SFWoA is SF's Leader in Quality!
Zero-G said:
I'm very excited at the prospect of having these two run things because I think they will do amazing things this summer.
I hope they really do amazing things, as you say. I also hope that if they do, Six Flags doesn't get the bright idea of pulling them to other SF parks in need of similar help...
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--Greg, aka Oat Boy
My page
"I can't believe I just left a nuclear weapon in an elevator." -- Farscape
Secondly, why do you have so much confidence in the two newly promoted people you talk of? You've been there for what...one season? I don't see how you can really know them all that well. Have you even worked with either of them? I have respect for one of them but not the other. Yes all their talk sounds good but i hate to break it to you....you seem to hear the same crap every season. I will admit there seems to be some positive changes, especially with guest services. I myself am very excited about them too. I just hope they stick to their plans. If previous experience talks, they rarely do. I hope I am wrong though.
I do think this will be a lot better season for WoA. I also think a lot of you will be surprised when you visit, if you do lol.
If you're looking for proof that I worked there, ask Kylie, Sandy or Tanya... they know about me. Or you could ask David S, or this year's atl, Brian. Best proof of all would be that A) I know who Bob Patterson is, and B) Have been there long enough for him to yell at me not to touch anything that moves (which actually ain't that long at all).
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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)
Bob Patterson? Who's that? If your gonna type peoples names atleast know their last names because that isn't his last name. Oh and I'm sure the other team members love their names on the boards. Yet you defend the uppers names. I guess it's rank....
Zero-G said:
Yea Sam, I worked X-Flight and Superman alot. In fact I distinctly remember some CoasterBuzz folk staying on a train for almost a half hour last October simply because there was no waiting in the station.
Ooh, ok. Sorry, they saw me on Superman in October. I didn't see them at X-Flight. I didn't infact go up to X-Flight in october except maybe once on a rainy night. Sorry, I was under the impression that he was Bob P.-something. I guess that Patterson part just came in from somewhere.
BTW, what's your name?
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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)
*** This post was edited by Zero-G 4/15/2003 11:29:16 PM ***
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WOOF !
And something I just want to add. If you don't like SFWoA to the point where just hearing about it disgusts you, don't go. Don't force yourself to go to a park thinking that its going to be better. It may be, but don't go unless you want to go.
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A.K.A. Batman Bastard
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SFWoA TL 2003!
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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)
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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM
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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003(Find Me, Win a prize!)
Two things come to mind after reading these posts.
1) i think most people in the northern ohio area enjoyed GLP far more than SF WOA. It wasn't pretty, or high tech; but there were great flats, one decent coaster, and most important it was affordable in every way. I always had a good time there. I would gladly trade in anything from the past three years to have the old park back. ALthough that is just a pipe dream.
2) Once in a blue moon i have to defend the park managemnet at WOA. Here goes. There are a few things mentioned in this thread that is directly the fault of the parent company.
Food prices were reasonable until the 2000 season when the company decided that the park wasn't "in line" with other summer seasonal venues (ie the Jake, Blossom, and even CP). So as a result you see the prices go up and up.
Second, part of the problem with the park is the lack of seasonal employees to do the job properly. First it was because the management wasn't allowed to increase seasonal hiring pay rates during the most healthy economy in most people's memory. Minimum wage just couldn't compete even with high school kids. The other problem is that the seasonal budget just gets smaller and smaller. How can you run a coaster or gift shop at full capacity when you can't even allowed to spend the money to do it right. Now that hiring should be easier to do there isn't the budget room to get it all filled up. One can only hope that the compay realizes some day that you have to spend money in areas other than coasters and park acquisions.
The problem with management came in 2001 when the company was willing to loosen the purse strings a bit because of the merger. Rates went up and the park opened with pretty much no budget. But the fools that be blew their wad by the end of May and the rest is history. The issue now is that these people must learn (like the GLP crews) how to spend the money wisely. By putting nearly all seasonal spending into revenue producing areas, not in support areas; plan for the big days; and send them all home when it rains. Discipline is the only way out of the spiral.
Thirdly, every years starts with "it's time to focus on guests first" and crashes in misery when some of the innevidable happens. It will take a strong leader to gets things changed.
Finally it's nice to know that some things never change. Maintenance is full of lazy, obstinate, ornery men who only respond to beer. (this statement is not to be confused with ALL)
Mark W. Baruth said:
If SFWoA reps are reading trip reports from this site and others, that's even worse! That would mean they know that a large percentage of their customers walk away dissatisfied, yet choose to do nothing about it. I would prefer to believe that they live in ignorance-at least that way I don't feel guilty for making an annual trip up there to wait in long lines and receive terrible service.------------------
SRM 2003-Look for the guy with my name on his chest
It's pretty easy to consider this park a "bastard" of sorts, but there are a lot of times I don't completely understand anecdotal tales of dissatisfaction about somebody's visit to Six Flags. Admittedly, it's not the best park I've ever been to, but I've NEVER been able to say that I haven't, at the VERY least, enjoyed my day at an amusement park, even given the worst case scenario of bad food, rude ride ops, and multiple rides closed for servicing. If going to an amusement park starts to become a chore and unenjoyable, I say just simply stop going. Furthermore, why make an annual trip anywhere if you're dissatisfied year after year? I don't get it........
I've said it before, there's an anti-Six-Flags bandwagon out there, and everyone wants on it.
Premier saw a park with a lot of potential and I would have agreed with them. Their answer was to throw a lot of money into big capital projects. There really was no big reason to open three coasters in one season. Most parks don't open more than one coaster every couple of years, if that. They got stuck in the Field of Dreams mentality, "If you build it, they will come." When that investment didn't see quick results at the gates, the purse strings were shortened. Suddenly the operators didn't have enough money to properly staff the park and we started seeing complaints of long lines, dirty bathrooms, general poor guest service. I never heard those complaints in the 80's and early 90's even when there were only 3 and then 4 coasters. Geauga Lake was considered a safe, quaint, affordable alternative to Cedar Point.
Of course, the physical growth of SFO coincided with the growth of our economy and suddenly kids saw other job opportunities that paid more, were inside, gave them mall discounts, etc. The quality of available employees was diminishing just as the park needed more of them. Why doesn't Cedar Point have that problem? They have housing. The vast majority of their staff is from outside of the Sandusky area and more and more are coming from overseas where economies aren't as strong as ours.
Then Sea World is sold to Premier and the fatal mistake, in my opinion, is made. Premier rushes to get the animal side of the park open which isn't easy since they lost many of the star attractions. Heck, they really didn't have a great idea on how they would get people from one side to the other and as late as last season they were still tweaking that.
I think they had two better options. One was to keep the park closed that first summer. Keep enough folks on the payroll to care for the animals, perform maintenance etc but write off the summer. They would have had the opportunity to get their act together before the next season.
Second, and maybe better, reduce the length of that first season for that side of the park and reduce the admission price. It would stay a separate gated park and they could have offered combo passes, reduced admission for a second day at that park after a visit to the rides side, etc.
Instead they made it one huge park when the attractions on the wildlife side had decreased and staffing was already at dangerous levels. Once they had to make the cutbacks that were inevitable, both parks started showing closed stands, and longer lines for the one's that were still open.
There are layers of internal issues as well that shouldn't be debated here but they certainly add to the overall problem. They let the good managers on the wildlife side get away while retaining others that probably aren't a great asset. Who approved the "better than Cedar Point" marketing plan? We all saw that train coming before it crashed.
In any event, you see how these issues are complex and varied. There is no one correct answer as to what went wrong but to this point they haven't made a real effort to correct it.
Bottom line is that Gary Story didn't listen to Walt's advice: "You can dream, design, create and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make that dream a reality."
I thought 15 years ago and I still think now that if they ever do it right at Geauga Lake they will give Cedar Point some serious competition. They still have that potential. But right now the park to the east is just a little fly buzzing around the heads of the CP execs but isn't doing any real damage.
*** This post was edited by wahoo skipper 4/18/2003 3:52:58 PM ***
wahoo skipper said:
I thought 15 years ago and I still think now that if they ever do it right at Geauga Lake they will give Cedar Point some serious competition. They still have that potential. But right now the park to the east is just a little fly buzzing around the heads of the CP execs but isn't doing any real damage.
*** This post was edited by wahoo skipper 4/18/2003 3:52:58 PM ***
Just to add to what Wahoo said, Cedar Point may seem to be making the right decisions now, but one bad decision can create a lot of problems for a company. A series of bad decisions can wipe you out.
wahoo skipper said:
That is very true, but I am not sure you can point to a bad decision that Cedar Point/Fair has made in the last 10 years. You need only look at the stock price to see that they are doing well. I wouldn't be surprised to see another split in the next year or two.
Without a fortune cookie I can't tell you when it will happen but a mistake will be made, it may not be this year, it could be another fifty years but corporations make mistakes and Cedar Fair will make there mistake at some point. All I have to do is look at my stock portfolio to see a list of stocks that have made there share of mistakes.
With a new company, one mistep usually spells disaster for the company, but often as not the core people simply close that name, move on and start the same company with another name and keep right on going.
What kills bad companies isn't mistakes, its just a general malaise about quality, sales, development, etc. These are never accepted as the problem, everyone is still blaming 9/11 and the war for their earnings shortfalls when they occur.
Good companies are that way not cause they lucked into making the right decisions, but because they're full of motivated and effective people in the right positions.
Bad companies are that way because they have unethical, unmotivated or just sloppy people in the wrong positions.
This of course doesn't apply to small companies and startups, but they don't really enter into this discussion.
Wahoo Skipper said:
"They let the good managers on the wildlife side get away while retaining others that probably aren't a great asset."
You couldn't have it more backwards. Beyond Ride ops (which SWO had few) there aren't to many GLP/Premier employees left in the park. I think the Finance director may still be there... then there is Brenda in HR and some of her "seasonal" employees.... hmm maybe the manager of games is still there, and his warehouse guy... well... (scratching head) I think that's it beyond some very nice ladies (and one not so nice) in the marketing/promotionsPR area. When SFO was flagged it was almost completely GLP original management. You see when Funtime was bought it was Premiers first acquisition beyond Frontier City. GLP, Darien and Wyandot was a huge step for the company to get into the game. And they didn't have the expierenced people to put into the park at that time. Well life went on at GLP. Premier invested steadily and the bottom line got bigger. More and more was expected of that park financially and it came through straight to 2000. The directors of Ops, Maintenance, Retail, as well as most of the HR and back of the house types were GLP originals. Very few were added from 96 to 00. They had grown used to the crazy restrictions of the company as well as the complications that arose with the outstanding economy. The park was changing on the surface but it was still GLP on the inside.
Then the merger.
By this time the GLP crew had been with the company longer than just about anyone else besides Frontier City. They helped create the value in the company and its (then) solid financial setting. I painted a rosy picture about pre 2001, of course it wasn't perfect. But it worked. Not only financially but it put a fine product on the field. A few key events happened in the early stages of the 2001 season that started the trend for the worse.
One, the single most important personality (in my opinion) was moved and promoted into the corporate structure of the company. This persons absence effectivly removed the single force that created cohesion between the different departments. He was respected by all and got things doen in a company that didn't let you. All in all it really sucked because his replacement was so utterly opposite in EVERY way, that those department directly run by these guys were destroyed!
Two, a new GM was moved in (who some think was brought there to be the fall guy in the probable case that the park fell flat on its face). The move was made late in the preseason and was done far to late to have any social/political impact on the state of the park. They even kept around the two old GMs to look over this guys shoulder all season... Blech what a mess.
Three, more than half (i can't remember but it was probably close to 2/3rds) of the SWO full time staff was kept aboard.(also note that SWO ran in excess of 200 full time employees). Few were let go and many bailed at the horrid possibility of haveing to give up BEC for the retched SFI. Others stayed and recieved semi promotions or kept their status and seniority, even directors.
So it broke down into SWO and SFO camps (Roughly 130 to 88). Finance, Ride ops, Maintenance were headed by SFO (ie GLP), while SWO inherited the reseperated Retail and Foods along with Entertainment, Park ops, HR (also a new seperate dept), and of course Animal training and whatnot. So 6 to 3 and it was a battle. Since the bulk of GLP staff was in the operating departments (Foods, games, gifts, rides and park services) the bulk of the staff was answering to a group of BEC directors who showed no interest in what input they had, or experiences they had to draw from(despite their steller running record).
In fact, despite all denials it seemed that the BEC group was attempting to systematicly eliminate the old GLPers for God knows why. But that of course is up for debate. In the end the volume accounts of arrogant comments and behaviors, and complete disreguard for their peers seems to have some validity.
Well, as anyone would do when their input and participation was reduced, the old school management began to fall off one by one. Starting with about 88 in 2000 i would guess that there is now less than ten left of the group that lead that little park into somewhat national prominence within the industry.
Who's left? The BEC crew (minus ops of course). The funny thing is that in all this effort to push out the people they didn't like or respect, the company didn't fill in many of the holes. So now you have a bunch of under qualified, ill-equipt folk who keep making the same mistake again and again. All the while under staffed and pissed because they are working for a park and company they hate. Furthermore they could have taken the offered buy outs in 2001, lived it easy and found a job with their beloved BEC again in places far more lovely than Ohio.
If i didn't love the park as much as i do, it would be funny!
*** This post was edited by meangene 4/19/2003 12:47:49 AM ***
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