Official Buccaneer Battle/2009 Attraction Thread

[Ilovthevu']

^^The person was saying that it was a humid day, and Roaring Rapids was crowded, but that wasn't. To me, that's not a good sign based on it's a new ride.

[onyxhotel08]

The weather has been VERY harsh on all water rides and places at SFGAM and all over the Chicago land areas. Temps in the 50's-high 60's not exactly ideal water weather. Last year at this time it was in the mid-to upper 70's at least and now we still have days when we can't even make it to 60 and it is already the first week of June!

[themanoftheland8]

^^The person was saying that it was a humid day, and Roaring Rapids was crowded, but that wasn't. To me, that's not a good sign based on it's a new ride.

Not being crowded doesn't really mean anything yet. Yeah, it's new, but it has a huge capacity, summer is still coming, and the crowds (as far as I know) have not been bad at all yet this season... Mostly grade and high school class trips. Later in the summer I will definitely be spending more time in this area. If anything, it's way more effective than those sign misters.

I rode it on a scorching day a couple weeks back and it was a blast. As someone said, the targets were difficult to activate, but I wasn't really focused too much on those due to the boats in front and behind me being full of people, along with the land guns being occupied as well. It's not as thrilling as Deja Vu, but in my opinion, it's a better investment for the park.

[traincrossing9]

It's not as thrilling as Deja Vu, but in my opinion, it's a better investment for the park.

I wonder if Ilovthevu would beg to differ?

[Jerrykoala2112]

Haha. I would think it was a smarter move too because Deja Vu was costin too much money...if it was always up and running, the capacity would still be really low and the line would be really long...

[FParker185]

Should have just repaired Sky Whirl and left that there. Then capacity, weather, planetary alignment leading to normal operation would all be irrelevant, could just go and get high(up off the ground) for 12-15 minutes

[onyxhotel08]

They could have also done what Silverwood did with Aftershock and got DejaVu to run smoothly

[Ilovthevu']

It's not as thrilling as Deja Vu, but in my opinion, it's a better investment for the park.

I wonder if Ilovthevu would beg to differ?

I don't think turning a hand crank is thrilling for Buccaneer Battle. I don't know if a $5 million ride in which the workers are begging people to ride is a great investment. Sometimes, I think that thinking is a better thing to do than doing. Figure out what's wrong with the ride. Figure out how to fix it. It's a ride that just didn't run, and that's all you had to do. Really, find out why it did the thing it does. I think Silverwood has a handle on it. I haven't heard of downtime at that park. Maybe, it's also because Six Flags says we hate you Vekoma, and Vekoma felt that if you feel that way, you deal with it, forget it. Do it yourself Six Flags. Why is Invetigo doing so good at Kings Island the days I was there, and the workers said it doesn't break down? Yes, it's a different ride, but what is making that ride work more than Deja Vu?

I was reading a convesation on some message board, and they were saying that those green sensors no one can tell if they are really working or not whereas some other sensors which are more expenisve, and you can really tell if they are working. Maybe, those were the culprit on the ride? I don't know. Silverwood replaces a "bad sensor", and it's fine again.

The only reason I went on Splash Water Falls was to get wet. There was no substantial ride there in my opinion.In the regular parks, and water rides, I like the rapids rides. Ours to me though isn't that great compared to Over Georgia, Kentucky Kingdom, or St. Louis. Popeye's is pretty good also, but when going in not so hot weather, I don't go on it a lot. Magic Mountain, or Gaugea Lake's (closed down) are the worst of them in my opinion.

[Jerrykoala2112]

^The downtime on Deja 'Vu was massive! I think it was more then bad sensors to get it to become so down...

And the line is short for BB because it is a water ride. Roaring rapids is a long time because it doesn't go full capacity...

I love taking pictures of long lines by the way. I got this sweet picture of roaring rapids filling over into the main path.

[Ilovthevu']

Deja Vu was down a lot for mis-parking. The train came back in the station with the catchcar attached to the train. It just couldn't find where it was supposed to be. I mean a lot. Other times it was down for staff (They didn't feel the need to open it because it has a lower capacity, and people say it's always broke. Blah, blah), cold weather, wind, and it had the occasional miscatch, or retraction. It was mostly mis-parking though. However, someone leaned so much on the gates one time, and it shut down. I always cringed after that when I seen people doing that.

[onyxhotel08]

Deja Vu was supposedly, as told by Silverwood, down only 2% of the time in 2007. Hitting such a high satisfactory score should have convinced them to give it more time to see if the problems continue to lessen or stay about the same.

[FParker185]

Yeah, and my car was only driven to church on Sundays by a little old lady.

You never tell the truth when you're trying to sell something, especially in the amusement industry. If someone buys a used ride, they always do due diligence, before they buy. Also Silverwood knew something was up, as why would a park want to sell a popular and still relatively new ride unless there were underlying issues.

Now it worked out in Silverwoods favor that SFGAm was the cause of all the problems and now it appears to run just fine, and it's capacity more matches Silverwood than SFGAm. Which BTW, any word on how it's running this year at Silverwood? And what the lines are like?

I may be out there this fall, not sure yet though.

[RemoveShapiro,NotVu]

I'm sure it's running fine, or we probably would have heard about it.

Let's face it: It SUCKS that Deja Vu is not here anymore. This isn't a knock on Buccaneer Battle. Nice attraction, but we could have put it in the space of Splashwater Falls, SSA, etc. Removing DV was the bonehead move of the century.

[onyxhotel08]

Not 100% in agreement on that statement. It was my FAVORITE ride but if it really drained a lot of money like they say (I'm sure the park knew it was popular when running) & was going to never be sure in running I say good riddance. I just can't believe they put up with all the downtime and money issues for 5 years and then when it actually showed improvement they said goodbye. Kinda not what you'd expect right?

[Ilovthevu']

^I think the ride "drained" money in regards to how many employees for a ride that was getting some 400 people per hour whereas Six Flags sees the Scrambler as getting the same capacity (maybe a little lower than that), and thus why even have it anymore? You could say it drained money because of the mechanics, but they were always there anyway.

There was NO point in having 5 employees for this ride. You didn't need a grouper. You needed a line in the station that went back and forth so than you didn't feel like a sardined can. If it had such low capacity problem, you try to figure out why. They needed to work it through I guess. You deal with one thing at a time. The most obvious reason for low capacity problem was checking twice, and you try to find a way not to check the seats twice. Think about this. The 2nd worlds largest and fastest coaster on the planet uses a lap bar, and seatbelts, but yet I believe they check the seatbelts, and the lapbar at the same time.

For the seatbelt on Deja Vu, they need it first to be retractable as I said before, and they need it have a orange strap attached to it like at Animal Kingdom on the Dinosaur ride, and you are able to tug on the strap. This is so it's easier for people and the workers to get to it. The workers can also see it too. Also, orange seatbelts on yellow seats was a stupid idea. Make them black seatbelts. Remember ROY G BIV (Orange is too close to yellow on the color spectrum!) Why retractable seatbelts? It's so the worker don't have to buckle every empty seat.

If they did this, you wouldn't have 4 minute dispatches. Maybe, it would even be faster than V2 dispatches because that's a longer train (It's not as many seats, but they are spaced out more on that ride.), and they have to wait 1 min and 30 seconds till it cools down.

[themanoftheland8]

I'm sure it's running fine, or we probably would have heard about it.

Let's face it: It SUCKS that Deja Vu is not here anymore. This isn't a knock on Buccaneer Battle. Nice attraction, but we could have put it in the space of Splashwater Falls, SSA, etc. Removing DV was the bonehead move of the century.

For the most part, I agree with you 100% on this. Like others are saying, Vu was probably removed due to SF's stubborness, and I would MUCH rather have a fully functional DV still standing in its spot, with BB across the way where SWF was. However, I'm not sure how much money Silverwood has poured into Vu in order to make it function. Maybe SF could buy it back and move it to the SWF vacant spot (JK)

BTW, I didn't mean to offend you ilovethevu. Heh, i loved Jeza just as much as anyone else here, but I'd rather have Six Flags stay open next year, and for years to come, and if that means cutting some budget, so be it. That's a whole different topic though...

[Demon_07]

[quote="themanoftheland8However, I'm not sure how much money Silverwood has poured into Vu in order to make it function.[/quote]
Good point

[RemoveShapiro,NotVu]

Remember, there is still an dismantled Vu sitting in the Georgia Park. Maybe we could start a petition to bring theirs over here? Haha. I would love it though. Shapiro could do one his new paint jobs, audio in the seats, and fire and call it "Vu 2". It would be kind of cool to have the fire effect at the bottom of the first drop.

[onyxhotel08]

It doesn't appear that any other park will purchase Georgia's Deja Vu I think they should try to install it somewhere else in the chain. It was in worse shape then ours but putting it back together might help get rid of the kinks. All they would have to do is install it not pay for the actual ride. Would they really though? What would it make them look like getting rid of ours after such improvements were seen selling it and then a year or two later installing the same ride from another park NOBODY wants.

[BP317]

If they were going to have DejaVu here they would...wait they already did. Why would they take out a ride for poor capacity and unreliability then put the same ride back in? They wont, so we really dont need to be discussing it.

Even if all GIBs ran perfectly in my opinion a big park should never get one unless they find a way to have a dual track station so it can run two trains (which im sure can happen in some crazy way, but that way is so rediculous/unpredictable and expensive that it will never happen anyway). The rides are great, but its not worth building a $10mil roller coaster thats going to have DejaVu capacity.

[onyxhotel08]

Can someone make a list or something of WHY Deja Vu had such bad capacity when running? Was this problem really improved in 2007? What about the capacity of Splash Water Falls?

[Ilovthevu']

^It had bad capacity because of the parks decision to check the train twice (Problem fixed with what I posted above. Never thought, just did). They first checked the seatbelts around people's waists first, and than they would come back around and check the harnesses.

Also, another thing that slowed capacity even though not as bad as checking the train twice was that they would wait like 15-20 seconds to open the gate because they had to say the spiel before the people got on the ride. The spiel was that don't put your harness down, leave them in the air, and only buckle your orange seatbelts. No one really listened. They just wanted to get on the ride. The gates were on the slow side to open also. They weren't really slow, but when you say a spiel no listens to, and than after that, open the gates, that's a lot of wasted time in my opinion.

Also, because no one really listened, many people did buckle their seatbelt and put down the harness. The workers would put back up the harness, and check the seatbelt. Sometimes, the seatbelt wasn't always on the seat, and thus some people didn't buckle the seatbelt. Again, retractable seatbelts that are black with a strap attached to them was / is the solution!

Also, the phrases sound good and all, but the problem with them is that they also wasted time. They wait to say the phrase a lot of the time, and than push the buttons to get the ride going. When they pushed the button, the ride just didn't go. The floor needed to be lowered, and it took some seconds for it to move.

Also, empty seats they would put the harness down, buckle that one buckle on it, and than wrap around the other buckle. When you have a lot of empty seats, that takes time to do that. That's why the problem is solved with retractable seat belts.

It all adds up. Capacity also has to do with downtime, and a lot of the time it was that stupid mis-parking.

For the closest ride (as in distance) that's similar to Deja Vu (Yes, not 90 degrees, and not as big of a loop, but still), head out to Kings Island for Invertigo. Invertigo is a social ride really. You can talk to the people you are facing (unless you are in the front or back of the train), and it adds a different experience to what Deja Vu is. There is no doubt about it though as Deja Vu is my favorite roller coaster even though it's not at SFGAm anymore. Some Yo-Yo's that tilt really good also have the feeling of falling out (without actually out), and being pushed back in your seat.

Was capacity improved in 2007? I don't know. I haven't been to that park.
I think the reason why Splash Water Falls is gone is because of lower ridership, and supposedly it was leaking everyday. Those boats were big boats, and they should have got enough people in them as in capacity regards.

[onyxhotel08]

So Six Flags Magic Mountain has no capacity issues with Vu? Or is it because they have 34 coasters nobody cares that much about Vu's downtime?

[BP317]

Its the same ride, the capacity is about the same. Though at Magic Mountain they check the orange belts visually with a glance then tell people to pull their harness down instead of going through and checking all of them like they did at SFGAm.

But the amount of time it takes to get everyone to buckle their seatbelt, and if they pulled down their green harness the ops make them pull it so they can visually check it. Also SFMM tends to run it with 2 people + a grouper where SFGAm ran it with 4 people and a grouper so normally the capacity is a bit worse at SFMM.

[onyxhotel08]

Give it another 2-3 years