Six Flags Park changes for the year. Are they doing it.

Yesterday I was surfing the web and came across a site devoted to Six Flags Great Adventure. This being my home park, I've noticed a lot of changes going on. Minor and major park changes. Example Shade over Superman and Nitro Q-Lines as well as music playing at then entrance. People cleaning up trash and the WB characters are even out. I've also noticed that paint jobs on coasters as well as most food stands and shops being open. http://www.gadv.com/71404.html

With this happening at this park I was wondering how other SF parks in the chain are doing. So has your SF park made any changes? I know SF INC stated they were gonna improve over parks before building any new coasters.

Six Flags New England promised shade structures for Superman and Batman queues. Here we are at the end of July and they have yet to arrive.

Lots of general improvement made at SFMW, including much needed shade added throughout the park. Medusa station looks especially nice:

http://sfmwzone.com/updates/6-20-04/

I think I've seen some changes for the better at SFGAm this season. The staff seems to have a better overall attituide and friendliness and adding things like Coasters After Dark and an actual coupon book for SP Holders have helped. There have been lot's of little additions this season that have added up to a better experience I think.

The park has been quite clean even on busy days and in general things have looked pretty good.

I've also seen some better customer service this year and they seem to be handing out exit passes and drink coupons more freely this year for even minor inconveniences.

Deja Vu has coninued to be a maint. problem and King Chaos hasn't been open much but I've been happy with overall ride performance.

With all that said, compared to all the complaints I read about some other SF Parks, SFGAm was never that bad anyway.

SFGAm put shades for Giant Drop, Viper, and The go-karts queues, I have noticed alot of improbements.

Well, I for one am *shocked* that SFGAm once again remains one of the best parks in the chain....OK, maybe not THAT shocked....or even surprised. ;)

SFMM has really picked up the pace and has made lots of improvements in this first half of the year. X has 2 trains running now, and has employees to make sure nobody is cutting in line. Deja Vu was running well all day when i went. Cameras are working on a lot of coasters now. The park is clean, employees, many food and game stands are open. The overall atmosphere has improved. Superman looks as if it hasn't been touched in a year...i don't know what the hell is taking so long. If only Superman would run, RR and Batman could get 2 trains running, i would say the park is almost as good as it can get. Wascally Wabbits burgers are the bomb yo!

Re: SFMW, if this is what improvements look like, I'd hate to see what the park was before!

Maybe there are some infrastructure improvements and such, but the staff as a whole is still quite apathetic, slow, and generally unfriendly. Has Medusa ever run 3 trains? Ever?

SFDL has added seatbelts to nearly every single ride...

...but other than that, absolutely no visable changes at the park from 2002 to 2003... attractions, general improvements, or otherwise. Still has no music playing ANYWHERE in the park, a lot more immigrant workers who aren't nearly as friendly as the regular locals, & no shade over the Superman queue which is needed if the line gets too long, lots of asphalt that needs to be repaved or replaced still isn't & looks very unprofessional, and most of the bathrooms still reek & are very small.

Nope... their so-called campaign for general park improvements seem to have had a NEGATIVE effect at SFDL. It's pitiful.

Great Adventure has added "themed" music to all areas of the park now. It actually sounds very impressive. It has a disney sound to it.

They also replaced most, if not all of the bathroom fixtures and staffed more employees for the bathrooms to stay cleaner. (and they are)

The shade canopies are nice as are the tons of replaced concrete pathways. Batman was finally painted and has the batmobile back in front of it, trees were added in baron places with benches for sitting in the shade, and TONS of landscaping was done. Almost every building on Main Street has been rehabbed. The roofs were replaced on many buildings and many behind the scenes items were spruced up.

The Saw Mill Log Flume has been completely rehabbed and looks brand new.

I'm impressed if this is year 1 of a 3 year plan. There is probably even more I forgot to mention. It will take some time for the ride rehabs to pay them back in more uptime and reliability across the park but at least they are doing it. Saw Mill Log Flume, Batman, the Wave Swinger have been done and now the Runaway Train is in the process. I know they have many more planned.

Of course, many will always complain but so far, I've been more than happy. Its a huge step in the right direction.

Yeah ApolloAndy, the new shade areas are definitely a welcome relief to what was there before, nothing! And the new gates/bag checking area is definitely a big improvement from previous years. I'm actually surprised we got what we did anyway, figured the unplanned multi-million renovation of Pacific Stadium for Shouka would have eaten up the entire 04' budget!

And like I mentioned to you, haven't really been to the park on many busy days. If I did though, was just to hang out, didn't dare wait in those huge lines for anything until later when everyone leaves. The ride crews at SFMW never did seem to be too on it anyways, sounds like that much hasn't changed.

I'm pretty certain Medusa did run 3 trains the 1st year or 2 when it was all the rage, but I've also never seen it run all 3 since. I suppose you'd have to have an efficient crew first before even considering running all 3 trains, which SFMW doesn't. Maybe 05' will see some cash budgeted for the better training that was promised this year.

SFGAm Improvements include:

• Lots of new Season Passholder perks including early entrance into the park through a season pass entrance and to shows. Plus Coasters after Dark Events.
• New landscaping around the park.
• Lots of repainted buildings and about half the park has been repaved.
• Batman and Demon painted. Eagle's station was repainted and recieved new air gates.
• Every trash can now says "Six Flags Great America" on it. Something that reminds me of what Cedar Fair does.
• Lot's of Character's are out and about throughout the park.
• The Mardi Gras area of course looks great, odd thing is that they haven't advertised for it at all on T.V. (besides the media days)
• Shading added to Giant Drop's and Viper's line.
• Triple Play and Logger's Run were both rehabbed.
• Demon and Whizzer running 3 trains on crowded days...something that rarely happened last year.

And Im sure there are some I forgot, but that's all I could think of.

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SFNE Freak said:
Six Flags New England promised shade structures for Superman and Batman queues. Here we are at the end of July and they have yet to arrive.

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I also remember they announced there would be attendants in all of the bathrooms, and that they were going to make some improvements to the parking lots. Have either of those improvements become reality yet?

The St Louis woodies are running awesome this year.

I'm glad to see they are really just focusing on improving the parks. Now if we could clean up some of the crowds at SFGADV, I wouldn't be as embarrassed to go there.

Did the Bat Mobile come from SFWOA?

One thing I noticed about SFGADV was that the season pass entrance has been closed everytime I go. HAs this been all season or just my luck. Also I heard Stunt MAn Free Fall has been closed lately. REhab???

Right on RavenTTD. The Boss at St. Louis was fantastic when I went just a few weeks ago.

I went on a Thursday to St. Louis, and I could almost swear it was a weekend because it was packed.

Pros:

Tidal Wave was re-painted blue this year; a few areas that they missed though. They re-tracked a good portion of the drop after the brakes on The Boss.

All the Bugs Bunny & Friends were much more noticeable this year than I had ever noticed previously.

Rubbermaid tote containers were now at each ride so that riders could put their belongings in them before riding. It is a step up, but it would be very easy to make bookshelves or just shelves on the wall so people didn't have to stack their stuff on top of other people's in the totes.

All rides were running..... except the newest ride, Scooby Doo and the Scary Swamp. That is typical of St. Louis though; I rarely find a ride down for the full day at St. Louis.

Cons:

Screamin Eagle is still in need of some desparate work. I don't feel safe riding that anymore because with the way it feels like it is tearing itself apart.

My previous experiences at St. Louis seem to tell me that the staff was quicker loading the rides. When I went a few weeks ago, I walked up to the gates for Mr. Freeze and only four people in front of me. I stood there for almost 10 minutes waiting for three trains. The ride is only 30-40 seconds long. Mr. Freeze broke down later in the day and didn't re-open.

Ninja was having some major issues it seemed. I walked up and an op said it was down. We went to ride Batman (an hour wait also with some trouble here-and-there). Got off the batman and saw that the Ninja had some riders stranded on the brakes right before the station. Again, ride ops here were chatting back and forth, laughing and not paying attention to loading people.

I saw several on-ride photo booths not operating such as the River King Mine Train.

Six Flags still thinks they are going to woo more customers by upping the price of a 20 ounce bottle of coke and their extremely high food prices. Pop last year was $2.50 a bottle; this year it is $3.00. Holiday World sells Funnel Cakes for about $2.50 each; Six Flags had them for about $5.75.

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Overall, it was a good trip that we had but there are still many things to work on. I understand that St. Louis is not a major park in regards to SFMM or SFGAm but it is known to be a "family" park. For a family to eat at the park, it would cost somewhere around $30-$40. That is nonsense.

I went with two other people and we stopped at the Pizza Hut down the road after we were done at the park and ate for $16.

Little by little, Six Flags is making improvements. If you think about where they are coming from though, there is no way major changes are going to happen overnight. With a few exceptions, the parks still suck. But things are getting better...slowly.

And they've frustrated so many people who refuse to go back, I think they are smart by shifting their advertising to the next generation of thrill fans, and hopefully they can hold on to the next group. On my last visit to Great Adventure, the average age seemed to be about 15-22 years old, tons of them. This is where the future lies as these youngsters obviously haven't been burned yet. Now's the time to pull it together.

And don't underestimate this age group, they have basically dictated to top of the music billboard chart, and movie box office the last three years.

I think SFGAm tried to offset their drop in ticket prices by increasing the food prices. Since I am one of those people who refuse to buy any food in a park unless it is a Busch, Universal or Disney park it doesnt effect me much but I still cant believe the price increases. The coke company charges what, $.10 for a 20 oz bottle, $3 is way to much to charge your customers.

CoasterDude316 , is the early admission for pass holders for those only with SFGAm passes or can my SFKK pass work? Going there in about four weeks for first time... Thanks,

Brian

I've only been to one Six Flags park this year-SFNE, and I have to say things are still not great. It was a busy Saturday, yet they were only running one train on Cyclone (which was taking them forever to load), Thunderbolt (does it have two trains?), Mind Eraser (which we skipped due to hour+lines all day), and Scream was only running two towers. On top of that, three flats were down-Time Warp, Double Trouble, and Twister. To me, it seems like some of these things are almost done on purpose so you'll buy a Q-bot (which we resisted).