Six Flags Great America (SFGAm) Discussion Thread

[GayCoasterGuy]

I've seen employees struggling with a decision of what to do, and I've seen employees deliberately being as*holes. And everywhere in between. Unfortunately, this still is a Six Flags park. Yolo.

[GayCoasterGuy]

thanks for that post!!

You bet! I just found another commercial, shot at night:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiWbedEilSc

 

Sorry for getting off topic again. Old footage of Revolution makes me melt... now I wanna get out the Rollercoaster (1977) and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park DVDs That ride was in so many freaking movies and tv commercials back in the day.

[Jew]

Chances are this kid was probably just trying to get through another day of work. People get very fussy at amusement parks, and that hardens some employees. I've seen guests go as far as attack (verbally and physically) employees for doing what their told. Being yelled at constantly for doing your job isn't easy. Give the guy a break. They are just trying to get by. I'm sure most of you have have never been on the side of fence where you have to tell people they have to buy a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo or that their kid can't ride. Its not easy, nobody gets pleasure out of it, and chances are they are going to get yelled at by management for following the rules or breaking them anyway.

 

Needless to say, I didn't really read about what happened at all, just giving my two cents. Its a shame it had to happen to such nice people who were likely following all of the rules.

 

I've been on that side of the fence for 13 years now...there's no excuse for bad service. I can understand an operator erring on the side of caution when it's such a close call, because there is a little room for human error when measuring someone so close to the height restriction. However, after she got the wristband, it's an absolute joke she still wasn't allowed to ride without Robb having to press the issue further. There's NO excuse for that.

[ZeroGravity55]

I sort of get the first time KT was denied on Viper, but after she got the wristband, there is no excuse. Really there is no excuse for it happening the first time. She rode Goliath and American Eagle before Viper. Heck, anybody who has been following the TPR trip on Twitter can see that she has been able to ride all (or at least it appears) rides with 48 inch height requirements at all the other parks with no problem. That is six parks where she was able to ride with no problem, but they encounter a problem at Six Flags. This should fall back on whoever is responsible for training these ride ops. The ride ops shouldn't really be faulted for being cautious the first time, but they should have known not to be pushing down on anybody's head with the measuring stick. The second time they should have known that the wristband meant she was allowed to ride. As I said, both instances fall back on whoever is responsible for training these ride ops. Obviously, they didn't do a very good job.

[milst1]

Sorry to get off-topic about Kid Tums' unfortunate experience, although it was funny reading the GP's "advice" to TPR on Facebook.

 

I've got a rookie question about the use of Platinum Flash Pass to get onto Goliath at SFGA, which is the only credit we need there.

 

Of course we've used Flash Pass many times and we've paid the obnoxious Platinum premium to get onto a new ride. The problem this time, however, is that we are coming to the park later in the day. We've often reserved FP but we have come to the park in the morning. If we reserve/pay in advance, do we lose our money by showing up late in the day? If they sell out of Platinum but someone returns their Plat Q-Bot to leave for the day, will we get that Plat Q-Bot?

 

Thanks for your help and sorry if this has been covered in the past.

[anewman35]

 

I've been on that side of the fence for 13 years now...there's no excuse for bad service. I can understand an operator erring on the side of caution when it's such a close call, because there is a little room for human error when measuring someone so close to the height restriction. However, after she got the wristband, it's an absolute joke she still wasn't allowed to ride without Robb having to press the issue further. There's NO excuse for that.

 

It sucks to have this kind of thing happen to your kid, or a kid you know. Still, though, it's hard for me to be too upset at any one person or situation without knowing more (which I'm sure in this case we never will) - if the operator was convinced she was too short, shouldn't it be his job to not let her on, wristband or no? Maybe he was trained to use his judgement and not trust a wristband, which could have been given in error or could be fake. Just for the sake of safety, I'd rather the employees err on the side of not letting people on - a crying child is better than a child who slips under a lapbar or gets hurt.

[coasterchitchat]

Does anyone think that TPR will not be visting SFGAm or any Six Flags parks in the future after yesterday's incident.

[rcjp]

^The fact is, despite all this, they do generally have a nice selection of coasters (take goliath, for example)

[robbalvey]

That is six parks where she was able to ride with no problem, but they encounter a problem at Six Flags.

It's really telling that there is something wrong with Six Flags, isn't it? We actually visited 8 parks in the past 6 days with some pretty big parks in that mix (Kings Island, Holiday World, Great America, etc), and the first and only issue with customer service we encountered was at Six Flags.

 

Not shocked at all by this.

[ZeroGravity55]

Does anyone think that TPR will not be visting SFGAm or any Six Flags parks in the future after yesterday's incident.

 

While the situation was different, they had a horrible experience at Six Flags Over Texas last year (then hit two more Six Flags parks, Great America being one of them) and they still went to Great America this year. I believe they're going to Great Adventure in the next week. As long as Six Flags continues to build RMC's and such, I say there will always be trips to Six Flags parks. That doesn't mean TPR has to give them good publicity. Not saying Robb or anyone else would give them bad publicity on purpose, but when it is something as ridiculous as what happened yesterday or what happened at SFOT last year, the park (no matter which one) deserves to be called out on it.

[neil009]

Chances are this kid was probably just trying to get through another day of work. People get very fussy at amusement parks, and that hardens some employees. I've seen guests go as far as attack (verbally and physically) employees for doing what their told. Being yelled at constantly for doing your job isn't easy. Give the guy a break. They are just trying to get by. I'm sure most of you have have never been on the side of fence where you have to tell people they have to buy a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo or that their kid can't ride. Its not easy, nobody gets pleasure out of it, and chances are they are going to get yelled at by management for following the rules or breaking them anyway.

 

Needless to say, I didn't really read about what happened at all, just giving my two cents. Its a shame it had to happen to such nice people who were likely following all of the rules.

 

I've been on that side of the fence for 13 years now...there's no excuse for bad service. I can understand an operator erring on the side of caution when it's such a close call, because there is a little room for human error when measuring someone so close to the height restriction. However, after she got the wristband, it's an absolute joke she still wasn't allowed to ride without Robb having to press the issue further. There's NO excuse for that.

 

It sucks but I totally get why it happened though. Nobody likes being challenged, or proven that they were wrong, or having your superiors undermine decisions you've made. "Oh I'm sorry sir, it looks like I WAS being overly cautious and made an error in judgment." It takes a mature person to be willing to say that, and most... or I will say... MANY ride ops at corporate parks aren't exactly paragons of maturity.

[coasterchitchat]

This story was so great. A man lost 120 lbs and rode Goliath, his first coaster in 10 years!

On top of it all, Six Flags Great America gave this man and his wife season passes. It was nice to hear Six Flags doing something so positive and to hear it right after a sad incident involving KidTums yesterday.

http://wgntv.com/2014/07/30/man-loses-120-lbs-rides-first-roller-coaster-in-10-years/

[GigaG]

This story was so great. A man lost 120 lbs and rode Goliath, his first coaster in 10 years!

On top of it all, Six Flags Great America gave this man and his wife season passes. It was nice to hear Six Flags doing something so positive and to hear it right after a sad incident involving KidTums yesterday.

http://wgntv.com/2014/07/30/man-loses-120-lbs-rides-first-roller-coaster-in-10-years/

 

Congrats to the guy. Hopefully he'll never have a walk of shame again! I'm happy for him.

[GayCoasterGuy]

This story was so great. A man lost 120 lbs and rode Goliath, his first coaster in 10 years!

 

I thought it was ironic that the man lost a bunch of his mass to ride a coaster that also seems to be missing a bunch of it's mass I hope he enjoyed his rides on Goliath! Short or not, it has broken in nicely.

[Jojo19799]

Just catching up on some things here, and wanted to add my two cents (take it for what it's worth).

 

She got the height band now and all should be well. I though they usually place an ID card gently on a child's head as a straightedge to see where the child is at. Should be an easy call, but sometimes it is a close call as evidenced by the fact she got on Goliath and Eagle okay. That is why the wristband is a good bet before going on rides just to be sure.

 

When I worked at the park many years ago, we did just that. Take our ride cert badge and gently place it on top of the child's head. Now they have these plastic right triangle things to use as a straightedge. After KT received the wristband Viper ride ops should not have pressed the issue any further. In fact, when I used to work there we had a stamp that we could have stamped the child's hand. So many parents asked for it and if we didn't have one, we would direct them to guest relations to obtain one so they wouldn't have to get measured on every single ride. Kids kept riding and parents were happy.

 

It honestly sounds like these operators get off when they decline a person to ride. There are some people in the world that seriously get a sick pleasure of making someone else miserable and that's exactly what this sounds like. The operator pressed her head down and they still declined after she got a wristband. I'll bet the only thing they look forward to every morning before going to work is how many people they'll deny the ability to ride.

 

As a former ride op I hated telling kids no. Then again I worked at Iron Wolf and I was saving them from head bashing, but I still hated telling kids no. Yes I have had my fair share of kids cry, but I always made a point to look them in the eye to tell them that if they keep eating vegetables and listen to mommy and daddy they will grow faster and be able to ride next year. One child was so upset I just had to give him a hug to try to make him feel better. I did have my share of parents yell at me because their child was too short but that just showed ignorance to me (on the parents part because the kid would always look at mom and dad and wonder what the heck was going on). I actually had to tell a midget that she was too short to ride! Yes a midget! That made me feel worse than anything! So no, I never "got off" when having to decline someone a ride.

 

This whole issue really does come down to training. It seems like today's ride ops are trained differently from when I worked there, and I understand that times have changed since then. Consistency is key in running a park though.

[Mossed]

Hey folks, I will be heading down to Great America on the 21st of August, a Thursday. It's my first trip to the park. Is this a park where I can hit the big coasters all in one day, and still get some time in the water park? Also, how would you suggest navigating through the park, normally I'd start at the back and work my way up.

 

Wishing it wasn't peak season, but the way my trip worked out, I should be able to get a full day at the park. Can't wait for Goliath

[Jodon]

If you get to the park before 10 am and run back to Goliath so you can get on it with out much wait after the park opens, you should be able to do everything and more. If you get to the park at opening or later, the wait for Goliath will be about 2-3 hours.

 

After you ride Goliath, I would head up to Superman. After that, check the line for Whizzer. Oddly enough, Whizzer will have one of the longest lines throughout the day. My nephew and parents waited about an hour for Whizzer last Friday. All of the B&M's outside of Superman have pretty large capacities so you should be able to get on all of those with about a 45 minute wait. Viper can also get a long line, but it is worth it. If Eagle is running 2 trains on both sides, the wait should be pretty minimal.

 

Hope that helps.

[aCoasterStory]

Just curious - has there ever been a case of a child falling out of an adult-sized roller coaster because they didn't meet the height requirements? All I've been able to find are incidents where kids fell out of kiddie coasters because they got scared & worked their way out of the restraints (despite meeting the height requirements), and then cases where teens/adults fell out due to being too big/improperly restrained, intentionally defeating their restraints, or not being fundamentally able to be restrained by the restraints at all (legless veteran incident).

 

With that in mind, how do manufacturers determine the height requirements for a ride? Because sometimes it just seems arbitrary (especially when parks unilaterally decide to raise the minimum height themselves).

[DJeXeL]

There's a few factors that go into play when determine a height requirement for a ride. Most important 2 would be:

1- Restraint system that is used

 

2- G-Forces exerted on the body

[SingleRiderWill]

Going back to the height issue, in 2013 My family went on a trip to Busch Gardens Africa. At the time my younger sister was 47" tall, but we had her wear really thick flip flops, giving her a height just over 48". throughout the whole day we weren't told anything about the flip flops, and she was able to ride a lot more rides than if she didn't wear them. Just a tip about how to meet the height requirement.

[StLCPfan]

^Ride-Ops are supposed to be trained to check for lifts or platform shoes that artificially raise a child to above the ride minimum height.

 

^^^There was an incident at Six Flags St. Louis with a very skinny boy who exceeded the height minimum but his small size allowed him to slip through the shoulder harness and fall out of Batman. The ride manufacturers use "typical" body dimensions for their height minimums in their consideration of what is safe for a particular ride, and this boy was thin enough that the safety restraints did not keep him in the seat.

[Woodie Warrior]

There was an incident at Six Flags St. Louis with a very skinny boy who exceeded the height minimum but his small size allowed him to slip through the shoulder harness and fall out of Batman. The ride manufacturers use "typical" body dimensions for their height minimums in their consideration of what is safe for a particular ride, and this boy was thin enough that the safety restraints did not keep him in the seat.

Where the heck did you hear that? I don't think that's true.

 

Edit: Yeah, I'm 100% sure that never happened.

[Mossed]

If you get to the park before 10 am and run back to Goliath so you can get on it with out much wait after the park opens, you should be able to do everything and more. If you get to the park at opening or later, the wait for Goliath will be about 2-3 hours.

 

After you ride Goliath, I would head up to Superman. After that, check the line for Whizzer. Oddly enough, Whizzer will have one of the longest lines throughout the day. My nephew and parents waited about an hour for Whizzer last Friday. All of the B&M's outside of Superman have pretty large capacities so you should be able to get on all of those with about a 45 minute wait. Viper can also get a long line, but it is worth it. If Eagle is running 2 trains on both sides, the wait should be pretty minimal.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Definitely! Looks like I will wake up early. Now it's setting up a place to stay that's close by and relatively cheap. I think the Holiday Inn down the road will do.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Mossed

[TNT]

Deleted 

[KBrylczyk]

^ But my friend's brother's roommate works as a sweeper at the park and they told me! He also told us to not ride the freefall ride because a girl got scalped when her hair got tangled in the machinery!