SFA Regular

I wonder if thats why they keep it set at a low first half. But even Flight of Fear's second half decent. I think Cedar Fair maintenance team went light of the MCBR with Flight of Fear. Now it doesn't completely slow the ride all the way down. It kind of trims some of the speed to a walking paste like Joker's Jinx and then it picks back up as it continues on down the course. Any technician that used to work for Paramounts Kings Dominion would be familiar with a lot of Joker's problems because it's the same exact coaster. I vote for Weber appointing new park staff via former Paramounts park staff to work as General Manager and Park President at SFA. Then they could reappointment experienced maintenance staff to work on SFA rides.

I was under the impression that both SF spaghetti bowls launch ~5 mph faster than their Paramount (now CF) counterparts? I've always wondered the same thing. I'm glad you brought that up. When riding Flight of Fear on Wednesday, I did notice that there is a big speed difference than Joker's Jinx. Not sure if it's that their trains are lighter, or is it the fact that Cedar Fair maintenance team jacked up the LIM's so that they are on a hot launch each time. My park source told me that Six Flags America maintenance team keeps the Joker's LIM's on a fixed speed impulse. Not sure if it prevents the LIM's from launching any faster than 60 mph, but maybe every now and then it goes faster, depending on the weight of the train. But for those who have rode Flight of Fear in recent time, you know how much faster it travels than Joker's Jinx. With Flight of Fear you rocket down the tunnel like there is no tomorrow, and rip through both of the first two inversions like your late for a very important date. Maybe it's just that Six Flags America maintenance team does not know all the tricks to making rides more thrilling. Cedar Fair has always been known for ride performance given the fact that they have rides like Millennium Force, Wicked Twister and Maverick. But if you look at things from a Paramount's aspect, they built rides like Volcano which is actually very quick for the short height that it is. Volcano's top speed is 70 mph and to me packs a much better thrill than Superman Ride of Steel at SFA. Even though they are two different coasters, Volcano's launch seems to be more adrenaline pumping than Superman's 200 ft drop, which to me doesn't even feel like it's a good 70 mph anymore. I'm not sure how many technicians in the Virginia area got replaced with Cedar Fair took over, but if any of them did, they could easily be brought to SFA. If Alexander Weber put in a park manager or president that he knew back when Paramounts owned Cedar Fair or Kings Island, more experienced maintenance staff could be put into position at SFA to improve a lot of the rides down time and performance aspects.

I do agree. On Wednesday, I could have said the same thing about Kings Dominion. Volcano, Flight of Fear and Drop Tower were done I think all day. Flight of Fear did open up, maybe 2 or 3 hours after the park opened. But even during the day it had a short delay, so every park has it's ups and downs. Here is a small solution I have thought of to solve the down time for Joker's Jinx. The main problem that it suffers from is over speed issues. For those who don't know, Joker's Jinx is set at a very low speed. It's nothing compared to Flight of fear at KD. They should have Premier Rides come in and make adjustments to the ride so that it can handle higher speeds. Not only that but train the park technicians down at Premier Rides, rather than at the park. That way, they would get the full on experience on how to keep that thing up and running. That would be the one ride in the park that would barely break down. Not only that, but the company could spend some money to have technicians from Inta and Vekoma come in and properly teach SFA's park technicians on what do to in certain cases. I do agree with most of you that maintenance is something that SFA has struggled with for years, and believe me, I don't know why. All of SFA's competition has good ride maintenance at the park, so why is it that SFA never gets any of these good people? I have contemplated for years, that the park management has just always gone the cheap route, rather than actually seeking out good technicians that live throughout the area and making sure they get employed. Or sometimes I've wondered if it's the park management not putting enough pressure on these guys to get things done on time before they leave for the night. That's something that I think our new CEO may have to address. Whether he decides to replace the park GM and president with people that he knew from Paramounts, or higher professional people from the ride manufactures to work at the park; it's a problem that needs to be handled. Alexander Weber has 40 years of theme park experience so I'm pretty sure he has a plan for it. I'm not going to rant anymore about new rides. I think maintenance is the newest thing on my mind for SFA. I apologize for all the other rant I have done.

I was at Kings Dominion yesterday and I was very pleased with the place. They seem to do a good job running their theme park. Volcano and both Drop Tower were closed, but Flight of Fear was just enough for me. They had it moving pretty good. The launch is pretty good. They could have turned off the lights in the spaghetti bowl. Intimidator 305 was good as well. That ride is very quick around the turns and the partial black out experience is good too. Only thing I wish they would not do, is slow it down on the first drop. The ride was meant to be intense. As for park service, I was pleased. The employees seemed to be in a happy mood, all throughout the place. Even when U got pizza, the people were friendly. When you get a drink they always remind you that the large one is just 20 cents more than the regular size cup. Very good at making the extra 20 cents. Best amusement park in the world.

Nice,I contacted the SFI facebook yesterday to let them know just how poorly they're running the place. KDCOASTERFAN. There is some possibility of SFA getting Chang. A park source told me that he spoke to someone from corporate at the park. My source is not sure if this was true or not, but they actually mentioned that the change in plans had something to do with the cancellation of Chang being built at Great America, along with the zoning. If we do end up getting Chang, I wonder if they will stick it over in Gotham City? It would be very nice for them to build it over in Coyote Creek, so that they can expand that part of the park to Gotham and complete the loop. Or do you think they will give it a DC Comic theme?

Believe it or not. Kings Dominion still lets you put your things and cubbies and loads trains faster than SFA. The reason why they are able to do this is because they have more than just a ride op and ride attendants in the station. Notice on Volcano how they come by with the kart and collect peoples belongings before they got on the ride and then you are given them back when you get off. Flight of Fear is the same way. SFA should experiment with this with newer rides. An unloading station would make load times even quicker.

The convoy ride was once in LTMT & the balloon ferris wheel was once in olde boston. I'm not sure if any of the other attractions are new or not aside from the thomas train that loops around that area of the park though. Now even if they start adding new rides to the park it will take a few more management/operational changes to get me to return....first off getting rid of flashpass would be a good start & make everyone wait in line as equals.Things really got bad over at superman with the ops being forced to run one train for flashpass riders the last season I visited the park(three years ago) & if no flashpass users showed up they ran the train completely empty.The "you know what's" are the next thing that HAVE to go,with Snyder & his greedy money making motives out of the way there's simply no real need for them as KD doesn't force their guests to use them when riding their attractions but SF parks(not just SFA) do which effectively turns them into pay per ride attractions. I have to say that me and KDCOASTEFAN agree upon the same thing. I have never liked the flash pass and the lockers. I think everyone should have to wait in the same line, unless they want to try and single rider kind of thing. I've noticed a lot with SFA rides, that there are always trains that leave with empty seats. Make a single rider lines for the rides and let the empty seats be filled. It would get more people coming there on weekends if they did not have to wait an hour and a half just to take one of the empty seats. And getting rid of lockers would be a good start. I like how KD just lets guests put their things in the cuby boxes, guests sit down and then it's on to checking seats. Not to mention their rides can fit a lot of bigger people in. I've noticed a lot with SFA rides, that they only seat small people. I feel sorry for the bigger people who can't ride, which is why I think more people end up at Kings Dominion. And KDCOASTERFAN, Dan Snyder lost his seat as chairman some time ago. Not sure what kind of position he has with the company now, but I don't think he is in any position to make decisions for the company. So the best thing for Alexander Weber to do is to get a chairman that he use to work with in Paramounts. That would make a great team up. If not that, replace the whole board of directory with his former Paramount buddies.

Good point that you put there KDCOASTERFAN. I had no idea that they relocated most of the rides. Where did you find that out?

Yeah if it weren't for the max height restriction of 200 ft they could add a giga. Now I mentioned SFWOA in my last post because,like SFA they recieved new rides through the 01 season but when the 02 season came around Burke & co. focused all of their efforts on the so called "big four" parks & the rest got next to nothing.Anyone recall how adding Scream to SFMM 7 years ago didn't produce the attendance increase they were looking for?That was a prime example of money wasted on a ride that would've been better off going to a smaller park. By adding a major new ride,be it a flat or coaster & advertising it to the local market people would begin to return to the park. parks like SFGRADV didn't get where they are from their first season after all & ONLY get people through the gates by offering a new ride expereince at least every other year....this is something that the owners have failed to realize with the smaller parks in the chain & if given enough time & money SFA could grow to become a park of the same caliber as SFGRADV. I agree with you. A ride like (Scream) would work well at SFA. If not that, something like (The Voyage) or (Lighting Racer). Anything that is unique would do well at SFA. The park has the more than enough space for anything you can think of. In my opinion, if we were owned by a company that made good investments in us, our park would be one amazing place and a must see attraction in the MARYLAND area. I wonder if Paramounts would do well buying SFA and turning it into a movie park? They could keep the top coasters there and knock down some of the buildings so that the layout of the park could be modified.

I wasn't saying that it wouldn't be good. There have been some people I spoke to that said "SFA, would not be able to keep it working". So that goes for all the people that think that. It's like anything else; you increase the size of your park, you have to increase the number of staff. But what would you think about an all year haunted house?

I still think the next thing to come is a thrill ride weather people like it or not. SFA's water park is good and their is finally enough stuff for families to do with Thomas Land being there. It's been 9 years sense we got a new coaster or big ride, so why not add that? I would even settle for something like an all year haunted house.

See, I've heard that Shapiro actually tried to get Wild One changed to "Wilder One" due to his opinion that it was far superior to SFMM's woodies. To me, that definitely shows that he loved SFA much more than you give him credit for. Is there any truth to this? Can your sources weigh in perhaps? My park source told me that that the name change was not true. And here is the thing with that. What would changing the name have done to the ride? Would it have made it 2 times better? The answer is no. No matter what, the ride would have been the same but because of it's classic value, it was probably nearly impossible for him to do. If he really wanted to do anything he could have replaced Tower of Doom with a bigger drop ride.

But I still think people are avoiding the fact that they took out two major rides and did not replace them with anything. If Shapiro had stayed, I think this would have continued until the park had no major rides left and was put in the same kind of situation that Kentucky Kingdom was in. Thats another park that Shapiro kind of turned his back on. After the one accident happened on Superman Tower of Power the park received no more love. Then he decides to remove another major coaster and give it to a park that already has enough coasters. Basically it shows he was making one park better at the expense of another. If that not an example of spoiled than I don't know what is. I'll be speaking to more of my park sources on what's to come for SFA Fright Fest this season. We probably won't start hearing anything until August starts.

It's kindof semi-dark, at least the times I went. It's very dimmed, but lights are on. Reason why I asked is because a couple times I went last summer, they were completely off. It made it more fun.

I have a question to ask about Flight of Fear. Have they been keeping the spaghetti bowl lights, off this season? Or have they been on?

How is it going to get love from the GP when they don't give us anything anymore. Your asking them to make something out of nothing. And the image is not that bad anymore. Magic Mountain has had more problems with image than what we have had. It all comes down to favoritism. If you always give to one park and not give to the other, how else is the other one going to grow??? It's as simple as cutting a big piece of pie and a small piece of pie. Again, I will say that Burke had SFA on his thoughts again when he gave us Hurricane Harbor. Next step, would have been to renovate the dry side of the park. Possibly by 2007 we would have gotten a new coaster and our Fright Fest would have improved rather than gotten worst.

I agree with CoasterNerd. They are lacking in the thrill department and that seems to be what their competition is beating them with. KD and BGE are not beating SFA with huge kiddie areas. They are beating them with thrill rides like Griffon and Intimidator 305. Even Kennywood added a new thrill ride which is a Premier launch coaster. I'd rather drive the three or 4 hours to check that out. Alexander Weber should be very familiar with KD's method of bringing in attendance. He use to be Paramount's CEO, so maybe he will make SFA more like KD and improve SFA in that similar way. Pretty much I'm hoping that he puts SFA neck to neck with Kings Dominion, so that we don't slip even further behind. What would be even more amazing is if Weber made plans to sign a much bigger deal with Time Warner so that we can get more movie based attractions. Start building more indoor rides at all the parks and make them more unique.

I don't think thats the complete reason. Their whole outlook on the park just isn't what it should be. When I come to think of it, I think Burke would a did a much better job with this park like he was on the road to doing. Sense 2001 of Batwing, it took him 3 years until he gave us and I think three other parks Hurricane Harbor. So basically that improved our water park and brought more people back to the park. I believe that another thrill ride was coming up if he remained the CEO, but that winter, Dan Snyder took the company from him. If Burke had stayed, it only would have been 4 years of waiting for a thrill ride, rather than being short of a decade with no thrill ride. Shapiro did give us another water slide, but the park did not really need that. We needed another coaster and corporate did not do it. Instead they invested money in X2, which then disputes what Shapiro had said in press conferences. Shapiro stated before that he was not going to invest money in high price thrill rides. But why in the world did X, Superman, and Medusa both experience investments??? So basically that proves that he went back on his word. Now that we have Alexander Weber as CEO, it brings up more thought as to what the future holds for Six Flags parks. All we know is that he has 40 years of experience with Paramounts and he did a good stretch with water parks. So over all, when you come to think of it, the parks could start seeing a little bit of both. He could add a thrill ride one year and then a water attraction the next season. Thats how Paramounts did things with Kings Dominion and Kings Island. With corporate being at the park recently, I think changes may start to be seen very quickly. Hopefully it starts with the 2011 Fright Fest.

The reason why I think other parks get spoiled is because I already laid down that fact. Why in the world did they remove rides from SFA and not replace them with anything? But yet though, they remove Deja Vu from Great America and 3 years later they make plans to relocate another thrill ride in that park. Not to mention as soon as they lost Deja Vu, a water attraction took it's place. But with SFA, once it's gone, it bites the dust and is replaced with nothing. This park experienced this with both Iron Eagle and Two-Face. Shapiro had his chance to make the park better and he actually made it worst. Thomas Land was his first big step to improve things but why did it take him 4 years to do it, while other parks got the royal treatment faster than you can blink a eye. He made the decision to get rid of our Brutal Planet haunted house because it did not fit the family theme for his new version of Fright Fest. Did he not understand that, Brutal Planet was SFA's Fright Fest main attraction that brought people to our park??? So when people come back and see that it's not there anymore, we get the biased comments from other fanboys like "Well, you see the park isn't making money, so why should they give SFA a new ride"? The main reasons I have mentioned are the reasons why we are doing so bad. So I don't understand why people always say that it's SFA fault, when evidence shows that corporate has done very little on their part to help us. Examples start with SFNO's GM not even getting the respect from Shapiro/Corporate to get the Batman: The Ride from his former park installed in the park he was currently working in at the time. I remember speaking to Terry Prather about this and he said he was trying his hardest to convince corporate to get it installed here at SFA, but as you can see they gave the man the cold shoulder.

There is some new hope with Alexander Weber being our CEO now. If Shapiro was still secured, I would not be posting on here right now. I did mention that a park source told me that corporate came in to have a look at the place. He told me that Alexander Weber came to the park with some of the other members on the board. I'm thinking, that it's possible they were planning for some new additions on Fright Fest.

While that may be true then WHY is it that other parks in the chain seem to be following the exact opposite of this by adding coaster after coaster & all the fanboys are saying "ohh SFMM or SFGRADV needs it more than SFA"? Honestly when Shapiro started removing rides that were addmitedly problematic but not taking the time or money to replace them that's when this park's days have become numbered.It sends the message that corporate has given up on the park & feels that no matter what new attraction they install would not be enough to lure once loyal customers in the region back from their competition which has more in the way of rides to offer their guests. I have to say that KDCOASTERFAN is on a role in this discussion. That's all I hear these Six Flags fan boys talk about is SFMM and SFGRADV. And he is also right about competition like BGE and KD luring in people with roller coasters. If SFI would put Great Adventure and Magic Mountain on hold for a second and invest 3 major thrill attractions in SFA, they would be surprised how many people end up coming back to the park. They won't ever know unless they try. Removing rides and replacing them with nothing is definitely not the right route to go. They remove our rides and don't replace them, but yet though they will remove Deja Vu and replace it with Buccaneer Battle and then 3 years later, they make plans to install a relocated coaster to make up for it. Yet again, I point out another example of neglect towards SFA.

Well KDCOASTERFAN, it looks like we got another person to agree with us. Thank you for pointing that out. With the company choosing not to invest in it anymore, it doesn't have a wide variety of rides to choose from. It wouldn't have been as bad if the previous management with Mark Shapiro did not get rid of Two-Face and Iron Eagle and replaced them with nothing. It really hurt us a lot when we experienced Mark Shapiro giving Six Flags New England a ride revamp and leaving our Superman the way it is. Common now, we needed that more than Six Flags New England did, and what hurts the most is that they used the picture of our Superman in the online article. Another thing that just blew me was when (Chang) was being transfered to Great America. We were rumored to get it, but once again they decided to skip over us. Another thing that just did not make sense was the decision not to relocate SFNO's Batman: The Ride inside Six Flags America. Our park GM at the time was SFNO's GM. He really wanted to see his Batman: The Ride get put inside the park he was currently managing. So why did they neglect the place again when the shoe fits the right foot? Something is just not adding up???? How much longer is this coaster neglect going to be thrown against Six Flags America? KDCOASTERFAN, help me out.

Once again I have to agree with KDCOASTERFAN. How do they expect for the attendance to increase if they don't invest anything in the park. Great Adventure and Magic Mountain get high attendance because they keep dumping all the coasters in those two parks. So your theory on attendance is more of the company always favoriting those parks off of tradition. As for closing the small parks as KD mentioned, I would not close them. Instead if I were the GM's I would get together, put up some money, get investors and buy the smaller parks from Six Flags Inc. Then turn around and sell them to a good caring company like (Merlin Entertainment Group). Now Six Flags Inc would be free to spoil their main money makers with no problems and the smaller parks would be a good care with a new company, then giving Six Flags Inc some real competition. Again, me and KDCOASTERFAN have pointed out that you have to spend money in order to make money. Cedar Fair makes big investments in unique thrill rides and they get a lot from it. They are the ones proving that high prices thrill rides do pay off in the future. They give the park a bigger variety for guests to chose from, and most guests will come if the park has a big variety. When they were investing rides in Six Flags America, they were getting big crowds. They stopped investing, and people stopped coming. Merlin Entertainment could really give Six Flags Inc, a run for their money if they bought a lot of the smaller parks from them. And to tell you the truth, it would rule if Merlin bought the smaller parks and then signed a deal with 20th Century Fox for movie attractions. With Six Flags America having so much land, there is no telling what a company like Merlin Entertainment Group could do.

Yea, but that mega coaster is now 10 years old and people are not really thrilled with it anymore. What's the crime of adding another thrill ride to the park? Everyone knows loads of people will start coming back if it's good. If they keep adding small things then they will only get small crowds. I'm telling you this from what I see. Adding another small addition is going to drive more people away and give Kings Dominion the edge of receiving more people for 2011. We just had a huge family addition, which was Thomas Land. So why not add a coaster for 2011. Then in 2012 we can add another family addition and then follow it up the next year with replacing Tower of Doom with a few flats in it's place and then building a huge drop tower ride in Gotham City. Drop Towers are much cheaper than coasters. Now let's talk about improving Fright Fest. I got some real good ideas.

Most of the locals want a big coaster, and thats what the parks needs the most. Each time Six Flags America doesn't get a big ride and Kings Dominion does, the locals in the area sit back and ask " Why wont they install another coaster in here"? So the most they ever do there is just spend half a day at the water park and leave the dry side of the park alone. One big coaster won't hurt the place. Just install a big coaster for 2011 and then back it up the following year with a family ride. Has anyone seen the new (Sky Rocket) coaster at Kennywood? Premier Rides built it and it looks pretty decent. If not that, I think it would be cool to have something like (Hollywood Rip Rocket) built at SFA with the same kind of theme. Let MTV sponsor it and give it a name like (MTV's Music Surfer). Use the same genre's of music, but different songs for each genre. People would love it and the park would finally have something unique to market and appeal towards guests on the ride side of the park. If not that, built another wooden coaster like The Voyage where you have a series of tunnels that you go through. Wikipedia says that The Voyage at Holiday World only cost $6,500,000. That ride is pretty decent for just $6,500,000.