Capitalize

Awesome stuff. Hopefully I'll make it back there this season. Last season I didn't end up getting over there.

Lap bars look great, speakers are blah. I hate the whole onboard audio thing.

1. El Toro @ SFGAdv 2. Apollo's Chariot @ BGE 3. Mindbender @ SFOG 4. Kumba @ BGA 5. Afterburn @ Carowinds 6. Beast (@ night) @ KI 7. Shivering Timbers @ MA 8. Big Dipper @ GL 9. Magnum @ CP 10. Wild One @ SFA

I would love to see Screechin' Eagle re-open. I only made it to Americana once when I was very, very young. I remember Screechin' Eagle was closed all day, though.

Wow, Cypress Gardens? I'm not sure its possible, but I actually think HRP may fail EVEN WORSE now...

Its going to be busy? I dunno. I went down there for opening weekend a couple years back and had an absolute blast because there was NO ONE there. Everything except SUF was a walk on. SUF had a 5 minute wait for every row except the front which was an extra 10 or so minutes. Mindbender and Batman were walk ons all day so I just stayed there and got countless rides. Unfortunately Goliath was still under construction and Ninja was being painted, so I still haven't gotten on those. But, in any case, you should definitely go. In my experience opening weekend there is great, with no crowds.

So if the current theme falls through, can Nights in White Satin continue to be "Nights in White Satin" and use the song? I found the song to be the only redeeming thing about that ride...

You mean where the African safari used to be? By FOF? I dunno, I really like Dominator's location. I feel like it really adds to the parks skyline where now you pull up to the parking lot and see that massive coaster, its really neat. Before there was the Eiffel Tower and Volcano, not really anything else.

According to Screamscape they're looking at adding some restaurants (Johnny rockets, etc.), some new shows (shock), and a train ride. Makes me think they'll finally let anyone ride the train that used to be just for picnic grove folks... Sweeet!

I feel like with all the bars that the place has I could see people wanting to swing by there late night just like Broadway on the Beach. To me it seems like a great idea, combining two great attractions from the area - late night restaurant bar scene of Broadway, and the amusement park fun of Family Kingdom. I think it could do reasonably ok. I really hope the name doesn't end up being a deal breaker as well. Obviously the Hard Rock name isn't a huge deal here, or they wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.

So apparently one group's plan is do pay-per-ride and free admission. If this plans goes into place and works then I will feel awesome for suggesting such a plan months ago...

Does that mean England is full of whiners, too?

lol, they're still getting a new stage for a lame show, right? I mean thats a high quality addition right there.

Not adequate signs giving warnings? Yeesh, I guess during their several rides they never noticed the signs warning about heart problems et al. Seems really stupid to me. But at least its not one of those ridiculous so many million dollar lawsuits.

Of course Myrtle Beach can sustain a park--just not (apparently) an expensive one. But the Pavillion did okay. So, logically, if a new owner buys the park for much less than it cost to build, they don't need to charge as much and/or have as many visitors to make a profit. /This might actually be the only way for Myrtle Beach to sustain a park that big. There really was no justification in charging as much as they did for admission. If it were around $30, then I could see it.

Glad to hear it may live to see another season. Hopefully they can fix all the broken aspects and be successful. Hopefully this means that Led Zep gets a new theme and no longer has that pre-show. After 2 rides I was thoroughly annoyed at having to wait through that, I like led zeppelin as much as the next guy, but that was a bit much.

Premier Parks bought out Six Flags in 1998, but kept the SF name. Under this theory, wouldn't Premier's management have favored their own legacy parks? Either way, America is staying here this year, so long as the parent company can stay in business. The company is showing no signs of going under anytime soon, except for their balance sheet obviously. They're continuing to expand, SFGadv just signed up a new award winning fireworks show, there is capital improvement across the chain, and most parks are well underway in their hiring process. BTW, anyone notice how SFA is starting their big hiring push at least 1 or 2 weeks later than Gadv, even though they open at the same time? Is it because its a smaller park?, smaller budget?, or have they not gotten it yet? I agree with the theory is smaller park requiring less employees to run then the massive SFGAdv. It might also just be a matter of scheduling where to do fairs and all that...

Everything on your list would be great and highly needed at the park. In the past there was severe understaffing issues. Leading to rides being closed due to a lack of employees and employees being forced to work much longer then they were scheduled, resulting in bad attitudes. I know I got annoyed when I was supposed to work from 9-4 and didn't get off until 5-6 because people didn't show up to work. However, they are doing job fair events around the park this off season so hopefully they will have a nice large cast of employees all season. CF would buy the park to then remove the rides side of the park claiming to make it a high quality water park where they would decide not to build any more slides in it? My assumption is to remove competition from Kings Dominion. In this economy I really doubt we would see that happen at this point in time. SFA given how large it is land wise would sell for quite a bit of money, I don't think CF would want to spend that kind of money just to get rid of what little competition SFA holds over KD. The DC area is a huge market and the parks are nearly 2 hours away from each other in normal bad DC traffic. SFA caters more to the Baltimore/DC side of things while KD caters more to the Richmond/VA side of things. My point is the markets the parks are going after are much larger then the market areas around CP/GL.

That is exactly what I see happening in this economy. People need to tighten their budgets, so naturally the first thing to do is not spend as much on vacations. So rather then traveling across the country for a week, for much cheaper you buy a local season pass, or even just go for a day.

Might want to get one of those cursed q-bots to make sure you get everything done. Otherwise on most days you'll be waiting 1-2 hours for every coaster in my experiences.

As someone that's looking to hire a qualified person to hire right now, I'm terrified of what I'm seeing come across my desk. Crap resumes. All of the people that are worth anything, aren't leaving their current jobs, unless absolutely necessary. So, I'd say your theory is pretty hopeful, and not very likely. And higher standards means you better expect to give out higher pay. No corporation is going to do that for a 18 year old ride op. It's cost cutting time, not bring in less people for more money. Economics, dude. Read up. I was simply going with the theory that in a tough economic market you would have a larger pool to draw from due to higher unemployment. So rather then being understaffed with bad employees you have a chance of being staffed properly, hopefully with a better workforce... And by "higher standards" I don't mean they should be looking for people with a degree or anything to op rides, I mean that if a kid is a bad op and can't follow the operating procedures then they can be let go as they aren't understaffed with bad workers. Criticizing the park not so much, criticizing the workers and majority of the park guests by calling them ghetto and saying that they make you feel unsafe due to their "ghetto-ness" may result in that.

I find it absolutely hilarious that you didn't read my multi-paragraph response, and yet you lambaste another well known user for replying as simply (though in a more eye-friendly form) as you do every time. Can someone say you ignore all that you disagree with? Plus, you can just say the announcement is not going to be huge, considering the paperwork states that it is merely another speed slide. Maybe you've become so conditioned to accept mediocre attractions/additions (and again, I'm looking at this based on my experience at the park) that this is just the greatest thing you've seen the park get, but I find that pretty hard to believe, if not a little pathetic. Six Flags America may have potential, but minor additions like a speed slide (regardless of how tall, fast or large it is) can't make this park turn around. Whether or not you give the park's lamp posts a devoted spit shine when you visit doesn't make a difference either--your adament fanhood won't make something small become big. I figure you'll learn eventually that just because you want something to be something its not, won't make it so. I would love for Seaworld Orlando's Journey to Atlantis to be an Intamin Aquatrax, but it doesn't work that way. I'm sure Hard Rock Park and Cypress Gardens' management teams wanted more than anything for their parks to succeed, but it just wasn't so--and there is nothing they could change about it. You can't make a speed slide become a gatebuster attraction (at least not that I could possibly imagine), especially for a park whose main concerns and issues lay attached to the amusement park section and not the waterpark. If you figure out a way to magically change things, please let me know, because I really would love it if Journey to Atlantis could become an Aquatrax coaster. While you're at it, could you also figure out how to change your posting style? Thanks. What issues are we talking about then? Clearly simply adding a speed slide isn't going to fix problems in the operations on the rides, nor will cleaning up lamp posts. But as was said already, a new and improved management won't fix things at all? Most enthusiasts gripes abut the place stem from bad operations on the coasters, new management can fix problems like that very quickly during pre-season training. And as I said before, this job market is going to help the park. Parks including SFA won't have to take just any kid off the streets to op rides, they can actually have higher standards for their employees. As far as a speed slide not being made into a "gate-buster" attraction, Kings Dominion was able to hype their slide complex tower like mad. "THE WORLD'S TALLEST AND FASTEST ENCLOSED SPEED SLIDE!!!" Marketing can do amazing things. The local media comes out for a small PR day and shows people having a fun time on the slide and people will come out to try it. Thats how SFA does a large amount of its marketing, free bits on local TV/newspapers. They do a remarkable job of taking small attractions/concerts and making them into something big that makes people come out multiple times during the season. And on Jokers Jinx, its a heck of a lot better then FOF... No MCBR and 100% smoother. If JJ "crawls", then FOF would have to be described as coming to a complete stop...

The first half isn't too bad but the second half is horrid,perhaps if they got rid of the butterfly element the ride would improve,but not by much. Its the lowest part of the butterfly element that bangs everyone up in particular. That transition is awful... Other then that it isn't a bad ride, imo. The final corkscrews are fantastic.

Thats true. I guess time will tell, but I'm mostly thinking how many of their woodies at their parks are considered rough and use trim brakes.

I think things will be looking up at the park. New management and a slimmer job market (more applicants to draw from) will definitely help out a lot. I only visited GL once (the season it closed), and it was dead. No lines for anything all day, no crowds, no one buying anything. Apparently this was by and large the case on most days. SFA normally attracts good sized crowds and groups all season and has good in park spending in comparison. So I don't think the comparison to GL is exactly fair or correct. There are a lot of issues (including CP being only an hour down the road) to consider.