Why no Wild Mice, Six Flags?

Not sure if anyone noticed, but there is only one Six Flags park in the country with a Wild Mouse coaster... of ANY kind! Why is this?

You would think that, with the number of Wild Mouse-style coasters constructed each year and the number of Six Flags parks in the country, that these things would have infested the company by now. But only SFKK has one, with no others destined to get one at any point in the future.

Kinda makes you wonder...

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-Rob

Well Wild mice are low capacity rides and SF parks have a lot of people, so the line would always be very long. Even at family parks (Canobie) the wild mouse ride always has one of the longest if not the longest line.

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Im the #1 Canobie Lake Park Fan!!!These are my top 3 coasters:
1. S:RoS @ SFNE 2. Yankee Cannonball 3. Cyclone/B:TDK

Kinda like how no Paramount park has a steel hypercoaster.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

Its true about the capacity, but I see no reason why the mouse coasters cant be constructed in the kid sections of the SF parks. It would make a great addition to these areas and provide decent thrills for the young ones.

After Deja-Vu being put into 3 crowded SF parks, the capacity issue really holds no water for SF.

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""To be the man, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!, You got to beat the man""!!!

Although not Six Flags in name yet, Enchanted Village and Jazzland both have wild mouse coasters.

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Sue Barry
CoasterSue@aol.com

Mice don't break records or grab headlines...

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"Escuse me, can you tell me where the heck the Mystery Lodge is"?

Yeah, and? The mouse coaster doesnt have to be marketed to the thrillseeker. They can easily promote a mouse coaster to the families.

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""To be the man, WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!, You got to beat the man""!!!

There is a wild mouse-like coaster described in the masterplan for SFA. Who knows, this could be the year.
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Dude, you're getting an Intamin!

Since when has Six Flags cared about capacity? SFNE ropes off seats on some of their coasters when the lines get too short, do they not?

While it may be true that Six Flags often goes for record-breakers, they also like to hype the number of coasters at their parks. By adding a mouse, they could easily (and cheaply) beef up those numbers. Besides, mice make great family rides, which most SF parks are lacking.

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-Rob
Don't forget to vote for your favorite wooden coasters @ http://www.geocities.com/wcoasterpoll - the polls are open until November 30th!

MikeMir87 said:
Well Wild mice are low capacity rides and SF parks have a lot of people, so the line would always be very long.

How would that be different from every other line at 6Flags? They're not exactly trailblazers when it comes to running rides now are they?

I also don't buy the low capacity BS when it comes to Six Flags. If they were so concerned with capacity they wouldn't use one train operations on fairly busy days at SFWoA. Also, not every single ride can be a capacity monster. As long as they have some people eaters a couple of lower capacity rides doesn't hurt.

Rob Ascough said:

Since when has Six Flags cared about capacity? SFNE ropes off seats on some of their coasters when the lines get too short, do they not?

I've never witnessed this at SFNE. I've seen cars roped off for restraint problems, but there was a day when S:RoS was a walk-on (as in, there were 6 people in line for it at 11:00am) and no cars were roped off.
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Who knows why SF doesn't build more mouse coasters, but I am actually thankful. Not because I don't like them, but if my home park (SFGadv) was to get one, the lines would be ridiculous. The only major ride in the park with low capacity is The Chiller, and anyone who is familiar with the park knows how bad waits can be. I doubt it has anything to do with capacity, since SF has installed quite a few Deja-Vu's, and impulses.

They didn't know the Deja Vu's were going to be as bad as they were, Vekoma certainly hyped the people per hour figure a lot higher than proved realistic.

Six Flags just built a wild mouse from Zamperla this year at Enchanted Village.

Six Flags is also not investing in wild mouse for family coasters in America, they're too busy buying Vekoma Rollerskaters and Zierer Tivoli Coasters for their family rides, with some more appearances by Zamperla to make little screamers for the tikes.

That's a full plate. The early parks recieved there first family coaster Arrow previously. Then, the second round of family coasters came when the company changed titles. During this time between 1997-1999, the majority og the Six Flags parks recieved one of the coasters mentioned above.

The second go round has just started as you can see with SFMM recieving Goliath Jr., SFoT recieving Wile E. Coyote's Grand Canyon Blaster, Enchanted Village recieving Klondike, Great Escape getting their Runaway Mine Train, and from what's coming in at Amusement Advantage, Six Flags America should be getting a Tivoli model from Zierer in 2003.

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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean

OutKast said:

Mice don't break records or grab headlines...
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"Escuse me, can you tell me where the heck the Mystery Lodge is"?

Outkast, don't you recall all the Kidzville and Taxi Jam commercials for Great America? And I do remember advertisement for Psycho Mouse.

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Lake Compounce-So Fresh and So Clean Clean

Even if they thought that the Deja Vu's were goign to be better than they turned out to be, they knew that the rides were still shuttles. Even given the best ride ops and quickest load/unload procedures known to man, Six Flags has to know that shuttles are still going to be relatively low-capacity. So the capacity question is out. I think the fact thta mice aren't aexctly headline-capturing rides is closer ot the truth. Since they're not a typical (for Six Flags) childrens' ride, and no matter how they're packaged they can't be marketed as a major thrill (even, oddly enough, if they are), they just sort of slip under the radar, if you will. It's not that six Flags couldn't effctively use these rides: They just never think to.

Chitown said:

After Deja-Vu being put into 3 crowded SF parks, the capacity issue really holds no water for SF.

Hate disagreeing with anyone who quotes Ric Flair, lol. But looking deeper into this DOES suggest that SF recognizes the *capacity issue* as being a ralistic concern for them. The three SF parks that received a DV also received at least one other thrill ride *in the same season*. Acro, V2, ans X certainly qualify as rides that "stole some thunder", not to mention lines from the DV installations. And based on the wait times, I'd say that DV proved to be the capacity nightmare envisioned in the "worst case scenario" projections...

Sure, wild mice will be marketed as "family rides" and I'm pretty sure SF parks wil get them, but I'd tend to think of them as more of a *piece to the puzzle* in a more general kid's-area expansion than a singular addition....having kids wait two hours for their ONLY new ride of the season just doesn't seem like a good way to make mom *want* to bring the family back again....and mice ARE cheap enough for this purpose...;)

As usual, I try to put in my $.02, and end up with a nickel's worth...

While its true that the lines for a mouse at a busy Six Flags park would be long, I think that ANY addition would increase total park capacity. If a mouse were to be added to the kids' section, then it would take lines away from the other rides, thus spreading the crowds over a greater selection of rides.

Of course, what would make more sense for a busy park would be two mice (a la Animal Kingdom) or to theme the coaster into a dark ride (Exterminator) and market it as a special attraction. It seems to me that the general public would be more willing to wait for a "unique" ride than a standard mouse.

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-Rob
Don't forget to vote for your favorite wooden coasters @ http://www.geocities.com/wcoasterpoll - the polls are open until November 30th!

What the heck is Amusement Advantage?

I already know of amusement industry publications such as Amusement business or Amusement today but have never heard of Amusement Advantage,perhaps it's a new publication who knows.

If such a publication exists then can someone post a link to it?

Rob is right on one thing though & just because a wild mouse is designed more as a family ride & less of a thrill ride it still helps in keeping the lines & wait times down for the more popular rides so in a way it still is a viable option for SF to consider in many of it's parks.