attendance park like SFGAm, is a good thing. As long as they aren't removing attractions while adding others = more options for people to enjoy. I highly doubt a couple new flats is going to create mass attendance increases so even low to average capacity flats won't be an issue to people waiting to ride them. *** Edited 12/4/2003 7:04:30 AM UTC by Chitown***

You're right - I'm not really arguing againt flat rides (and as I said, most have decent capacity to begin with when they're operated correctly). I'm just arguing that if people want a spinning coaster or a dark ride, there are better alternatives than wild mice and Sally rides.

However, realize that no matter what the park adds, the public flocks to whatever is new. So no matter what the park adds, it's going to have a good-sized line. And as I also said, unless flats are going to draw in more people, there's no motivation for SF to add them in the first place. I'm certainly not suggesting flats are going to draw in as many people as a new coaster, but they will draw a crowd (if not, what's the point?).

-Nate

Well, the point would be to add this to their customer satisfaction agenda which I know this SF park at least makes an attempt at doing. Its a low-cost addition that even if attendance didn't increase dramatically, it will please guests that see more options to take on.

Oh heck, even if SFGAm doesn't get squat for next year, it will still continue to be a well run SF park.

May of 2004 can't come soon enough. :)

Better alternatives than mouse coasters or Sally dark rides? Sez who? You?

They seem to do rather well wherever they're installed. Not everybody wants to be scared out of their wits by a ride. In fact, there's quite the risk of diminishing returns with bigger coasters because the potential audience gets smaller and smaller.

Everyone else but you seems to like 'em just fine. PKI's Scooby was a smash as was their kiddie suspended and rethemed log flume. VF's overbraked Mad Mouse outdraws at least one adult coaster if not two. And so on and so forth...

-'Playa

Hey I've been saying that the park needs a couple of good flat rides for years now. We have a few, but not the collection that we should have. One flat ride on a off coaster year is a great thing. Lets hope that they will keep this trend up for a few years.

Playa', aren't you always scolding people for not reading the thread before posting? I'm not arguing against mice and Sally rides because I don't like them. I'm arguing because they're low capacity and don't belong in a park that gets nearly 3 million guests each summer. VF's mouse outdraws Excalibur, sure, but (possibly) what other coaster? Considering the fact that it has half the capacity of any other coaster there, there's just now way.

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Chitown said:
Well, the point would be to add this to their customer satisfaction agenda which I know this SF park at least makes an attempt at doing.

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True, but most of SFGAm's customer service agenda has cost them little. If they're going to spend the money to install a new ride, they're going to market it in order to gain back the expense (and then some). As a business, that's just the way it works. Personally, I don't think SFGAm is all too hurting in the flat ride department, but that's not to say I don't want to see some new modern ones (Afterburner please!).

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Oh heck, even if SFGAm doesn't get squat for next year, it will still continue to be a well run SF park.

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Well, we can hope. We do have a new GM now...

-Nate *** Edited 12/4/2003 4:31:54 PM UTC by coasterdude318***

Nate-So what you're saying is any large park that purchases a wild mouse, a boomerang, an invertigo, or a Sally is making a bad decision? Because even with a great crew, none of these rides will reach a real high capacity. So why are they all around the world?

And I don't understand your argument against the Paramount parks. They may not draw as many people as SFGam, but they still can get pretty damn crowded on any given summer day, can't they?

Nate-You said "We do have a new GM now..."

Did I miss something. Did Jim Wintrode resign too?

No, Wintrode didn't resign - he retired. He is being replaced by Tim Black, who was GM at SFGAdv the past two years.

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PT300 said:
Nate-So what you're saying is any large park that purchases a wild mouse, a boomerang, an invertigo, or a Sally is making a bad decision? Because even with a great crew, none of these rides will reach a real high capacity.

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Yes, that's the basics of my argument. However, Sally rides and wild mice are far worse than Invertigos and Boomerangs. The Vekoma products, with a good crew, can get 800+ pph. Wild mice get than 500pph, and Sally rides are even worse. Still, notice a Boomerang/Invertigo gets almost half the capacity of most B&M rides. These rides just don't belong in large, popular parks.

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So why are they all around the world?

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They're found all over, sure, but mostly in smaller to mid-size parks. How many really huge parks have Invertigos or Boomerangs? There are a few (PGA, SFoT) but most of the highest-attended parks in the country don't have them, and for good reason.

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And I don't understand your argument against the Paramount parks. They may not draw as many people as SFGam, but they still can get pretty damn crowded on any given summer day, can't they?

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Sure, but you answered your own question. They don't draw as many people as SFGAm. That's not to say mice are "excusable" in the Paramount parks (on the contrary, I'd imagine lines get pretty darn long) but Paramount has never seemed too concerned with capacity in any of their parks.

-Nate

Nate, PGA is anything but huge.