The 2006 Six Flags Agenda

[ParkTrips]

OK so the SF Over Texas thread brought up a good point... all last year we heard a bunch of stuff from Shapiro spread out over several press releases and news articles, and I'm just trying to figure out a vague percentage of them that were fulfilled. So, what do you remember being said, and did it come true?

[coasterdude5]

Whatever happened to the "Safe, clean, fun" or whatever logo they came up with. It just seems like alot of the ideas Shapiro had talked about, few came to a reality.

[CP_RULES]

I actually applaud SF for their efforts in trying to make a more family-friendly environment. Sure it's not much, but when I went to SFStL, it was the little things that really made the experience better. Whether it have been the new park signage, the new characters, or the smoking ban (except for designated areas), the same ol' SFStL just felt nicer. If thats not worth anything, then I don't know what is. I think Sapiro is at least doing some good...

[SharkTums]

I have yet to see the Smoking Ban enforced by ANY employee at SFMM. I was sitting at Gold Rusher the other day and this guy was puffing away next to me, employee after employee walked by and said nothing.

 

The Characters were nice while they lasted.

 

Our Bugs Bunny World has been severly understaffed lately with many times there were 2 Ride Ops for 8 rides! (not so family friendly)

 

Employee training didn't seem to work really well either. Think of all the trip reports with employees on cell phones, sitting down, and generally not caring.

 

Again, SFMM was really shaping up in February and March, but then started reverting back to its old ways. It just couldn't handle the busy summer season, followed by the understaffed fall season.

 

Poor SkyTower hasn't been open since August now!

 

As for the other SF parks this season...wow, it was a pretty SF free year for me! I think the only other one was SFoG! SFoG has always been one of the better parks, but there was lots of one train operation on our day there this summer.

[kraxleRIDAH]

Shapiro said cheap season passes and admissions cheapened the brand name and the experience.

 

Then Play Pass is offered AGAIN for a single day's admission for 2007 at SFMM. Go figure.

 

-------

 

At a stop to Six Flags America in a pep-talk to employees, Shapiro tells employees that nobody will be getting any raises this year --- that "we all have to make some sacrifices."

 

He then accepts a $300,000 salary increase and maximum bonus increase to $2.6 million.

 

-------

 

Says parks do not have enough costumed characters to help build that "family friendly image," so SFMM employs quite a few for a few months.

 

Then allegedly, due to budget constraints, the park is forced to "let go" more than half of the costumed character lineup.

 

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[YoshiFan]

This is at Great Adventure:

Daily fireworks being cut to a few nights

Street performers cut mid-season as well as number of characters reduced

Daily parade went from 2 shows to 1

Not all coasters were running maximum trains

[music11]

Cant really say anything because my home park of SFNE which is the only SF park i'v gone in years but i think the only bad they did was the admission went up and i think the season pass and stuff like that went up so hopefully next season the prices will go down.

[okinawaboy11]

SFA stayed EXACTLY the same. Employee's are still lazy, and rude. Although, the park is pretty clean.

[Twister II]

Well SFEG has had some noticeable changes.

 

A lot more costumed employees for Fright Fest, but only 2 (Justice League) characters in the park at a time.

 

A lot more ads in the park, some local restaurants going to Papa Johns and such.

 

Also an increase in park attendance.

 

A lot cleaner.

[lapseofreason]

From another SFMM perspective...

 

 

... Maybe a week after I first heard that things were changing, I hit the park. It was clean, rides ran efficiently with multiple trains, all the food stands were open, etc.

 

Almost immediately after that it went downhill, with a few peaks. It seemed to me that the only time SFMM ran like it should was when they knew Shapiro or some bigwigs, potential buyers, etc. were going to be there. And believe me, I've been to the park enough times this year to know.

 

As for right now, NOTHING has changed. It's gone full circle. The park is understaffed, half the rides were closed (literally) the last time I was there, X was busted which jammed the rest of the park, garbage was just left in places, the employees that WERE there seemed to be only concerned with staying their whole shift so they could get paid and nothing else... oh, and Tatsu's a story in itself.

 

Ugh. Bring on another owner, hopefully it will stay an amusement park with someone that will fix it for real... I guess Shapiro should have stuck to football.

 

 

-amanda

[arrowfanman]

Changes Shapiro made did improve SFMM...temporarily.

 

 

 

For the first half of the year, each week I saw the park improve, little by little, ounce by ounce. Slowly but surely, more character emerged, the park began to clean up, flowers were planted, stuff was painted, so on and so forth.

 

But what happened at the end of July, beginning of August, is Shapiro slashed the budget for all the parks. It was at that very moment that I had realised all that he had done for the parks...because within one week, and one week only, all of those improvements were taken away at once. See, the positive change had come so slowly, that I hadn't realised how dramatic it was. But when I saw (from the guest and employee standpoint) SFMM fall back into its old ways...literally tear itself apart...and so quickly. ...it was then that I had realised all that he had done. And all that he had just ruined.

 

 

 

So did Shapiro improve Six Flags? From my expirences at SFMM, I would say yes.

 

 

 

 

....did it last? No. Not at all.

 

-Jahan

[haiderodes]

I totally agree with you Jahan. I visited SFMM twice this year, once in May the week Tatsu opened and once at the end of September. It was definately night and day.

[TexTitan01]

For my homepark of SFoT, I believe that shapiro did a pretty good job @ achieving his goal. I'm not sure if it was the 10 new flat rides or the actual corporate improvements, but SFoT definately seemed alot more family friendly. I remember waiting in line for Titan I saw a family of 4 (typical mother, father, and 2 kids who I'm guessing were ages 6-8 ) walking towards the scrambler they put up by Titan just having a grand old time.

 

I didnt hear any complaints or any sort of rulebreaking, and all I saw were people just enjoying themselves @ the park. Of course that was last memorial day, who know's how it's doing now.

[ginzo]

Shapiro said cheap season passes and admissions cheapened the brand name and the experience.

 

At a stop to Six Flags America in a pep-talk to employees, Shapiro tells employees that nobody will be getting any raises this year --- that "we all have to make some sacrifices."

 

He then accepts a $300,000 salary increase and maximum bonus increase to $2.6 million.

 

--------

 

While I agree that Six Flags sells their season passes too cheaply, their regular admission prices are NOT too low.

 

As for getting a raise after jabbering about sacrifices, that's how you know he's a CEO.

[pvcoasterguy]

Six Flags Great America has always been one of the best-run Six Flags parks, if not the best. However, things did improve this year.

 

- More friendly staff

- Characters roaming

- Quicker operations; maximum trains on all coasters.

- Better entertainment options (cool County Fair stage show, parade, animal show)

- All rides operating (minus those down mechanical)

- Extremely clean restrooms/pathways

- Park was virtually non-smoking (other than smoking areas)

 

Even though Six Flags didn't have much to improve upon, they stepped it up even more, creating a great, family-friendly atmosphere. This is a model of what Shapiro wants (and the public wants too!). I have no complaints whatsoever about Six Flags Great America.

 

Some may complain about the number of rides being down at SFGAm, but all those rides had serious mechanical difficulty. Revolution (a recalled Huss Frisbee) was down most of the season, but Great America managed to get it open for the last two weeks of the season. That takes dedication and responsibilty. Sky Trek Tower and Giant Drop both had problems towards the end of the season, but 50% of Giant Drop was fixed in time for Fright Fest.

 

Every park has its problems, but how the parks handle these very problems show off the true character of the park. Six Flags Great America has reason to be proud of the season they have had, even with some of the serious mechanical problems they have dealt with.

[Hobbesx2]

All this information is really interesting. I don't normally follow that type of rollercoaster news but after reading this I just realized that I've also experianced this.

I went to SFSL the weekend after memorial day or something like that. At that time there was friendly staff almost PERFECT ride operatons and an overall very friendly environment. I remember Mr. Freeze being closed so we went to a ride employey (sp?) and he nicely explained the situation and stuff.

I was just there about a month ago and the ride operations sucked, the staff were just like, "ugghhh... let me finish this shift so I can get paid and go buy something from Mcdonalds, and when we got there another early and then found out that fright fest causes it to open an hour later the employees were not so nice about it. Says the employee at park information- " yah, we're going to open at eleven today so you just should have checked if you did'nt want to have to wait." Also the decorations for fright fest sucked.

[Gnome]

For SFMM, I remember that in Januare and February you would actually get on the ride in a reasonable time, even though there weren't a whole lot of people in the park. At one moment during the year they were actually running all 3 trains on riddler's revenge. But as the year progressed everything got worse.

[mike robinson]

I would say there was an improvement. I had a visit to SFGAdv in August and it was a much better park than I had ever seen on my other visits in previous years. The park was clean and the employees were very friendly. The smoking ban was enforced and I saw employees telling smokers to put it out and point them to the designated smoking areas. (andf as a smoker I can tell you that the smoking areas were always full!)

 

My only other Six Flags park was SFFT and I saw much of the same thing. I always thought SFFT was very nice anyway.

 

I think we should give them another season. Obviously this years budgets did not work out as planned, perhaps because they were left overs from the Burke regime. If we see poor results next year we can blame Shapiro 100% but I think we should give him next season before we judge.

[shesaidboom]

This year was the first year I went to a Six Flags park, so I really don't have any previous experience to compare it to, but I have some comments anyway. I found the operations at Darien Lake and La Ronde to be HORRIBLE. I know these are both pretty neglected parks, but it wouldn't hurt to throw an extra train on when a line is 2 hours long. I was very disappointed to see Superman at Darien Lake running only one train all day when there was a two hour line. I didn't see a character at either of these parks either.

 

That said, I did really enjoy my trips to SFGam and SFNE and I thought the parks were run well. The lines were long since there were tons of people there, but the operations were still pretty quick for the most part and there were multiple trains on everything. Very few rides were closed. Even the Great Escape had characters around when there were maybe 10 people in the park due to the rain. Their staff was still pleasant and were quick with their operations, and informed us with the goings on in the park [they gave us a warning that they were closing the park soon so we could get our last rides in, they didn't just say 'leave please']. So if it wasn't like this last year, good for them for changing things. If it was, then good for them for keeping it up.

 

I think what Jahan said about SFMM rings true in many cases, unfortunately. Changes were made, things were better, but the changes didn't stick. Hopefully we will see more changes made next year.

[saxman47]

I agree that changes were made in the beginning of the season, and I must say opening day at SFGadv was the best theme park experience I've ever had. I really thought that Shapiro had managed to turn the park around in the short time he was with the company. However, like others have said, about midway through the season the park had regressed back to "the same old Six Flags".

 

I'm just afraid that with all this talk of "the NEW six flags!", people who visited the park later in the season will see the same old stuff.

 

It's not like next year Shapiro can say....."Come see the NEW six flags....we really mean it this time! I swear!"

 

Those customers might be lost for a while.

[mightypotato]

In contrast to shesaidboom's experience at SFDL this year, mine was fantastic. The ride ops were friendly and massively efficient. Everything was running multiple trains (well, except Boomerang), which made the waits nice and short. I even saw characters wandering around the park and in restaurants. Compared to the last time I visited in 2001, the park had made some very dramatic improvements.

 

Well, except Viper. That still sucks.

[shesaidboom]

^ When did you visit? I went at the end of May, so the beginning of the season. Maybe they made changes later on, for the summer months, or maybe you just visited on a really good day

[adc9787]

For my homepark of SFoT, I believe that shapiro did a pretty good job @ achieving his goal. I'm not sure if it was the 10 new flat rides or the actual corporate improvements, but SFoT definately seemed alot more family friendly. I remember waiting in line for Titan I saw a family of 4 (typical mother, father, and 2 kids who I'm guessing were ages 6-8 ) walking towards the scrambler they put up by Titan just having a grand old time.

 

If I'm right... the 10 new flat rides were going to be put in under the old management. But SFOT has still improved... when I first went this summer I found the staff incredibly nicer and generally happier at their jobs.

[pvcoasterguy]

Stupid SFOT just had to steal our (Great America's) Trioka for a season... I missed it so much when I was at the park this year--it is one of the best flats ever created.

[mightypotato]

^ When did you visit? I went at the end of May, so the beginning of the season. Maybe they made changes later on, for the summer months, or maybe you just visited on a really good day

 

I was there in mid-July, so it could be them kicking into high gear for the summer. But, it was probably just a good day, Darien Lake is never that good.