Superman Ultimate Flight opening soon at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

kpjb said:

...confusing capacity with efficiency...

I suppose I didn't explain that thoroughly enough. If a company cares about efficiency, they should care about capacity before they even install the ride. The two go hand-in-hand and serve the same purpose; customer satisfaction.

So you wouldn't mind if the park installed a unique low capacity flat ride, then? Like... I don't know... a drop ride on the side of an existing coaster for example. :)

Go and look at the Magic Mountain Lex Luthor drop ride topic here in CoasterBuzz and you will see that I do not like that at all. That's even worse, in my opinion. The same company owns both parks.

Uuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh. No. Just no.

There is no conspiracy, there is no cash grabbing, there is no plan to piss you off and ruin your day. If you don't have a good time, it's usually nobody's fault but your own. (or the unruly kids kicking basketballs around, but that's a different story)

Ok, here's my new canonical example from my trip last week a Friday in June before schools let out for the summer:

Fahrenheit vs. Storm Runner

Got in line for Fahrenheit around noon. Employee at front said line was about an hour. 12 people per cycle, dispatching every two and a half minutes or so (thanks to the new line cutting program gunking up the loading). Line was about an hour.

Walked across the midway to Storm Runner. Trains 66% larger (granted, maybe Fahrenheit can't accommodate trains any larger due to vertical lift) and double station. Trains launching about every one and half to two minutes. Employee said line was 45 minutes to an hour, was actually 20 minutes.

Why would you not invest in an extra station block, even a serial one where you can load two trains at a time (like Cheetah Hunt) for Fahrenheit? It seems like the extra expense (maybe another half million bucks? I have no idea. I'm pulling that out of my butt) to double the capacity of a$12 million dollar ride would be worth the investment.

I guess the short version of my argument is, why invest $12M in a ride with bad capacity when you can invest 12.5M in a ride with decent capacity?

Edit: I have no idea how much it would cost to increase the capacity of S:UF SFDK specifically, or Green Lantern SFMM, or Lex Luthor DoD, or whatever, but they figured out how to do it with TTD, KK, Cheetah Hunt, and Storm Runner (never been on Maverick, but I assume they have multiple station blocks, since I've never heard complaints about capacity) and it seemed to be worth their while, so what has changed?

ApolloAndy said:

Why would you not invest in an extra station block, even a serial one where you can load two trains at a time (like Cheetah Hunt) for Fahrenheit? It seems like the extra expense (maybe another half million bucks? I have no idea. I'm pulling that out of my butt) to double the capacity of a$12 million dollar ride would be worth the investment.

I guess the short version of my argument is, why invest $12M in a ride with bad capacity when you can invest 12.5M in a ride with decent capacity?

It just becomes a return on investment question; does $X cost (installation, maintenance, staffing, etc) for Y additional capacity to reduce a T1 minute wait to a T2 minute wait = revenue > $X

Unless you do planning/budgeting (or similar) for a theme park, it's hard to say, but there is a thin line you draw on. TTD regularly gets to multi-hour waits during peak season, and CP in general is a full-day park to hit all of the rides, so getting people back on the mid-ways to buy lunch and dinner before going home makes sense. Extra capacity for a ride at a park like Dorney, probably not. Everywhere in between becomes a debate

I always have a good time at parks, Josh. The only "conspiracy" as you put it, that I think is possible is that Six Flags in particular has found that longer lines sell more FlashPasses. I'm not saying that it is a proven, undeniable fact, but if I owned a park, and I was responsible for making as much money as possible, I would have to look into it to see if it would be beneficial to the bottom line.

Parks pull out all kinds of tricks to part customers from their money. They have it down to a science. Why is red and yellow a popular color choice for the big, easily seen roller coasters? Because those two colors make people hungry. Why is the food salty? So you'll buy another drink. Why do they advertise FlashPass right under the sign that tells the (usually exaggerated) wait time for a particular ride?

...Visiting the park wouldn't piss me off and ruin my day because I'd just get a FlashPass. Problem solved. :)

Who would have ever thought that complaining about extremely low capacity on a brand new, high profile, highly visible, highly marketed new ride would be so complicated?

jonnytips said:
It just becomes a return on investment question; does $X cost (installation, maintenance, staffing, etc) for Y additional capacity to reduce a T1 minute wait to a T2 minute wait = revenue > $X

I guess I still can't see how an installation could be worth $12M to serve 360 pph and not worth $12.5M to serve 720 pph. I mean, if your park only serves 5000 people a day, sure, but for something like Hershey or SFMM especially, where lines are an issue, the extra 5% investment to double the number of people who get to enjoy your ride seems like a no-brainer.

So it's okay for Holiday World to get a low capacity flat because flats aren't as popular as coasters, but it's wrong for Six Flags to get a low capacity flat because it's six flags?

I think you're on to something.

I've haven't had the privilege of visiting Holiday World yet, and I haven't been to a SF park in many years, but I think that it is safe to assume that Holiday World, with four coasters, is has much different needs, concerning capacity, than most of the big Six Flags parks.

It's a decent argument, Tek, except that Six Flags Magic Mountain is one of the chains highest attended parks. They are building a record breaking, highly visible tower ride that just might bring people from all over the world. It will get newsworthy attention from many media outlets. I fail to see how that compares to any flat ride at Holiday World.

Double Standards are fun.

No. The needs of each park are different.

So are the needs and wants of each park patron.

Travis, when we talked about the needs of SFDK, it was still an issue because you don't like Six Flags adding a low capacity coaster. The needs of the park were discussed in this thread but you demanded that good customer service meant having high capacity, period. But now you're backtracking because a park that is known for good customer service installed a low capacity flat and somehow that's different.

No, that's a double standard. According to your original arguement.

LostKause said:

I've haven't had the privilege of visiting Holiday World yet, and I haven't been to a SF park in many years, but I think that it is safe to assume that Holiday World, with four coasters, is has much different needs, concerning capacity, than most of the big Six Flags parks.

Your logic is back-a-wards.

Holiday World has only three adult coasters, and has an attendance of around 1.2 million. Magic Mountain has 15 adult coasters for an annual attendance of 2.7 million.

Magic Mountain has the capacity thing covered and can afford to put in low capacity rides. (Hasn't the complaint about that park always been that it's all coasters and no variety of flats?)

Holiday World, with 45% the attendance of Magic Mountain, but only 20% of the "high capacity" coasters is the one in need of higher capacity rides, it would seem.

It's not just you. It's the enthusiast double standard. If HW or Knoebels does something, it's automatically validated. Six Flags = suckos.

^ Exactly. This idea that adding a low capacity ride to your line up at a major park is bad customer service is absurd. As is the assumption that everyone is going to arrive at the park, mouths full of foam, all wanting to ride it at the same time. It's a singular argument only taken on because it's Six Flags.

Most major parks have multiple rides that can handle the capacity of large crowds. It's entirely acceptable for said parks to add a more unique attraction with a lower capacity that adds diversity, without pissing off guests. How do I know this, because 95 percent of parks have done it/are doing it.

Yet it's only an issue when Six Flags does it... I wonder why... ;)

To bring this back to Discovery Kingdom, they pull just about the same number of people as Holiday World does. (Slightly higher, but their season is March thru December.)

HW puts in a ride with 10-20 person capacity per cycle. Hooray for variety (even though they already have a swing ride.)

SFDK, which already has six adult coasters, puts in a unique ride with 12 people per cycle and people go ape****.

Does anybody know the projected capacity on Flying Turns? Just another example, there.

Zero?

HA!

Kozmo is not your friend!

You guys crack me up.

I'm not budging. Large "megaparks" like Magic Mountain that have some of the highest attendance in the world need to make high capacity a priority. Asking why I don't feel the same way about any of the smaller, less attended parks isn't going to change my mind. If big parks like Cedar Point or Busch Gardens built this, I'd feel the same way.

Look at Busch Gardens Williamsburg for a moment. Their new drop ride takes 30 per cycle. Kings Island's has 60 seats and Kings Dominion's has 56.

SFMM will take 16 riders per cycle. Maybe I just don't get it because I falsely think that SFMM is comparable with CP, BG, KI, and KD, as far as attendance and overall ride capacity goes.

Perhaps SFMM will shorten the ride cycle by a large amount of time by raising the ride vehicles up the tower (tallest in the world, remember) very quickly and loading and unloading very quickly somehow.

But just remember that I had the same complaint about SFoG's Daredevil Dive coaster. It was famous last year for it's low capacity.