Six Flags is pissing me off
I had some hope that when SF started making moves after the merger that they were finally taking some common sense steps in the right direction under CF's management. For decades it seemed like they just lived season-to-season and didn't think long term in regards to how they run their business.
I was seemingly the one person who actually agreed with removing Kingda Ka (and Chang). That thing was a POS, it was extremely expensive to maintain and operate, unreliable, bad/outdated tech, and it was really rough. So removing it made sense to me, no sense in having something that is just going to be an endless money pit and piss people off. Also that boardwalk area was terrible and badly needed to be re-done. So to me it was perfect common sense to just raze the whole area and re-do.
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EDIT: Ragin Cajun at SFGAdv has not been officially been confirmed, but the ride was recently delivered there and the park just recently announced they are building an enhanced boardwalk area...so even though its not official it is basically confirmed
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That brings me to Ragin Cajun. Now before someone chimes in with: "its just a small thing this year before the big thing next year...its not supposed to be a big addition...etc" I get that, but the thing is when you are running a big theme park you are making decisions that you have to live with for years/decades. Ragin Cajun had problems from the moment it was built, it never even operated the way it was supposed to (for various reasons). It doesn't allow 4 adults per car because SF's engineers don't think its safe to. It only runs 5 cars when its designed to run 12. Basically its a super low capacity and never worked the way it should, hence why it was moved from a big-crowded park to a park that nobody cared about. And on top of that it has a 48" height requirement, so all day every day families say "look at that cute roller coaster" and then get turned away because their kids are not tall enough to ride.
And now here we are 22 years later and SF's biggest market is getting it. SFGAdv had a bad season, they are not getting a big new ride until next year, so they are getting another low capacity mouse coaster that doesn't work right in the biggest market park in the country.
Again I am not against building a nice boardwalk area with a spinning wild mouse, the way CP did it made sense, but they got a new coaster that's better engineered with somewhat decent capacity. Now out of desperation to salvage this season SF is once again making a bad move that the park is going to have to live for years and years. So much for making strategic long-term investments in what is your biggest (and should be most profitable) park...oh and on top that SFGAdv already has a mouse that most people don't really like (this was a problem at SFGAm when The Dark Knight opened, everyone was getting off saying "why did they build another Ragin Cajun but indoors??).
And one more thing, this chaperone policy, once again not fixing the actual problem. So basically you're telling me that 16-17 year olds are mature enough to operate these huge roller coasters and kids rides with 4 year olds on them by themself, with no supervision...but they are not mature enough to visit the park without adult supervision. Here's an idea, if you want the parks to be more family friendly than have your family rides open, better maintain your kids areas, have more family entertainment/better family offerings in general. Make the parks pleasant to be at. Make your lines move faster so people don't get in arguments. Scapegoating teenagers is just going to give themselves a lot more headaches in terms of enforcement and turn families off from visiting because they can't send the teenagers away and spend time with their kids. It makes no sense.
That is all...have a nice day :)
Replies (5)
I think this all goes back to the fact that the 2025 season at SFGAdv was a complete failure despite opening a very good new coaster (The Flash: Vertical Velocity). The abrupt closure of Kingda Ka and subsequent closure of Green Lantern, parachutes, and Huss Top Spin along with the woeful operation of many of the park's remaining coasters significantly impacted guest satisfaction and made waits for most of the park's best rides unacceptable.
I totally agree here that what they're doing is just lipstick on a pig, and is unlikely to move the needle one iota.
I agree that many chaperone policies seem misguided and hypocritical, but I don't know what parks are supposed to do when groups of teens decide to randomly take over a space. The last thing parks want to do is turn down people willing to pay to visit their park, but these recent mobs that have been taking over both public and private spaces are a menace and aside from spending tens of thousands of dollars for security, there's very little else that can be done to prevent them aside from curfews and/or chaperone policies.
Apparently, my home park of Busch gardens has had an on-and-off chaperone policy for a little while now ever since a group of teens planned a "park takeover". I only found this out on my most recent visit, when a few park employees were walking up and down the entry line and screaming that children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult chaperone.
This, to my knowledge, has never really been enforced, except just as an excuse for racial profiling, and seems to just be a deterrent of sorts.
My prediction is that Six Flags will enforce this strictly for a week, loosely for the year, and never afterwards. Because if a group of five sixteen year old girls wants to go to Cedar Point, nobody's gonna stop them. If a young couple wants to spend their day at Knott's, they'll let it slide. But mark my words, this policy will almost exclusively be used to target minority groups.
Regarding the chaperone policy changes, I've heard from people affiliated with the company that it's a temporary adjustment for the spring break period after several "teen takeovers" appeared on social media that were planned for a few of the Six Flags properties. I also can't speak for the whole chain, but I have absolutely seen the chaperone policies enforced at my home Six Flags property (Knott's Berry Farm), and it has resulted in far fewer disruptive guests over the past couple years than I'd seen in the past. I don't fully agree with the policies as they are written, but in an age where filming yourself breaking the norms gets you a following on social media, parks need to have something in place to protect themselves and limit the chances other paying customers will have their visit disrupted by a few bad actors.
As for the new rides, I'll put my thoughts on the front page article, but the short version is I see this as a quick way to replace the attraction capacity lost by all the removals at the park recently. I don't think it's the best option for the park, but I absolutely think it's better than nothing.
I visited Six Flags Over Texas yesterday, and they were checking IDs at the gate. I had taken my older son in ahead of my wife and two younger kids, hoping we could snag a place in line on the Titan or New Texas Giant before they got ridiculously long. We ended up having to backtrack back out of the gate because my wife didn't have her ID on her and they wouldn't let her in with the kids.
On top of that, many rides (including both mine trains) were not open, and they were only running one train on the New Texas Giant. I saw posted wait times of 120 minutes for most of the day. Needless to say, we only got a handful of rides in for the day.
Here's to hoping these family-hostile procedures do not continue through the summer.
"So basically you're telling me that 16-17 year olds are mature enough to operate these huge roller coasters and kids rides with 4 year olds on them by themself, with no supervision...but they are not mature enough to visit the park without adult supervision."
This. One thousand times this.
To be fair, when I was at Disney, you had to be 18 to work ops. But 16 and 17 year olds were doing a whole lot of potentially dangerous stuff in kitchens without immediate supervision.