Rayj Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 To those of you getting rid of your season passes, think about it like this. •We are actually getting something while Dorney and MIA will actually get nothing at all. •We'll probably get a new restaraunt as they seem to add one every year. •It will be something to do when they close the Wave Pool for 30 minutes. •We missed out on the 4D clone. •It shows that Six Flags wants to put creative and innovative stuff into the park. No other Six Flags parks has one of these so it's something unique to our park. ehh if you put it like that it sounds better, but i don't know if it's really worth it anymore. But I'll stop talking about this before I become a nuisance lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasterbill Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 To those of you getting rid of your season passes Nobody's getting rid of their season passes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLCHeadache Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 If nothing else, passes here are cheaper than the other parks and still work at said other parks. This was only my first year here after having Kings Dominion as my home park for my entire life. Does it measure up to KD? Heck no, but it makes a good complement, providing the things KD doesn't: a hyper with good airtime moments, and stand-up, flying, and spinning coasters. The wooden coasters here seem to be in better shape than KD's. And, as I said on the previous page, SFA's water park looks better than KD's. (I did not have the chance to go to the water park this season) Going to be renewing my pass this year - if only the link for the renewal offer worked. It says "Do You Have a 2017 Season Pass? We have a very special one-time offer for current (2017) Season Pass Holders.", and then the link goes to the countdown page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djackson Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 To those of you getting rid of your season passes Nobody's getting rid of their season passes. The poster above you and one other person literally just said they were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasterbill Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 And Donald Trump said he was going to make Mexico pay for the wall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterLover Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 i don't know if it's really worth it anymore. A Six Flags America season pass will run you $4.35 per month per person (or $52.20 per year) and includes parking (along with a crap load of other benefits including admission to SFGAdv). The cost to ride ANY of the major coasters at Knoebels when paying with tickets is $3 per ride. By that logic, you only need a total of 18 total rides on any combination of the major coasters at SFA in a single year to break even. The park typically opens in April and stays open (now) through December. As such, buy this logic, just going to SFA and riding two major coasters per month for each of the months they are open, you would break even when compared to riding a similar number of coasters at Knoebels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djackson Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I'm thinking this was a tester to see how the concept does. If it goes well I think we'll see this at Great Advebture and Over Georgia next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Maier Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 (edited) I mean . . . I'm grateful that SFA is getting a new thing for Hurricane Harbor . . . but I still feel that (compared to other additions) SFA is the bastard step child (along with Great Escape and La Ronde) of the SF chain. I'm still renewing for 2018 . . . hell, I got to make my requisite trips to Great Adventure (and I'll get off my ass and fly out to one of the other parks as well) Edit: Unless something big comes in 2019 that really impresses the hell out of me . . . . I am seriously considering defecting to Cedar Fair (I'm only 2 hours from KD and 2 hours 45 minutes from Dorney Park, plus the other parks in the chain. Hell I could consider defecting to Hershey Park!) Edited August 31, 2017 by Jason Maier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jcoaster Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 This thread is approaching King's Dominion thread levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterLover Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 SFA is in a tough market with Hershey and KD... a 15 million dollar addition at SFA probably doesn't get the same return in attendance at SFA as it might at a park with less competition like SFFT and I suspect any attendance boosts are much shorter lived as people will go to SFA the year the new attraction opens but head back to the other parks as they open new attractions in subsequent years. It may be that corporate is resigned to add just enough to SFA to maintain their current market share but not add anything to try and expand their market share. This may just be the reality that we need to face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djackson Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I mean . . . I'm grateful that SFA is getting a new thing for Hurricane Harbor . . . but I still feel that (compared to other additions) SFA is the bastard step child (along with Great Escape and La Ronde) of the SF chain. I'm still renewing for 2018 . . . hell, I got to make my requisite trips to Great Adventure (and I'll get off my A$$ and fly out to one of the other parks as well) All three of the "step-child" parks got great additions. -Great Escape got a nice flat that we haven't seen at a Six Flags Park before. -La Ronde got a pretty decent sized expansion that looks to include one of the Tourbillon rides like Over Texas and Great Adventure - We got a unique renovation to what was a terrible lazy river. The thing was a complete eye sore. I think the reason we aren't seeing huge flats and coasters at these parks is because of the demographics. These parks are drawing more families then your parks like Magic Mountain and Great Adventure. They want to cater to who they can rely on coming to the park constantly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterAuditor Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 This thread is approaching King's Dominion thread levels. There must be something in the air in Virginia and Maryland that makes the coaster lovers slightly crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djackson Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 SFA is in a tough market with Hershey and KD... a 15 million dollar addition at SFA probably doesn't get the same return in attendance at SFA as it might at a park with less competition like SFFT and I suspect any attendance boosts are much shorter lived as people will go to SFA the year the new attraction opens but head back to the other parks as they open new attractions in subsequent years. It may be that corporate is resigned to add just enough to SFA to maintain their current market share but not add anything to try and expand their market share. This may just be the reality that we need to face. I think Wahoo River is an attempt to compete with Hershey's new addition. The park doesn't have much space to add a slide without removing one and all but Zoomazon falls consistently have a line. A more immersive lazy river is probably thing they could've added outside of a Water Coaster. I don't think the park sees itself as a competitor to KD. KD is pretty far from home for the Baltimore crowd which is the Major market for SFA. Even if they did see themselves as a competitor, trying to compete Twisted Timbers would have been dumb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterLover Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 There must be something in the air in Virginia and Maryland that makes the coaster lovers slightly crazy. It's the conflict of potential vs. outcome vs. locals. The area is jam packed with people (people with lots of money) so one would think that the potential for the area to have several VERY big (Orlando or LA magnitude) parks would be high, yet (and while I agree Busch Gardens is a very high caliber park adding high caliber attractions), Kings Dominion and SFA seem to be becoming second or third (or possibly even lower) tier parks in their respective chains. And when a big park chain does come along looking to build something amazing (which has happened a couple times now), the local "Not In My Back Yard" people come out in force to drive away any new builds (as you probably know, Disney has tried to build in the area before and even Marriott was looking to build a third park here around the time they were building the other two Great America parks [the ones that eventually became SFGAm and CGA]). It's quite frustrating... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterLover Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 The park doesn't have much space to add a slide without removing one. There are no restrictions that would prevent the park from expanding into this area (and beyond) other than the expense of expanding the infrastructure into an area that was previously not used for park use (and possibly the cost to pave some of their western dirt parking lot to compensate for the lost parking spots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLCHeadache Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I don't think the park sees itself as a competitor to KD. KD is pretty far from home for the Baltimore crowd which is the Major market for SFA. Even if they did see themselves as a competitor, trying to compete Twisted Timbers would have been dumb. DC seems to be their primary market. They're closer to DC, and their Twitter username is "SixFlagsDC", not "SixFlagsMD". There must be something in the air in Virginia and Maryland that makes the coaster lovers slightly crazy. It's the conflict of potential vs. outcome vs. locals. The area is jam packed with people (people with lots of money) so one would think that the potential for the area to have several VERY big (Orlando or LA magnitude) parks would be high, yet (and while I agree Busch Gardens is a very high caliber park adding high caliber attractions), Kings Dominion and SFA seem to be becoming second or third (or possibly even lower) their parks in their respective chains. And when a big park chain does come along looking to build something amazing (which has happened a couple times now), the local "Not In My Back Yard" people come out in force to drive away any new builds (as you probably know, Disney has tried to build in the area before and even Marriott was looking to build a third park here around the time they were building the other two Great America parks [the ones that eventually became SFGAm and CGA]). It's quite frustrating... I wouldn't call KD low tier at Cedar Fair, when VF/Dorney/WoF and maybe CGA still have a lot of catching up to do. I'm guessing the gap between I305 and TT may have skewed perceptions. As for another possible reason why DC/VA doesn't have Orlando/LA quality attractions, our winters are worse than those two and pretty much prevent year-round operations. But if SFA and BGW can run holiday events... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterAuditor Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 There must be something in the air in Virginia and Maryland that makes the coaster lovers slightly crazy. It's the conflict of potential vs. outcome vs. locals. The area is jam packed with people (people with lots of money) so one would think that the potential for the area to have several VERY big (Orlando or LA magnitude) parks would be high, yet (and while I agree Busch Gardens is a very high caliber park adding high caliber attractions), Kings Dominion and SFA seem to be becoming second or third (or possibly even lower) tier parks in their respective chains. And when a big park chain does come along looking to build something amazing (which has happened a couple times now), the local "Not In My Back Yard" people come out in force to drive away any new builds (as you probably know, Disney has tried to build in the area before and even Marriott was looking to build a third park here around the time they were building the other two Great America parks [the ones that eventually became SFGAm and CGA]). It's quite frustrating... Wait how on earth do NIMBY people have any effect on Kings Dominion or even SFA?? I know they do have an effect on Busch Gardens with Kingsmill but when you look at an overhead view of KD it's literally in the middle of nothing. SFA already has a 200 footer and they just built a 242 foot tall tower. The only place I believe that has to deal with NIMBY people is Busch Gardens. If you're referring to new parks specifically then yeah I suppose it is difficult to build more tourist attractions but I can't imagine a 4th park having a ton of success. Ironically the park in the largest metro area does the worst of the three parks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coasterbill Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Upon further review, their existing lazy river is the most piss poor excuse for a lazy river in the history of lazy rivers. I never paid much attention before, but god damn, they REALLY needed this. You walk down stairs to get in it which makes it tough for little kids to get in their tubes and really limits capacity on a ride where capacity should never be an issue, generally you enter a lazy river on a gradual slope (and you will on the new one). Then once you're in the river it's as plain looking as possible, it's incredibly short and there's absolutely nothing going on. Seriously, . After seeing that, I'm totally on board with this addition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CoasterAuditor Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Pretty sure when I went to SFA in 2008 I had absolutely no interest in their lazy river. This new one may peak my interest a lot more. My only issue is the general lack of excitement factor for me personally but that is a personal problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djackson Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Pretty sure when I went to SFA in 2008 I had absolutely no interest in their lazy river. This new one may peak my interest a lot more. My only issue is the general lack of excitement factor for me personally but that is a personal problem. Search up Roa's Rapids at Aquatica or Fearless River at Volcano Bay. If they run this at a decent speed and if this has decent theming like Apocalypse it should be the 2nd best ride in the water park. My only problem with it is where is the route going to go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UnderCoverDrummer1 Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I have to admit that like most enthusiasts I'm always disappointed when a new coaster is not destined for my home park, however I completely understand this addition. Currently, H.H. is most consistently getting people through the gates at SFA and considering (as previously mentioned) how pathetic their current lazy river is, this upgrade is actually a great idea and makes me want to make the effort to hit up the water park in 2018. That being said the biggest problem holding this park back has absolutely nothing to do with it's line up of rides but lazy staff members, specifically in the food service sector. I've lost count of how many times I've had discussions with the GP about how atrociously slow and inefficient their food operations are, with no method of linking up orders with patrons which causes confusion on both the staff and patron ends alike. Additionally, they have no staff dedicated to refilling drink cups and employees are either not trained to ask those in line if they are only filling up drink cups to help move the line along and/or they are too lazy to do so. Even separate of food service, during one of my visits earlier this season, one of the railings in the queue for Mind Eraser broke from someone sitting/leaning on it. I left the line to go notify staff in the station of the issue/safety hazard and they proceeded to do absolutely nothing. It wasn't until the metal tube (top of the railing) completely broke off and fell to the floor that they actually called maintenance staff to notify them. This park could benefit tremendously from better training/oversight from management of their staff operations. I know that this isn't something you can really advertise, but a new push to have better trained and harder working staff would make me more excited for visits to SFA than most new ride additions. Just my two cents. Now I shall retreat back into the shadows of lurking on the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RollerManic Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Seeiously, they really needed this an the theming/interactive elements are just a huge bonus. Would be even cooler if they run it at a faster pace like Aquatica does (best lazy river I've been on). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Highridin Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 As I stay in the waterpark, I like the addition, especially considering how bad the current river is. Wish something else had went with it, but can't have everything. This will be an instant hit. I'm looking forward to see what route it takes. So glad no Spinsanity (SFSTL type). Would have been tremendously butthurt. Here's hoping that the markers in Gotham are for a bathroom or trail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alilstronger Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 (edited) I already planned on not renewing my season pass next year. I just got bored of going all the time in the summer. I will be finally getting a Kings Dominion season pass next year since I have never been to Carowinds and with CF getting so much awesomeness next year. I also meant to say this is such a NEEDED thing for the water park. The lazy river looks so pathetic currently and I can not wait to see this come to fruition. I am just a little confused why they were pushing the grim reaper in Gotham City. Edited August 31, 2017 by alilstronger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgtlover Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 To those of you getting rid of your season passes, think about it like this. •We are actually getting something while Dorney and MIA will actually get nothing at all. Dorney is gettin a nice new restaurant in Wildwater Kingdom...lol -La Ronde got a pretty decent sized expansion that looks to include one of the Tourbillon rides like Over Texas and Great Adventure Their Tourbillon is a scrambler... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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