Six Flags America (SFA) Discussion Thread

[CPmaverick]

SFA right now is definitely is not all that great of a park. No non kiddie rides are being added, with some being taken out every few years. However SFA definitely has a lot of potential. The current collection coasters is fairly good, but it just needs to be expanded. I have Superman ranked 6th for me, which is higher than I305. With just a few good flats and a few good, non cloned coasters, SFA could easily become one of the top Six Flags parks.

 

The only complaint I have from my visit last Sunday was the high five thing. I realize it shows that employees care and are friendly, but when it slows down ride operations dramatically, it needs to be stopped. An example is one ride op on Roar was doing it, the other was not. The one not doing it was done checking restraints TWO minutes before the ride op giving high fives was done. I think I speak for everyone here when I say I don't want to wait that long just for someone to give everyone high fives.

[SFA Regular]

SFA right now is definitely is not all that great of a park. No non kiddie rides are being added, with some being taken out every few years. However SFA definitely has a lot of potential. The current collection coasters is fairly good, but it just needs to be expanded. I have Superman ranked 6th for me, which is higher than I305. With just a few good flats and a few good, non cloned coasters, SFA could easily become one of the top Six Flags parks.

 

The only complaint I have from my visit last Sunday was the high five thing. I realize it shows that employees care and are friendly, but when it slows down ride operations dramatically, it needs to be stopped. An example is one ride op on Roar was doing it, the other was not. The one not doing it was done checking restraints TWO minutes before the ride op giving high fives was done. I think I speak for everyone here when I say I don't want to wait that long just for someone to give everyone high fives.

 

Ohh believe me. Wait times have been much longer in the past. Before it use to take them at least five minutes per train. Flash Pass would slow it up even more. So a 45 minute wait could easily turn into an hour and a half. It's better than what it was. I still think they should just go back to having Flash Pass as 1 row rather than dedicating a whole train to them. Kings Dominion only dedicates one row to the VIP riders on I305. They don't let them take a whole train because then the wait would be even longer. If I were SFI, I would start building more rides with an unloading station, so that wait times would be less.

[saiyanhajime]

I don't understand this park. You'd think it would be comparable, in success terms, to Thorpe Park because of it's locality to major cities in the area. But apparently it doesn't do that well? It's so unbelievably cheap to get in and to get a season pass for all the SF parks there that you'd think this alone would attract people to go instead of trekking down to Busch Gardens or up to Hershey, which is apparently what most Marylanders do. Is it just that it's go a reputation for being "ghetto"?

 

I thought this park wasn't that bad. I have no intention of ever returning unless something new is added and I wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to get here, but it's not that bad. I've been staying in Virginia, so it wasn't far to go. We spent around 2 hours there, rode everything we wanted to ride and then went shopping... It's rides are mostly poor, but I enjoyed their dutchman the best of all 3 and thought Roar and that white woodie were pretty decent. The park itself looks pretty good and staff were all more polite, friendly and enthusiastic than at the other two SF parks I've visited (Great Adventure and Georgia). The only problem with the place is that it's rides are mostly awful.

 

As for it being ghetto. What does that even mean? It attracts people who typically come from poor areas and are predominantly black? Is that racism, or a concern for safety? Because honestly, I'm never sure of the difference in America.

 

I was really unimpressed with SFOG. SFOG's operations, staff and guests were what I was expecting from SFA after what people always say about it. Dispatching of rides was a nightmare, staff were (minus a couple of gems) unenthusiastic and guests were arseholes.

[SFA Regular]

I don't understand this park. You'd think it would be comparable, in success terms, to Thorpe Park because of it's locality to major cities in the area. But apparently it doesn't do that well? It's so unbelievably cheap to get in and to get a season pass for all the SF parks there that you'd think this alone would attract people to go instead of trekking down to Busch Gardens or up to Hershey, which is apparently what most Marylanders do. Is it just that it's go a reputation for being "ghetto"?

 

I thought this park wasn't that bad. I have no intention of ever returning unless something new is added and I wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to get here, but it's not that bad. I've been staying in Virginia, so it wasn't far to go. We spent around 2 hours there, rode everything we wanted to ride and then went shopping... It's rides are mostly poor, but I enjoyed their dutchman the best of all 3 and thought Roar and that white woodie were pretty decent. The park itself looks pretty good and staff were all more polite, friendly and enthusiastic than at the other two SF parks I've visited (Great Adventure and Georgia). The only problem with the place is that it's rides are mostly awful.

 

As for it being ghetto. What does that even mean? It attracts people who typically come from poor areas and are predominantly black? Is that racism, or a concern for safety? Because honestly, I'm never sure of the difference in America.

 

I was really unimpressed with SFOG. SFOG's operations, staff and guests were what I was expecting from SFA after what people always say about it. Dispatching of rides was a nightmare, staff were (minus a couple of gems) unenthusiastic and guests were arseholes.

 

Well as you can tell, I have hope for the park. They just need to invest more time in it. Park staff is better than what it has been in years. I would rather them be friendly and give high fives, than for them to give bad attitudes. I really like the direction that the park is going in. All we need are signature attractions to replace Two-Face and Iron Eagle. If they are good attractions and they market them well, then people will come back.

[SuperSous]

I don't understand this park. You'd think it would be comparable, in success terms, to Thorpe Park because of it's locality to major cities in the area. But apparently it doesn't do that well? It's so unbelievably cheap to get in and to get a season pass for all the SF parks there that you'd think this alone would attract people to go instead of trekking down to Busch Gardens or up to Hershey, which is apparently what most Marylanders do. Is it just that it's go a reputation for being "ghetto"?

 

I thought this park wasn't that bad. I have no intention of ever returning unless something new is added and I wouldn't recommend anyone go out of their way to get here, but it's not that bad. I've been staying in Virginia, so it wasn't far to go. We spent around 2 hours there, rode everything we wanted to ride and then went shopping... It's rides are mostly poor, but I enjoyed their dutchman the best of all 3 and thought Roar and that white woodie were pretty decent. The park itself looks pretty good and staff were all more polite, friendly and enthusiastic than at the other two SF parks I've visited (Great Adventure and Georgia). The only problem with the place is that it's rides are mostly awful.

 

As for it being ghetto. What does that even mean? It attracts people who typically come from poor areas and are predominantly black? Is that racism, or a concern for safety? Because honestly, I'm never sure of the difference in America.

 

I was really unimpressed with SFOG. SFOG's operations, staff and guests were what I was expecting from SFA after what people always say about it. Dispatching of rides was a nightmare, staff were (minus a couple of gems) unenthusiastic and guests were arseholes.

 

I'm suppriesed to hear that about SFOG! When I went There was only 1 ride that had slow dispatch and that was S:UF and the reason for that was cause restraints kept getting stuck,but other than that pretty much it seemed like everyone liked there job!

[KDCOASTERFAN]

Just think of it like this. You know how bad Disney wanted that spot over in Virginia so that they could build their park and attract people from DC area? Reason why it had to be VA was being it was the only major spot they could get. If SFA's land was un-occupied at the time, they would have bought it and built the place there. So don't don't tell me that building a theme park close to Washington DC is a bad investment.

 

 

So just because you put a theme park by a large city means it will be a good investment?

There are more than 25 cities in the United States with more population than D.C. (Which means if what you are saying is correct, and a Foreign Company wanted to build a park in the U.S,they have plenty of better places to invested in.) So with your logic, if we build any theme park just randomly by a large city, if the park is large with tons of attractions, the park will do great?

 

Houston is one of the top five most populated cities in the United States. Six Flags Astroworld would love to disagree with your statements.

 

I think what gets attendance is not quantity, but quality. So maybe the reason Six Flags America doesn't get a lot of attendance is because maybe Six Flags America just sucks, and building three huge coasters won't fix the problem as well as you think it will.

 

I think Palace Entertainment, which are the people that own Kennywood could do some serious improvements with SFA. From what I have researched, Kennywood is a good theme park. They do a lot more for their Phantom Fright Nights, than what SFI currently does for SFA's Fright Fest. There is no telling at what they could do to our wooded area and pavilion area for haunted attractions. If they owned SFA's property, they would have to update the way they do things. I would enjoy getting more signature attractions, rather than clones and nothing at all.

 

Or they could just keep all the money and invest it into new things for Kennywood. This isn't RCT, making those huge changes would cost millions and would take years, and during a bad economy like this, I doubt that would be a smart move.

 

 

--James

 

Not true as during the Adventure World era(92 through 98) Premier WAS turning things around,it's only AFTER the SF buyout that things started to go bad for the park following the 2001 season.

 

People in SFA's target market saw that the park was improving by adding new attractions & theming to the exisiting property but due to the economy taking a dive,followed by 9/11 things started going south by the 02 season when SFI began focusing more of their ever shrinking cap ex budget into SFGRADV,SFMM & SFGRAM & it's been that way ever since.In that time the park has seen several flats removed(granted they were unreliable) only to be replaced by backstage areas & show stages instead of the rides needed to at least keep the guests they'd been drawing in the park.

 

SFA had only installed ONE ride in seven years,PBR back in 03 & went through the 04,05,06,07,08 & 09 seasons without adding a thing to the ride side of the park.They only added a total of 3 waterpark slides in that time & taken out one coaster due to mehanical problems.How do they expect to draw new visitors to the park,let alone keep the visitors that had been coming in the years before the new installations stopped being made if they keep going this route?

[CoasterGuy06]

Maybe....just MAYBE the reason SFA has had so many attractions removed without replacements is because SFA was overbuilt by Six Flags in the first place.

[netdvn]

People in SFA's target market saw that the park was improving by adding new attractions & theming to the exisiting property but due to the economy taking a dive,followed by 9/11 things started going south by the 02 season when SFI began focusing more of their ever shrinking cap ex budget into SFGRADV,SFMM & SFGRAM & it's been that way ever since.In that time the park has seen several flats removed(granted they were unreliable) only to be replaced by backstage areas & show stages instead of the rides needed to at least keep the guests they'd been drawing in the park.

1) SF cannot just plop new rides down left and right and pray for people to come. That's what got the chain (and Cedar Fair) into debt. That's why HRP/Wild West World failed.

 

2) SFA doesn't have the budget, nor attendance that the flagship parks have; therefore, they cannot pay for new rides/keep them maintained properly. If they started adding new rides, how would SFA keep them maintained. It's been stated before that the park has had trouble finding maintenance people to keep their rides in operation.

 

SFA had only installed ONE ride in seven years,PBR back in 03 & went through the 04,05,06,07,08 & 09 seasons without adding a thing to the ride side of the park.They only added a total of 3 waterpark slides in that time & taken out one coaster due to mehanical problems.How do they expect to draw new visitors to the park,let alone keep the visitors that had been coming in the years before the new installations stopped being made if they keep going this route?

 

Its called improving your image. There's a reason why parks like Silver Dollar City and Kennywood remain successful, even without adding big new roller coasters and thrill rides year after year. These parks are known for having good customer service and quality rides/attractions.

 

Quality is always more important than quantity.

[djbrcace1234]

All these points still come up, and still, no one wants to agree/ deal with the results.

 

Face it, SFA, at this pace, will only become a park to relocate rides/ coasters to other SFI invested parks.

[SFA Regular]

I'm more on the side of KDCOASTERFAN. How do you expect the park to work with much if you take out rides and replace them with back stages and show areas? You won't attract anymore people doing things that way or keep the people there that you already have. They should have at least filled Two-Face spot up with a new gaming area or some flat rides. Thats a good piece of land that they could have made use of for a very inexpensive price. Nobody said they had to replace it with the tallest ride in the world. And I also disagree with the place being over built. Back when Six Flags bought the place, it was just an averaged sized amusement park. Six Flags bought it and installed Two-Face and Joker's Jinx. Both those two rides got loads of people coming. In 2000 they added Superman, which got even more people interested in the place. Then a year later,they got Batwing, which got more people coming. Then in 2002, they went without adding a coaster, but things were still fine because Superman and Batwing were still crowd pleaser's. In 2003, they got a some people interested again when Penguin got added. It wasn't a coaster, but it was still some sort of major attraction. In 2004, they added nothing, but attendance wasn't nearly as low as it was now. 2005, we get Hurricane Harbor and people become interested in the water park again. I remember the crowds when it first opened. I believe that next on the list would have been to go 2006 without adding anything. In 2007, we would have received another coaster. So it would have been like an every other year kind of thing for a new attraction to get added.

[djbrcace1234]

And I also disagree with the place being over built. Back when Six Flags bought the place, it was just an averaged sized amusement park. Six Flags bought it and installed Two-Face and Joker's Jinx. Both those two rides got loads of people coming. In 2000 they added Superman, which got even more people interested in the place. Then a year later,they got Batwing, which got more people coming.

 

 

That's 4 major additions in 3 years. that also doubled the amount of coasters in the park with those additions, and look, they can't even afford to keep anything running anymore, so why should even flats be considered when they can't keep most of it's current attractions up and running properly?

 

Also, Premier, the park company that bought the Six Flags chain already owned the park as Adventure world in 1992. They rebranded the park into a Sixflags park during the 1999 season.

[Capitalize]

All these points still come up, and still, no one wants to agree/ deal with the results.

 

Face it, SFA, at this pace, will only become a park to relocate rides/ coasters to other SFI invested parks.

That was pretty stupid of them to bother making a nice little Thomas Town theme area than I guess.

 

They didn't sell the park or land during the past fire sale of parks, they have invested into the parks infrastructure and water park over the past few seasons, this season they added a new theme area and a few new/refurbished attractions, and next year apparently another new attraction is on the way. So what evidence exactly supports your crystal ball prediction?

[djbrcace1234]

I know SFA is making a slight attempt to making the park better, but it seems like the few times I have been to the park (Granted, I live on the west coast) the expierance was unpleasent, and the enviroment just looked like they didn't care for the park.

 

It's going to take a lot to bring this park up, but I just don't see this reinvestment paying off now, but 10+ years later, possibly.

[SFA Regular]

I know SFA is making a slight attempt to making the park better, but it seems like the few times I have been to the park (Granted, I live on the west coast) the expierance was unpleasent, and the enviroment just looked like they didn't care for the park.

 

It's going to take a lot to bring this park up, but I just don't see this reinvestment paying off now, but 10+ years later, possibly.

 

Actually I kind of agree with Capitalize on that one. They are trying to give it a more even balance between family and thrill junkies. For years the park was just considered a place where teens, single adults and girlfriends & boyfriends go to chill out at. I think they added a new family feel to it with the new Thomas Town, so they are good on that part. As for the water park, I think it's fine. Most people come there for the water park as it is, and in recent years they made investments in it. I do agree that for 2011, they will be focusing more on the dry side of the park. Didn't Shapiro put in plans for us to receive Tony Hawk Big Spin coaster?

 

Other than the future plans for rides, what do you think the future plans for Fright Fest are?

[BeemerBoy]

Culture credits in D.C. > any day at SFA.

[ginzo]

^Getting mugged in DC > Any day at SFA.

[netdvn]

To be perfectly honest, the more I read this thread, the more :facepalm: I see... -_-

[SFA Regular]

I think for Fright Fest, they should consider turning the Grand Theater into some sort of haunted house. I haven't been in there in so long, so I don't know what the hallways and stuff are like. But I'm pretty sure they could make some sort of freaky walk through in there. Second, it would be cool to turn the whole pavilion area into a huge haunted maze. Look at all the space they have back there.

[Capitalize]

That isn't a bad idea actually, the Oak Grove picnics could be a great and relatively easy place to set up a maze with all the large pavilions in place there.

[jynx242]

To be perfectly honest, the more I read this thread, the more :facepalm: I see... -_-

 

Two heaping spoonfuls of crazy

[SFA Regular]

That isn't a bad idea actually, the Oak Grove picnics could be a great and relatively easy place to set up a maze with all the large pavilions in place there.

 

Great, I'm glad you agree with one of my ideas. It's a small idea I've always had. They could call it something like (Lost Village) and have a bunch of crazy people running around through the maze. It would be amazing for them to make use of all that space back there. Turn off all the lights back there so it makes it hard for people to see where they are going. The parts of the pic-nic area that are under the pavilion, could be turned into small indoor parts of the attraction. Bigger walls would have to be built.

 

Another cool idea I had would be to set up a rather large haunted walk through over by the part of the woods where Wild One is. Thats the area they used to do the haunted hay-ride in back when it was Adventure World. Only this time it would be a haunted walk through in the forest. It would start at Wild One and end over where the walk way is for the pavilion area.

[KDCOASTERFAN]

I know SFA is making a slight attempt to making the park better, but it seems like the few times I have been to the park (Granted, I live on the west coast) the expierance was unpleasent, and the enviroment just looked like they didn't care for the park.

 

It's going to take a lot to bring this park up, but I just don't see this reinvestment paying off now, but 10+ years later, possibly.

 

I guess having one of the spoiled parks in your backyard does that to you.

 

If the population base isn't there for SFI to draw from & is used ad nauseum in this thread as the reason to justify the lack of investment in the park then why not sell the place & just relocate the rides? heck it would give SFMM another 6 coasters to add to their line up.

 

When the park first began as Wild world they couldn't even afford new rides so they had to purchase used ones from wild one all they way down to the defunct enterprise & that wasn't enough to draw in the crowds,once Premier bought the park,started adding new rides on a consistent basis that image began to improve right on into the first two years as SFA.I was ther on opening day in 99 & the crowds were so big that the line for JJ stretched all the way back under wild one so that proves that the park CAN draw a crowd if new investments are made.The crowds have fallen off in recent years from 99/00 levels simply due in large part to the fact that no major thrill rides/coasters are being added.

[larrygator]

To be perfectly honest, the more I read this thread, the more :facepalm: I see... -_-

 

Are you referring to the whole thread or the posts of one particular dead horse beater?

 

Getting mugged in DC > Getting mugged at SFA

[JEAPUgrad]

Answering a previously asked question a few pages back in this thread with a factual answer: John Winkler became SFA's Park President in the fall of 2008. He had spent much of the past decade at Six Flags Great Adventure as their Park President.

 

Now for my opinion.

 

If SFA is never going to amount to anything, why would SFI relocate arguably one of their top Park Presidents to SFA?

 

Under his watch at SFGAdv he was a part of the Medusa to El Toro era.

[SFA Regular]

I know SFA is making a slight attempt to making the park better, but it seems like the few times I have been to the park (Granted, I live on the west coast) the expierance was unpleasent, and the enviroment just looked like they didn't care for the park.

 

It's going to take a lot to bring this park up, but I just don't see this reinvestment paying off now, but 10+ years later, possibly.

 

I guess having one of the spoiled parks in your backyard does that to you.

 

If the population base isn't there for SFI to draw from & is used ad nauseum in this thread as the reason to justify the lack of investment in the park then why not sell the place & just relocate the rides? heck it would give SFMM another 6 coasters to add to their line up.

 

When the park first began as Wild world they couldn't even afford new rides so they had to purchase used ones from wild one all they way down to the defunct enterprise & that wasn't enough to draw in the crowds,once Premier bought the park,started adding new rides on a consistent basis that image began to improve right on into the first two years as SFA.I was ther on opening day in 99 & the crowds were so big that the line for JJ stretched all the way back under wild one so that proves that the park CAN draw a crowd if new investments are made.The crowds have fallen off in recent years from 99/00 levels simply due in large part to the fact that no major thrill rides/coasters are being added.

 

I have to agree with KDCOASTERFAN again. I do remember the crowds when they first added Joker and Two-Face. When Superman was added, you literally had to push your way through people in order to get to the ride. The rule of thumb is, if you stop investing, then people will stop coming. You have to keep investing in order to get the crowds back. Fright Fest use to be amazing back when we had Brutal Planet, Zambora, Haunted Hay-Ride, and Hall Manor. Why did SFA stop doing these great things that got people coming to the park? Shapiro's idea of a family friendly park ruined SFA. It chased more people down to Kings Dominion, and when Cedar Fair bought them that first year Shapiro was put in place, it only worked in their favor. Cedar Fair began investing and Six Flags Inc stopped investing in SFA. Is it that hard to see why KD does so well and SFA did so poor in the past decade?