Too Fast For Comfort

This is the exact same impression that I have of universal. I wonder if maybe Universal is so popular because it tries to market to an older demographic (let's say teens, college kids, and young adults) and that's a pretty underserved demographic in Florida, and those tend to be the people most into parks. But I think that even if Disney aims younger, and to make rides that everyone can do -- the attention to detail, and the quality still blows Universal out of the water. Even the impromptu shows on the midway at Disney are better than regularly scheduled shows at most parks. Disney also has some hidden rides that are pretty good -- I call them hidden because they're not available on FP+ and not everyone knows about them.

Its funny, I really do like the Disney parks a lot, and I'm a guy who appreciates really, really good attention to detail and theming. But I just really do think that Universal misses the mark. The older attractions in general tend to be a lot better than the newer attractions in general. Pretty much anything made in the past 10 years is just a conveyor belt to take you from video to video -- its like a lazy person's idea of a good time, like they're one step away from a Wall-E existence. Too lazy to even get up to walk from one video to another. Even Spiderman is pretty bad and people act like its the greatest ride ever. I think that screens can be effective on rides (Flight of Passage is a good example), but Universal is just pigs about them and abuse them. IOA was off to a good start, but since its opening its gone from having three great coasters to exactly one great coaster. The Universal Studios side is beyond cheesy and really everything is conveyor belt screen ride after the next. Ironically, the water rides are probably the best part of IOA, as there are few, if any screens. But obviously, who likes getting wet? Maybe if you had a day to go where it was really hot and you packed a change of clothing, you could take advantage of them.

Right. I dont get it either.

Not entirely sure why a ton of people seem to have it out for me on this board. I'm giving my opinions and you can agree or disagree. No reason to get personal and think everything I say is automatically stupid. I love coasters and I love talking about them, but I don't think that requesting some civility and respect is unreasonable. Clearly whoever is in charge of Six Flag's legal team -- whether in-house or a firm on retainer -- did not know the law in this case, and now they're getting sued because of it. Like I was saying in the first place. I don't see how any of the unnecessary negative words that were slung towards me disproved this fact.

No, they hire lawyers who study the relevant laws in jurisdictions where SF operates pertaining to the decisions the execs want to make. I know you've got it in for Six Flags, but they do know what they're doing here. You don't have to be incompetent to find yourself in a court case. Sometimes people just interpret the law differently. "Have it in for Six Flags." Saying that about the guy who has a Diamond Elite membership for the chain. You just completely overestimate companies in America. They obviously have a law firm on retainer, but I doubt that they have in-house lawyers like a bank or a Fortune 500 company would. When you're paying the law firm by the hour, they can't be perfect. Mistakes will be made, and you can't keep on top of every little law in every state in the country. You do what you can, but the law all comes down to what you can reasonably do.

OK, if it was the violation of a law, that's a different story. But knowing Six Flags, it was probably due to ignorance of the law as opposed to them really hoping that they could break a low and get away with it. Its a company that's headquartered in Texas that can barely even fully staff its parks. I doubt that they execs are really studying every state's case law and legal code from cover to cover before they make decisions. As for the law itself... I think its unnecessary. I'd be OK with making the law so that it prohibited the company from selling your data or giving it to anyone else, but I think that guests already have the ability to opt out -- they just choose not to go to the park. I'm sure that Six Flags would make other accommodations if they just explained that they weren't OK with biometric scanning.

That's not really as huge of a concern. A enjoy park shows, but I usually go to parks for coasters. Shows are usually just a way for me to feel like I'm getting all of my money's worth, and stay productive if lines are getting line. If a park gives me crowded shows for walk-on rides I'll take it.

Personally, I think that any part of the country could use more quality amusement parks and/or theme parks. There doesn't have to be one park that dominates a metro area. If many parks exist, are thriving, and put in great rides, people with money and families with money will just go to parks more often. If one amusement park dominates the market and has no competition, going to that park will just be something that the average person does once every few years for kicks. The biggest competitor to a park is apathy, other entertainment options, and other travel options. Granted, a key qualifier is quality attractions and the parks being well run. If they're pathetic and laughingstocks, then it won't help grow the pie at all.

When I read about this situation, I just had this image of a distracted mom and a bored, teenage Six Flags employee ushering guests through and instructing the 14-year-old to put their finger on the scanner before the mom realized what was happening. What I don't get is how you go from the moment when you realize your kid put their finger on the scanner without your consent to filing a lawsuit against Six Flags. Seriously, do you have something to hide or are you just that money-hungry/American white butthurt about everything (assuming this lady was white, but maybe not)? I mean I don't have kids and obviously I go to a lot of theme parks but is it that difficult to realize that a. your kid is getting their finger scanned "without your consent" and b. Six Flags does this as well as Disney and a lot of theme parks? If she's not comfortable with this, she better destroy all of the devices that she or her family use that connect to the internet. Everybody has all of their personal data already.

Sea World Orlando just does not get crowds. Its pretty uncrowded Saturday and Sunday, and its pretty much a ghost town in a Monday-Thursday situation. I live pretty close, so for giggles I went on a Friday night between Christmas and NYE when all of the other major parks in Florida were so jammed you couldn't move, and SWO was still not that crowded. The first time I went was in April of 2018. I didn't know much about the park, but bought a QQ. I think I was the only person all day who bought one. The whole day nothing had a line. I pretty much just kept using the QQ line because it was a shorter walk. The greeters sometimes wouldn't even open the QQ line up, but I insisted because I had paid for it, and it was a shorter walk. So I would never even dream of buying a QQ for SWO unless its a Saturday or holiday. Its a park that's not well attended, and its full of very high capacity rides.

So after watching this, I'm assuming that if they were hoping to sell the coaster and relocate it, they would have taken a more ginger approach to taking it down? Is letting the track crash into the ground like that something that you would only do if the steel was just going to be scrapped?

That's funny that you hit a rare day that Fun Spot gets any line whatsoever. Also funny that we're calling a 10 minute wait excessively long. But I've been to Fun Spot Kissimmee five times and every time Mine Blower has had no wait with empty seats the whole time I've been there. I've even gone on Saturdays. I think that the park just doesn't bring in enough money for proper maintenance on the coaster. Otherwise, it would probably be pretty smooth and pretty highly ranked. But I still enjoy it. I also like it as a way to get productive after the long ordeals of Disney where I'm standing in lines, and walking through their maze of a park. BGT has been getting lines these days. Some people on this board don't believe me, but I think that outside of the Disney parks, its the park where crowds are the biggest issue in Florida. They'll probably only get worse when Tigris and Twisted Tigers open. But hey, I'm happy for them that they're making money and getting popular. BGT is my home park and I live pretty close. When Twisted Tigers comes out, I may splurge and buy the season length Quick Queue.

Or perhaps not so many are being built now compared to the '90s because so many parks already have one... you know when they built them in the 90's? People said dive coasters were dead after Oblivion/G9 and look how many have been built after Sheikra. One just opened in Korea. People said Flyers were dead after AIR/Superman and we've seen a few in China/Japan in recent years. Now if you'd said it's crickets for the aquatrax business (RIP Atlantis's water jets), I might have listened. The only difference between now and the 90's is if a park decides on a B&M and approaches them they have a much bigger catalog to choose from on what they want. I'm sure that what I bolded is a huge factor too. I agree with you on that. But you have to admit that there are fads and trends in the industry.

EXACTLY! Entertainment value only. Was tempted to put in every forum to see how many get mad/ start back and forths on what should or should not be in the list. Didn't do it though. In fairness to the article, it just looks like whoever wrote it prefers the theme parks, and doesn't really enjoy the amusement parks. So they're just not going to appreciate the things that people who just want coasters and don't care about theming care about.

Might depend on when you go. I've seen it empty, and I've seen it very crowded. Cobra's Curse actually does usually have a line that's about as long as Cheetah Hunt in my observation. ShieKra gets some long lines too. Montu can easily get to an hour when its hella crowded. Scorpian usually has a long wait as it only has one train ops. And Kumba can get up to a half hour when it gets packed -- I think mainly because frustrated guests just want to get on something. Kumba (other than the wild mouse and the kiddie coaster) is usually the last coaster to get a line, and is usually a walk-on if they run two trains. I think that the crowds will only get more robust as Tigris and Twisted Tigers go in. I personally think that BGT gets the longest lines for any park in Florida outside of Disney.

I think that they're shooting for an April/May opening. If you can get to BGW, Tampesto is pretty much the same thing.

Yeah, I think that the park is designed to have a lot to do and look at for non-coaster lovers, so this takes care of the crowds pretty well. BGT on the other hand does get some monster crowds, unless you go on a Monday-Thursday outside of the holidays or school breaks.

True. I'd say that one coaster being built in 6, going on 7 years when so many were built in the 90's is a telling sign. Supposedly one is being built in 2021, but to me it still sounds like crickets for B&M's inverted business. https://rcdb.com/r.htm?ot=2&ml=6717&page=1&order=-8

No question this will be settled (or the case withdrawn or kicked). The question is how much the settlement is. Nobody would ever let this go to verdict. Yes, the instructions on the ticket may slightly decrease the size of the settlement -- but you also have to contend with the fact that its "fine print," a reasonable person wouldn't know to look for it, and its never actually enforced. If SF's lawyers pursued this as an argument, both sides would have to investigate and present evidence as to whether the policy is ever enforced. If it is never enforced, the evidence will be worthless. If it is aggressively enforced, and the plaintiff actively used subversion to break the rules, that will hurt the settlement as well (and possibly lead to a countersuit if the case isn't withdrawn). But we all know that no unaccompanied minors isn't enforced. Six Flags has tons of kids run around unsupervised.

B&M Flyers never exactly took off and captured the hearts and imaginations of the parks the way that other coaster types did. Since 2002, 11 have been built in the world -- only 5 in America. None have been built in America since 2009 - Manta. It seems to me that this is a design that just isn't a fad anymore, or its a "checking all the box" coaster - for bigger parks that just want one of everything. Seeing as King's Island doesn't have a Giga, RMC, or a few other things, I don't see this as a box that they're interested in checking. I think that B&M has moved on from inverts and flyers to vertical drop coasters, wing coasters, and hypers/gigas. And if KI wanted a flyer in their park, they would have just kept their old one. Not spent money to remove it and build a new one from scratch that's slightly better.

Personally, I freak out about my wallet, phone, and keys being loose in my pockets when I ride -- because it would be such a pain and hassle if I lost them. In contrast, my other things (sunglasses, park maps, cups, Qbots, etc.) I wouldn't really lose any sleep over if I lost, so I assume the risk. I think that its a $100 fee if you lose the Qbots, but that's still not nearly the hassle of losing my three core items: wallet, keys, or phone. The odds of anything falling out are very low, so I'll take a 1% risk of losing most things, I just want a 0% chance of losing my core three things.

It looks like a key word here is "without the parents permission." So in the future, they could probably do it as long as the parents attend with the kid for at least one visit, go to guest relations, and fill out some brief forms. So I don't see this really being huge blow to Six Flags. Truth be told, I think it makes sense to have some parental or guardian supervision for 14 year olds at parks anyway.

Couldn't agree more. If I ever get dragged to a waterpark, I spend most of the time in the lazy river, wave pool, or those shipwreck bucket contraptions that you can get on without a line. I just don't see the appeal to holding your tube for an hour, inching along at a snail's pace 100 feet off the ground, for a 20 second ride. I think that any attraction that they can do for the waterpark that's high capacity is the smart play.

Have you looked into Chance? Lightning Run for Kentucky Kingdom gives a world class experience in a small footprint for a relatively low cost that's great for thrill-seekers and.. most ... members of the family. They're mostly a kiddie coaster and flat ride company, so I'm sure they could scale it down and do something between Lightning Run and their normal kiddie fare.

I wonder if the plaintiff realizes that the corporations have this information already. Datamining corporations already havea complete profile for him that can be sold and packaged to the highest bidder just by his daily online activity.