YoshiFan

Spending more money at a restaurant or on an airplane seat doesn't affect the experience of those who chose to spend less. Yeah those who spent more will have a nicer meal or flight but it won't stop those who don't from having a nice time. Flash pass does, as non flashpass users get on less rides at the expense of those who bought flash pass I just don't understand why it is so accepted that flash pass is ok. 10 years ago, no parks had it and everyone was content waiting their turn then all of the sudden Six Flags decides they can charge for this service and most don't seem to have a problem. If a store tried it, where for $5.00 extra on a busy Saturday during the holiday season you could skip to the front of the checkout line, people would be furious. Something else to consider about capacity is how they block of certain rows on coasters for flash pass. Skull Mountain seats 28 riders, one of the middle cars is blocked off for flash pass even on days when the park is dead. Now if there is a line and no one from flash pass is riding, that car goes out empty each time. That's 1/7 of the train not being used which makes the line longer than neccessary. The cost is more signifcant than $20 - $30 a person, especially if you go for gold flash pass, gold for 1 person is $71! With more people, the cost goes down but even with 4 people it's around $50 a person. So for a family of 4 it's, $160 admission, $200 flashpass, $15 parking, $100 food ($50 a meal) for a total of $475 and that doesn't include playing games or buying any items from stores. I know it could also be said if I hate flash pass so much I shouldn't go to a park that has it. My answer to that is I won't visit on days where there are a lot of flash pass users. I bought a Great Adventure season pass this year because of the $59.99 special price (underpriced, I know). I will use it in April especially on weekdays in April, and weekdays in May, where the park will hopefully be dead. Once it gets into the summer season, I might visit once or twice on a weekday but there is no chance I'll visit in August or during Frightfest. Had there been no flash pass, I'd probably visit more since lines would be shorter overall but I'm probably not the type of person SF wants visiting their parks anyway since I refuse to pay $6.49 for a slice of pizza or $4.99 for a soft pretzel and only spend money in the arcade (and that's only because I have no arcades near me and they have games that I can't find anywhere else)

I am 100% against it As mentioned, they can purposely run 1 train on rides to get more people to buy it and make the line longer I also don't like how the park is basically selling your place in line. If I cut in line, I'd be thrown out of the park, yet I am suddenly allowed to break park rules and cut the line because I gave the park some more money. I know some will say it's not cutting as you are just holding your place in line but if you get in another line while waiting for your ride time you are in 2 lines at once which isn't possible normally and with gold flash pass, you can get 4 rides in the same time it takes a non flash pass user to get 1 ride What happened to everyone being equal in a park? Is it right that a family who saves all year to take their kids to the park and can barely afford admission then has to be cut in line the whole day? I'll use Kingda Ka as an example of why the system is horrible. It normally can run 4 trains, one day in 2006 they were using 2 trains. With so many flash pass users 1 entire train was devoted to flash pass most of the day. Then on the non flash pass train, 2 rows were devoted to VIP users. That means on a ride that could accomodate 72 riders at full capacity and was only at a maximum of 36 riders at half capacity, only 14 seats were available to non flash pass or VIP users. 14 seats a cycle, even every 3 minutes is 20 x 14 = 280 riders an hour I know it will never go away because it makes the park so much money and I hate how it's being spread to other parks.

Add more family rides. It seems like all they are adding is kiddie rides and coasters. For example at Great Adventure I would add antique cars and family flats. Flats also cost less than coasters. Why is Great Adventure getting a coaster (even if it's only a wild mouse) when in the past 10 years they have added Medusa, Nitro, SUF, KK and ET plus 2 family/kiddie coasters. I would lower prices. Parking would be reduced to $10, bottled drinks would be reduced from $3.50 to $2.00. I would add a free form of Flashpass like they and Universal used to have, it would be more limited than regular Flashpass but I think it would cause less people to get annoyed about the paid Flashpass. Finally, I would change the admission pricing. $59.99 gate price is ridiculous but so are the half price days. I'd set admission at around $44.99 with constant $5 off coupons (since people like to think they are getting a deal) to a real price of $39.99. I'd also raise the price of season passes. Buy a day, get a year for free has got to go and $34.99 - $59.99 passes are ridiculous. I'd charge $79.99 for the smaller parks and $99.99 for the larger parks and charge $20 rather than $45 for a parking pass.

No beverage containers allowed but I bet they'll gladly sell you $3.50 bottled drinks from the vending machines in the lines. No reason they can't have the sliding lockers at the station like other parks (where the cubby spots are open during boarding but when the other train is in the station, a door is slid over them so people from the other train can't get to your stuff)

I don't mind advertising but I still think SF takes it to far, I mentioned the timeshares in an earlier post, here is a picture of what I am talking about: http://www.amusementpics.com/SFGAdvNotesFall2007/091607-005.jpg And the picture someone posted a few posts up with the ads in Plaza Del Carnival is a perfect example of how similar it is to what I mentioned earlier about the timeshare ruining the theme of Fantasy Forest. A few in park ads like Starburst, or a ride sponsorship ok, but I feel like SF is taking it too far and bombards you with ads.

It sounds interesting, I would have liked to seen the original even more though. I enjoy seeing what people thought the future would be like 50 years ago. Disney Channel used to show stuff like that late at night, I remember one show about the highway of the future that showed a car that drove itself. Plus they showed old Disneyland shows. So much better than the shows on the channel now.

They are more accomodating than a regular seat on an invert or floorless. I am able to buckle the belt myself on those type of rides but barely. On SUF, I can get the restraint down to the second level/second click. I think the cutoff would be if someone can not fit in a regular invert or floorless seat and has to use the larger seat but are only barely not able to fit in a regular seat, they would fit in a flyer seat.

Great Adventure has a bunch of rides sponsored by companies. Bumper Cars (possibly being removed) are sponsored by Geico, Nitro was sponsored by some A&E show etc. I really hate all the advertisements in Six Flags. Last time I was at Great Adventure, they had time share people set up in the park as well as other advertisers. Kind of takes away from the theme, since it was in the Fantasy Forest with giant birthday candles, ice cream and cake themes. I'd be happier about if if they passed the savings onto us, like how if you agree to use some web service providers always displaying ads, you get a discounted rate but since SF is the most expensive on admission (other than destination parks), food, drinks and parking, that doesn't seem to be happening

The McDonald's near Great Adventure is like that as well, close to $6.00 for a medium value meal. Thankfully the McDonald's near Dorney and Hershey are cheap and have the dollar menu including a soda free refills for $1.00 I'm guessing most of the stuff in that book is probably common knowledge or stuff you could learn easily by going to a deal website.

I don't know why but for some reason I was picturing the ride launch towards Monster. Anyway, it will provide some cool views while waiting for Laser.

Great Adventure and Dorney both have an "all items are $10 or less" shop. I'm not sure if other CF and SF parks have them but they can have bargains. At Dorney I got a T-Shirt for $5.00, normally $16.99 (and still $16.99 on their website) and they had candy bars for $0.65. In the vending machine they were $1.50. $0.65 is even less than most supermarkets and stores like Rite Aid and CVS. When eating in the park, look for combo deals. At Subway in Dorney, a regular size sub is $4.xx. You can make it a combo with 2 cookies and a soda for $3.00 more. A soda is $3.00 by itself. So you get a sub, a soda and dessert for under $8, not bad for park prices If you are at a seashore park, try to find food/drinks elsewhere. In Ocean City, NJ, the drinks at Playland are $1.50 and candy bars are over $1.00. Literally right next to the park is a 99 cents store that has 20 oz sodas for 99 cents and king size candy bars for 99 cents. As for playing games, I actually find some park arcades to be less than other arcades. For example, the standard in my area is 3 songs of DDR for $1.00. Dorney offers 3 songs for $0.50

The original pier with GNE and the pier with the Golden Nugget ride.

Agreed 100%. The coaster is only going to have an optimal capacity of 850 an hour, which is never going to happen. Add a virtual que system and it's going to make the line ridiculous. Even worse is a ride like Rollersoaker, capacity on that is about 350 an hour (3 cars dispatch every 2 minutes), that line will be 2+ hours with virtual que added. Flashpass is one of the reasons I have avoided going to SF on a regular basis among other things (bad operations, high prices), and I hate the idea of this being added to other parks.

They are tube slides. I think they used to be double tubes only but either in 2006 or last year they switched to single tubes only.

Ikea is great. I love their food area. 50 cents for a hot dog or $3 for 2 hot dogs, a huge bag of chips (I think 5 servings so you have plenty to take home) and all you can drink soda. The only thing I don't like is that they are now charging for bags. I know their reasoning for it but some items that are difficult to carry really need to be put in a bag

I hope the site turns out good since there are no sites for HP. There was Hersheyparkonline.com but it's basically dead (no more forums)

At least you'll have a very short offseason (2 months)

Maybe they wouldn't have such money problems if they would stop "giving away the gate" It's crazy that I bought my Great Adventure season pass for $59.99 when the gate price is $59.99. Other smaller SF parks had SP's under $39.99 (the 1 day sale). Season passes should be at least $75 for the smaller parks and $100 for the larger parks. I'm glad to pay the lower price but I know it's bad for SF

"Not for sale?!? I wonder what the going market price for re-adds are." I remember seeing an auction posted a while ago, 8 of them went for around $240 total.

The wait time idea is great. At all the WDW parks, the wait time boards are only close to the front of the park so it's a pain to check them especially if you are at the other end of the park from where the boards are located.

Boardwalk At Hershey, it's way too small with not enough activities and slides which cause very long lines. Plus East Coast Waterworks is run horribly, with people lining up in the structure with no actual queue lines for the slides which causes congestion and tons of line cutting. On top of that, the rumors are they are going to remove the Canyon River Rapids, to add more Boardwalk attractions. They should have made a seperate waterpark, either seperate gate or away from the rides but included with admission like at Dorney Not quite as bad but Wiggles World at Great Adventure. The park already had 3 kids areas so a 4th wasn't needed even though it was mostly a retheme of part of Looney Tunes Seaport. We also lost the Arrow Hydroflume because of it. I would have rather seen them spend money on family rides (not kiddie stuff) such as an interactive dark ride.

That happened to me in 2004, we saw that 1920's scene 3 times but they got the ride going again and we didn't have to evacuate

What is it about water rides that make people act like this? To add to the ones posted

Anyone who gets offended at those lines shouldn't be going on the ride. It IS a haunted mansion, stuff like that is to be expected.

The Great Adventure site says the park opens in April and on GADV.com, they said it's April 5th. I was kind of hoping for a March opening as well since I figured it wouldn't take that long to wait in line to process it in March.