Six Flags - Flagship Park?

Living in Pennsylvania, I was never expecting to see a flyer come in the mail for Six Flags Magic Mountain. The other day, I did receive one in my mailbox. Is it me, or does Six Flags' marketing and advertising suck? Why would they advertise SFMM to people in PA?

But anyway, on to the point... It seems like most amusement park chains have their chief or flagship parks (ie. Cedar Point for Cedar Fair). Now, with the addition of Kingda Ka, would you say Great Adventure has now become Six Flags' chief park supplanting Magic Mountain? Why else would Six Flags want this monumental attraction at Great Adventure and not Magic Mountain?

That is truly incedulous... not that I don't believe you, but the fact that Six Flags would pull something like that. What a waste of ad funds. Oh, wait, it's not all that unbelievable, we are talking SF.

Someone else not too long ago in the Midwest(I think) posted here with the same exact thing from SFMM, so it happens. Why? I dunno. Have you ever registered on their site?

Six Flags almost seems to have a few "Top Tier" parks they like to keep up. Some companies have them, some its hard to say. I know some people will say that PKD is Paramount's flag ship while others will say PKI, and still others will say both (even though it was PCar that got 5 coasters and a highly themed interactive Dark Ride 6 years all together;)).

I've gotten stuff in the mail from Ohio. I bet they got our name somewhere (I'm sure not here before I get accused) from some enthusiast place. I've been to some shady amusement park sites where I'm sure I picked up some spyware which gave some site my name and address to a company that then sold my name to SF. The worse part is I'm not gonna be planning any trips to California soon, I'm only a freshman in high school!

Search here and here and here

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TeknoScorpion said:
Someone else not too long ago in the Midwest(I think) posted here with the same exact thing from SFMM, so it happens.

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Was just searching for that myself...but couldn't find it ;) :)

Six Flags seems to really be having problems, (as if we didn't know). The flyer you received might have been a fluke or it may be a desperate attempt to nationally advertise they're "flagship" park. With the amount of probems SFMM is having, the giant cost of operating such a large park, and the fact that they are not getting the returns they want on the property, I wouldn't be suprised if thats one of the parks SF INC. dumps. I could be prolly am wrong, but I wouldn't be suprised if they did.

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TeknoScorpion said:
Have you ever registered on their site?

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That would seem to be a logical explanation, at least that would be more "normal" than random mailings. I've never gotten anything from my closest Six Flags though... a few emails, thats all though.

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S2K said:Now, with the addition of Kingda Ka, would you say Great Adventure has now become Six Flags' chief park supplanting Magic Mountain? Why else would Six Flags want this monumental attraction at Great Adventure and not Magic Mountain?

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How does Kingda Ka by itself as a single ride, make Great Adventure uproot Magic Mountain?

And here's the answer to your last sentence: Superman The Escape. Back in '96-'97, that was the "Kingda Ka" of that era.

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S2K said:
Why else would Six Flags want this monumental attraction at Great Adventure and not Magic Mountain?

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Cause Magic Mountain already has a 400 footer. Gurnee has the height limit, and Texas . . . .well I'm drawing a blank there. But Great Adventure would be the next best choice.

I can probably explain why no Tejas, Antuanio:

Texas dosen't have Philly, New Jersey, NYC, Boston, D.C., Pittsburgh, or 5 kazillion other hugely populated metropolises(sp?) forming one Megalopolis like SFGAdv has around it. It would have been a high choice for me, which I think we discussed, ad nauseum, a few weeks/months ago.:)

Great Adventure is also in a highly competative market with Dorney Park and Hershey Park not too far away. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Great Adventure produces the highest attendance for Six Flags INC. So, having a park in a competative market that traditionally has been high in volume (not income) translates to getting the flagship ride in the chain.

By the way the new park manager at Great Adventure came from SFWOA, yes the same man that help drive that park into the ground now is in charge of a Flagship park and has been for one year. In my estimation things will get ugly.

Commish-Who still thinks Magic Mountain will be sold. *** Edited 12/23/2004 12:54:47 PM UTC by Commish***

Why would Gadv be considered the flagship park now? Medusa Nitro, Superman:Ultimate Flight and Kingda Ka? I think these rides being built in GAdv before a like ride was built at MM show that GAdv may have surpassed MM as the flagship park. Now if they could do something about the customer service this would truely be the flagship of the chain. Not that they didn't try to make strides last year by what I saw.

Actually, Texas is becoming like that, the drive between Dallas to San Antonio is becoming a megopolis. Waco, some other towns, Austin, New Braunfels. Texas is growing, now why they didnt get a 400 footer? Maybe not enough space although they could take out some of the unneeded parking.

-Cal

Commish, what are you talking about?

Rick McCurley was one of the main reasons that SFWOA made so many strides in its last 2 years as a Six Flags park. He is VERY welcome here and has done an outstanding job so far.

In NJ they are repainting rides, buildings, adding atmosphere, replacing walkways, adding attractions for the entire family to enjoy and working VERY hard on customer service. No, it wasn't perfect in 2004 but give the guy a break. He was only here for 1 season and is trying to fix everything that has been destroyed since 1998.

Things are really heading in the right direction. Here is a good article about him.

edit: to stay on topic :), I personally feel that SFI has every intention of turning Gadv into a destination resort complex. The Golden Kingom (not just Ka) is the first step in that direction so yes, I would think that defines it as the flagship park. *** Edited 12/23/2004 3:31:24 PM UTC by RTneedsTLC*** *** Edited 12/23/2004 3:32:12 PM UTC by RTneedsTLC***

Strides in it's last two years? SFWoA fell apart in it's last two years! It's first year was it's best and it went downhill from there. The last year there was a marginal at best improvement, but it was still light years behind what it was in its one season as SFO.

This year was my 2nd visit to GAdv and I was much more disappointed in the park than the year before. The year before, everything I tried to ride was open, the park was clean and the ops were quick and efficient and kept the lines moving. This year, Batman and Superman were closed, but without notification (not to mention no one standing out front to even give the company line of "i dunno") and didn't open while I was there (we left a little early), operations were slow, a line for Nitro that took 30 minutes in '03 took nearly an hour in '04 (and a lot of that was because of the absolute priority being given to Q-bot users and them blocking out the regular line, only to allow more Q-bot people to just walk on the ride as opposed to '03 where they had someone at the top of the stairs directing traffic), and the one stop in a bathroom had only one functional urinal in the entire thing.

I left GAdv in '03 thinking I'll be back every year because this place rocks. My '04 visit knocked it back to "if I have extra money/time" status, even with the addition of Ka.

I would say that GAdv was the flagship park even before the addition of Ka though. MM has more coasters, but the quality and the recent, high-tech rides seem more in abundance and better at GAdv.

While I think the series of rides in the recent past (the B&M series and now Ka) really made it into a flagship, something really needs to be done with the line situation. My first hand experience was not that Q-botters were given preference all around (only on GASM), but that operations were a total disaster, though I hope it was only cautionary after the S:ROS accident in SFNE. Trains were not even checked until the prior train was back in the station brakes, this made the block system useless. It was slow and painful and the efficiency of previous years for the people eaters like Nitro and Medusa wer obviously lacking, even to the gp who don't normally notice.

If this was his idea, then they need a new GM now!

I used qbot all of 2004. On nitro we go into the line on nitro . We are put into the last 2 rows of the ride. on nitro we are not given any special service for having it . Also its the same thing for medusa. What people dont understand is that with qbot we wait just as long as everybody else but we dont wait in line. we clock i nsay at 1 pm it will give us a time to come back say at 2 or 3pm . so technichally we waited 2 or 3 hours but not in the line.

I think gadv will probably become the flagship park. They are getting the golden kingdom.

I also dont know if this is true but on one of the other weebsite somebody posted about sfgadv buying more land i nthe area?

Also for the most part it was pretty clean. There were also a lot of rides closed and stopped for people puking and loosing things on the ride or not listening to instructions. Nitro was closed at leats 2 time for them to clean it off.

Six Flags can no longer spend in bulks like they used to. Nothing has been uprooted. SFGadv and SFGam are getting heavy investments for 2005, while SFOT and SFMM will be focused on in 2006.

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dragonoffrost said:
Why would Gadv be considered the flagship park now? Medusa Nitro, Superman:Ultimate Flight and Kingda Ka? I think these rides being built in GAdv before a like ride was built at MM show that GAdv may have surpassed MM as the flagship park.

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Thats not really valid, MM has a 4D, a Super Boomerang, and a Suspended... oh, and Goliath opened before Nitro ;) Just because GAdv got a Flyer and a Floorless first (of which MM got a clone) doesn't mean that they have "passed" MM.

Oh, majortom, people never take into consideration that Q-bot people wait just as long...

I have a wild idea guys, can they both be flagship parks? IE, Magic Mountain is the flagship of its side of the Mississippi, and Great Adventure on the other side? Is it possible to share the "title"