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Disney still has greeters and mobile leads. And I believe on certain attractions they do staff queue attendants.

While I agree with everything you say, I really hope that the park isn't operating under the premise that it is up to the guests to report everything. The park should also be increasing staff levels, so there can be a security gaurd or mobile employee at the front and/or inside each major ride queue. The only rides I remember constantly seeing that at during my visits last summer were X2 and Tatsu (I could be wrong about that---those are just the two I remember), which is an improvement over past practices and something I hope they keep up! Way back when the major rides had security cameras and a gaurd in a booth in the queues watching over them! Even if an incident gets reported to an employee on the load platform and it does get dealt with appropriately...that guest is still going to be extremely pissed they had to put up with whatever the problem was until they could find an employee.

I don't think you guys are giving the GCI team enough credit...The only thing making this ride more complex than any other coaster they've worked on is the audio, which is actually not too complex at all. I trust they'll have the ride handed over on time.

Another question I have: when does he plan to start communicating? The park opens in a little over a month and the website doesn't have anything except an old press release. I guess they figure no one uses the internet to plan their vacations in advance? Have they done any local advertising yet?

Oddly enough, I googled "Six Flags New Orleans lease agreement" and every article I found only mentions how New Orleans bought the LAND and signed a lease agreement with Six Flags to operate the park. So yeah...I would like to see some proof too. It could very well be that the city of New Orleans actually owns the rides, but there's nothing in this story that indicates that would be the basis of the lawsuit.

When somebody takes something from somebody (purposely) it's called stealing. Six Flags didn't own any of the rides they didn't put in. They're able to remove the rides they installed, but may not remove the rides that were originally there when SF agreed to lease the park from N.O. (N.O. owns the rides not installed by SF). SF removed the S&S Towers that did not belong to SF, and they also took the 2 G-Train Mega Zeph trains (now used for Boss at SFStL). -Tatum You didn't answer his question. The article doesn't mention ANYTHING about "stealing" rides. All it mentions is the city intends to sue based on the fact Six Flags has no clear plan to re-open the park. And unless you have a copy of the lease agreement, I'm not sure how you can think "stealing" will be the basis of their lawsuit.

So...uhh... Did you hear that Hard Rock Park apparently announced a new kids land today? I sure didn't. Google Freestyle Music Park and a grand total of 4 news stories about this new land come up. Only one of which actually provides vague details. Still can't find a press release on their website. They are off to a great start.

First off, Scott has been doing a much better job updating his thread, so be sure to check out HIS as well! Today's update is American Airlines Arena in Miami. It's got a sweet location right on the water in Downtown Miami, right next to the port of Miami and the Bayside shopping center. Other than that, I wasn't too impressed. It had that "70's arena feel" to it, with the design where the top deck doesn't go all the way around and there is video boards in each corner instead. The concourses only had 2 or 3 choices repeated numerous time to go all the way around the arena. Luckily the food was still decent. On to the photos... The Dewar's 12 Clubhouse. After the game, they leave the club open and it becomes an actual club. Thought that was pretty cool. That's what she said? The real reason the Heat managed to win a title. Screw you Shaq. Obligatory action shot. Very exciting stuff. Note to ALL NBA teams: More Hooters girls please. Note to NBA teams that suck: you wouldn't need annoying as hell DJ's to "entertain" your fans if you had a quality product on the court. Who knew SFMM sold their troll costumes? My seats for the night. Courtesy of a scalper who was chased away by cops soon after he sold me my ticket. Apparently that is a common sight in Downtown Miami. The booze selection was better than the food selection. I did, however, dig the scoreboard design. ...Can't say the same from the inside. Not a fan of how the Heat colors look. It looks pretty cool from the outside...

^My (albeit very limited) understanding of Hard Rock Park is that the place failed as an outlet mall, thus leaving the owners of the attractions also on the property scrambling to survive. Their solution was to bilk investors out of $400 million to build Hard Rock Park. After seeing how they operated the park, I don't really believe the original planners ever intended to do anything other than cash out and run. So crucial information like the place being a "night time town" that even a first time visitor to the area like myself noticed was never really important to them.

^So they won't give the actual figures of each park and announce that the actual number is just 100,000 more than what is needed to be bumped up to 4th place on the list. Quite the coincidence.

^^Instead of fighting over starting wages, USH's union has fought harder to protect other things like medical/dental insurance, vacation, raises for fulltime people, etc. Not the best for seasonal employees, but for people who are willing to stick with the company...it's a pretty sweet deal. On the topic of unions at SFMM...there are still some people very high up in management who were vehemently opposed to the maintenance people getting unionized, so I don't think you'll ever see anything more at SFMM. Comparing the benefits...it's not the least bit surprising the best people leave SFMM as soon they can. There has got to be a ton of talented technicians, managers, leads, ride ops, stage managers, etc. that all got started at SFMM and left for USH or Disney as quick as they could.

To everyone in this thread...look on the bright side: At least you aren't a Kings fan.

Those have to be the lowest resolution press photos ever.

^^

Somewhere between 300,000-500,000 (depending on who you ask) people visit KBF for Haunt.

Another awesome TR. I haven't been to a minor league game since the Lancaster Jethawks first moved to Lancaster. This TR reminded me why I need to go to another one!

Allen brought up a great point: who the hell are they targeting? Is there really a large enough local population? Is $40 really the right price point to get people away from their resorts? It'll be interesting to see what discounts/partnerships they are able to come up with...

^^I've only been on X2 twice, so I don't remember how the queue is currently set up, but I know that the queue was designed for flashpass since it originally opened. It actually ran flashpass the first few weeks before they realized how horrible the capacity was. I believe it was the far right lane when you enter the switchbacks.

^^I'd settle for any attraction that help combats the heat!

^^You got "lambasted" because this is what your post actually said: It certainly wasn't very clear to anyone that you said "on paper" they have a similar amount of rides. You also didn't make it very clear what you meant by cost of living. So you'll have to forgive us for not reading between the lines and figuring out things you never actually posted.

One thing I noticed looking up Baker Leisure Group... This Steve Baker guy and his "extensive amusement industry experience" comes mostly in sales and marketing. Looking at the website, it appears the most experience the company has operating a park here is Water Country USA before it was owned by Busch. Of course there is also their ill-fated one year run at trying to save Cypress Gardens (which isn't highlighted on their website). Everything else is "consulting" or marketing/branding/sales related stuff. Not quite sure what to make of that. Regardless, with everything that is known so far...I'm still not confident. Lots of missteps for a group trying to correct the mistakes of the previous group. The quote about a half day experience being worth $40, the question of whether or not the dark ride will reopen, the questionable name, a website that doesn't even have an "opening soon!" message, a failed attempt at saving Cypress Gardens on their record (which I'm sure wasn't all their fault...but it's on their resume nonetheless, so you have to wonder what role they played in the failure), a loss in the courtroom to the former owners which potentially affects their finances/marketing plans, and lots of talk with no announced action thus far. In fairness, a lot of what I just said can (and hopefully will) change over the next few months. But there's no doubt in my mind they are facing an uphill battle where there is still a huge chance of failure. But they always say "no risk, no reward", and at the price they paid...it's worth a shot. At the very least they can fail and sell the assets to recoup most (if not all?) of their money.

^^Honestly, I think it has more to do with the costs involved with modifying the queue's to properly handle Flashpass, single rider, and a regular line. They really didn't even bother to modify the queues for flashpass to begin with (they basically found unused employee access points and turned them into flashpass).

^Here's a better question: what evidence is there that suggests the park will be successful? Nothing the new ownership grown has shown so far has made me believe things will be different.

Lets count the reasons... 1. It's being run by the same team that failed at Cypress Gardens. 2. Potential litigation from the previous shady ownership group. 3. Still the highest priced "family" attraction in the area. 4. The attraction line up is still extremely lackluster. 5. The location is still an issue (10-15 minutes from the beach) 6. Face an uphill battle rebranding

Each "lane" of a queue has to be 4 feet wide and there has to be an egress route. If the bridge is used as part of the queue, it doesn't look like there can be anything more than 2 lanes+egress route. But if it just serves as the entrance to the area and feeds into the queue, it will probably work. Though I agree that if the area is as high traffic as SFMM is hoping, with typical guest traffic jams...just based on how things look now, the potential for a "clusterf*ck" is high.