n7 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 Jay Thomas: I have never experienced a park management team so dedicated to something other than the dollar. I was in total shock when I saw your first post here...I mean, the owner of a major theme park coming to a fan-site forum - it's unheard of! Your new style of management is a breath of fresh air - your very ingenious use of these fansites for word-of-mouth advertising, along with actual proof that it's not just a pipe-dream (turning the park around) has got to be the smartest move I've ever seen a company make. I never ever thought Six Flags Magic Mountain could be more than an unattractive, sticky, twisted mass of metal and concrete - and I thought that I would never visit the place again (every experience prior 2007 has been mixed with extreme highs and extreme lows). But you're proving the mentality to be wrong - you've taken a park with massive potential and you're bringing it to that level. All I can say is bravo man - you've got a bright future ahead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenA07 Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 I've always wondered how many people working at parks check out sites like this daily. Here's the thing, and I believe Jay Thomas is very smart for realizing this. we are the most observant people when it comes to parks possible. If a TPR member finds gum on the midway that wasn't there before, you better believe there is going to be a thread with pictures and 20 pages worth of discussion about that peace of gum. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong about being hyper-observant towards parks seeing as how this is, after all, our hobby. I post on a few electronic sites where people have hundreds of pages worth of discussion over cables and which ones are the best. I post on an LA Kings message board where people will be able to recall a goal an average player scored in an unimportant game 5 years ago. We're the same here, and I don't think any of you are shocked by that. What I like about Jay Thomas coming here (and I'm sure he lurks much more then he posts) is that he can basically have us being his eyes in the park. We notice all and we are sure not shy about voicing our opinions about it. Park officials can come on here and find out about problems with the park (the ACE plaque for example) that they otherwise would likely not have have even noticed. What's great about the new people in charge at SFMM is they not only take notice, but they generally proceed to fix the problems. In my opinion that is more of a sign than anything else that SFMM is going to make a very nice recovery in the next several years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
upfrontjwash Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 I've always wondered how many people working at parks check out sites like this daily. Here's the thing, and I believe Jay Thomas is very smart for realizing this. we are the most observant people when it comes to parks possible. If a TPR member finds gum on the midway that wasn't there before, you better believe there is going to be a thread with pictures and 20 pages worth of discussion about that peace of gum. Now I'm not saying there is anything wrong about being hyper-observant towards parks seeing as how this is, after all, our hobby. I post on a few electronic sites where people have hundreds of pages worth of discussion over cables and which ones are the best. I post on an LA Kings message board where people will be able to recall a goal an average player scored in an unimportant game 5 years ago. We're the same here, and I don't think any of you are shocked by that. What I like about Jay Thomas coming here (and I'm sure he lurks much more then he posts) is that he can basically have us being his eyes in the park. We notice all and we are sure not shy about voicing our opinions about it. Park officials can come on here and find out about problems with the park (the ACE plaque for example) that they otherwise would likely not have have even noticed. What's great about the new people in charge at SFMM is they not only take notice, but they generally proceed to fix the problems. In my opinion that is more of a sign than anything else that SFMM is going to make a very nice recovery in the next several years. I agree with you on that. We do look at the park way more then the GP. like the lights on the vipers eyes most people wouldn't have even noticed that they were even there. Let alone that they were out. I'm just glad that the people that work at the park are taking such interest in what is said on here, and from what they here from the GP. As i'm sure people make comments to people who work there on a daily basies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebl Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 When we (enthusiasts/park fans/whatever you call us) work with park management, like, in a sense we are, everybody wins. See, together, we're working to make the park the very best it can be. Seeing what's going on out at SFMM reminds me of a pilot whose plane is going down, but he pulls out of a certain crash at the last minute and soars to the heavens. As I've said many times, I look forward to what the coming years will bring. Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brandon Posted April 13, 2008 Share Posted April 13, 2008 I was just at SFMM on Friday and X2 looks amazing with its new paint job. It looks ten times better in person than in a picture. Viper seems so much smoother than the last time I rode it last year, it's actually enjoyable. The opposite goes for Scream, at least thats how I experienced it, it used to be so good, but it's so rough now, too bad. To be honest the park didn't seem to be any better than last time I went. For example they had a little parade going on and the last float didn't even have any characters on it and you can see were they had little poles to hook them on to on it. But they did do a good job at keeping the park clean. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadnight Warrior Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I've always wondered how many people working at parks check out sites like this daily. You'd be surprised. I used to be a Ride Op for quite some time and would lurk these boards to see if I can look into any constructive criticism or compliments that would help me improve my own work practices. Just thought I would chime in with that bit of info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HEADCHEEZ Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Did Riddler's Revenge Re-Open Yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jew Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vedved82491 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I believe a LOT of people visit this site, due to the wide variety of amusement information available to people. Many non members come here to read things that may help them in their visits to parks. They often find themselves wanting to input information and comments, and thus leads them to joining the boards. Actually if you check the stats, where it shows whose online etc, it's show approximately 70+ members online and hundreds of "visitors" here. Anyhow, the summer season is just around the corner and I'm assuming things are in full gear and progress and building up successfully. Also, is Riddler still idle? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
df25863 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Also, is Riddler still idle? Nope. It's back online and was running today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AllenA07 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 When I was running my SFMM page one of the most common questions I would get was about planning a trip to the park by non-enthusiasts. So yes, a lot general public drops by this site to get information about parks they're planning on visiting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYTrojan Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 The video is the very first cycle of new X2 train. We did not have a ton of time to prepare for the video, or to contact Robb to come and film it for us. I had thought you might appreciate seeing the very first cycle of the train. We are already working with Robb to come and shoot both our 1st and 2nd train that has already taken a few test cycles to date. Several weeks ago we contracted a professional to come shoot the commercial footage, which we will use in future commercials. We have scheduled that shoot to take place as we are nearing the end of the project. As for the lockers…, come on guys, if I wanted to make money, I would charge you five dollars to store your belongings. We are not forcing anyone to use the lockers. We are doing our very best to make sure you do not enter the queue line with loose articles. My only intent here is to train riders to not bring anything into a line or onto a ride. My suggestion, don’t bring anything with you that you can’t secure in your pocket! It is that simple. If it was feasible, we would have these lockers at all of the rides. The sole purpose is to increase capacity! Sole purpose! Remember, Tatsu last summer consistently had 6 minute and 30 second dispatch times… Unacceptable! We have made vast strides to reduce this number and have been very successful to date. You may ask about gifts and souvenirs, we have a “free” package pickup you can use to store the items you purchase. We have lockers you can access all day long for 17, 13, or 9 dollars depending on the size you want. I am not looking to nickel and dime the guests. How much do you pay to access the internet at Cyber Café? How much does it cost to go to the Magic of the Mountain Museum at the Sky Tower? How much is Package Pickup again? That's right... all FREE! I have no problem defending the value proposition here at our park. We are a phenomenal value and working hard each day to make it that much more enticing! I am just blown away that this continues to be a sore subject with many of you… especially after we have continued to deliver on so many improvements at the park this season. Guys, I CARE so much about this park! Just as each of you do! If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be coming to this thread. But please, be patient! I can’t share many of our plans, but certainly… or hopefully, you can all see that we are heading in the right direction. We never claimed to be perfect! We did say we were working towards it! Keep the Faith, Jay Jay Thomas Park President Six Flags Magic Mountain & Hurricane Harbor I understand that you aren't intending to nickel and dime people, and the policy still bothers me. The general public won't understand this and will get -really- ticked about it. I'm all for an increase in general park admission and free lockers. You'd be surprised how little people complain about the ones at Universal even though the ticket prices are comparatively high. That said, I've made my argument and while I don't expect to change any body's mind, I think that it is a valid concern for a healthy number of park go-ers. I will say this: It will definitely impact the number of times I visit SFMM this year. Not being able to carry around a good supply of water, mist bottles, and sun screen for reapplication after water rides pretty much eliminates June and July in Valencia for me. Here's a question: Can I leave my water bottle on top of the lockers, unattended and not locked up, but outside of the station? On a much more positive note: I would like to echo the thanks given by so many others here for everything you HAVE done. I have never seen so many positive turns in this park. The major gripes people have had about Magic Mountain are dropping like flies. "Everything looks so worn down" Bam! Repaint Ninja, Viper, X, Gotham, repave the cracks.. and more to come I am sure. "X is great but you spend 3.5 hours in line on a slow day, and it is guaranteed to break down at least once while you are in line" BAM! a complete multimillion dollar overhaul. "Psyclone is just painful, and I don't get why we have to wait for more people to ride it" Bam! It's gone. With promises of something new and exciting to take its place. I now have faith that the majority of my other concerns will be covered eventually. Am I happy with the lack of flat rides... no. (Well actually I could care less.. .I'm all about coasters but most people I go to the parks with aren't happy about it) But I have 100% faith that this staff knows that the park needs flats and will do something about it. Why? Because they've shown that they know about all of the other issues people aren't happy with and have gone about correcting them one by one. In return, I have (and I suggest everybody else who is happy about the changes should as well) try to make sure people I know KNOW about the changes. Just last friday I had a conversation that went something very much like this: Me: "Oh you went to Disneyland this weekend? Cool... I'm more of a Magic Mountain guy myself, but I like all parks" Them: "Aren't they closing? I thought they closed up actually" and I can't tell you how many times I've heard the "I love roller coasters but I won't go to magic mountain because I'm sick of all the hoods there. Hate fighting against people cutting in line. etc. etc. etc. You've heard it all too I'm sure (and probably thought as much back in the dark days) I really think that it is important that we do as much as we can to correct this... let people know about the changes and fixes. Get some good word of mouth going, not just between us coaster geeks, but with the GP as well. I realize that a lot of what was done for us at WCB was with this in mind: Getting some good publicity. I'm not so naive as to think that SFMM didn't think they would get something for all their generosity. That said, I do NOT see it as any sort of manipulation. It was a "Let's get people to realize just how far we've come" When praise is deserved, you aren't being a corporate shill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sue Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 To be honest, I also like the locker policy since I normally don't carry anything with me. However, I just wish that hats would be included as well. We've seen countless people wearing hats on the coasters at Six Flags Great Adventure this year and almost got hit by one on Nitro yesterday. At the speed coasters travel, a hat can hurt someone. I don't like the idea of people just being asked to remove them and put them in the shirts and/or sit on them either because many of those people take them out after the train leaves the station and put them back on. I don't understand some people obsession with needing to wear a hat 24/7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 Quoted from a few pages back in case some of you didn't see this: For the record, I really think the locker issue has been beaten to death. I'm going to ask everyone that if you do feel the urge to post yet another locker related response to please ask yourself "Does my post add anything to the conversation that's not already been said?" If not, please try your best to refrain. I'd really like to get this thread back on topic of discussing the park, not complaining about the lockers for 15 pages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FeelTheFORCE Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 So did the Scream crew do anything for it's birthday like someone said they planned on doing a few pages back? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haiderodes Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I made my third park visit of 2008 this weekend. Saturday, I didn't make it down there until about 3p. Man was it hot and packed! Had to park in the last row of the lot way behind Scream. Ended up only doing three rides as the heat and crowds were a bit much. Left around 5p. Sunday, I made it before opening so I could get a start on things before the crowds materialized. Wanted to do Superman first since its been a few years since I last went on that. Was the only person on the first launch and was joined by a few for the second. As I'm leaving Superman I hear the distinctive B&M roar...could it be Riddler? Saturday the train was still parked on the lift, but could it be open today? As I descended suicide hill...YES IT IS OPEN! Got two rides in the last row without getting off. Could very well have stayed on longer, but I wanted to do as much as I could before the crowds made it back there. The good... All coasters were running two trains (that could of course). Would have liked to see three trains on the ones that could have, but at least there was no one train operation. All the water rides were open, and because of the heat, they seemed to help absorb the lines. The not-so-good... Both on this trip and my last one in February, I noticed queue management struggling on some rides. There are multiple lines at Viper, but people congregate into one. When you try to use the others, people give you dirty looks and say stuff like you are cutting until the ride ops make an announcement...if they do. Same thing on Ninja - that ride has two lines once you get to the staircase, why not use both? This would prevent the line spilling into the midway (especially when the line really isn't THAT long). Took my first ride on Deja Vu thanks to the single-rider line...what a god-send! For a Sunday that wasn't all that crowded, the regular line was still about an hour and a half. Rode once and rejoined the singles line again, but of course standing at the airgates waiting for the cycle to finish, it breaks down at the bottom of tower two. Decide to wait a few minutes, but no-go...evac. Jahan and crew come out to help the people off. Still happy I got at least one ride in. Even the foreign employees are now getting into the "texting while working the rides game". One reoccuring thing I seemed to hear people talking about was the ride removal situation. People were talking both to employees and amongst themselves about the rides they have taken out. For the most part it seems that people didnt miss the ones they took out (aside from Freefall). Another comment that hit me was the flat ride situation. I overhead people saying that they wouldn't wait in line for something they could just ride at the fair. To an extent i agree. Especially if you paid money and drove some distance, it would make sense to have those kinds of attractions you can't necessarily find anywhere. I guess what I'm saying is that any future flat ride additions probably should be unique in nature to get people interested, otherwise there is no point in adding any. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebl Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that single-rider lines are supposed to open at other rides besides Deja Vu. I think that's a great way to move more people through the lines because single riders can fill up empty seats. Most people who use the singer-rider lines don't care where they sit, and they get on faster. I visit SFMM by myself on a regular basis, and will definitely make use of the single-rider lines when they are up and running. Eric Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jew Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 ^^The video doesn't claim to be anything other than the first test run...So I'm not sure why you are reading so far into it. Sure the quality was poor, but Jay basically said he put it up because he thought WE would enjoy it. He also mentioned a professional crew coming in to shoot the commercial stuff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaptorBoyASU Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 And to VivaLaVibora, the above two posts is the kind of experience I'm talking about. These are guys who work on rides and don't care about the $1 charged for the locker. What they care about is *PUSHING TRAINS THROUGH* to make that line shorter for you. And if their experience says "the lockers make that happen" then I for one am 100% in support of it. --Robb I still think it's a cop out. We had bins on Raptor, and still made 38 second dispatch times. Of course the operators have to be moving quickly if you ever expect the riders to have the same sense of urgency. That said, I don't mind mandatory lockers for major rides or rides with dual stations. What I would have an issue with is if more than say 25% of the major rides required an extra fee for your stuff. Of course, I don't ever bring stuff besides what fits in my pockets to parks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYTrojan Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I overhead people saying that they wouldn't wait in line for something they could just ride at the fair. I agree completely. I am 100% behind the removal of the tilt a whirl and other 'lesser' carnival rides. However I DO think that there are plenty of flat rides you only expect to see at major parks like SFMM. Cedar Point's Maxx Air, and SFNE's Sky Swatter for example. If you consider it a flat, the Houdini rides at SFNE and SFGA are real good family rides that seem to get a strong positive response. It has been a real long time since SFMM had a top quality high tech flat ride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PURE Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I don't understand how people can be explained to by the very man himself about the reason behind the lockers, and yet still people want to complain and argue. Then Tim's nice enough to post a testing X video (which he didn't have to do) and all everyone does on here is crap all over it. Its nothing "official" it was obviously made to satisfy those who are interested, not the GP. I'd rather have 5-7 minutes of unedited, uncut footage than 2 minutes of cut up footage where you can't see what's going on. As far as I know that's the best quality testing footage to date. The dude is aware of the problems that have been brought up in this thread because he clearly stated that he read and understood them in his last post. When some of you don't seemed to be satisfied by that and still want to complain well, you're just never going to be happy. And it puts a bad taste in Tim's mouth, it doesn't come off respectful or professional at all. As far as I'm concerned he's doing the best he can to keep the GP and a lot of you on here happy, and you still want to complain. And all that does is send a message to Tim that "Hey, these dumb kids are just always going to be complaining no matter what, maybe I'll just stop putting so much weight on their opinions." I leave a post how I think it's important that X2 opens with 3 trains because it would show the GP how much better the ride is than it used to be, and I get slammed because "I want the park to fail." MM wants to chage a buck to use a locker and the arguing goes on for over 10 pages. Some of you need to get your priorities straight. You're making the rest of us who want to use constructive criticism look bad because you can't get over the fact that you're cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jew Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Quoted from a few pages back in case some of you didn't see this: For the record, I really think the locker issue has been beaten to death. I'm going to ask everyone that if you do feel the urge to post yet another locker related response to please ask yourself "Does my post add anything to the conversation that's not already been said?" If not, please try your best to refrain. I'd really like to get this thread back on topic of discussing the park, not complaining about the lockers for 15 pages. I think it's safe to say that nothing more can be added to the locker discussion. Both sides have said more than enough about it, so lets just leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wrs28330 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Although I have no pictures, Scream did celebrate it's 5th birthday this last Saturday. There were balloons on the lift, there were decorations in the station and the Ride Ops were wearing party hats. They made a valiant effort to have 3 trains going for it's birthday, but they had some set backs, and opened a bit late. Maybe Mike has a few pictures he can share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haiderodes Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 ^ I was wondering why they had all the balloons and streamers flying around the station. Line was too long to ride, but I did see all of that from the parking lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bflag Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Scream is one of my favorites at SFMM....but whats with the parking lot underneath? I know all of you are aware of it but did anyone here anything @ WCB about fixing this?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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