robbalvey

So far a lot of what they are doing is matching the concept art. You can see the arch under the bird's wing:

^ I want to say last time I remember being in there was the late 80s, early 90s? Probably more like the late 80s. --Robb

^ That deserves a BRAVO!!! Let me highlight what I feel was the most important thing GatorChris said:

Well, I've never worked in a theme park but it doesn't happen in any job. I've had jobs that were paid hourly where staff would just get a bit of an easier time on quiet days to make up for the busy periods. If you want committed staff then you need to offer them job security. That's the reason that more valuable staff have salaries and notice periods. (Don't get me wrong, I understand that that has to be weighed up against cost - but I would personally only choose to work for someone who might send me home at any time if I didn't have any alternative) It might just be a cultural difference working in the UK versus the US then. Basically almost 90% of your park staff is going to be hourly, seasonal employees. There are very few "salary positions" in a job like that. And that's with all parks, not just Six Flags. Same thing goes with most retail, shopping malls, restaurants, etc. You don't really get salaried jobs in the US unless you are in management or a more "professional" atmopshere. This is why many US industries have unions, etc, so they can't just tell an auto worker to go home an hour after they get there. Most jobs though, where it's majority of 16 to 20 year olds don't have unions. --Robb

You're absolutely right. During our East Coast 2008 visit everyone walking out of the park was handed a comp ticket due to all the rides closed in the rain...even though they kept the park open as scheduled! I simply don't believe they wouldn't have given you some sort of compensation. --Robb

^^ & ^^^ Quoting myself from earlier in this thread: Perhaps on all your previous visits when they chose to stay open all this data was added together it made sense to stay open. Again, I'm just saying, I don't think the park got together and planned to close the park *JUST* to f**k you guys over (which is kind of what your rant implies), I do think there was some thought put into it, and it probably was a business decision that made sense, no matter how much it sucked. BTW, Sue, the park closed early the weekend Nitro opened. So it's not like this has *never* happened before. I also want to say we had one other visit where the park closed early, but I honestly can't remember if that was SFGadv or SFNE. It was one of the two parks and it was back in '01 or '02. I'm willing to bet they would have also closed early during our visit in 2008 but they had a concert that night, and I'm *sure* had they not had that event, there is no way the park would have stayed open. Again, that visit in 2008 the data = "keep the park open" because of the concert and the additional revenue an event like that can generate. On a day like today, you close the park the sum of all the data = "Potential loss of revenue." We keep saying things over and over again, can we PLEASE go back to discussing cheese? That was far more interesting. --Robb

Well, yeah...but I'm guessing that you'd let everyone know before they were standing in line for the bus. Be honest, if something weird happened and you were suddenly unable to provide the TPR experience you wanted to--but people were already committed monetarily (plane tickets) and on their way--you'd try to do something, wouldn't you? We would exhaust all options, but this is why we reccomend people to get travel insurance just in case something happened and we did have the cancel a trip. Granted, it's never happened, and I think we are smart enough to organize a trip in such a way that it would never happen, but it is the only example I could come up with that I'm involved with on a personal level. --Robb

I think that's putting an awful lot of responsibility on the consumer while giving the business a free pass. I don't think he means it quite like that, but I do get what he's saying. For example... We always plan our Asia trips in the fall (Sept/Oct) when that is actually one of the worst "weather" times to go...BUT the flip side is it's one of the best park times to go! While most parks won't close unless it's a typhoon, rides will ABSOLUTELY close in the rain. (and we have had parks close on us to which we had time in our plan to re-schedule during our trip) We as travelers make sure we do all of our research and plan accordingly to try and allow extra time if we do get rained out somewhere. Out of now 4 trips to Japan and having encountered 2 typhoons during our visits, we have only every gotten totally rained out of about a half dozen coasters across ALL those trips! (and consider with multiple visits to some parks, we're probably talking in the neighborhood of 250 - 300 coasters.) That's pretty good going, and all because of good planning. I think that is what Ginzo is talking about. If you're going to fly across the planet for a roller coaster, allow some wiggle room in your schedule in case of a disappointment. --Robb "I think that's all Ginzo was trying to say." Alvey

But you have to remember the type of park it is. If you're talking a Disney or Universal park which have global appeal, there is no way they are going to close. If you're talking about a Six Flags or Cedar Fair park, where the majority of patrons are made up of locals or season pass holders, you have to consider the demographic. Again, don't get me wrong, I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE PARKS CLOSING, but I'm trying to help everyone see both sides of the coin instead of just lashing out at the parks closing. Because as much as it does suck, there IS a business decision that has to be made. Here's an example, if we put on a TPR trip that we have budgeted for 45 to 50 people and we only get 15 to sign up, what do we do? We have to cancel that trip because it wil wind up costing us money out of our pocket to put that trip on. So based on what people have said, should we still be putting on that trip because we're a "business" and that's how "businesses work?" Even though it would be money out of our pocket and the trip would be a loss for us? Of course we cancel it! And of course the park closes! I thought the way businesses worked was to "make money" so why would you want to do something that would cause you undoubtedly to lose money? That's not how a business works. The great thing about a restaurant business is that you can scale down your staff based on how busy you are. I also don't believe the park closed and they all just said "PARK'S CLOSING!!! F**K ALL THOSE PEOPLE! WE'RE GOING HOME EARLY! YAY!!! PARTY AT MY PLACE TONIGHT!" I believe they actually had to put some thought into it and figure out the balance between money spent to keep the park open and what the negative affect would be by closing. And if the greatest negative affect is a bunch of people whining and complaining on an internet website...all of which are going to return to the park again (probably next weekend) then I say they made the right decision. Now, none of this would even be an issue if Johnny Rockets would have just had cheese for their hamburgers. --Robb

Right, but there is something you're not taking into consideration here (besides the cheese), it's the volume of employees at a restaurant and a movie theater versus a theme park. I've actually worked at all three - restaurants, movie theaters and theme parks! And I can tell you first hand experience that when a movie theater or restaurant is "slow" you actually can still make some money because the per capita spending doesn't need to be as high as it does at a theme park for the location to break even. When I worked at the movie theater on a slow night there might be only 10 of us working - couple ticket people, concessions, greeters, projectionists, etc. At the restaurants I've worked at we could get away with a skeleton staff of about 15ish on a slow night. To open a theme park and have a majority of your attractions, shops, and restaurants open, you're talking HUNDREDS of people. I'd be surprised of a "skeleton staff" at SFGadv is any less than 300 to 500 people. I don't think comparing the operational costs of a restaurant/movie theater to a theme park is a very good comparison at all. That's just my two cents based on my personal experience working at all three. --Robb

Sorry, dude, you can't blame Darien Lake for running out of cheese...

I'm telling you! You're all WRONG! It's all about Elissa's mom!!! And knowing that Elissa exploded out of her vagina makes her even more hot! --Robb

^ Tom that's actually really good advice! That way, when you get the park and it's closed, at least you have your cheese! --Robb "Never leave home without some cheese..." Alvey

So they can just close the park without paying their staff, even if they were expecting to get paid for a day's work and have potentially paid to travel to work, etc? No wonder the staff don't have the best reputation in the world if that's what happens routinely. Do you know anything about employement? This can happen at ANY job! When I worked at Disneyland we were unionized so we got payed for AT LEAST 4 hours, but if we were on an 8 hour shift they could send you home once you got there, pay you for 4 hours, and be done with your shift for the day. On slow days, that happened a LOT! And this is DISNEY we are talking about. A non-unionized employee can be send home at any time. And this isn't just Six Flags, it's anywhere. So don't go trying to put blame on Six Flags for sending employees home early. Seriously, I think some of you are really being unreasonable with your complaints. Sounds to me like you're looking for reasons to bash SFGAdv. --Robb "Although there really is no excuse for running out of cheese..." Alvey

WOAH, WOAH, Woah, Woah, woah.... Hold on here... So you "HATE SIX FLAGS" because they ran out of cheese? Makes perfect sense to me! --Robb

There are two seperate things going on here: 1. Park closing early - I know for a fact that park looks at the weather forecasts, the current weather conditions, the current park attendance, compiles all that data and then has to make a call as to if it makes sense to stay open or not. The park doesn't use your friends current view outside their window, they use weather monitoring tools. And I just looked at the top three weather sites and they all mentioned rain in the area at least through the afternoon and high winds. I can see why they made the call to close. It may have pissed off some people and it might not have been a decision I would agree with but I see why they did what they did. 2. Costakid complaining about this - Yes, I agree it sucks and I feel your frustration, trust me, I do. But I do think you knew enough about what could happen by visiting the park when the forecast wasn't great that I personally think you made a poor decision by driving 3 1/2 hours to the park when you KNEW the weather could be bad. I feel that yes, be pissed at the park, but I think you could also be taking some of the blame yourself, not soley blaming Six Flags. If I were in your shoes I would have gotten up, looked at the forecast and went "Forget it, I got screwed over last week by visiting when the forecast was bad, I'll wait until the forecast is GOOD to visit again." There were threads on here in the past week warning people NOT TO GO TO GREAT ADVENTURE THIS WEEKEND IF ITS RAINING! Again, I think the tell tale sign is how few cars were in the parking lot. Clearly that tells me enough people knew NOT to go to the park. I think you are pissed because you drove into the park, saw a couple of coasters running, saw that no one was there and went "YESSSSS!!!! We have the park to OURSELVES!!!" only to then find out it's closed. Again, I feel your frustration, and I'd probably side with you a bit more if you had ZERO experience of what happens if you visit the park in the rain, but you just said you were there last week and you saw it first hand. Why go back under similar conditions? That's all I'm saying. --Robb

^ Awesome! Glad you liked it all! --Robb

^ Did it? Because according to weather underground it still shows rain and that it will last until 6pm. With the possibility of 25MPH winds. Jackson, New Jersey Nowcast as of 4:41 PM EDT on April 11, 2009 Any leftover light rain or drizzle will be over by 6 PM. Skies will remain mostly cloudy as temperatures remain in the upper 40s to around 50. Northwest winds will average around 15 mph with gusts to around 25 mph. Again, I'm not saying I 100% agree with the park closing early, but I'm looking at all the data (and I'm sure the park has even more information that we don't know about) and I can see why they did what they did. --Robb EDIT: Guy in another post from today said it was still raining at 2:30. Sounds like you're exaggerating a bit. I can understand why, I'd be pissed too...just try to understand things from both sides of the coin and know that your situation could have been avoided had to leared from previous experience.

Are you a meteorologist? Do you know the operational procedures the park has to go through if it rains? Do you actually have any insight to why they closed early or are you just really upset and exaggerating the story because you had to drive 7 hours round trip to a park that ended up being closed. That's what it sounds like to me. Like I said, I think it sucks the park closed early because of the bad weather, but quite frankly if due to the bad weather only 20 cars worth of people showed up, I can totally see why they closed (not that I agree with it 100%, mind you, but I can understand it) At some level they have to decide "Do we piss off 20 cars worth of people, or tough it out and pay our ENTIRE PARK STAFF for a full day JUST IN CASE the rain clears up?" And then you have to assume that not ALL 20 cars worth of people will be pissed off, but even so, let's just say they are, and each car has an average of 4 for a total of 80 people, well, hmm..... I'm guessing from a business standpoint, this was the more financially smart move to make. That's just my guess. Again, you said you were there for opening day. You saw how the park operated in the rain. You said in your first post you knew there was supposed to be rain, so really the question is... WHY DID YOU GO IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?! --Robb

While I understand your frustration, did you bother to read any of the reports from the last time there was bad weather at the park? Had you asked here I'm sure everyone would have told you to not go to the park if the weather forecast was to be bad (which it was.) I know you're upset, but I don't think you can put ALL the blame on Six Flags when it is obvious to me (and I live on the other side of the country) that you probably shouldn't make the visit (unless you litterally live 5 minutes away from the park and have a season & parking pass) if it's raining. Just my two cents. --Robb "Take a little bit of the blame on yourself..." Alvey EDIT - Looking at the current weather radar below I'm assuming that large green mass of death is what hit the area earlier today? Had I seen that hovering over the park there is NO WAY I would have made a 3 1/2 hour drive to the park, especially if you'd been there for opening and seen what happens when it rains. Basically, if you are experienced with the parks rain policy, you should have known better and you can only blame yourself for making the visit knowing what could have happened. Yeah, it sucks that Six Flags closed the park, but if there were only 20 cars in the parking lot as you say, it means that the rest of the empty parking lot was smart enough not to go.

^ Have a good read through that and please let us know what questions you still may have. --Robb

^ Maybe!

^ Yes! You may see a couple of Coaster Expedition DVDs available for download as early as this week! --Robb

^ LOL! Yay!!!

Here is another photo in from the great people at M&V! Enjoy....