The Good, Bad & Ugly..SFWOA
Associated parks:
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And when they were seperate parks they attracted more than 3 million people combined. Still don't understand why they would throw all of that money away, but whatever. I also don't buy AB's numbers.
So Jeff any company can open 3 parks in one and have no troubles in there first years?
What does that have to do with anything? If Jet Blue crashed a few planes in their first years would that be OK? I realize that lives aren't at stake here, but if you market the hell out of yourself (and worse, call out your competition by name), you sure as hell better deliver.
I'm not interested in excuses, and it's the reason I'm not spending any money there this year.
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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!
Well as for the 3 million combined you take off the 10% that CP lost last year, remember it was a bad weather year so why could SF not been affected by this also oe CP the only one thats aloud to claim that.
Lets take 10% off the # you gave at 3 million and as I see it they lost the same amount % as CP. So what money did they lose.
And I do believe AB if I didnt I wouldnt buy it.
As for Blue Jet how can you compare people dieing to people having to wait longer lines and bad service In a park. Why even make the refrence if you know they are not even close.
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Army Rangers lead the way
*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***
I realize that lives aren't at stake here, but if you market the hell out of yourself (and worse, call out your competition by name), you sure as hell better deliver.
Respond to that, please, as a response to your notion that problems are OK because they're "new..."
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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!
The point of the McDonald's and JetBlue comparisons is that saying "Ok, they're new, they'll have problems" only works to an extent. They should be trying HARDER, not letting things go, to build up a loyal customer base.
Let's try a different analogy. You've got a local neighborhood coffee bar. It's been there for YEARS, and service isn't great, but you know them and they know you, so you go. Now Starbucks buys them out, stamps their name on it, and gives the same or worse service. Do you still go?
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--Greg
"Are you justified in taking life to save life?" -- The Great Debate, Dream Theater
My page
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 7/23/2002. ***
Well i would never use death as a comparison, but I would rather have bad service at a park than die. New companys have faults you never had any trouble when you started your company.
I have run my own company now for 5 years and I still run into trouble and I'm not dealing with over 2 million people a year.
Are you saying new companys are not aloud to have problems.
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Army Rangers lead the way
*** This post was edited by supermandl on 7/23/2002. ***
New companies? This is the company that boasts about their success with animal parks on both coasts. The world's largest theme park company. What's new about it?
This isn't an emotional issue here... they deliver or they don't. If they don't, they lose, especially in a market that has serious competition at both ends of the state.
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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!
Sure, a company can and will run into problems and SOME customers will be unsatisfied. But it seems its becoming the norm for SFWOA. I don't like spending money on things that I don't like and I'm not going to keep doing it in the hope things will improve. Anyone who likes SFWOA, I say more power to you and have fun. Look at it this way, the less people there the better it will be for the ones who like it ;)
My two cents on this as a Cleveland-area resident...
I have spent all 20 years of my life growing up in Cleveland (minus time away over the past two years for college). I have also lived about half-way between CP and SFWoA that whole time. In talking with friends who range from hardly park enthusiasts to full-blown coaster junkies, one thing has been agreed upon. Having Cedar Point so close to us means that we have grown up seeing what a great park included when it comes to staff, capacity, cleanliness, and overall experience. Cedar Point is the standard we have all come to judge other parks by (whether we always realize we are doing it or not).
Now SF wants to market their park as "better than Cedar Point" and tell us that we should visit their park instead. Most people I know have been there at most maybe three times in the past two years. Visiting SFWoA and seeing the state of the park leaves a lot to be desired. With Cedar Point not that much farther away we all agree it is worth the extra travel time.
You may say "well that's just you and the people you know who have all grown up in Clevleand." Well let me remind you all that, unlike Cedar Point, SF is aiming for a much more local draw to their park. They don't have the "drive 6 hours and stay overnight so you can spend two or three days here" attitude that Cedar Point does. So what that means is that the people SF is attempted to market their park to are those who have known and loved Cedar Point for a long time now.
You may say we are expecting too much out of this "new park" and "new company management." But I say that we are only expecting what we have come to know we can get just as easily elsewhere.
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James Draeger
-Proud co-founder of the Coasterbuzz street team
GregLeg said:
You've got a local neighborhood coffee bar. It's been there for YEARS, and service isn't great, but you know them and they know you, so you go. Now Starbucks buys them out, stamps their name on it, and gives the same or worse service. Do you still go?
Starbucks! Run away, Run away!
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"Look outside, I know that you'll recognize it's summertime." - The Flaming Lips "It's Summertime (throbbing orange pallbearers)"
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No love for the whiners
Like James, I have lived in the Cleveland area all 32 years of my life. My parents always used to take us to Cedar Point and Geauga Lake each year. We'd always make a day out of the Point, and we'd usually do the after 5:00 admission at GL. We always seemed to have a good time by spending 5 hours at GL as there was never enough there to warrant an entire day for us. As I grew up, I started to realize that Cedar Point was the better overall park, but I still had a good time at GL. A few years back, I was blown away that "my little park" had received over $40 million in improvements and was transformed into a SIx Flags park. I jumped on the Six Flags Ohio bandwagon and pimped the place as much as I could. Of course, wearing rose-colored glasses can be hazardous to ones health... and I soon learned that "my little park" was one that needed a lot of help.
Back to the topic at hand, the whole notion that Six Flags is a "new" company is absolutely absurd. While they aren't the same owners that created the original Six Flags parks in Texas, Missouri, and Atlanta, Premier was the owner of Frontier City back in the late 80's/early 90's (not sure of exact dates, may even have been earlier than that). They then went on a spending spree, buying up Wild World (now Six Flags America), Riverside (now Six Flags New England), Elitch Gardens, Kentucky Kingdom, the three Funtime Inc parks, and on and on. When they bought out Six Flags from I believe Time Warner, they had plenty of amusement park operating experience under their belt. The Premier formula of slapping a bunch of new rides down seemed to work at many of these parks as attendance was on the rise. However, the lack of guest service and sub-par operating procedures, combined with some parks being completely neglected (SFKK, SFEG in particular) make Six Flags look like a rather "bush-league" operation.
I sincerely wish SFWoA would be run in the same manner that great parks like CP, BGW, and even Knoebels are. Then, they may be able to boast about being a world-class park. Until then, there will be days at the park that are good.... and days that make you want to shred that season pass into a million pieces.
ray p.
Ok I nver meant the whole SF INC. changed, I mean the park as a company changed from being a water/thrillride park to a water, thrillride and wildlife park
Now who signs the checks there headquarters(OK) or SFWoA for employees that will answer if its a subsidary of SF INC and its own company. Who buys the food HQ or SFWoA. Just a few questions to see if its own company. Remember you can have a big corporation with many companys below it.
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Army Rangers lead the way
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-SD
"Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees."
-J. Willard Marriot
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Drive It Like You Stole It!
Ride It Like You Own It!
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Drive It Like You Stole It!
Ride It Like You Own It!
Sure, they've made some needed improvements, like the walkway and the whales. Great, good for them. But there are still basic problems at the park in terms of things like ride operations, patron flow, and cleanliness, that needed to be addressed. Based on my trips earlier this season, I thought they HAD been, but I'm hearing too many complaints (and not just on here, but in person from people I know and respect) to believe that all is well at this park.
I WANT SFWoA to succeed. Really, I do. But the cocky "we're better than Cedar Point" attitude in their ads, when friends of mine who aren't enthusaists come away saying it isn't, is very off-putting.
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--Greg
"Are you justified in taking life to save life?" -- The Great Debate, Dream Theater
My page
*** This post was edited by GregLeg on 7/23/2002. ***
Oh my God just shut up about that commercial! Geeeeeze! I never seen so many people complain about that in my life. So what they drove past CP to get to SFWoA, I drove by other parks to get to other parks, so whats the problem! *But SixFlags did it just to look good* So what! Like CP doesnt do that for there park? Like on the MF commercial *greatest coaster ever built* hows that any differant? SF wants you to think that WoA is better then CP, and CP wants you to believe that MF is the best ride ever, it's called a BUISNESS!
*end
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Six Flags Worlds of Adventure Online
Team NL
NITRO ~ The most EXPLOSIVE coaster on the planet!
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Drive It Like You Stole It!
Ride It Like You Own It!
Oh, Steve... you don't get it.
The point is that you don't market what you can't live up to. In the case of the many negative opinions of the park, the TV spot was just the kick in the shorts to make it worse. If the TV spot never aired, people would still be unhappy about the park.
As Greg and myself have said time and time again, it would be just swell if the park would get its act together so we could all enjoy it as the world-class attraction it should be. But the fact is that if I can get to three other great parks in under three hours (PKI, CP and Kennywood), why bother spending money on an inferior product?
Hey, if you like the park, great, spend all of your free time there. With a car and cash, I'd rather spend my summer dollars where I know what I'll get every time.
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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!
SteveWoA said:
Like on the MF commercial *greatest coaster ever built* hows that any differant?-----------------
The point is that Cedar Point didn't advertise that Millennium Force was the best coaster on the planet especially those at SWoA and PKI, etc. They didn't come out like a dirty politician and start trying to smear other parks by name.
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