Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huk Jam SFA 7/9-Excellent! Park not so good

I was dead tired and I was just at the park for a short while on Thursday, but after watching many an X-Game on ESPN, I decided to I wanted to check out the action in person. It took a while to get out of work, so I didn't make it down to the park until 4pm approximately. It was looking awfully cloudly, and there was the threat of an isolated thunderstorm with hail. None of that detered me though. Pulling into the parking lot, I could tell the park was slammed, which is good for business of course. I wound up in the dreaded third parking lot. Dreaded, because it's a long walk with no tram option. No matter, it would be my cardio for the day.

Getting back to the performance area, I was struck by how cool it looked to have a half-pipe with grandstands in front of Wild One. It was neat to see the train go down the double-dip behind it. The grandstands were reserved for people with premium tickets (whatever those were going for). They had video screens setup, and they were shooting live video so those of us in the standing-room-only section in between Joker's Jinx and S:ROS could check out everything as well.

The show was amazing with several skateboarders (including the man himself), a bike rider, and two motocross riders who were doing some of the most insane stuff between two ramps with a 70ft. gap. It's one thing to see stuff like the backflips and the other crazy tricks on t.v. and another thing entirely to see it in person. It's incredibly dangerous stuff. Speaking of, luckily I missed the 2:30pm show, were apparently two of the skaters slammed into each other--the one guy said he cracked his helmet. A lot of the skate/bike parts involved two or more people out on the small ramp at once. Luckily, the ambulance was not needed at my show.

The show lasted around 45 minutes and I definitely think they need more of this kind of stuff at Six Flags. This is the kind of stuff that Mark S. talked about in the initial takeover. Stuff that you won't find at other themeparks that appeals to a wide range of people. I felt lucky that we were one of eight parks on the tour.

Now onto the bad stuff. It was fairly crowded, but I still wanted to ride something before I left. I took a look at S:ROS and with two trains, the dispatches were really slow. I don't know what was taking so long, but I passed even though the line wasn't particularly long. I took a look at Batwing with single-train operation and passed on that too. One thing that was a positive though was that there were several places to buy drinks and such on the way down to Batwing. So I went over to the Southwest Territory were there wasn't much of a line for Two-Face.

I opted for the back and there was maybe a two-train wait. There was an employee who was cursing out of anger at someone on the other end of his cell phone. I heard many variations on the f-word, I don't give a ..it about my job etc., etc. A guy in a red shirt shows up, and I'm thinking "Dude, get rid of this guy." They're having a discussion which was laden with profanity on this kid's part and he let's him continue doing his job. He goes to check the OTSR on this one guy, and he shoves it down real hard. And I'm thinking "He does that to me and he'll be lucky that the OTSR is locked." This is exactly the kind of problems that Six Flags doesn't need right now. The control op and the other checker were looking at each other with looks of sheer embarassment, and I don't blame them.

I decided to take another ride and then get out of the park, so I went over to Wild One, which again, didn't have too long of a line. One thing that they need so bad is an autospiel about putting on your seatbelt first BEFORE pulling down your lapbar. It causes so many unnecessary rechecks because people don't read the signs or look in their seat. So on my way out of the Southwest Territory, I noticed there was an excess of guys wearing police shirts (not uniformed) hovered around that central area. That made me a little bit nervous so I decided that it was time to go home. And then I passed the Teacups and a girl at a hotdog stand starts doing an obnoixious song and dance about buying a hotdog. All I could think was "Walk faster, much faster, and someone please make sure she takes her medicine."

Rides out of comission: Joker's Jinx, Rodeo, and Typhoon Seacoaster

I was at SFGAm 2 weeks ago when the Tony Hawk show was there. I wanted to see the show, but it was very hot, and sunny, and they had the show out in the parking lot, with no shade and no seating (except for people who paid for VIP tickets). By the end of the night, I was exhausted from being in the park all day, so I decided to not stick around for the show. Hot sun, tired feet, and everyone having to stand up (concert style) didn't help any.

Would have been fun to see though, glad you enjoyed it.

This doesn't bode well for the park,especially the horrible ops you mentioned over at two face.

I plan on heading out there saturday & would at least hope that they get Batwing back up to two train op by then...they were doing so well back in the beginning of the season but now it seems like they're going through their typical midseason slump.