SFOT gone wild?

My home park is SFOT with too many visits to count since 1961. From lurking here I see that there are SFOT employees who occaissionally post so I relate the following to encourage them to add the perspective that I am not getting from my son and his friends.Yesterday afternoon (10/28) my son headed to SFOT with his friend’s family to celebrate his friend’s birthday. Their group had two adults, two 10 year olds and a five year old. Upon entering the park around 6PM they made a beeline for SpongBob 4-D and after an hour wait they completed the ride. The kids were hungry so the “family of five” headed to USA Food Court which is back toward the main gate from Sponge Bob. For those who are not familiar with SFOT their most “family friendly” area is supposed to be Looney Tunes USA where the cartoon characters and kiddy rides are. The front entrance to Looney Tunes is across from USA Food Court. As they headed to the Food Court they encountered a group of teenagers/young adults running from a fight that had broken out in front of the Food Court. My son and the parents said they were hiding behind vendor carts trying to not get run over. The family eventually made it to the food court (my son loved his hot dog, the chicken fingers are OK, and the pizza was horrible). As they sat at the food court they saw teenagers and young adults bouncing the giant basket balls you win at the arcades back and forth like beach balls are sometimes bounced around before concerts. Apparently someone became offended and started throwing regular basketballs at people and the gift shop storefronts. At some point the gift shop across from the food court closed its doors. The family felt the security folks were overwhelmed and appeared to be trying to go with the flow instead of removing the folks causing the problems. At 8PM our “family of five” and several others headed for guest relations to ask for refunds -- they were given passes to Holiday in the Park.

I've never seen this kind of stuff in my many visits to the park and am wondering whether this is a trend or if this was an isolated incident.

Thanks *** Edited 10/29/2006 7:07:10 PM UTC by TooBigforTTD***

I was also at SFoT yesterday, and I'll have to agree that everything was pretty much out of control. They had plenty of police, but there were way too many people in the park.

I did see one officer throw people out of line for line cutting, but that was it. I didn't see any fights, but with it being Fright Fest and with the number of teenagers in the park, something was bound to happen.

I've never seen the park this packed or this disorderly, but it was the last Saturday of operations before the park closes until Holiday in the Park, so I was pretty sure that it would be packed.

The fights inside of Six Flags parks aren't isolated to SFoT, but happen at quite a few of other parks. I know that Magic Mountain usually has the same problems as SFoT does as far as too many teens coming to the park along with gangs that also come. My advice is don't go to a Six Flags park too close to Halloween. I know that next year I won't be going to SFoT this late in October.