BuddyChrist

Wow, this is a total blindside. Mark Kane did wonderful things for this park and made sure that the park was clean, the employees were friendly, and that the park was running at optimal efficiency. It's a real shame to see him go as I did speak with him on more than one occasion, he'd always say hello when he saw me working in the park and even before when I was just a regular guest. He had so much devotion to making the park the best it could be and would fight for us.

That being said though, I'm expecting someone with long term theme park experience to replace him, someone that will always be walking around the park and taking note of what can be done and what should be done just like Kane. Next year should be very interesting with all of this new management in place at the corporate and park levels. Nobody's job is safe it would seem.

I love themed rides, but if the ride is fun, I don't care as much about it!

If I heard correctly, the parks themselves will have more control over what they add and how they operate their parks so the days of corporate micromanaging appear to be over. This new team appears to be so far more interested on advertising the parks as an entertainment option for consumers instead of building a national brand vehicle to profit off of corporate partnerships. It was a good idea to help bring the company out of the red but now, with the new common stock issued and a lot of debt cleared away, we should expect to see more emphasis on the regional parks instead of the national company.

I'd love to see them do like Cedar Fair does and make the park names come first and have "A Six Flags Entertainment Park" underneath. This could really help to show the public and Wall Street that it is a new company with new direction.

The rides are FAR from public view, especially during Fright Fest with Chiller's queue being used for the Asylum trail.

Back on topic, I'd really not be in favor of a walk through haunted attraction, but something along the lines of a haunted dark ride with moving vehicles like the Haunted Mansion would be really fun. You could theme it to Dracula and make it part of the Old Country and renovate Chiller's building, using the queue and the old loading platforms for load/unload platforms. Just a pipe dream though, its unlikely the park will ever have a year round haunted attraction.

Theming can change right up until the ride actually opens. NOTHING is set in stone, especially in the theme park industry.

As long as he sees the parks as entertainment destinations instead of investment opportunities, he should do well. Hopefully he'll raise enough capital on the company end that Weber can work with. Right now the company should be focusing on selling more stock and assessing each park on an individual basis to see what each one needs to become a well rounded regional entertainment empire.

More importantly, I'd like to see the end of the bombardment of advertisements and the end of the locker policy. Both are unnecessary and are really customer unfriendly. When parks of a similarr size can operate efficiently without both of those, then there's no reason why we can't.

Nope, just some really heavy rain in the span of 10 minutes, plus the drain got clogged up by a bunch of leaves

thats insane, did they shut down the park because of that

I don't know about Hersheypark, but I did take a trip to Hersheylake two weeks ago

The crest of the lift came down yesterday

There was 34,000 people there, you didn't miss much besides huge masses o' humanity!

Nope, no fireworks tonight because the wind didn't cooperate

^ That is good to hear! Did they have the fireworks tonight?

I love the insane amount of headbanging in that commercial Of course back then, nobody really knew what "smooth" was on a coaster.

^

http://investors.sixflags.com/phoenix.zhtm...p=irol-govBoard

These are the guys in charge, quite a diverse bunch. I keep thinking though that all of this is prep for a sale, all the daily staffing cuts and watching every dollar. I'm thinking it to be like a "Revive and resell" move but I could be wrong.

Without progress, there can be no future

Tower of Terror, now THAT would make a great movie.

From the park's Facebook Page:

They're wasting no time. The loops are probably next

The last hayride that I went on in 2006 wasn't as great as the ones in years past. Maybe the staffing that day wasn't as much or Shapiro had come in and slashed the budget for it by that point. If they can recapture the quality of the late 90s hayrides, then it would be worth having it come back. The best place for it would be back by the Demented forest area now that Koala canyon is gone. But I don't think anyone would want to part with that terror trail

Goodbye brake run. OM NOM NOM

Is the Asbury Park Press trying to tell us something :-P

By the way, the power outage was no big thing and many rides were up after half an hour. Anytime there's a slow news day, they always pounce on stuff like this.

Here's some of my favorite shots of Scream Machine that I've taken.

Rust in Peace

You bring up a lot of good points, I never knew that they couldn't prop up divisions. I fold my hand good sir

Seasonal employees don't get overtime, so even if they work for 10 hours, they will only get paid their regular rate due to NJ classifying seasonal jobs as temporary and not entitled to the same benefits as permanent part-time jobs.

The problem, as you say, is that the management is unwilling to sacrifice revenue for a high quality overhaul. Unfortunately, at this time and in this shaky economy, spending more than what you take in will hurt you with investors, no matter what the payoff in the end is. And I really don't see season pass prices as being "premium" compared to other parks and chains. With the amount of discounts at the parks (there are so many besides the Coke offer, there's a giant book full of them), people aren't paying for the entire gate price. The only thing that really is "premium" is parking, which has no discounts or credits that are offered.

Everyone knocks on Six Flags for not having what other chains have, but they always don't see that they have global corporations behind them that are well funded and very stable with other business ventures that keep them secure. Six Flags doesn't have that luxury anymore like it did with Time Warner, it has to make it's money on the parks alone and then distribute them accordingly.

I'm not saying that the company is perfect, but a lot of things have to come together in order for it to rise back to prominence like it once was. Unfortunately, the guest experience may be negatively impacted as the company finds its footing again but after that, the payoff should be significant.

^Maybe a few years ago that was true, but not this year, we've been doing it often so that we're not overstaffed for slower days.

Looks like we'll see another ownership change soon.

See, that's what I'm thinking too. A lot of this seems to be dressing up the company for a sale. With the company out of Chapter 11, there's a lot of fluidity with many of the old restrictions now gone. If the current owners can build the company into a profitable enterprise, then they may find some willing buyers. My only fear is that talk of a sale may fracture the new board and lead to another shareholder vote, killing any confidence in the brand in the business world.

There is a lot of infrastructure in Texas already, so uniting the company in one location is the best thing that can happen as it doesn't spread out resources at the corporate level. I'd love to see what Premier started in '05 with the Golden Kingdom finished by the new team. In order to do that, a lot of debt still has to be taken away. If Weber pays down the debt to a more manageable level, perhaps more elaborate additions and revamps could be possible.

As for the cutbacks in hours, it saves a LOT of money. With the increased snow in the winter, many schools were staying in session a week later than usual. But, the staffing budget still accounted for those groups being out of school and coming to the park. When the budget is for 18,000 people and only 11,000 come, the extra staffing isn't needed on those days. By taking the staff off of the payroll that day, the park saves a lot of money. And it's not only in staffing to, but we also save in foods (spoilage), electric, and materials.

By saving money in these areas, it means there is more money for paying off the debt and for new capital additions. Under Shapiro, he would take out or close rides as ways to save money. Staffing is one of the most expensive things for a park and if you can ease its impacts on finances by making calculated cutbacks in certain areas, you can do a lot more.

Probably the only thing I liked about Viper was the trains. The color and curves of it made it seem so much more modern than the boxy and older Scream Machine trains. A themed train is hard to come by nowadays, but to me Viper always had the best in the park (when you actually saw them outside the storage shed)