SFWoA - 7/13 - Another Chance

Well I was a Six Flags basher for the better part of the last year - it's been about that long since I even thought it worth my time and money to travel to Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.

On Saturday though, I had some free time, and my Dad just got a new Porsche so we had good reason to take a drive - and aimed at Aurora, OH.

I'll start off by saying that the park passed. They certainly did not impress me, but they have made enough improvements to get a passing grade. Overall: C.

The good, the bad, and the ugly:

The good:
The coasters at this park are amazing. X-Flight is just wild, like nothing else in the world - I love the feeling of just that restraint holding me in on the first drop, I love the forcefulness of the loop, I love the double barrel roll. Just an awesome ride. I don't know why people say floorless coasters are not different - Batman wouldn't be half as exciting and fun as it is if it had a floor to it. I love this ride, one of my top 10 steel. Impulses are amazing rides to me, so even though Wicked Twister is so much bigger and faster, I still immensely enjoyed Superman. And the Villain and Big Dipper are two of my top wooden coasters (and I live 20 minutes from Kennywood).
The park also made some improvements to customer service - there were more bathrooms, there was better food (I was quite excited to get Subway in an amusement park) and the employees were more attentive to customer needs.

The bad:
X-Flight's line was terrible. The only reason we stayed in this insane line was that my Dad had never ridden the thing before. When we got in line, there were 2 trains and it was running decent capacity - then the back row of one train broke - then the entire other train broke, so they were down to one train with only 5 rows for the entire line. Took almost 45 minutes to get through half the queue. At this point, they stopped the ride entirely and announced that it would be 45 MORE minuntes until the ride was up and running. We decided to stick it out, but this was just annoying that we waited as long as some waits for Millennium Force for X-Flight - but it was worth it, what a ride!
There was still a lot of garbage around on the ground, and in the stations - I saw a few sweeps around, but not many. There were also weeds and mold everywhere around Serial Thriller and Batman - I think it takes two good rides with nice queue themeing and just drags them down. Instead of having 4 people working the Funnel Cake stand, get two to get a weedwhacker and take care of the line - and even two fountains would help move the water enough below these two rides that the water would not be so putrid (sp?).
And this isn't really any fault of the park, more a general comment - the clientel at this park just amazes me sometimes. I'm one of the foulest mouth people you'll know when I'm around my friends, but I realize that in a public situation, #1 there are little kids around who shouldn't be subjected to that and #2 there are families around who don't want to be subjected to that. So I found it very annoying that there was more swearing here than I have haerd in a long time. F this F that, S*** was that great, etc. Sometimes it was funny, like the "homey-g" behind us on Villain our second ride was swearing up a storm but just cause he was scared out of his mind and it was the funniest part of our day - but when you're out on the midways or in line, there's no reason for that. People were also just generally rude and inconsiderate. We were cut in front of in line countless times during the day, and although we didn't make a big deal about it, that is part of the reason I don't like this park - I just don't feel like subjecting myself to that more than 2-3 times a year, even if the coasters are amazing.

The ugly:
The people. If you added up the weight of all the people in the park on Saturday, and divided by the average human weight, you would probably get a number close to double the actual attendance. Now some people I realize cannot control their weight (genetics and all), but others are just excessive - and when they're walking around in bathing suits, cut off shirts and short shorts, it really is disgusting. I consider myself an accepting person, but some of these people were just plain out of line. It was almost as offensive to see some of these people, well for lack of a better word, jiggle down the midways than to see some normal or just slightly overweight guy with his shirt off (a situation which was touched on by an employee - a man was told he had to wear a shirt in line and he started making a big deal about it - seeing the people around him, I would have complained too). I'm sorry if this observation offends people, but come on - it's not that hard to pass up on that funnel cake for the sake of extending your life and not looking like a big pink blob sitting on a bench.

In conclusion, SFWoA is going places - they're going to be a great park in a few years, but there's still a LOT of work to be done. I will return, but not that frequently.

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Steel - #1 Mantis, #2 Millie, #3 Wicked Twister
Wood - #1 Thunderbolt, #2 Villain, #3 Beast
"The key to a happy life is moderation" -- Jon Stewart

So you will rate SFWoA a little more poorly just because people are overweight? Geeeze. You got some problems.

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Six Flags Worlds of Adventure Online
Team NL
NITRO ~ The most EXPLOSIVE coaster on the planet!

I didn't get the impression he rated the park poorly because of overweight people.

I DID get the impression that the clientele overall were foul mouthed and rude (you'll note he specifically said it was not the park's fault). THAT would defnitely lessen my enjoyment of a park, especially if I had to deal with line cutters. This is the third time someone has rated SFWoA fairly decently, yet mentioned the line cutters.

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I'd rather die living than live like I'm dead

Steve, take off your WoA colored-glasses for a second.

Rude guests will ruin your day at a park, no question. Out of the 11 parks I have visited this year, I will unabashedly say that WoA had the worst clientele by far. I will go as far as to say that some of their behavior IS the fault of the park, because not one ride had anyone stationed to check height, look for line jumpers, smoking, etc., leaving it up to the park guests to defend themselves. While I have no problem doing this, many people feel uncomfortable confronting line jumpers and smokers, and they shouldn't have to.

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No love for the whiners

No but its true fat people in tiny clothing is digusting and these people should be ashamed of thereselves.

I was stuck behind a 200 pound short puerto rican woman who decided to disgust everyone who saw her by deciding not to wear a shirt to cover up her grotesque fat rolls on a 45 min medusa line at SFGAdv.

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Track Record: 110 and counting.....

I agree with PittDesigner. Its not the fact that the people are over weight. It is the fact that they are ignorant, and dont care about anything or anybody. I stepped one foot out of Hurricane Harbor and was told i need a shirt to leave. Then this over weight woman walks by in this skimpy top and you can see all her rolls and she laughs at me. Actually has the nerve to laugh at me. Did nothing to her either. They all think they are better than you there also. Clientel included. They sat at taco bell and talked amongst theirselves for a good 10 minutes about where they were gonna party and i was the only one in line. WoA just has a way to go in certain departments. Hire more than one person to check the seatbelts and run Dodge-ems also. The one girl that was there doing it was getting annoyed. I would to if i had to tell a kid that is way to short to leave all the time and have to listen to their stupid parents. What do they think that ride restriction sign is for? I only encountered one smoker in a queue. It was for the deer park plunge and a guy ahead of us told him to put it out. This same guy that was smoking made his girlfriend sit in the very back of one of the cars and he sat in the very front. I turned around and he was smoking on the ride!!! Idiots. Thats what give parks bad names. Thats why there is garbage around too. Instead of looking for a can they just throw it wherever. Stupid little things like that ruin a park experience. I for one loved the park and where they are going in the coming years.

Yes, to add to this, there were smokers everywhere. It seems from the posts that were made here that there is a no smoking policy in lines at six flags parks? I was actually totally unaware of this as the employees sat there and watched people smoke in every single line. I was never NOT surrounded by people smoking in the lines. The employees made no fuss about it, so I just assumed it was a general six flags thing that smoking was allowed in line.

And to add to the confrontation angle, there was one point that Superman went down, and when we re-entered the line (after our Subway!! :) :) :)) there was a group of guys that cut right through the poles and tried to cut ahead - and my dad and another older guy in front of him actually told them to stay put and wait for their spot in line. The guy just went OFF on my dad and this other guy (and he was like maybe 20) F you man, I ain't tryin to Fin cut in front of you I wouldn't want your Fin place in line you MotherFer anyway. But the entire line sort of "rallied" around us at that point and actually made them stay there until all the people that had waited went through - another funny part of the day.

And it is the women who are the "largest" offenders ... in many definitions of the word.

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Yes, I agree with the overall rating of a "C".

Good: Superman, Batman, Villian, Shows at "SeaWorld"

Bad: Ferris Wheel and Skyscraper both closed all five days we were there (which were two of the few rides my youngest kids could ride) and Mind Eraser and Double Loop were both closed all 5 days. The snotty young lady at the Guest Relations booth told me, very patronizingly, that they all were closed for "Mechanical Reasons". As for rides for my two youngest kids at 47 1/2 and 45 inches tall WoA is very limited - PKI has much much more. The rude people smoking was very bad, especially in the kids areas where some people were within 5 feet of the "No Smoking" signs. My wife said last year the employees were much better about enforcing the no smoking. There was some of it lines but not too much and I was more than ready to blast people who try.

You people complain that people smoke at SFWoA, try standing in a line for Raptor! My lungs almost exploded from all the smoke.

And I totally agree with Mark about the rude guests ruining your day.

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Enjoy your voyage to the sun on the wings of Apollo's Chariot!

Bad clientele? Try SFGAm. Oh my GOD.

And yes, SFWoA has a somewhat disrespectful crowd too, but I've yet to see more rudeness at a park than I have at SFGAm.

No, I hate to paint with a broad brush, and I don't mean to. I'm just saying that the percentage of rude guests at GAm is higher than that of WoA. Though, that could also be due to the fact that GAm seems to be outdrawing WoA 2 to 1 this year. Hey, there's no viable alternative out here.