DirkFunk

Fiesta Texas is essentially just that. Lots of the large housing developments (think: Del Webb) contain aquatics centers/water parks as part of the amenity package for buying in.

Michigan's Adventure closes for the season the weekend after Labor Day. No point in discussing it for an October trip. I mentioned the zig-zag - you could skip Six Flags St. Louis and hit SDC on the way towards Texas. That would shorten the trip, definitely.

If you live near Valencia, and your plan is to drive from Philadelphia back to the greater LA area, that does color my opinion a bit. First off (and very important): It is October. Weekend operation is the rule. If you want to go to a park on a weekday, that will require some serious advance planning; Knoebel's is typically open now the Thursday and Friday of PPP weekend. There's also fairs in the Northeast and Southeast at that time, and they'll be open weekdays. Silver Dollar City and Dollywood too. And there's random closures also - Hershey is, for no good reason, closed the first couple weekends of October. But that's not really your question, so I guess I should get to that. Going East->West, the Six Flags parks that are open which you might be able to hit are: New England (if you drive north to start the trip, personally I'm not sure about that being the best idea), Great Adventure (near Philadelphia, relatively speaking), St. Louis, Great America, MAYBE Texas and Fiesta Texas. Maybe. And for Cedar Fair: Dorney, Cedar Point, Kings Island, Worlds of Fun, MAYBE Valleyfair. If you plan on basically driving an S across the US, going east along the I-80/90 corridor until you reach Chicago, then heading SSW for St. Louis, SDC, then the Texas Parks, you could jump on I-10 and barrel across the desert and that would make a Six Flags pass your best (and cheaper) option. You'd still be headed in the correct direction to stop into Cedar Point also.

http://www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2014/04/17/wisdom-sir-isaac/ Honestly not going to miss it one iota. Empty concrete pad might be a better attraction.

Uhhh, I'm pretty sure ACE doesn't give out plaques for Sky rides. I think Six Flags did that themselves. As for the Skyride, it, like the Monorail that used to be in the same rough area, was purchased by Riverside's prior ownership (who was horrible) because, I dunno, it looked nice. IIRC, that ownership also had designs for expanding the park out past where the rapids ride presently sits, and I think the transportation rides were to play a part in that...though that fell through and they put these up anyways. Just think: the management who screwed up the signs for Time Warp and Double Trouble and thus had to name the wrong rides that (seriously) was a drastic improvement over those guys. Also; I blame Six Flags more than Von Roll for the lack of cabins.

And so this thread has died. RIP thread. ...unless it comes back to life in three days. Then it is possibly the antichrist. REPENT THE RAPTURE IS AT HAND! Is that how it works? I don't really know. Also there was only one way to possibly end this thread acceptably and this was indeed it. Wow. Wow again. Wow a thousand times over. Jesus on the motorcycle is the pinnacle of themed entertainment. I am immersed sitting in my home. Everyone at Goddard Group, Disney, Thinkwell Group, whatever, y'all might as well just quit. Walk away. Nothing will ever top that.

Yes, SEEMS to be the most popular even though it is a capacity nightmare compared to any park with any ride. Period. No questions asked. You're missing the point. The point is that it IS an insanely popular attraction. People are willing to wait for it. If all it takes is a 1000-1500 people to create a 3 hour queue line, it isn't actually that popular. It just means it has horrible throughput. Hell, does the park even have sign boards telling people how long the wait is? Fiesta Texas didn't have them for anything when I was there 2 weeks ago.

Wade Shows hasn't remotely gotten close to going under. They're as large as North American Midway Entertainment now, and just finished up buying the Schwarzcopf Wildcat "Comet II" from Murphy Bros., giving them 4 full size adult coasters.

Says it all.

From carnivalwarehouse.com, bringing the unintentional laughs:

Sponsorships in modern auto racing are required to race unless you're willing to fund out of your own pocket as an ego trip. Sponsorships on amusement park rides aren't necessary to keep the lights on. I'm not going to argue about Six Flags' methods of bringing in corporate sponsorship vs. that of Disney and whether or not they're equivalent. It's been covered. Yes, parks are going to seek sponsorship and corporate partners. They will look to continue finding new ways to bring those messages to people at the park. I'm sure Cedar Fair reintroducing TVs to queue lines is intended in no small part to do that. Six Flags is getting singled out because the overt and crass nature of their in park advertising is unique in the industry. As far as you standing by your belief that Six Flags is a "budget option": this is the internet and I'm not likely to convince you of anything. Lagoon is not a budget option in my mind either. If you're on a really tight budget in Utah and you're taking your kid out for some fun, you'll probably take them to some low rent nickelcade or a FEC where the cost of Lagoon's parking can get your kid a bunch of tokens and a round of mini golf. You aren't buying season passes (unless you're getting one for your kid and planning to use it as an alternative to day care) anywhere, regardless of how it compares to Disney's pricing.

It will be a cold day in hell before Disney or Universal turn to wrapping trains/vehicles on their rides in sponsor's colors. Same with many significant parks overseas. I'd be very surprised to see Cedar Fair go to the lengths Six Flags does as well given their management's past history. Corporate sponsorship of rides is nothing new. Blackpool has two Arrow coasters with fizzy beverages buying name space and its been that way since the early 90s. Six Flags manages to even outdo them. NASCAR's sponsorships *do* require a lot of extra work on the team's behalf, but that's neither here nor there. In scenarios when you're racing to the bottom for a profit, selling additional ad space can be a boon, sure. That's why Ryanair has advertising on their overhead bins and United doesn't. Alright, so I went to Lagoon a few months ago and have some familiarity with it. It is one of the best operated and most interesting independently run parks in the country. If they were to wrap the trains and station of Bombora with advertisements for mayonnaise (which Six Flags has done), I'd be sorely disappointed in their management. If they did that *and* generally did a crappy job of running the park? I'd think they were operating with the expectation that I was merely another easily replaceable sucker. Six Flags isn't a "budget option" anywhere except in the bubble of theme park nerds who think $90+ one day theme park admission is totally a reasonable amount to pay. Community operated aquatics facilities are an "affordable option," as would be county fairs, county/metro owned parks, and the like. If what it costs to park your car can probably buy you 4 tickets to a minor league baseball game, you're not providing an affordable alternative for a family outing. Nor is it an "affordable alternative" what Wal-Mart or Target are intending to provide compared to other shopping outlets. Six Flags Over Georgia is *the* park that services the Greater Atlanta area, as well being *the* amusement park for those in Birmingham, AL and a couple other smaller markets. Saying its a budget option to the "high end parks" is like saying Myrtle Beach is a budget option for those who seek Bora Bora.

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/2014/04/01/sustainable-playland-puts-hold-county-review/7153751/ Short version: Sustainable Playland got the contract to run the park, but various people within local government have gone through legal channels to question whether or not that was even something that was legally allowable in the manner done. Also, the city wants to assert that the park can't just do what it wants, and still has to seek approval through them with the new management. With that resistance, Sustainable Playland is probably heading out and the conflict continues whilst the park operates on.

Well, if a ride is supposed to have a coherent theme intended to create certain emotional responses (which is what themes are supposed to do and why they're effective), then yeah, it may very well make the ride less exciting. Riding Poltergeist a couple weeks ago, you see where prior management put in enormous effort in the station and where present effort does a good job torpedoing it with Stride wraps on the trains. Six Flags ran up huge debts, cancelled them out in bankruptcy court (which means the company paid those who they owed a pittance/nothing), and is now trying to make as much money as possible as soon as possible through methods that don't exactly benefit the consumer. OK, that makes them like a lot of companies. That doesn't mean it is right, the best course of action over the long term, etc.

I reviewed this earlier in thread and don't feel like harping on it that much. If you manage to get yourself on the zoning board, change people's zonings to screw their expansion plans, then buy their brand new rides for pennies on the dollar after forcing their hand (which he did; some of those rides are in that "indoor theme park"), it is gonna be tough to push you to improve. You can believe me or not. Doesn't change what's true.

First, when Six Flags went on a spending spree in the late 90s and early 2000s, they DID increase attendance dramatically at some parks. Go on Google archives or USENET and you can see discussions of the massive attendance gains Six Flags Ohio, Six Flags America, Six Flags New England, etc. had. I dragged back on the net and found pre-Premier Riverside doing under a million visitors while Six Flags New England today pulls over 2 million guests. Six Flags Ohio's first year flagged saw an attendance increase of 42%. The issue was sustainability. They built rides with no regard for infrastructure, lousy training, and zero interest in providing adequate operations or maintenance budgets to keep the rides going. Some parks and markets sustained the high levels - Riverside was a pit before Premier, so what was there after flagging was still great in comparison at its worst. Some, like Six Flags Ohio and Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom tanked terrifically. I'm mentioning this with regards to Darien Lake's attendance specifically because Six Flags did heavily invest in 1999 with the expectation of those dramatic returns and never got it. My recollection is the rise that year was a mere 10%. That would have been a good number with a traditional amusement park model, but Six Flags depended on much larger margins and those people coming back year after year. Since they didn't get it, the money went elsewhere in the chain while they suffered the same problems that every Six Flags park had with short budgets and neglect until ultimately it was sold. Now, could a big coaster result in some positive gains? Sure, it probably would at least in the short term. But would those gains make a profit for the park over 2-3-4 years? I don't know that it could there. Everyone wants big new exciting coasters at parks and I'd love to see one at Darien Lake. But let them work on their existing infrastructure first. Predator is the obvious choice there, but there's other things too.

SMDH.

FWIW standups have capacity issues. Having longer waits doesn't equate to being more popular. Mantis, for example, only ever runs two trains because it practically always stacks.

B&Ms being "forceless" is, I'm willing to bet, a result of the rides no longer featuring the sort of sustained positive g-force some of the rides had way back when with the spacing/size of the elements. The positive g's still exist though, and standup coasters simply don't do a good job with that. I think if they believed they could make those sorts of rides, they would encourage their sale. I don't believe they've encouraged sale of standups since the late 90s/early 2000s.

Eating is a necessity action to live. There isn't a good reason any large regional theme park can't offer respectable food and with decent variety. The whole concept of the gated theme park has revolved around putting people in a fantasyland (pun semi-intended) of entertainment options, and with it not-crap food should be part of that fantasy. If you overcharge me for something that isn't abjectly crap, I'm far less likely to complain about the value than if it is. That's why you don't see remotely the number of complaints about the food at Disney, Universal, Knotts, SDC, Dollywood, or the Busch Gardens parks that you do at Six Flags. Of course, if you hold your guests in contempt and see them solely as cash dispensers, then going that direction certainly makes sense. It may even be a financially viable strategy depending on the market and the competition.

Its somewhere between NCL's freestyle and Disney's rotational dining. NCL's "main restaurants" don't feature a fully fixed menu. It isn't a deal breaker for me, nor does it necessarily make the ship for me either. The pursuit of suite guests with specialty restaurants (Celebrity is doing the same thing) is something I do appreciate though, and that makes a bigger difference for me than anything else announced re: the dining.

JMHO: Six Flags is doing what they can to boost their stock price and get investors a gain right this second rather than 3-4 years down the road. Over the last few years I've seen them really go all out with staggered attraction/section openings & closings, later park openings, running fewer trains, ending costly licenses, etc. There's been institutional issues with ignoring blight spots in the parks for eons that I can't ascribe entirely to the current administration, but they also aren't fixing those issues. I understand the rationale. They got rid of parks except those in the most mature markets with the best population density and the lowest fluctuations in attendance. They can add next to nothing to Six Flags Over Texas for years now and probably get away with it. I think whoever ends up obtaining Six Flags (because I believe wholeheartedly that the end goal is selling the chain to some giant corporation or private equity firm) will probably have to deal at that point with lower guest satisfaction and possibly crumbling infrastructure. What happens then will be interesting to watch, but I admit I fear it as a potential guest.

Well, at least we know where it's going. encils in Scandinavia for 2016:

I'm seriously considering taking that Ryndam itinerary later this year after they sub out Roatan/Mahogany Bay for Banana Beach/Trujillo. I actually like Mahogany Bay for what it is - a beach day - but I like new things more. Plus I like that HAL's basic level of service includes things that a lot of cruise lines only allow at suite levels, i.e. dinner service from the MDR in the stateroom.

I'm entirely familiar with them. I understand that Kentucky Kingdom is in a different position than the average post Disneyland suburban beltway theme park that Six Flags and Cedar Fair specialize in operating. However: I disagree wholeheartedly. Six Flags as a whole was incompetent, sold off 2/3 of their parks, and 4 of them in the US have ceased to operate since their peak. Their business plan *everywhere* was a failure. That's why they went bankrupt. I never once said the Koch's plan was incompetent. It was actually smart looking at it from their perspective. It doesn't benefit me, however, and the reborn Kentucky Kingdom does. Kentucky Kingdom is now more or less the problem of Will Koch's widow. Well, yeah. He's not there if they don't walk away. That goes without saying.