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SFA Regular

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Everything posted by SFA Regular

  1. Actually I kind of agree with Capitalize on that one. They are trying to give it a more even balance between family and thrill junkies. For years the park was just considered a place where teens, single adults and girlfriends & boyfriends go to chill out at. I think they added a new family feel to it with the new Thomas Town, so they are good on that part. As for the water park, I think it's fine. Most people come there for the water park as it is, and in recent years they made investments in it. I do agree that for 2011, they will be focusing more on the dry side of the park. Didn't Shapiro put in plans for us to receive Tony Hawk Big Spin coaster? Other than the future plans for rides, what do you think the future plans for Fright Fest are?
  2. I'm more on the side of KDCOASTERFAN. How do you expect the park to work with much if you take out rides and replace them with back stages and show areas? You won't attract anymore people doing things that way or keep the people there that you already have. They should have at least filled Two-Face spot up with a new gaming area or some flat rides. Thats a good piece of land that they could have made use of for a very inexpensive price. Nobody said they had to replace it with the tallest ride in the world. And I also disagree with the place being over built. Back when Six Flags bought the place, it was just an averaged sized amusement park. Six Flags bought it and installed Two-Face and Joker's Jinx. Both those two rides got loads of people coming. In 2000 they added Superman, which got even more people interested in the place. Then a year later,they got Batwing, which got more people coming. Then in 2002, they went without adding a coaster, but things were still fine because Superman and Batwing were still crowd pleaser's. In 2003, they got a some people interested again when Penguin got added. It wasn't a coaster, but it was still some sort of major attraction. In 2004, they added nothing, but attendance wasn't nearly as low as it was now. 2005, we get Hurricane Harbor and people become interested in the water park again. I remember the crowds when it first opened. I believe that next on the list would have been to go 2006 without adding anything. In 2007, we would have received another coaster. So it would have been like an every other year kind of thing for a new attraction to get added.
  3. Well as you can tell, I have hope for the park. They just need to invest more time in it. Park staff is better than what it has been in years. I would rather them be friendly and give high fives, than for them to give bad attitudes. I really like the direction that the park is going in. All we need are signature attractions to replace Two-Face and Iron Eagle. If they are good attractions and they market them well, then people will come back.
  4. Ohh believe me. Wait times have been much longer in the past. Before it use to take them at least five minutes per train. Flash Pass would slow it up even more. So a 45 minute wait could easily turn into an hour and a half. It's better than what it was. I still think they should just go back to having Flash Pass as 1 row rather than dedicating a whole train to them. Kings Dominion only dedicates one row to the VIP riders on I305. They don't let them take a whole train because then the wait would be even longer. If I were SFI, I would start building more rides with an unloading station, so that wait times would be less.
  5. For your information, I have mentioned quality in the past. Basically thats what I meant when I said that SFI needs to invest in SFA. I didn't mean for them to build three clone coasters. I have said before that they need more signature attractions. And for the record, it's not that easy getting a good spot near a major city. Different things come into effect such as zoning, height restrictions, and people complaining about traffic. The reason why I always mention other theme park chains by Six Flags America is because it's already zoned for a theme park. The local residents are use to the traffic conditions from people going to and exiting the park. The place has a 200 ft height restriction which gives a theme park company more flexibility in building tall stuff. Plus, a height restriction is better than a height limit. With a height restriction, you can negotiate with the county on getting things that are taller, approved. Height limits set a cut throat limit on how tall you can build. Not only that, but where SFA is, you are close to Washington DC/Baltimore/Virginia. Try and see how easy it is getting a spot any closer to a major city that has those good zoning aspects and a tone of land to build on. I bet you there are theme park companies out there that could really do a lot of magic with that much land and being that close to DC and Baltimore. The place is not far from a major highway so it's not like people are driving down a tone of back roads to fine the place.
  6. KDCOASTERFAN does have a point with a new owner fixing up the place. If a new owner came in and actually did some serious work to the place, that just reflects on what SFI could have done with it. All they would see is opportunity that they missed out on. I believe that the tops reason why SFI never sold the place. If SFI really could, they would do everything to grab more people out of the DC and Baltimore area and bring them to Great Adventure. But if a new owner turned SFA into a super park, they wouldn't be able to do it. I think Palace Entertainment, which are the people that own Kennywood could do some serious improvements with SFA. From what I have researched, Kennywood is a good theme park. They do a lot more for their Phantom Fright Nights, than what SFI currently does for SFA's Fright Fest. There is no telling at what they could do to our wooded area and pavilion area for haunted attractions. If they owned SFA's property, they would have to update the way they do things. I would enjoy getting more signature attractions, rather than clones and nothing at all.
  7. Sorry about that. I went off into a tangent about SFA being bought out. It was along the lines of county board discussion. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to neglect the discussion.
  8. Well no, not now because it's already occupied by Six Flags Inc. And Six Flags Inc has mentioned no word of ever selling it. You see, the key to getting a company like Paramount's to buy SFA is for the county itself to approach them. You have to explain to them that a good deal can be made if they buy it. It's a lot closer to DC than their former location in VA. Anything such as height restrictions, zoning, and operation hours can be easily negotiated if they are willing to buy or take a look at the property. You have to be willing to cut these deals as a county board member in order to get the big names in. And whats the worst Paramount's could say? "No we are not interested". It's not like your going to get sewed for harassment. That and it's only one location. It's not like they are buying into another company like Kings Entertainment and obtaining to properties instead of just one. And if the county board approaches you to make deals of negotiation, you know they want you to come. So Paramounts would be making a good decision.
  9. Never say never. Never is a very very long time. Who ever would have thought that Cedar Fair would buy the Paramounts locations. Anyone could have thought that PARC Management would have bought them and down-sized the amount of spending put into them. But Cedar Fair came to the rescue and did their thing. The same could happen for SFA, if a foreign theme park company were to take interest in it. After all it's just one big piece of land that is very close to the Nations Capital. How much money do you think they could make if they put some real investment in it? It's like saying no to the best opportunity. Just think of it like this. You know how bad Disney wanted that spot over in Virginia so that they could build their park and attract people from DC area? Reason why it had to be VA was being it was the only major spot they could get. If SFA's land was un-occupied at the time, they would have bought it and built the place there. So don't don't tell me that building a theme park close to Washington DC is a bad investment.
  10. As nice as that would be, I don't think we would be that lucky. We stand a better chance of Paramounts taking interest in the land, with it being so close to Baltimore and Washington DC. The only ride I would hope Six Flags would leave there is Joker's Jinx. With it being a Premier Launch, Paramounts may decide to have it under-go the same indoor treatment that Flight of Fear got back when it was first built as Outer Limits. You never know; maybe it would adopt the same name and theme. Reduce it to being five cars, rather than six, so that it gets the same performance as Flight of Fear. Other than that, Paramounts could really do some serious work with the place, given the fact that they have a tone of land. For once in the parks history, it would be a must see attraction when people come to the state of Maryland. Build a big old sign on the highway that tells traffic coming in both directions that the park sits on 214 Central Ave, rather than just state highway signs. It would turn into an amazing place.
  11. Altogether it is possible for the park to under-go a new owner. Here are some of the things that could cause Six Flags to sell it. One, the park could lose so much attendance that SFI just says, we have no luck with this place. Two, a ride accident could happen just like KK experienced and it could be sold. The thing we don't want to happen is for it to close and Six Flags Inc starts removing rides for relocation. That still takes a good bit of money to do, so maybe Weber would just sell it. If not the county would fight it if there is some sort of contract that they had in operation of running the park. Shapiro was known for relocating rides, and would probably keep it close for as long as it takes to remove everything. Weber on the other hand may be different. The real question is, what company would buy the place if it got sold? You don't just want any company buying it, because not every theme park company is good. You want someone like Merlin Entertainment Group or Paramounts to purchase them. The county would probably do better using tax money to buy the place from Six Flags Inc and then proposing a sweet offer to Paramounts themselves. Who knows, maybe Paramounts would turn the place into a Paramounts Movie Park. It's a good location and close to DC, sense their buyout of Kings Entertainment, which gave them Kings Dominion. They wanted to get people from DC area coming to their park, so SFA land would be a perfect fit for them to do that.
  12. When it comes to safety SFI should NOT be short changing the park just because of it's performance attendance wise,that's how accidents happen & is probably one of the reasons why two face kept malfunctioning. I checked out SFA's facebook page recently & quite a few people in the area are indeed asking for a new coaster to be installed but unfortunately SFA says in response that they don't know when the next coaster will be installed yet so it's not just SFA Regular & I who are complaining,it's alot of people. Thanks KDCOASTERFAN. I've been saying for years that most locals have been wondering when the next coaster is coming. Until then people are forced to take the 2 hour drive to Kings Dominion. I'm almost willing to agree with you about the Two-Face malfunctions. I still wouldn't have gotten rid of the ride. I'm pretty sure Weber would have told the park to open it back up, with him being the CEO now. Or at least bought the parts that they need in order to properly fix the ride. Another thing we all want to improve is Fright Fest. When are we going to get scarier attractions?
  13. Well I'm glad you like our park. A lot of of us have been there sense it was Wild World, then Adventure World and now SFA. I will say we have a good ride selection, but the park won't grow if we don't get new rides. I see what a lot of people are saying about SFA being lowest park on the pole. But you can't always look at it that way. Bottom line is, SFA is only going to get higher attendance if they add new attractions to it. People don't see old rides being refurbished as new attractions. You can't go on tv and make a commercial for an old ride like Superman and advertise that we fixed all the problems. People would think that it was pointless and why they are not advertising for a brand new ride. See what I mean? Some people say that SFI, just owns too many parks and will always have to treat the smaller ones with less care. If thats the case, whats stopping them from selling the non-profitable ones to another theme park companies? If companies like Merlin Entertainment Group were willing to expand into the US, the smaller Six Flags parks would be in good hands.
  14. Thanks for agreeing. Look at how Kings Island and Kings Dominion turned out. They had good minds behind managing the park. Think of what could happen if a lot of those former minds were brought to SFA. Not to mention SFA has loads of open space to build on. There is no telling how good the park could get.
  15. They've tried fixing everything in the office season and it never works. Every time they open up for the season things start having delays yet again. What was worst was for the 2009 season, Mark Shapiro went on the news and said that ride delays will not be a problem. What happens? Come time for 2009, there were just as many delays as last year. Not to mention Superman was closed for a about a week and half during the 2009 season to get a new lift hill chain. Then on 4th of July of 2009 it witnessed the longest ride delay every. It opened in the morning, then didn't open till about 6:30 pm. I would vote for closing the park for the 2011 season to under go renovations and reappoint experienced park management.
  16. Very interesting for you to bring that up. Well here is what I had in mind for something like that. If the new CEO actually thought that, the park needed to shut down for some time, while they fixed things; that could be a solution. Let's say for the 2011, the CEO said at the press conference that SFA would remain closed for 2011 season to under go serious renovations and re-training. That could work. During that whole season, new park management would be hired. Like I have said before, I would not mind if he hired a lot of management staff that he was familiar with at Kings Dominion and Kings Island back when they were owned by Paramounts. Once that is put into effect, the new park management would hire the correct staff needed to fix rides and man them during operation hours. New prices for season pass and tickets could under go change and park renovations could be over seen by the new park staff. This way, the new park management is familiar with the way the park is and how things work. For all we know, park hours could become a lot better during the summer. Very possible for SFA to see closing at 10 o'clock on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays like it use to. Over all, I think a lot of things could improve under former Paramounts park staff managing SFA. One thing I think would be a top priority is getting people coming back to the park during Fright Fest. There are so many temporary spaces that a former Paramounts park management could use for scarier Fright Fest attractions. Having rides under go scary add-ons for Fright Fest would be kind of cool.
  17. Because you still need to get people occupied into coming back to the park. You may get your rides working, but if it's nothing new to market then you will still be short of attendance. I like getting the rides and then fixing them as you go. You can't really re-market a coaster that you just now figured out how to fix.
  18. FOF uses a five car train while JJ uses a six car train,other factors include friction from wind resistance...which on FOF is reduced due to the fact that it's indoors.There's nothing wrong with JJ the way it is now so that issue is a dead horse that we need to stop beating over & over. Capitalize is right about the maintenance budget being severely cut resulting in increased ride downtime,this has been a problem that's been slowly building over the past decade as corporate has no doubt shifted funding for maintenance to cover the cost of new rides which is hurting the chain in the long run. You are correct. I did notice that with FoF. It only has 5 cars so it's a lot easier for it to pick up speed and if the launch is hard, it will have more. As for the shifted funding to cover the cost for maintenance; are you saying that the money should be shifted in order to cover the cost for new rides?
  19. There is clearly no darkness enhancement in speed. Go there, ride it right now, and you will see what I mean. If Joker is set at 60 mph as we speak, then Flight of Fear is faster. I just rode Flight of Fear over 10 times the other day. Other people in line commented on the same thing when I was talking with my buddies. If Joker's Jinx was inside, I would still notice the difference in speed between the two. Just look at what I posted on the other page. Flight of Fear rips through it's versions, while Joker takes it's easy time. Even the dude in the video I posted of it said "Could be faster".
  20. You do have a good point KDCOASTERFAN. What would you do to the park if you were corporate? Meaning what improvements would you make? Let's hear your specifics.
  21. Wow, that would be very interesting. One thing I am hoping that our new CEO does is invest more time in making movie attractions. If you ask me it's about time that Six Flags parks started doing that. Six Flags is partnered with Warner Bros which is owned by Time Warner. Time Warner has rights to New Line Cinema, Hanna-Barbera, and Cartoon Network. It would be nice to get them in the game more so that Six Flags parks would turn into semi-movie parks like Universal is. With New Line Cinema being in the mix, they could easily do some kind of Nightmare on Elm Street 4D attraction in the style that Shrek was in. If they want to be on the themed coaster side, they could make some sort of Final Destination coaster that fools riders into thinking that the ride will lead them to their dooms. Six Flags Inc is partnered with one of the best motion picture companies in the business. It would be nice to see a CEO actually make use of that and turn the parks into tourist destinations or at least a music do things in their particular region.
  22. If not that, maybe it would good for them to start approaching SFI about a signature attraction. I've always had an idea for a Riddler themed coaster. Think of something about 175 feet, that takes you up to the top backwards but drops you back down a different way than what you came in a forward position. It could be built by the same people who made Hollywood Rip Rockit coaster. As your going up your hear the Riddler tell you a twisted riddler, and before you drop down the opposite way of what you came, he gives you the answer to your riddler and you plummet down the course through a series of tight twist, and inversions.
  23. What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Mr. Freeze has a totally different layout and requires more speed to actually make it through the layout. Flight of Fear, while only 54 mph, still makes it through the layout with plenty of speed to spare. So what if it goes slower through the first half? It still accomplishes a forceful ride that's fun. So quit whining. I'm not whining. It was a friendly discussion that we were having. Flight of Fear is definitely set higher than 54 mph. More like Joker is 54 and Flight of Fear is 65. But enough of that. Lets talk about SFI making plans to make SFA a complete loop or expand on other areas of the park. It would be pretty nice to give Coyote Creek an expansion and a few rides to go back there. It would be fun for them to install something like Voyage in the Coyote Creek area if it ever expanded with all the same tunnels. For two other rides, I would install decent flats. Give it a pretty light display all along the course like Lightning Racer at Hershey park has, to make it look appealing in the night air.
  24. That is a good point when I come to think of that. I have contemplated about that over the years, but I never thought that the park would have to tone down that things far in order to operate at a low cost. I mean common, that just takes all the fun out the ride. Poltergeist and Flight of Fear are on a hot launch every time, which makes the ride a lot more thrilling and keep it good. Let me put it like this. When Flight of Fear opens at Kings Dominion people are lined up to get inside the building. More of anything, you will see the same people getting back in line as the day starts to wind down. Joker on the other hand does not get these kind of lines anymore. The ride does not really live up to it's name anymore. When you think of Joker, you think of a dangerous villain. So his ride should be some sort of thrilling terror. But when you ride it, it's so mediocre. Even Mr. Freeze at Six Flags Over Texas/St. Louis are set for 70 mph. That's 10 miles faster than what they have listed for Joker/Poltergeist. According to your theory, they must be spending more to run the ride, but it has to be more thrilling. The video even shows that Poltergeist is faster than Joker. Either, Joker is not really running 60 mph or Poltergeist and Flight of Fear are just set for hot launch all the time, which to me is running it near 70 mph like Mr. Freeze.
  25. You are right, but let me add that Poltergeist is a lot faster than Joker's Jinx. Watch a video of Poltergeist on you tube and compare it to Joker's Jinx. As we get deeper into this discussion, I'm debating if Joker's Jinx is even at 60 mph anymore. Both of these videos I just posted are Joker's Jinx and Poltergeist. Both rides are owned by Six Flags. Notice how slow Joker's Jinx travels threw it's inversions and course. Notice how fast Poltergeist, rips threw it's inversions and the course. Now ask yourself, why is Joker so slow? Poltergeist: Joker's Jinx:
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