Went for a second day to the park and Hurricane Harbor. Say what you will about the Shapiro era, but I have to say, I have NEVER waited in more lines for longer times than I did today.
We waited nearly a half hour to get into the parking lot. We tried the back entrance first and it was backed up all the way down Washington to Route 21, so we went around to the front entrance. Even worse! I thought it must be super busy and the lot should be jammed packed. Nope. When we got there, I was able to park right in front. What the long wait was about, I'll never know?
Then we waited at least 20 minutes to buy a season pass for our friend. And then we waited almost 45 minutes at the processing center! We went to the Harbor, and again, I figured it would be packed? Nope. A ghost town.
We went to buy food and waited for another half hour (I am not exaggerating these times!) to get our food. We rented tubes, and waited a good fifteen minutes to do that. We even had to wait in line to return the tubes!
We were there from 11-5 and I would bet that we spent more than half that time waiting in various lines.
What I saw was that most of the patrons and most of the staff didn't speak english very well. Add to the fact that everyone is new and learning and it turned into a fiasco. I never heard so many people cussing out the staff before in the thirty years I have been going there combined.
If they were really busy, I would be happy to see they're making money and I could understand the exceptionally long waits, but when the joint isn't even half full, it leads me to believe that whoever was previously in charge of operations must have gone elsewhere when Shapiro left.
All I can say is that I left with a new found appreciation and understanding of what you coaster enthusiasts go through and write about with regard to waiting in lines! We didn't even ride anything and we were stuck waiting in lines for everything.

Have you been on any coasters on that day?

I'll give you a answer to all the backup.

#1 If you have a parking pass they now have to scan it like it is a fake pass WTF, and if you get a stupid ass person working at the booth that doesn't know what he or she is doing then it'll take a while as they have to look all over for their supervisor (had that happened to me once)

I'm finding more delays trying to get to the booth.

Despite waiting in line for everything, we didn't ride any coasters. We got in line for the Little Dipper because it looks as though there's no one in line, but when you get around the bend, there's actually a million people waiting, so we backed out.
I didn't have any problems with the scanning/parking thing. But that's not to say people ahead of me didn't. I know I have never waited so long to get into the parking lot before and I have never seen the back entrance backed up all the way down Washington Street in all the years I lived near the park.
The whole experience was just weird because for all of that waiting in line, the park wasn't all that busy.
On a strange note; I saw the security guard at the HH gate turning the turnstyles and checking the number counter like he was making it appear as though there were more people going in. When he saw that I was watching him, he went over to the exit turnstyle and did the same thing. What that was all about is anyone's guess. Then the guy I was refilling my souvenir glasses with kept insisting I should have a free refill all day wristband, despite my telling him repeatedly that I had purchased them yesterday and no longer qualified for the free refills all day. He still managed to deduct the refills from my total order! I just got tired of trying to explain it, and let it go.
Something has happened that has affected the park operations. I don't know if they had less staff. If they suffered more attrition with regard to experienced personnel this season? Something has changed, and not for the better I am sorry to say.

The thing with the scanning the season pass was put effect before Shapiro was let go. I have a feeling they do this because they want to keep track of many times season pass people are coming to the park, and to make sure season pass people have the season pass parking on the season pass! It was much better without this scanning of season pass thing, and on top of it I have heard when we were in the car getting in that they were having trouble with their computers. So, that to me explains the parking problem.

Food has been trouble with long lines that should be shorter for a long time coming. You would think with the money they charge, they can hire more workers, or get more food equipment to deal with it. The processing center is always slow. Did they seem to have enough workers there? I wonder if the first weekends they had a bunch of workers there, and than let them go now to do other stuff because there aren't that many people getting passes now compared to first weekends.

For workers not speaking english, the help they could get is the help they could get. They employee tons and tons of people. I know they have some sort of program. One year they had South Africans (I think that's their nationiality') come from there to work here. They speak english though.

I am not against them hiring foreign students. I know that getting people to work in a part time and/or temporary job leaves you a much smaller potential employee pool.
But, in the past it seemed they had many more seasoned employee's working alongside these new people, especially on the busy days. This year there was almost no one behind the counters that wasn't new.
Hopefully all the issues I encountered will be resolved as the employee's get a little more experience.
I did notice that the food prices went up another buck. But on the otherhand, it seems they had more palm tree's and other tropical plants this year, so you take the good with the bad I suppose.

I have no experience working at the park, but when it comes to food at the park, wouldn't it be comparable working at Mcdonald's / Burger King or worse? They are serving food to customers, and you know how people can be when it's hot outside compared to them in an air-conditioned building. The customers have also have been standing the most of the day too, to make them more cranky. The thing to me is that most people don't care to work at Mcdonald's or another fast food place for too long, so why would Six Flags employees being the same way.

For the ride department, think about what the employees for a roller coaster (at least during part of the day) have to do. If Batman the Ride gets sent out every 1 minute 15 seconds, think of how many times they check harnesses a hour, and go back and forth. I think when people apply for a Six Flags ride job they think this is going to tons of fun because it's Six Flags, but at the same time it's work, and probably not all that fun as they think it would have been. At the other site, I was saying that Disney to me, some Disney people have easier jobs with rides.

For the roller coaster mine rides (Expedition Everest, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad), they tell people push up on their own lapbar, and that is less work. For other rides like Pirate's of the Carribean, It's a Small World, Norway ride, they tell people get in the boat, and they don't check seatbelts as their are none. The harder rides at Disney to me are the spiel rides like Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion has a small part, and there is Great Movie Ride. I think that's why Disney employees are more happy than Six Flags employees. I mean at the Snow White ride, there is an employee that just sits there, says to the people in line get on, and than says push your lapbar down (doesn't check it), and the rides goes.

The problem was that you went on Memorial Day weekend, and had nothing to do with personnel at the park. Holidays are always crowded at the park and that's why I avoid it on days like that. One of my cousins wanted to go last year on July 4th and I told him no because it's just too crowded.

Hi All!

Sorry. I have been gone for a while!

It really wasn't crowded at all those days. I was disappointed that it wasn't considering how nice the weather was. The harbor never reached capacity which is a typical occurance for really busy days.
There is something else going on. Either they have fewer employee's or there is a new system in place that is bogging things down? Something is different. The employee's are still very attentive and cordial, but they are being hung up by something. I can tell you that by 3:00pm almost every kiosk in the park had run out of ice. Maybe there's a logistical issue going on?

I will be back there next Wednesday. See what happens then?

Went on Wednesday and it was even more screwed up than before!

I actually left the line of cars at the back entrance after just getting under the Eagle in 30 minutes! Went to the mall for a couple of hours and came back around 1:00PM this time to the front entrance and it was still backed up! Took us a good thirty minutes to get to the gate. Yet I was still able to park in section 32 and the lot was maybe half full?
Then they had a sign saying Hurricane Harbor would close at 5:00PM so we left at around 4:30 to beat the crowd and yet they stayed open well past 6:00PM when we left the park!
I went past a dozen concession stands and with the exception of the larger ones, there was just one employee behind the counter struggling to keep up.
Treasure Chest usually has two or three people working, they had one guy who was so in the weeds it was nuts!
He had the register rung up (and hung up) for $97,517.00 and he just gave me a wristband for my wristband voucher, he couldn't ring up anything. He's on the phone trying to get help...It was just chaos! King Chaos in fact!
Now this isn't about money making crowds. I would be happy if it was. My kids were able to get on nearly every coaster they wanted to ride within a half an hour give or take. But the pandemonium at the gates and concessions is just beyond belief.
The last concession stand I stopped at on my way out was for the refillable icey cups, there were kids filling up regular drink cups, popcorn or something was burning behind the counter, and the woman working the counter had an accent that sounded like she was a quacking mallard. I finally gave up and split.
Plus I noticed that they no longer intend to be the cleanest park in America anymore. There was stuff everywhere. The bathrooms near Superman looked like the old Chicago Amphitheater after a Motorhead concert.
I still love the place, but man what a difference a year makes!