The Good, Bad & Ugly..SFWOA

Thanx MagnumForce. I agree wholeheartedly with you. I also go to a park to have fun. So they are understaffed. The rides are just as quick as if they had more operators. OK so they could use a couple more at certain rides. Dirty....Bathrooms...yes. I dont care where you go if you have 20 to 50 thousand people a day walking through those bathrooms yes they will get dirty. It doesnt matter if they hired 20 people to keep them clean. There are still idiots that throw garbage and waste all over the place. When we went through the queues i picked up some of the trash waiting for our rides. We had a little bag we took everywhere. If more people would care to keep a place clean then it wouldnt be so bad. They need some sweeps. But it all comes back to DONT throw stuff on the ground and there will be no garbage. They did a great job keeping the garbages down. WoA needs to take some pointers from CP. How do they do so well keeping those potties clean? A mystery to me as i have never been there since like 93...lol But i never hear people say anything about the garbage usually in their trip reports of CP. How come we have no people on hear from WoA that work there to defend it. Am i the only one that will? The world may never know. Kennywood Late August...WOO HOO!!!!!!!

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KennywoodPhanatic said: How come we have no people on hear from WoA that work there to defend it. Am i the only one that will?

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Why do you care what other people think?

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Dayuum, Your HOT!

I just think people are misled in their beliefs. If more people would go to parks with a more positive attitude there wouldnt be so much negativity. Me and my fiance' went and just enjoyed life. Food takes forever...Who cares. Dirty bathrooms....overlook it. Im curious as to next year. With the hyper do you think ride times and overall experience will change. I hope so. I would love to go on X-Flight twice in a hour.

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Drive It Like You Stole It!

Ride It Like You Own It!

Well I don't know about other's, but I go to a park to have fun. I don't hope to have a bad & costly experience so I can complain. As Jeff said, the park just doesn't deliver.

I also agree with Jeff and you. It really doesnt deliver. Like i say, it could have been better. But in all actuality is it better than last year? I dont know because i wasnnt there last year. Just wondering...

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Drive It Like You Stole It!

Ride It Like You Own It!

I love how people still compare a 100 year old park to a 2 year old park(GL & SWO). Remember folks rome was not built in a day and neither will SFWoA. Lets go back 25 years to CP and you will see they where not always #1 it took time for them to be the world class company that they are. Give this park time, its like scoulding your 2 year old for something your 100 year old grandfather learned through time.

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Army Rangers lead the way

*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***

Comparing last years trip to this years, I would have to say last year was better. Many of the things I complained about did not rear their ugly heads last year. Maybe I just had bad luck that day, maybe not. I am honest when I post even if it is negative.

Give this park time, its like scoulding your 2 year old for something your 100 year old grandfather learned through time.

LOL...Great play on words man. I never thought of it this way.

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Drive It Like You Stole It!

Ride It Like You Own It!

You guys may have a point. My expectations are that it should slowly improve, not go backwards. I guess only time will tell.

Geauga Lake and Sea World had been there for decades, and GL has been under Six Flags ownership for years prior to the name change.

That said, longevity has nothing to do with it. We all agree that the rides they've installed are great rides. That isn't the issue. Because the park is "new" doesn't have anything to do with the "issues" people have with the park. I mean, if you got to a McDonalds, do you expect average service because it's only a few months old? Of course not, you want to get your ass through the drive through as fast as possible.

Customer service is everything in this business. If they don't understand that they will fail, no matter what rides they install.

We need to stop clouding the issue with words like "bias" and "fanboy," because it has nothing to do with the fact that these folks do not run a tight park, and it shows. Even my non-enthusiast brother, who hits one park maybe every other year, left the place thinking it sucked. He's as "GP" as you get. He too liked the rides (the "half" that were open, according to him), but thought it was a dump with sad service from staff.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
7/27: Subdivision Cam becomes party cam at the year's hottest Ohio luau!

Yeah they have been there for years but they have only been under the single park name for 2 years only you think the people who owned GL can run all three parks. Now how many other parks run all three things sealife, rides and water park.

As for Mcdonalds you hit it right on the head would I go to another Mcdonalds that is new and slow of course not. But what are you comparing SFWoA to then another SFWoA(what is there to compare too) or are you comparing them to CP.

As for taking GP's there I just got back 3 weekend's ago from taking 2 buses full of church goers and I would say 75% didn't have a clue that the park was running bad, in fact we are looking to go again in sept with everyone again thats how much they liked it.

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Army Rangers lead the way

*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***

I will add to this...

Someone I work with who is not really a person or park person made a trip there last year. His impression was... how shall I put it... less than "enthusiastic". His exact words were... "What a &%$^*!# dump," and also complained that "hardly anything was open."

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Don't usually expect an objective opinion if a coaster or park is part of the "user name"

Six Flags is new to having all three under one big top so to speak. You pay one price and that covers everything. This is their first whale. They are doing very well for no experience in the matter. I agree what other park can sit there and boast of wildlife, wild rides and a water park. The skipping CP thing in their commercial is taking it a bit far though. No one skips CP. I will be there next year also.

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Drive It Like You Stole It!

Ride It Like You Own It!

I get a totally different GP reaction - my friends all went to say they went, but that's it. They won't go back, they weren't impressed and when they know that Cedar Point is only 1 1/2 hours further, they'll go for that instead. It took me most of the summer to find someone that even wanted to go with me to WoA (I ended up going with my dad).

And if all the WoA defenders want to shoot down the CP and PKI and Kennywood comparisons, go back to teh park and take a listen to the GPs ... "Wow this is so much dirtyer than Cedar Point" ... "Hey Kennywood has one of those, but its a lot nicer looking" ... "Kings Island is so much better than this" ... I heard those three park's names more times in the day than you'd ever expect! So the GP does compare this park to the other 3 - and to use your McDonald's analogy:

There's the #1 service McDonald's in the country two blocks away. There's the McDonald's with the #1 kids playplace two blocks away. There's the McDonald's that was one of the first ever built and is ranked highly two blocks away. Now right in the middle of that, lets put in a McDonald's that who's fry cooker breaks down every day ... who's chicken nugget supply runs out every hour and the employees stand around and talk about it for 15 minutes before they put more into the fryers ... whos bathrooms and floors are sticky and strewn with garbage ... whos employees greet you by saying "welcome to mcdonalds, what the hell do you want?" ... and who hype themselves up as the best McDonald's in the country. Get it? (now all McDonald's can be changed for the better ... or worse ... )

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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

Don't get sucked into the "three parks" marketing nonsense. The water park has been a part of GL since before I started looking at girls. Besides, the people who owned GL aren't running anything anymore.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com, Sillynonsense.com
7/27: Subdivision Cam becomes party cam at the year's hottest Ohio luau!

PittDesigner, you have it all wrong in your theory heres why, what I was saying was to answer jeff's ? Your theory is right if we are comparing mcdonalds only we are comparing different companys totally different theory.

Now if the middle company is brand new and running a rest, movie theater and and say a store and they have never run all 3 do you expect them to run like the single rest. or do you expect them to have troubles when they first open as most new companys do. I guarantee you it wont be ran like the other 2 mcd's because its a different ballgame altogether there.

You just prove my point that people still want to compare a 100 year old amusement park to a 2 year old amusment park, wildlife park and water park all rapped up in one.

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Army Rangers lead the way

*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***

So Jeff any company can open 3 parks in one and have no troubles in there first years? Also is it the same water park you used to go to as a kid?

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Army Rangers lead the way

*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***

To me, it seems that the Six Flags Gigant is getting too big for it's own good. How can anyone here say "give them a chance to get it together". The GP, who takes their famlies on summer trips and spends some serious $$$ is not going to say "well, it's still new, we will give it another chance and drop another $1000.00" Of course they won't, they won't return and they will head for the next closest park where they know it's going to be great. Now that I'm on the brink of starting a family you better believe I'm going to take the family to CP or PKI rather than WOA in the future. Why? Because I'll be spending a lot of money and I'm going to want the best for my family. We all often see things through the eyes of a coaster junkie, (myself included until the last couple months) the GP is not as forgiving as most of you are and it shows in the attendence figures of SFWOA. Six Flags may have grown too big and it's starting to show in the lack of well maintained parks.

*** This post was edited by Winston on 7/23/2002. ***

SFWoA where only 400,000 people away from CP(3.1million) according to AB so they are doing something right. Please prove the figure wrong, we keep hearing 1.5 million but get no proof what so ever of that #(please show link not what you heard) unless everyone thinks all of AB's #'s are BS we have to take them on there word.

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Army Rangers lead the way

Just throwing a few waterpark-related dates around here to back up Jeff's statement:

* The current Neptune's Falls waterslides opened in 1983 as part of the "Boardwalk Shores" area. Geauga Lake claimed to be the first amusement park to feature in-park water activities as part of the regular admission price. Anyone else remember when they re-routed the old fiberglass giant slide to dump riders into the lake? Ugh! An interesting note about Neptune's Falls was that they originally had 4 slides compared to the three today.

* The original "Wave" wave pool opened the following year in 1984 and was the second largest wave pool in North America. It could produce "up to" 6-foot tall waves every 2 minutes.... or so! It was destroyed at the end of the 1999 season.

* The Stingray Wet Slides opened in 1987. They too are currently operating.

* Turtle Beach opened in 1989 and phase 2 opened in 1990.

So yes, much of the waterpark, minus the "Hurricane Harbor" theming, was already in place before SF started saying it was a separate "park". I realize SFO added a new wave pool, but since the park already had one (and a MUCH bigger one at that), I don't really consider it a major new addition.

Premier Parks (now Six Flags, Inc.) bought the Funtime Inc. parks (Wyandot, Darien and Geauga) in 1995 and began their first season of ownership of the three in 1996. The park would never be the same.....

ray p.