SFMM. Terrible terrible experience. 16th June. Park 4

I think that anything less than "operate the park like it's the only day it will ever be open" is not acceptable. That's just my opinion. Parks are entitled to bad days, but when it becomes a pattern, that's a problem.

The connection is that when I pay money for something, I expect good service.

Well if they're going to schedule them for 12-hour shifts, stagger the "newbies" so that their shifts start early and they're out early. Keeps them happy their first couple of weeks cause they get to go home early, and they can train before park operation hours so the PAYING guests aren't affected.

I don't go anywhere expecting perfection. I do go everywhere expecting some thought into a product and a quality product for my money. And I'm sorry but no, rider safety and go ride something else are NOT valid excuses for the park. They market a signature attraction, it should be there and operational. If it's down due to maintenance, well themz the breaks, but down because of employee training? Give me a break.

I like Jeff's theory there. If that was the one day a year SFMM was open, do you honestly think they'd have many customers "next year"?

Brett- As usual, I couldn't agree with your points more.

Soggy- The consequences of a bad pizza can be huge. Try having a SuperBowl party and the pizza tastes like cardboard. Or babysitting 4 kids and getting a bad pizza. And as for proper training in a pizza kitchen, it IS important... A bad pizza CAN kill you. Thats why there are all these food handling standards. But the analogy was towards customer service, and a good one at that. Here's another. If you bought a car to get you to and from work, would you be mad if after the purchase the dealer told you that you could only drive it an hour after you had to be to work so they could train a mechanic how to do maintenance and repair work? I mean, its important to train mechanics right? If they do a shoddy job, you could die... But you'd still get pretty PO'ed right?

Jeff- I like the way you put that. Operate like today is the only day the park will be open... Where can I send royalties when I steal that line in the future?

I don't go anywhere expecting perfection. I do go everywhere expecting some thought into a product and a quality product for my money.

OK, the pizza scenario works, let's go back to it... If you went to a pizza place and got a bad pizza once, that's not good. If you went there again and got a second bad pizza, well you gave them another chance. If all your friends always state that they have also gotten a bad pizza there, and you still go there expecting a good pizza, guess what? You'll probably get another bad one. At this point who's fault is it? Yours, for going to a bad pizza place expecting good pizza. As for cars, ever heard of a factory recall? They suck, but they still happen, and yes, I'd be pissed, but I'd still have to deal with it, and no amount of cry-babying will fix the problem.

X is a problematic coaster. Period. End of sentence. We are all enthusiasts and we all know that X is the most inherently flawed coaster since The Bat. If you go to SFMM expecting this to have 100% uptime, you are a fool. At this point, if the darn thing opens at all, consider yourself lucky. It DID open that day and gyjdnb hot his ride.

As far as marketing, I have not seen a commercilal for X for a long time now. They're pushing Scream and Hurricane Harbor these days, not X, they know better than to push X because it's always a crap shoot wether or not it will run. *** Edited 6/22/2004 4:14:33 PM UTC by Soggy***

But the point you seem to be missing on the whole issue Soggy is that it was NOT all mechanical. It was painfully obvious* by the running of the coaster with one person on it, and the described reaction of the ops when the mob arrived at the platform that it was not a major mechanical failure which was keeping X down, but the ineptitude of the ops to not realize that training a new employee at gate opening on one of the park's star attractions is not a good idea! Had he said "there was a dude with a hammer banging on the thing and the mob broke through and demanded a ride and we still had to wait another hour", I'd say stop whining, the thing's a lemon. But that wasn't the case - the mob arrvied, the ops weren't even phased by the blantent break of security, and they just opened the gates and let everyone on, therefore confirming the sound mechanical nature of hte ride at that time.

* - yes, I realize that there could have been a mechanical problem still, but the chance of that is about .001% and if you're going to give the park the benefit of the doubt for that .001%, you're a sucker ...

Meanwhile, let the Soggy's 5th Pizza baking contest begin!
I'm making mine outta Play-Doh! Hope he's gotta coupon...

-CO

That's what I meant by the Smoking Gun fallacy. We only know what gyjdnb saw. I wouldn't call it "painfully obvoius" by any stretch of the imagination. And when did I say the way that SFMM handles X was good? All I was stating is that delays on X happen, you might as well be prepared for it rather than complain about it. We all know complaining to Customer Servise does no good.

Doen SFMM put forth its best foot (either on having 100% uptime, training, food or customer service) on a daily basis? No! I never said they did. It's a miracle X runs at all.

So I guess the moral of the story is for mob mentality to rule, push down barricades and trample the hapless guard all in the name of good fun?

And to Playa: thanks for the chuckle. But I'm a much better BBQ chef than pizza.

I'm confused and since Playa just apparently busted on me and I don't understand it in the least, I give up ...

'Playa is just keeping us from taking it all too seriously.

To all of those who's opinion differs from mine, good discussion. I love being able to have disagreements without things degenerating into childish name-calling.

But let's go WAY out on the theoretical limb and say that someone new took over at SFMM who *does* in fact give a rat's arse about the way the park is run. (OK, I know, the odds of hitting the lottery and buying the park myself are better, LOL).

But in that case, wouldn't it be nice to know there are SOME "quick fixes" that could help the park be a more pleasant place to go? Too many of my friends who live in SoCal laugh when I ask about SFMM and say "we NEVER go there", or "I only go to get my SF pass so I can go to BETTER parks elsewhere in the chain".....I mean, seriously, give me a GOOD reason that other SF parks are SO much more enjoyable than a park that really *is* in a position to DOMINATE the SoCal mega-market.

Much like DisAstroWorld (and to TOO great an extent SFGAdv), if you have good rides you're already more than halfway there....poor Human Resources and bad attitudes from park mgt. WILL adversely affect the parks EMPLOYEES which will, eventually, send the park into a *tailspin* of poor customer satisfaction and declining profits....the employees that DO stay behind in such a situation, those are the ones who SHOULD probably be waiting in line....for an unemployment check...;)

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rollergator said:
Too many of my friends who live in SoCal laugh when I ask about SFMM and say "we NEVER go there", or "I only go to get my SF pass so I can go to BETTER parks elsewhere in the chain"

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Total usage of 2004 SF pass in California:

SFMM: 1x
Hours in park: 2

Total usage of 2004 SF pass out of California:

SFFT: 2x
SFAW: 2x
SFOT: 3x

Upcoming usage of 2004 SF pass out of California:

SFEG: 2x

Verdict: Best value for a pass ever, but I still want those 2 hours at SFMM back.

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Soggy said it best!

You do not go back to a bad pizza joint! Why go back to SFMM if you don't like the pizza? I understand if you are from Austrailia and never had a chance to do some of the rides. However, I just don't see how REPEAT customers are at this place anymore.

That was the gist of my post. Unfortunately we were not talking pizza at the time I posted earlier!

Why is SFMM any worse than the majority of the other Six Flags parks? I was at SFEG memorial day weekend and they were running 1 train on everything until the afternoon.

Also I went to SFMM on a Monday and KBF on the tuesday and both parks had 1 train operation. It wasn't until the GhostRider line got to an hour that they added the 2nd train, and SFMM added a 2nd train to X and Goliath in the afternoon as well. Incidentally I went on SFMM on the sunday as well and everything that can, was running 2 trains (even 4 on colossus) and all the rides except X and Deja Vu were a walk on.

I'm sure everyone would like 2 or 3 trains running on all the coasters, but I'd rather go to a park that at least HAS a good selection of coasters, than a crappy park with only 1 or 2 half decent coasters running max trains. And with over 10 visits to SFMM from the UK, all of their coasters have always been open when I've been (except Flashback, and Superman on my last visit), which is more than I can say for a certain other park with lots of coasters.

What i think i get from the discussions on all this, is a great sense of general disapointment towards SFMM. We all seem to want to love it (and i was so one of those people) we want to go and have a great time and not be let down by the staff or the runnning of the park, but unfortunatley that does not happen.

I have been 3 times now and had one bad day. Thats not really a great prercentage of good/bad days. 1 bad day out of 10 perhaps you could forgive, but for you locals who go more reguarly i am sure you are totally frustrated by the lack of change, and i can totally understand why, even though the best rides are there, you dont get back.

Moral of the story:- we all want the Mountain to be brilliant, and sometimes blindly defend it, even though deep down we know that what the doubters are saying is true.

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ShaneDenmark said:
Jeff- I like the way you put that. Operate like today is the only day the park will be open... Where can I send royalties when I steal that line in the future?

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The guy who said that to me is retiring in a few years and is very well taken care of in terms of the number of units he has. I think you know who he is...

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bassististist said:
Verdict: Best value for a pass ever, but I still want those 2 hours at SFMM back.

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Actual quote from Tejas Adventure: "Free parking, free admission, and I STILL feel ripped off"...:)

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Soggy said:
Saying that X was closed for no good reason is not true. Properly training a ride op is a HUGELY imprtant reason to keep people off the ride. Improper checking of a restraint could lead to a rider being ejected.

Besides, X almost always has a delayed opening for one reason or another. You could have gone the other way around the park and hit Goliath, Colossus, Scream, Riddler and Batman all in the time you were just standing in front of a coaster that wasn't even open. Those rides never get lines in the first hour of operation, even with a 1 train operation.

I'll agree that 5 minutes between dispatched on Deja Vu is as good as it gets. And you only had to wait 4 cycles? I sure wouldn't complain there.

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Hi soggy!!! I seem to remember not getting to ride X last year when I visited SFMM. Your qite right about it being a "cantankerous contraption". My luck hasn't been all bad however, l was fortunate enough to ride not one, but two Deja Vu's. The one at SFMM, as well as the one at SFoG. I remember you told me about not being able to ride SoB, sad- but IMHO you didn't miss much. Sad to say the ride failed to impress me on my visit to PKI two years ago. As for SFMM, I have no complaints about the customer service (except for X being closed) during my visit last year. I was there all day and no trouble riding the other coasters at the park. I picked a good slow day to go, not too many others there at the time. BTW, I'm glad the ride op on Scream managed to get you squeezed into the front seats (poor thing), I can't help but wonder if you were able to ride up front since then. The only other complaint I had about SFMM was the condition of the restrooms, they were quite filthy compaired to the ones at SFoT. Come to think of it, the restrooms at Knotts weren't that clean either. Hope you got my e-mail. *** Edited 6/23/2004 11:43:43 PM UTC by Dan1***

From my experience working at the mountain what likely happened is a miscommunication. After the test runs with people in them went by the ride was probably ready to open, but no one went and informed the poor guy holding back the mob of that. They overwhelmed the fences, and stormed the station, where the operators were probably wondering where the crowds were. The operators were getting some training in, and when the mob did show up they let them on the ride, having been ready for them for awhile now. Just my theory, but really they need to get a phone at that bridge or something to let the poor employee when it's time to let the bulls run.

5 minute cycle time for Deja Vu is very impressive, especially 4 trains in a row. The ride is plagued with strange seating configurations, and operational proceedures which delay everything a lot more than it should be delayed.

-Ride_Op