Thought it might be an interesting read for some of us.

http://consumerist.com/tag/six-flags/?i=50...-for-1-per-ride

160 comments from the (mostly) GP and counting.

General consensus-

-SF likes to nickel and dime, even worse when food prices are so high.

-Hershey, Dorney, Knoebels are better alternatives.

-Universal gets it right with free lockers.

-Dark Knight is crummy.

More complaining at:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=3661245

I like this comment from the Fark link:

I thought this comment from the Fark website was funny:

Six Flags just has no idea what they are doing. I feel that they just want more money. They could be making these things free, but they don't want to.

I think this post on that website is really stupid:
"I think this makes perfect sense. It disuades people from bringing things on. This stops them from having to put an employee at risk or shut down the ride b/c some idiot lost the only set of keys to their house or car. You don't HAVE to bring all of your crap to the park. I try to limit what I bring just to speed up the security checkpoint."

People are losing there keys because they are probably in there pocket, and falling out. What does this have to do with storing them in a locker? Something that small, you don't store in a locker, but anyway.

If they are stealing things so bad, why not putting cameras on the bins, or getting bins that they actually move, and lock in place, and than they unlock them easily. It's too simple to do so. Of course, they rather people put stuff in the lockers so they can watch the tv's, and make some money on the riders. It makes sense to me in what Six Flags is doing, and how they stress it's about capacity.

As for capacity, and ride times, Batman the Ride won the award for best crew for the month. Why didn't Demon win it? Batman the Ride was doing more than a minute (1 minute 20 seconds) while Demon is consistently doing under a minute with lockers.

I still think that Batman the Ride, Raging Bull, and Superman have only 1 person check each row. So, you have 1 person doing the first 4 rows, and another person doing the next 4 rows. Or if you have more employees, they each do 2 rows. Cedar Point does this with Raptor. They walk across the rows which means less walking which is so much smarter. Duh! Rides like Demon, V2, Viper, and American Eagle you can't change because there is only 2 people per row.

Absolutely love this comment:

"They're trying to make money to compensate for the big settlement payment that is going to the girl whose legs were lopped off last year.

From Raiden333
"Yeah, it sucks now, to make their money back they have to charge an arm and a leg."


Anyway, can you blame Six Flags anymore? Go to GAmWorld forums and everyone seems to think they are OK, and don't mind paying them. I love SFGAm more than pretty much everyone, but I can't stand nickel and diming. They are squeezing EVERY possible cent out of people now. Next year bathrooms will be charged, and all the bathrooms in Gurnee will be closed so SF can get the money.

There are two types of enthusiasts. You have the puriest people like the Disney people that agree with everything that Six Flags says or does(or for Disney, Disney), and than you have the people that want change, and really see what's going on with the company, and what can be improved.

I'm the opposite of a puriest. I would think they spent 15 million on Deja Vu, and they get rid of it after really (2001 was only so many days) 6 full years of operation. That is stupid management. Instead of trying to invest in trying to get it to work, they dump it, and sell it for 1 million. You probably lost 14 million for that ride. Why I say it was 15 million is because the Invertigo was 11 million. So, I'm sure it had to be a little more, and my assumption is around 15 million. They didn't try to make the capacity better.

They had the stupid theory of checking the belts at different times unlike Top Thrill Dragster, Superman: Ride of Steel, American Eagle, Viper, or any other wooden coaster. They could have put signs up that said fasten your orange seatbelt before putting the harness down, but they didn't. Instead, a spiel that no one ever listened too. If capacity was such a problem, why didn't they address it? They didn't have the brains to think about it, or what.

If it takes 5 minutes to send out one train, wouldn't you think how could we speed this up. But no, it was just let's work with the system we got. If each seat that had no person in it took 20 seconds to buckle, why didn't they put in the retractable seatbelts so they wouldn't have to check it? That's because it would cost too much money to install those. For every problem, there is a solution.

You just have to figure it out. They could have put some more money into that ride, and it would still be standing today with hardly any breakdowns. They just had to figure it out, but Six Flags just wanted a cheap fix. It's a 440 capacity, and why put the money into it. Six Flags made it a 440 capacity.

The puriest people are always going to make excuses for Six Flags saying it's warranted. They also believe in keeping the park it was back when it first opened much like Disney. Don't tear anything old down like the Orbit, or Triple Play. The other people aren't going to make excuses for Six Flags.

Ok, we're getting a little off topic here, but here's likely why they removed Vu: A lot of people were always complaining that it was always broken down. Many people never got to ride it because of this. The few times it was open, its reputation made people think it was unsafe and they wouldn't want to ride it. Therefore, it was no longer serving it's purpose of drawing people to the park. Therefore, it isn't helping bring in any extra revenue. Hence Shapiro decided to get rid of it. It was a business decision that unfortunately cost us one of the better coasters we had.

If they made it get a better capacity, it probably wouldn't be gone. Shapiro thinks it's only get 440 an hour, and why keep it. If it was getting 800 people an hour, it wouldn't be gone, but they didn't try to increase capacity. They just stuck with the same system they had. If it would have gotten 800, it would have been less low-staffed also because now it's worth it for Six Flags to operate it much more.

The more the ride's open, the more people think it's not broke like on all those days when it's not actually broke at all, but they didn't want to operate it. It goes back to capacity. Yes, it broke down, but capacity was a big reason why they got rid of it. They figured why deal with a ride that gets 440 an hour. The dummies didn't think to increase it by doing anything different during it's lifetime span.

Yet, capacity on the Dark Knight isn't that great either. I think with 6 cars it's about 550 people an hour. This is basing it on 60 people per row in theatre, 50-70 people in the preshow, and an hour wait.

Mark Shapiro should be a Hallow since he raped all of the Six Flags Parks with those stupid lockers & checking your bags before a coaster for 1 BUCK!!! :shoot:

Before, I was saying about the LIM's for Deja Vu, and I still think that would be a good idea, but here's another solution. Put brakes right between the loop, and tower 2. Yes, there are brakes in the loop, and they serve the purpose of miscatching, and not going into the cobra roll, and being stuck. That's fine with me. I'm not talking about that.

The catchcar can't have brakes on the towers because it's in the way. So, put 2 trim brakes between the loop, and tower 2, and lower the catch car to pick up the train. The slanted part is better than the straight part of the tower like now for the catchcar to catch the train because it's easier for it to slip off the other way. A much slower speed would really help it catch onto the catchcar. On top of it, if it's going too fast, it will be able to slow it down.

For tower 1, you would have the trim brakes right before the catchcar comes in row 5-6 in the station. You can put another 2 trim brakes when it comes to pick it up on tower 1. Again, because rain, and wind are problems, this will help the train to not slip off of the catchcar, and the trim brake will slow down the ride in windy conditions also. The catchcar would catch it lower because of the trim brakes, bring it up a little, and take it back down. It would be a little longer ride, but so what. Maybe, it would 10 seconds longer.

For overheating, again I say to put fans on generators, or an air-conditioning unit. Cover up the motors. For cold, put a heater near the second catchcar as that one seems to be the problem.

All it takes is a little thought as to how to fix the ride, and to have higher capacity. Maybe, Vekoma didn't make the perfect ride, but that doesn't mean that you couldn't try to fix it. Too late.