anewman35

It's worth noting how historically bad the winter was in the Midwest. It was simultaneously the third-coldest and third-snowiest winter in Chicago history. Chicago hadn't seen temperatures that low in 20 years, and hadn't seen that much snowfall in 35 years. This was truly a once-in-a-generation type of winter, and not something you plan for on an annual basis. That said, there could have been plenty of other things that contributed to the delayed opening, but if ever there was a year that weather was a perfectly valid excuse, it was this year. I think it's very fair to cut them some slack for missing Memorial Day originally, but I'm much more skeptical of any reasons for missing this week - there's no reason it should have taken them so long to figure it out.

Well, this commercial shoot is trying to get members of the public to do it. They don't have a list of people or anything. For the media day, it's not for the general public, so it's possible the people going to it already have some info, and even if they don't, the park knows who they are so they can get them the info.

Are you talking about the area in the lower right hand of this picture? I think that's it. I just remember it around and/or merging with the Splash water falls exit. The vivid part for me was the sign stating it was the "Demon viewing area." I also recall there being an American Eagle viewing area, which I think went away when they brought in the Wiggles World (or has it been gone all the way back to when they moved Big Top? I'm not sure).

I know I replied to this post on SFGAm World, but I too had an issue with the park's newsletter today. They sent me one saying something like "Exclusive Ride Time for Pass Holders" and sent me this. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see a single mention of a season pass holder ERT in there. Yeah, I got the same one (with the different subject). Hmm, I was originally thinking that maybe they had something about Goliath in there and pulled it last minute, but this makes me think that maybe something strange was just going on with their subject lines?

So I just got a season pass newsletter with the subject "Special Update About Our New Ride" - and then there wasn't a word about Goliath in the entire newsletter. Hmm.....

Just looking at the situation, it doesn't look likely. HOWEVER, the park (which, unlike us, knows the schedule) seems really confident that it'll open on time. They're either right or just really incompetent. I'm hoping they're right.

As of yesterday, the park is still saying they'll be done on time. Until that changes, I don't see any reason to think they won't.

They were fixed rails when Iron Wolf was there: It seems like it'll be a problem, though, because Iron Wolf wasn't very popular but even that went outside the queue on busy days. I guess maybe they want to discourage people from getting in line or to encourage Flash Pass? On a semi-related note, does anybody remember any details about the old Batman overflow queue that (IIRC) ran from Orleans Place behind the East River Crawler? I remember it existing when I was a kid, but I would love to see pictures or know when they stopped using it.

And the fee is only $5, which is still really cheap for a whole water park (especially compared to how much everything else in the park costs).

It will open on May 31st to the public at the earliest. May 24th was their original target date but they moved it to May 31st the other week because of poor weather over the winter. That is literally one of the most disappointing things ever. I can't believe I am missing it by just a few days. Maybe they will have a random public testing/photoshoot on Tuesday? Anything's possible, but I really really wouldn't expect it. They're going to be cutting it very close to even have it open by the end of the month.

If I'm not mistaken, Great Adventure (and maybe others) does have Hurricane Harbor as a second gate and still charges as much for parking. Basically, Six Flags is going to charge whatever they can get away with, and the park still always seems pretty full at $25, so clearly it's working. Also, I tend to think that most of what they do (like giving a $5 charge to HH this year for non-passholders) is really just to sell passes, so it makes sense to jack up parking at the same time that the Season Pass offer is "buy four passes get one parking pass free".

Well, you can get a parking pass, but I think they charge about $100 for them at this point. What you really need to do is take advantage of the early season pass offer they usually have in August or September, if you can get four people together to buy passes everybody gets free gold upgrades and free parking passes, It's really a very good deal.

Again, I really think people are missing the fact that it's a headline. It's acceptable to leave out the "is" in a headline, so it's basically "This Goliath Is Huge", which I think everybody would agree does make sense. See http://www.englishlessonsbrighton.co.uk/8-grammar-rules-writing-newspaper-headlines/ - Rule 5 is "Leave out “to be” Residents unhappy about new road (residents are unhappy) Family of murder victim satisfied with court decision (family of murder victim is satisfied.)" And that's the last I have to say about this, because I'm pretty sure newspaper grammar doesn't actually have anything to do with what this forum is about.

It does make sense, if you just think of Goliath as a word meaning "Giant" instead of a name and if you consider that it's a headline, which doesn't really have to be a full sentence. Basically, they're trying to make a stupid pun about the fact that "Goliath" means huge, and the ride IS huge. It seems weird out of context I guess, but as a newspaper headline seems pretty standard.

This article makes me think that (even though I admit that it seems hard to believe) Six Flags is really really confident about the May 31st date. They wouldn't have given a specific date and allowed it to be exposed so publically otherwise, unless they either believe that all publicity (including complains when you don't hit a date that's now very public) is good publicity, or they're really incompetent. Hopefully neither of those is the case.

Well, if I'm not mistaken the park is going to have that anyway, because season pass day is supposed to be on a regular operating day.

I'm sure we'll never know the real answer, but there were weeks after the ride was approved and announced where it didn't appear anything was being done. Like I said, we don't know, maybe there were reasons for that and they were doing things that nobody knows, but I have to think that the park could have pushed up the timeline a few weeks if they had chosen to. Like I've said previously, though, I just really don't think Six Flags cares - as long as they get it open by early summer and they can push it all winter and sell lots of passes, they're happy.

I'm just guessing on all of this, but I doubt they care all that much - if the weather's decent, it'll be packed all weekend anyway. I can't imagine there's a very big percentage of people who are not going to go to the park just because Goliath is not open yet (and those people would just probably go later in the year anyway, so it's not as if the park loses money on those people. If Six Flags really really cared about being open for Memorial Day, they'd have started the project earlier (or scheduled more employees on it).

That's all true, but it's sort of besides the point, because even if they had announced a date they would have covered themselves with fine print. Even if it is/was ready, you never know when you're going to have a rainstorm or something close the ride all day, so they'd never be dumb enough to have a guarenteed date.

I'm hoping this is a joke, but if not - I'm sure anything they ever handed out has some fine print saying "date subject to change" or something of the sort.

Keep in mind that the date RMC originally planned to finish the ride is very likely different than the date they are contractually obligated to be finished by is very likely different than the date Six Flags has planned to open the ride. Unless they are very stupid and have very horrible lawyers, RMC didn't sign a contract where they have to pay a bunch of money if the schedule slips a few weeks through no fault of their own.

I don't really get why it would have to be? Maybe the train station or parts of Camp Cartoon would be closed, but besides that the ride doesn't really go over the path or anything, so I don't see why they wouldn't just put some barricades around the ride entrance and leave it at that.

That banner has been up on the station since September. It probably was just a fail safe in case there were delays but it is currently due to open on Memorial Day weekend. And also keep in mind that Memorial Day is basically the unofficial start of summer (which is why the water park and most public pools open then). It's still two months away, I doubt there will be any issues.

I don't really get why so many people seem so worried about it not getting done in time. We're still over 2 months away from the scheduled opening date, it's mostly built, and there's been no indication of any problems. There's really no cause to worry.

I'd be curious about how many people actually pay the normal daily admission fee - I'd guess very few, considering the number of discounts that are available. I really don't think the point of this is to try to get an extra $2 or $3 or $5, they're probably going to use it mostly to sell more passes (which I think is what they really want, because then they can sell people parking and food).