Daved Thomson

Truly a country music legend who lived a long storied life.  A rags to riches story that really was well portrayed in "A Coal Miners Daughter."  I was eleven years old when she played at Great Adventure, and I had not even visited the park for the first time.  I understand she was 90 years-old when she passed.  That would make her about 44 years old in these pictures.  Sadly, we have lost another of the great ones.

Have to say I hope and pray we have not lost the Great Arena.  Especially if we've lost it to simply a lack of basic maintenance over it's nearly 50 year lifetime.  I think we've already lost too many uniquely Great Adventure features/icons mostly due to a lack of basic season-to-season upkeep.

Just my opinion, but the real lack of family oriented shows in so many of the park's (and other Six Flags locations) large venues seriously detracts from the company's ability to attract the family demographic that the current CEO claims he wants to attract because of their willingness to pay premium pricing.  Personally, nobody is willing to pay a premium price for a product or service that does not warrant that price.  That being said, any park filled with even the best rollercoasters, but lacking in so many other family oriented rides, shows, and attractions, does not warrant a premium price at the gate.  Especially when, once inside, they learn that they'll have to shell out even more money to pay for upcharge services like fast passes and may even have to make their purchases using everything except the mighty dollar.  None of this comes across well to guests.  They may sucker someone in the first time, but I have to believe that for many people, that will be their first and last visit.

Of all the variations we have seen come and go with this planter, I still think the giant GA is the simplest and the most impressive.  They achieved just the right slope of the hill and it really personified the oversized/undersized vision of Warner LeRoy, despite its installation in 1976.  When it was moved out toward the parking lot, it actually shielded the view of the storm fencing behind it (which surrounded the back stage administration area, former balloon landing area, a small pond and several trailers that housed various administrative offices (like marketing, promotions, show operations/productions, grounds quality, and merchandising).

I don't know if it's still possible, but employees could reach this backstage area from within the park using three paths.  Those working in Strawberry Fair and Fun Fair used a path behind Guest Relations, another path led from between the Fortune Festival/Goodtime Ally and the Garden of Marvels, and the third path/road ran between Kiddie Kingdom and Fortune Festival/Goodtime Alley/First Aid/Security.  It was much easier for employees to quickly reach Employee Dining and this area regardless of where they worked in the park, especially when the park was filled with large crowds of guests.

On 9/5/2022 at 5:39 PM, CoasterKrazy said:

What is going on everyone! Wow it has been a really long time since I have logged into this site. I was shocked to still even remember my password and username. I sure did miss these forums and I'm glad to see they are better then ever. Any ways I just started a youtube channel and plan on vlogging a lot of the local parks and hidden gems around me. So far I have a Great Adventure and Dorney Park vlog up. I know as time goes on my content will become better as it is a learning process but let me know what you guys think so far! I'll leave the link down below and if you enjoy the videos give a big thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to the channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5sk-rdaGcxCfq-d66krcZA

 

 

I really enjoyed your VLOG of your park visit.  I appreciate your rather objective approach to reporting, rather than simply promoting the park.  Like yourself, I found the attendance levels during your visit to be uncharacteristically low for a Saturday in August.  In fact, I perceive the very low attendance to be worrisome.  I think it's great that the new CEO of Six Flags wants to significantly improve the guest experience for visitors.  His problem is that he seems to have lost the strong customer base the park(s) previously enjoyed and claims to want to draw more families to the parks, yet there isn't much left in the parks for families.  I hope and pray things get turned around for Great Adventure, but this season really can be written off as a dismal failure.  Improved customer experience levels requires attracting both new and repeat customers to the park and you're only able to draw both groups based on the park's product...  It's rides, shows, and attractions, appealing to a broad demographic and psychographic group of people.

Wow...  Very strange, indeed.  It's also a bit odd with the 537 entrance sign having the name all in white lettering and then when you get to the entrance of the theme park you have Six Flags in black, but Great Adventure in white.  

Very, very strange seeing these parks this empty on Labor Day Weekend.  What infrastructure has been refurbished looks great.  Sadly, empty stadiums and unused shops sitting closed are not a good site in the shadows of the refurbishment.  The safari and its animals, I think, look the best they have in a very long time.  Thinking positive about this great place.

Really can't say I'm impressed with the new sign and I don't see the electronic message board lasting very long.  It certainly doesn't bespeak of a place that wants to draw premium price paying demographics and offers a customer focused guest experience.

I believe the blue canvas sneakers you mentioned earlier came in those boxes that so many of us in Food Service wore.  White rubber soles, tan rubber bottoms, blue canvas uppers.  My two seasons in food service I went through two pairs each season.  The back of the white rubber soles had an additional small rectangular rubber label with the words Six Flags in the western style font that all of their parks used at the time.

I'd take the Flying Wave over the Sky Screamer, simply for Nostalgia reasons.

Great spotlight on this shop.  I was particularly fond of the peanut butter fudge they made in Kandy Kitchen and would usually stop in to get some when I wasn't working, playing in the park.  It was also a great, very cold place to cool off on very hot, humid days when it was Kandy Kitchen.

4 minutes ago, 29yrswithaGApass said:

I wonder where the huge double-decker carousel will wind up?

Personally, I have always found the two Columbia carousels to be nostalgic icons.  While every major theme park acquired antique, used carousels when they were being built, Marriott had the iconic Columbia carousels built new, replicating the animals found on other carousels.  While all parks initially had iconic towers, wheels, mountains, balloons and, of course, castles, the Columbia carousels are very impressive features of the Great America parks.  If GA does not plan to replace the Big Wheel with a new or refurbished one, I could see Columbia looking nice in that spot.  I don't think it would fit aesthetically in front of the Yum Yum Palace.

So, in other words, the real length of the lease is actually six-years, with the land owner having the option to terminate that lease two-years after giving proper notice to Great America.  I'm not a real-estate person, but it's clear that Cedar-Fair sees more value in the land now than it does in continuing to operate the park over any period of time moving forward.  Just guessing, but to me, it doesn't sound as if the park operates in the black.  If it does, it's definitely not one of the company's cash cows, thus their reason to wind down operations and get as much out of it now as they possibly can.

The fact that you continue to come across pictures of a park that first opened 48 years ago, that you have never seen before, leads me to believe that the mound of pictures you must have is nearly endless.  As you said, this is truly a great find.  It also reflects the values of those responsible for maintenance of the park and it's uniquely GA icons at the time.  Another piece of Warner LeRoy's larger than life vision of the park, GA's DNA, and like Warner LeRoy, a bit over the top in some way.

HBO

Schwartzkopf Shuttle Loop

or

Arrow Shuttle Loop

Power Rangers

SFOG Log Jamboree logs or SFGA Saw Mill Logs?

Yes, I know it's VERY early in the 2022 season, and I assume the video was made during a weekday visit, but the park (or, at least, Medusa) seems virtually void of guests.

Let's just hope it really is just a fad, one that will come to a screeching halt when these companies come to realize that their customers have a finite number of dollars available to spend.  Beyond that, they don't seem to realize that most of those customers have real limits on the number of dollars they can spend on recreation/entertainment.  It sickens me to hear company's separate their paying customers into categories such as desirable and undesirable.  It's as if these executives don't believe that it is far easier and profitable to keep an existing customer, than it is to get a new customer.  You always want to keep your current customer's happy.  Doing so makes them repeat customers, as well as loyal customers.  Those happy customers bring significant good will to the company, not to mention new customers with their strong word-of-mouth advertising.

Beyond all of this, I can not think of any mainstream brand in any industry (that has held a strong value proposition) in the marketplace that successfully repositioned itself into a more premium or upscale position, enabling it to charge a premium price while maintaining or building the same customer base.  Failures are obvious in almost every industry.  JCPenney and Sears vividly come to mind for me with their epic failed attempts to move upscale with premium pricing.  Mazda, in the mid-1990s, decided to begin pricing their vehicles directly in-line with Toyota and Honda, at a time when Mazda's vehicles were far better looking than the Toyota/Honda competing models, but with quality levels well below those competing models.  They made a conscious decision to walk away from their customers who had previously bought a Mazda because they provided a better value (comparable quality, more features/options than Toyota/Honda, at a slightly lower price) in an attempt to attract buyers willing to pay more while increasing annual sales significantly.

In my opinion, the Disney park's are destroying their customer loyalty and walking away from the industry's most solid customer base, all in the name of politics.  And, as you point out, Six Flags is NO Disney. 

I just took the time to read the transcript and, quite frankly, really found leadership to be out-of-touch with, not only their current customers, but potential customers.  What they see as value for the guest, I see as nickel and diming the guest at every level for basic services consumers have come to expect in a quality theme park.  And, they're making so many of their decisions on a wing and a prayer, hoping that what they expect to happen, will happen.  Yet, there seems to be no consideration of the possibility that it will not happen.  And, they offer little, if any, market or financial data supporting their strategy.  Heck, they can't even tell you how much of a trade-off in attendance is acceptable at a given increase in in-park spending.  They seem to think that consumers will happily spend more for services they already think a park should provide in the first place, and that is just not the case.  The word monetize is used quite recklessly, in my opinion, as if the consumer is eager to throw money at the company's problems.

Seems there's a bit of turmoil in this company's highest ranks, especially amongst the board.  I get the impression they're doing a lot of painting lipstick on pigs, and not sure how much longer the public or shareholders are going to buy into their BS.

On 5/4/2022 at 2:48 PM, 29yrswithaGApass said:

If you live in New Jersey you have probably heard of or already experienced the ban on one use bags that went into effect today.  In honor of all those disposable bags from years past, click below to see a wide selection of what has been offered at Great Adventure since 1974.

 

Just amazing how so many different States have approached the "shopping bag" issue in so many different ways.  Here in Los Angeles County, initially, the story was to save dolphins and marine animals, as well as save the number of trees, cut down for making paper bags.  Stores wanted you to bring your own bags, reusable bags of any material, and always had reusable bags available at the register for purchase.  When COVID started, many stores did NOT want you bringing in previously used bags of any type, but did not provide free bags, returning to paper or plastic (your choice) at 10 cents per bag.  That is where Los Angeles County is stuck at the moment, purchase your bags at 10 cents a bag and you can always bring your own bags.  Of course, in a State the size of California, the bag issue varies from county to county and in some counties, from city to city.  You basically need to know before you go how heavily a county or city regulates bags among retailers as well as whether bags are regulated only for supermarkets, non-supermarkets, drug stores, dry goods (Target, Department Stores like Macy's, etc.).  It's crazy!

So nice to see money being spent on very basic park infrastructure.  Personally, I'm completely shocked that they did a full, quality repaving of the safari, but I'm very happy that they did.  I think the nightmare of COVID-19 made the company realize just how important the Safari is to this particular property, especially as a drive-thru attraction.  Again, just my opinion, but the safari really had been ignored for too many years.  Hopefully, moving forward, some of the parks unique architecture and attractions is maintained and better preserved than it has been in the past.

My next door neighbors and best friend growing up were lucky enough to visit GA the first week it was open and also received these tickets for a return visit later that opening season.  I didn't visit the park for the first time until the 1977 season and brought my friend along with my parents.  We were depending on him to show us around the park because he would know where everything was located.  But, as you know, the entrance to the park changed in 1976, and none of us knew it at the time.  As a result, my friend wasn't much help in showing us around because that new entrance, along with new rides and missing rides, completely threw him off.  We searched high and low for the antique cars that day!

We all know that doing something the right way or what someone may define as the best way, is usually not the most economic way in the short term.  Unfortunately, many companies choose the quickest and cheapest way of accomplishing things, simply because the costs involved do have an affect on short term profits, especially when there is little planning behind the task at hand.

Wow... It really would have been the perfect fit for the park.  Just looking at the aerial photo above and the deep forest atmosphere of this park, it could have just as easily been a 1974 photo of Great Adventure from above.  Any idea who manufactured this ride?  It seems to be a sky ride with the cabins replaced by the balloons, but I'm guessing it was not a product of Von Roll.  I was completely unaware that any remnants of this park were still operating, albeit as an annual festival rather than an actual theme park.

On 1/29/2022 at 10:38 AM, 29yrswithaGApass said:

 

Five years later but I discovered some new info.

 

You aren't going crazy Daved!  The original entrance sign was in the front of the theater in 1978 but then was moved to the left hand doors while the current entrance structure was being built in 1979.  Also, the theater didn't open until June 24, 1978 so I am thinking maybe you went to the show in 1979?

 

Here is a newly discovered photo of the entrance to the Americana Music Hall under construction in 1979 and a sign and security guard directing guests to use the relocated original entrance arch to the left side of the theater next to the Rotor.

 

Mystery solved.  I was definitely incorrect about the season being 1978.  The Mahoney Brothers didn't appear until 1979 and given that I went to the park prior to the school year ending (sometime in May as myself and our 7th grade clan all cut school for "beach day"), you're absolutely correct.  I definitely remember entering on the left side of the building and exiting on the right.  Another great great photo find.