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Rumblings about 2008

Talk about anything that has to do with Six Flags Great America and Hurricane Harbor here.
Postby DvuRulz on November 14th, 2007, 10:49 pm
[quote="Tip Top Club"]While I apologize for the way I came across, I'm not sorry for the general sentiment. Yes, I do ride the rides, and I mentioned that I'll be there at least once for dark knight. This Just Seems like a step in the wrong direction to me.
quote]

No need to apologize for anything. It was your opinion, you have a right to it. Plus, I think you have a great point. It is a step in the wrong direction. I don't like these changes at all, even though I am not a theater geek. I think its good that you are't going to attend as often. That will help Six Flags realize that it was a mistake and hopefully things will change in the future to become more like they were.
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Postby tp41190 on November 15th, 2007, 3:10 pm
I am really upset about this. But I think that managment has something good planned for 2008. Maybe they will use DeJaVu's space for a new theater or something like that.
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Postby FParker185 on November 15th, 2007, 11:12 pm
I was hearing Temporary Stage for Vu's spot, but alot of things were heard and so far none of it has been accurate.
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Postby superflybri on November 16th, 2007, 1:46 am
I dont know if they would put a temporary stage there because there is a stage by the food court. Seems sort of pointless to me, but whatever is ok with me. Bring back the Batman Show...
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Postby DvuRulz on November 16th, 2007, 9:43 pm
I'm not looking at that temporary stage or anything that's going in that spot! I will blindfold myself and have my friends guide me past Vu's old entrance.

Yeah, ok. That's a bit exaggerated, but it will take a lot of effort to look at whatever goes there. I will most likely be avoiding that area.
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Postby BP317 on November 16th, 2007, 10:42 pm
I personally think an extensively themed indoor coaster justifies the loss of a theatre (that hasnt shown anything that you couldnt see in Starlight Spectacular for years). Your all judging the ride before you even see it, its not only a mouse, its a dark ride also and who knows, it could even be very good [shock!]. I highly doubt they will just leave SWF sitting there because they know that will cause lots of complaints.
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Postby DvuRulz on November 17th, 2007, 2:52 pm
I'm not saying TDK is going to suck, I just don't think its neededI am sure I will like it a lot and it will be cool. I just liked things the way they were. I always thought it would be a cool addition, just not an extremely necessary one.....but if it has anything to do with Vu's loss (which it probably doesn't) I don't like the idea at all. But anyway, I still think its sad that they are taking the theater away, even if TDK is wicked awesome. It will be awesome for the people who like that kind of thing. But for the people who just like theater stuff, its still not going to be the greatest.
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Postby zjohn1988 on November 17th, 2007, 3:21 pm
^especially with another mouse >100 yards away...
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Postby BP317 on November 17th, 2007, 4:07 pm
People wont be able to tell its a mouse as you wont be able see the ride from the queue/preshow/subway station (loading platform), combined with it being a dark/effects ride.
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Postby cycamps on November 17th, 2007, 6:01 pm
So, is everything going to be still, like mannacins and stuff, or will there be things going on?
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Postby superflybri on November 17th, 2007, 6:34 pm
DvuRulz said:
I'm not saying TDK is going to suck, I just don't think its neededI am sure I will like it a lot and it will be cool. I just liked things the way they were. I always thought it would be a cool addition, just not an extremely necessary one. But for the people who just like theater stuff, its still not going to be the greatest.



You have got to be kidding? First, everything six flags has done has been for the better. At first when they got rid of Vu, it was emotionally devastating. If you think about it, other then us lucky enthusiasts, we are the only ones who truly experience Deja Vu.

Second, TDK provides us with our first dark ride! How can you not be happy about that? :shock: You never know, they can bring back more outside shows for 2009. Maybe they are going to start more partnerships with companies. If you look to see what they have been doing to every park, it has been about the same for each park. Why not share the experience with shows?
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Postby DvuRulz on November 17th, 2007, 10:53 pm
Dude, chill. I'm not dissing it...Who knows maybe I'll feel different after I ride it...but for now I'm sticking with thinking its not necessary...Its ok, superfly, you don't have to flip out :lol:
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Postby superflybri on November 17th, 2007, 11:40 pm
^ I wasn't flipping out.. I was just saying, hahah. sorry that it sounded like that. But was not meant to sound like that.

That was just to keep hopes up for 09' that things will smooth out. We'll see, heck. I'm sort of excited about the concert series that is going to come to g.a. I wonder if they will be hosting that in Wilderness Theater, anyone hear anything?
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Postby rct2wizard360 on November 18th, 2007, 1:16 am
superflybri wrote:At first when they got rid of Vu, it was emotionally devastating. If you think about it, other then us lucky enthusiasts, we are the only ones who truly experience Deja Vu.


HAHAHAHA!
Emotionally devistating?

Also, how do I truly experience a ride?
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Postby superflybri on November 18th, 2007, 1:44 am
^ ok, Defiantly over doing it a little, but the closure of Vu has hit some hearts. (was the best ride in the park in my book)

Also, We truly experience the ride because most of us have been on it, while I hear a lot of my non-coaster friends/enthusiasts have not been on it nor seen it running.
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Postby rasslin on November 18th, 2007, 9:21 am
Hello Everyone,

Can any one tell me why the park seems to get just a little less customer friendly and a little more urban scary every year? I felt like Snake Pliskin in Escape from New York this last season.
I have been going there since the Marriot days, and since we live in Gurnee, we buy season passes every year, but last year (2007) was very disappointing. Rides were down for extended periods, the harbor (the only reason I go there anymore) was shut down several times. My VIP parking passes mean't nothing towards the end of the season. There were shuttered kiosks all over the place. Despite buying the refillable cotton candy and drink containers, you had to wait until something opened at noon to get them filled. And there seemed to be a much more rowdy clientele there this year too.
I wrote to Mark Shapiro and then played phone tag with some woman who is supposed to be in charge. But that went nowhere. I love that place but I am really wondering if it's worth the $600 to buy all the passes again in 2008.
Now I see they have cancelled live shows too? But I am sure they'll keep B-96 there blasting (c)rap music at 300 decibels louder than the theme music for each section which makes no sense whatsoever. I don't want to hear Droop Soggy Dog singing about machine guns and pimpin' when I am at Hurricane Harbor! I want to hear Bob Marley or other music that fits the theme.
I ate there about 25 times this year and that got worse at every meal too. (Especially the buffet in the old west section where the flies would carry the food off your plate.)
I don't know if they are just eeking along until they find a buyer for the park, or if they've decided that everything is going to have a prepaid commercial component or what, but it's not even close to the way it was under Marriot.
I have been reading all these threads and everyone here seems to know quite a bit about the park. A lot more than I know so I am sure hoping to read some good news about 2008!
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Postby FRD714 on November 18th, 2007, 9:31 am
^Welcome! You've sure come to the right place to learn more about the park. I agree with you on the B96 music. I can't stand it. I really don't have much say on the other topics you brought up because I didn't visit nearly as much as you did. You're not the only one who thinks that though.
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Postby Coaster Justin on November 18th, 2007, 11:06 am
What I don't get is why didn't they replace Ragin Cajun with The Dark Knight?

I read on Screamscape that surveys are showing that people know Six Flags for their rides and not their shows.


I hope there is something cool in the Amphitheater like that extreme stunt show Xcelleration at Fiesta Texas or Coolibra(sp?) or A Stand Up or Magic Show. Please Shapiro that brings in families!!!!!!!!
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Postby Galvan on November 18th, 2007, 11:48 am
^ Reading something on screamscape pretty much is as good as hearing it from the Lemon Chill Guy.


Screamscape is not a very good place to get news and such. Then again Im not really sure what is the best place for news.
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Postby BP317 on November 18th, 2007, 3:49 pm
Can any one tell me why the park seems to get just a little less customer friendly and a little more urban scary every year?

Clearly you werent at the park from 1997-2003 when it was like a Cedar Fair park, half the people there had tall pink mohawks or you couldnt see their face cause all the piercings.
From what Ive seen there was way more of a family/small kid crowd in the past few years (and increasing) every year.
I agree there needs to be improvements, but you saying that rides were down for extended periods of time it was not nearly as bad as 2006. The 3 rides that were down for extended periods of time this year are being removed right now (Giant Drop being down for obvious reasons).

The food service I think everyone agrees is a big problem, I think theres definitley going to be some action taken there by the parks [new] GM because the large amount of complaints that foods got last year. John Curty really got on security's case in 07 and they vastly improved, so im hoping that food will improve.

Now I see they have cancelled live shows too? But I am sure they'll keep B-96 there blasting (c)rap music at 300 decibels louder than the theme music for each section which makes no sense whatsoever.

B96 only played in Mardi Gras because they had a studio setup there.

I don't know if they are just eeking along until they find a buyer for the park, or if they've decided that everything is going to have a prepaid commercial component or what, but it's not even close to the way it was under Marriot.

Seeking a buyer? Great America is one of the few actually profitable parks. I would expect some more ads next year as the park is getting plasma TV's in the queue lines to use mainly for park info/advertising.

The parks product/appearance overall has much improved in the past 2 years, the thing that really bothers me is that corporate has tried recucing oeprational costs pretty much as much as possible without affecting the guest experience, which has because the rides were running with less people/recuding capacity. And from the conference call, Shapiro was talking about new strategies of reducing operational costs so I really wouldnt expect that to change.

But one thing we have to remember is that theme parks are a business as much as we dont want them to. I see theres a lot of negativity on here towards DejaVu's removal. Well when your Mark Shapiro and theres a lot of letters on your desk saying "this ride is always closed/always breaks down when were in line/ruined our whole day because we waited a long time then it broke and we lost all that time" etc...you have to figure that something is going to be done about that. By removing the ride they reduce those complaints plus dont have to spend the $ with the extensive maintenence the ride always needs.

Heres how I would break down 2007

Good
Ride uptime much improved over 06
Park apperance/signage/landscaping much improved.
Park cleaner/more people cleaning the midways.
Better operations staffing in spring/fall.
Bad
Reduced the amount of ride operators by a lot during summer.
Food.
Operation Spygirl.

What id like to see improved next year
More ride operators during summer.
Food.
I'm hoping that the new TV's mean not as many billboards throughout the park.
More FlashPass avalible rides.
Last edited by BP317 on November 18th, 2007, 8:45 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Postby Galvan on November 18th, 2007, 3:59 pm
"Theme parks are a business?" wow what a novel idea!


Seems like you and a few others on this site seem to understand that concept


Long Sustained Applause :D :P
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Postby RVD420 on November 18th, 2007, 5:00 pm
Continued Applause..
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Postby Carlo on November 18th, 2007, 6:21 pm
Yes, Theme parks are a Business. What is their Business? To Entertain Guests and to make the customer happy. You get Unhappy customers you get no businesses.
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Postby BP317 on November 18th, 2007, 7:54 pm
/\ Exactly, which is why they removed DejaVu (x2)/Chiller.

Look at the position Magic Mountain is in:

They had a great park, then they built Superman The Escape. This drains a TON of their profits because the ride is such a huge nightmare to maintain and costs a lot of money to operate. Then a few years later add X and DejaVu, probably their biggest mistakes that SF corp has ever made. Both rides have unexplainable amounts of problems (especially X), cost tons of money to maintain and operate, then the next thing you know the park is starting to run deeply in the red because of extremely high operational costs due to POS rides. What happens? We see lack of upkeep, 1 train ops, and money not beeing there to maintain other rides causing inspectors to start closing flat rides/coaster trains.

Now this is where Kirean Burke shouldve drawn the line and taken out Psyclone/Flashback/STE. But CP builds another coasters, and since SFMM is the "Xtreme Park" SFMM goes and builds Scream.

They were put in a very bad situation, lucky for them their maintnenece guys are very good and got DejaVu running like a well oiled machine, the only reason X is still standing is because its iconic and the most popular ride in the park, STE really should go...

Same thing hapenned to GAm with DejaVu. The addition of TDK will give them a reliable proven ride model along with it being indoor to keep the ride open all the time, and extensive theming tied with a new movie to promote that. Very good planning opposed to the old Kirean Burke SF horrible planning.

Parks dont have unlimited money to do whatever they want, they need to make the money to make the improvements. As we learned from MM: If you are running deep in red because you have too many POS rides and need to keep them open, bad things will happen. This whole "bad SF" ordeal couldve been avoided if Kirean Burke didnt have his head up his ass which is WHY removing these rides is the best interests of Six Flags. The bottomline, SF needs to reduce operating costs to be profitable. 2007 was the year of experimenting trying to find an equilibrium on how to reduce costs without costing service, they have decided that removing attractions with large amounts of downtime/low capacity (that cause a lot of complaints) that are expensive to maintain is the best way to go.

In conclusion, by reading the above post you now know that Shapiro has not screwed up Six Flags at all, by removing high maintenence/low capacity attractions he is fixing what Kirean Burke screwed up. I believe many of you werent around chronically during the late-Burke era, Shapiro has much improved the service at the parks as well as appearance and is trying to make smart moves to make the parks profitable again. I strongly believe that down the road Six Flags will be a profitable company again with Shapiro as CEO.

So how about before you guys post "SHAPIRO IS SATAN HE DOESNT KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING HE'S TAKING OUT RIDES & ADDING WIGLGES WORLD BLAH BLAH BLAH" you do your homework and study the industry a bit before making yourself look like an idiot.
Last edited by BP317 on November 18th, 2007, 8:41 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Postby cycamps on November 18th, 2007, 8:10 pm
Removing them made customers happy?
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