Galvan Investigates:
Does Six Flags Great America need to add another major Roller Coaster?
The Following post does not necessarily reflect the opinions of SFGAmWorld.com, its webmaster, staff or its readers. This posting is a fact finding study and several sources, including the authors own personal accounts have been used to discover the facts with-
in.
Now ever since the whole fiasco with the addition of Chang ended, people on this site as well as others have clamored for Six Flags to add another major roller coaster, the general consensus being that SFGAm was “screwed” or Six Flags “neglects” SFGAm. This investigation, this post will not portray this “need” or lack of “need” in any of those circumstances, nor will it use the argument that “SFGAm has not gotten any thrill rides since 2003 when Superman was added.”
This investigation will be based on detailed personal accounts and factual information about the park that is already apparent. The goal of this investigation is to give people a better understanding about why a new coaster may or may not be needed, and to finally lay to rest some of the often ridiculous reasons why SFGAm “needs” a new roller coaster.
One hope is that after reading this piece you will see exactly how ridiculous some of the more common reasons for why SFGAm needs another coaster are, and what really could be the reasons why SFGAm should or should not add a new major roller coaster.
Putting to bed the ridiculous arguments of SFGAm’s “need” for another coaster:
“Ever since Superman, our park has not gotten any major thrill rides!” That’s 7 years without anything thrilling”
Since 2005 and even before then, Six Flags was fighting to stay in business and it took a major proxy fight led by Daniel Snyder, to “turn the battleship” that was Six Flags. Mark Shapiro came aboard as new CEO and changed the fundamental philosophy of cap spending at SF. Gone where the $25 million dollar roller coasters, and in there place where new family attractions that put more emphasis on lucrative family spending then teen thrill seekers. 2004 saw 3 “thrill” rides added to the park. King Chaos, Revolution and Ragin Cajun. 2006 saw the addition of “Tornado”.
Now try as hard as you want to think that those 4 attractions are not thrill rides, but all 4 of them require a height requirement of at least 54 inches to ride, MORE then the height requirement of Millennium Force (48 inches) at Cedar Point. Those 4 attractions are in fact Thrill Rides. So to use the argument that since 2003 SFGAm has not seen any thrill rides, is completely false, unless of course you don’t consider Millennium Force a thrill ride. The point is, that even thought you might not have a ride that is 310 feet tall that goes 93 mph, does not mean that we have not seen anything thrilling added to our park in 7 years.
Six Flags constantly “neglects” our park, other parks are always getting rides yet, we don’t get anything, and this isn’t fair!
Can anyone name the last major roller coaster that was added at Six Flags America? Or Great Escape? Answers: SFA last added a major coaster in 2001, Great Escape: Does not have a “major coaster”
The argument that SFGAm is “constantly” over looked is very much exaggerated, has no major competition in the market it serves; and also this park typically receives a new attraction on a yearly basis. SFGAm also preserved Little Dipper in 2010, which was a huge addition in its own right given the historical aspect of the addition. The bottom line is that Six Flags since the Shapiro administration took over, until today has never once “neglected” SFGAm, sure they might not have added huge major thrill coasters, but as we’ve seen above have added thrill rides and more importantly added a historic icon of Chicago amusement park history.
SFGAm also features one of the most diverse coaster line ups of any major theme park in the country. With 14 roller coasters, plenty of flat rides and a massive water park, SFGAm does not need to continually add major attractions to pack people into the park.
A piece on SFGAm’s “competition”
Drive Time to nearby parks: (From Gurnee, * = does not factor any time changes)
Cedar Point: 6 hours 10 minutes* at 335 miles
Kings Island: 6 hours 15 minutes* at 350 miles
Indiana Beach: 3 hours 10 minutes* at 150 miles
Wisconsin Dells: 3 hours at 170 miles
Mall of America: 6 hours 40 minutes at 385 miles
Michigan’s Adventure: 4 hours 20 minutes*at 235 miles
So for anyone to say that SFGAm has competition in the Chicago/Milwaukee market needs to look closely at the above table. There is NO major competitor with-in 170 miles of Gurnee and SFGAm, and even then you still have to make a 3 hour drive from SFGAm to get to the nearest “competitor.”
Also, it is ill-advised to consider Six Flags St. Louis as a competitor to Great America given the fact that money spent at Six Flags St. Louis could ultimately go towards a new attraction to be added at SFGAm, and vice versa.
With how this investigation is going you’re probably asking yourself, well, I thought there were two sides to this coaster argument. There definitely is, case in point:
Southwest Territory June 25th 2010 9:40 PM
It is the first 2010 installment of Coasters after Dark, and like most of the CAD events, the park is mobbed. But on this night, a string of odd occurrences and circumstances highlights that maybe; SFGAm really does “NEED” a new major roller coaster.
CAD events, basically means that the park is open an extra 2 hours, season pass holders can ride coasters, but the park is by all intents and purposes open for business. On this particular night, Viper and Raging Bull both suffer technical issues that cause a considerable down time of over 30 minutes prior to the end of Glow in the Dark parade and the start of CAD.
So to set the scene for you, you’ve got basically Southwest Territory closed (Bull and Viper both down) you’ve got Glow ending, and to make matters worse, Demon and American Eagle are both running at diminished capacity (Demon’s 3rd train was not yet available and American Eagle was running red side with one train) So you have all these people many of whom are pretty upset that Bull and Viper are down, heading into County Fair only to find that Eagle is running one train down, plus its CAD so its already a long line (the wait for Eagle on this night was approximately 90 minutes)
People could try to hit Whizzer, but Glow just ended and Whizzer is in Hometown Square right where the parade just let out, so there was a huge fiasco there, try Demon, nope that was also a 90 minute wait because it was down a train, and its CAD and Glow just finished.
Superman wasn’t going to have a shorter line, BTR and V2 definitely where not going to have short lines as again its CAD, but remember Southwest Territory was basically just Giant Drop, which was going close because it wasn’t a coaster and CAD was now just minutes away from starting.
I remember this vividly because it was the first CAD event where all the lines had at least a 90 minute wait, and there was nothing, really to do except walk around the park from packed queue to packed queue. If you got into the line, that’d be your last ride of the night or close enough too it, so basically you where stuck.
Now consider what if, there was a Scream type floorless in the front of the park (where Chang was supposed to go lets say) There would be another high capacity option for people that either saw GLOW or were coming from Southwest Territory (where Bull and Viper where down) to at least get into a line that would move people through the queue as effectively as Raging Bull would have.
And this is the reason why SFGAm NEEDS to add another major coaster. The reason being is the park is pretty much at capacity as it stands right now coaster wise, recent additions of TDK, Dipper and Ragin’ Cajun have boosted the parks coaster count, but have also made the parks coaster’ capacity go down considerably as well. Couple that with the fact that V2 has a very bad capacity and if Bull, Eagle or Viper or worse yet all 3 have tech issues, you are going to deal with a lot of very angry people.
June 25th was basically the worst case scenario, a perfect storm if you will, where all these factors combined over the park to make what already was going to be a busy night, an unbearable night to say the least.
Capacity issues, is one reason why SFGAm “NEEDS” another major coaster. The CAD scenario probably would have still been pretty bad, but the addition of a Scream! Floorless or another major high capacity ride could have made a significant difference on that night. The addition of Scream to the park for example would have given the park a ride that has a projected hourly output of 1440 people which easily makes that second to only Raging Bull as the best outputting ride in the park. That would have made a world of difference on the CAD night.
But also on any day that is busy in the park. July 5th 2010, was an exceptionally busy day in the park, Hurricane Harbor reached capacity at 12 noon, and at one point Batman and V2 had waits of 2 hours, Raging Bull for example had both queue house in us and still had people going out of the entrance of the queue into the midway.
The fact is that SFGAm has added coasters that have really no business in a park with the amount of people that attend it.
Ragin Cajun is significantly limited on the amount of hourly throughput of people, V2 has its issues given the fact that it has one train, and it takes often times 4 minutes per dispatch of that ride, add in Little Dipper, Dark Knight and you have a recipe for long and in some cases extremely long lines even on moderate days at the park.
Another major Coaster helps significantly, especially if that ride is a Floorless, it can run 3 trains, it’s a reliable B&M ride, and most importantly it can draw people away from the smaller capacity rides and make the lines a lot less shorter for everyone.
Since 2001 there is only one coaster Superman, which really should have been placed in SFGAm, when you’re talking specifically on the lines of capacity,
Déjà vu, V2, Cajun, Dipper, and TDK all have or had major capacity issues where lines are long and even if you have an effective crew, there is still issues.
The reason to add another major coaster at SFGAm isn’t because of something ridiculous like not having a coaster with the most (insert whatever here) or because SFMM has something we don’t, it is really simple, SFGAm needs another coaster because the rides we have already are at or near capacity even on the moderate days, and on evenings when the water park isn’t open or closes early you’ve got major issues.
Where do you put the next big coaster then? Well the area where Chang was supposed to go is the most obvious answer, the next calls for either removing one or both of the flume rides in Yankee Harbor, if SFGAm is going to add anything major, it will have to be at the expense of something, and the flume rides at least in my opinion are the best and most viable option. The area where SplashWater Falls once stood also is an option, but then you have the issues of the size of the coaster there as well.
The best investment for SFGAm to make if it where to add a coaster would certainly have to be a B&M floorless or another very high capacity coaster. Anything else would certainly help the capacity issues, but pretty much only B&M can “fix” them.
I also understand that I have maintained the position that Six Flags cannot afford another B&M coaster, I stand by that, I think that a package of high end flats could also help in the capacity department at the park as well, most notably a large scale Ferris Wheel. I also believe that the capacity problems in the dry park are a direct result of a failed attempted all that way back as far as 1998 to construct the water park on the other side of the tollway.
For those of you know up to date with this story, Six Flags had a major and massive plan to add an entertainment village, with a hotel, conference center, corporate headquarters and water park to the land it owned directly across the tollway from the park. Had this venture taken place as it was planned, I can guarantee you that Six Flags Great America would be the premier destination park for the Six Flags chain.
Or look at it another way, imagine how many “dry rides” could be added in the space that is now Hurricane Harbor.
But, the fact remains that even right now, Six Flags Great America is an amazing theme park 14 coasters (check out Great Escape like I mentioned above) and a world class water park. We are truly blessed with a (mostly) well run theme with a lot of great attractions and truly something for everyone.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to discussing this topic with you.
If you have an idea for another Galvan Investigates topic, please do not hesitate to message me about you idea, if it is good enough to launch and investigation on I will certainly credit you for the idea. Thank you for reading.
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Galvan Investigates: Does SFGAM need another major coaster?
85 posts
• Page 1 of 4 • 1, 2, 3, 4
wow, just, wow...
 "I've been told that some part of every wish will be heard but lately I lost sight of the truth in those words."
By far the most logical, and the best reason for us to receive a new high profile coaster/attraction.
The last addition to spread out the crowds was Hurricane Harbor in 2005. I was able to walk into the park at noon in the middle of July and wait no more than ten minutes for Deja Vu. I could nearly walk on to any coaster in the park between the hours of 11am-7pm. It was glorious. Fast forward to 2008. The Dark Knight opens. This didn't spread the crowds out. All this did cram more people into that corner of the park. This in turn brought more people around Superman: Ultimate Flight and making this whole area a mess for maybe the first half of the season if that. RTS ends and the park goes back to Weekend Operations and FF; TDK has no line. Doesn't even fathom the crowds anymore. Back to Superman they go. People always go and call Top Thrill Dragster a one trick pony. But the thing is seven years later, people are still willing to wait two to three hours for that one trick pony. Do you think anybody would wait that long for TDK? Even when that thing reaches an hour wait people are discouraged and walk away. Now for the few Great Adventure fanboys that walk on over here from time to time... You have received the worlds tallest and at one point, fastest roller coaster on the face of the planet. You then received El Toro, which is one of the best wooden coasters on the planet. You also have an extremely solid line up of coasters much like we do, but with those two gems on top of it. Those two gems of yours totally spread people out amongst the park. Now now now, don't bother telling me how close Kingda Ka and El Toro are to each other. But the point is, you get a huge portion of the guests going straight to either of those rides in the morning. Leaving much of the park calm for the beginning of the day. Once people hit Ka and El Toro, they spread in all different directions. Now add on top of that the fact that you completely refurbished an already popular roller coaster in your park, added The Dark Knight, and you are now getting Chang. Great Adventure has people all over the park with all these appealing attractions to guests that are going to take them all over the park all day. Most will surge to the newer ones, but that will keep the lines of the others at ease. That is exactly what our park needs right now. Just ONE more capacity machine to eat up guests. The park has spent the last three years filling up space. Buccaneer Battle was a flop. It was a nicer looking alternative to keeping the lawn without its so called ornament. Little Dipper is a piece of history. However that does not mean people are going to eat it up like a brand new coaster. Like Galvan said, we have lost capacity in the park. Attendance is obviously seeing an increase and with the capacity of some of our attractions, it's beginning to top out. Those one to two hour waits are becoming a lot more common. It is indeed time we get that new ride that people are going to want to run to every morning like they have Raging Bull for the past eleven years. We need that coaster that the media is going to eat up like crazy and will sit on the headlines for a week like Raging Bull did. We need something that people are gonna go crazy for. We need another Raging Bull to come along and make everyone go, "Holy Sh*t."
Both arguments are very valid. While I would really love to see a new coaster I would be just as happy if we got some new flats as you said. I personally think we really could use some more major "thrilling" high capacity flats, and that they would probably generate a good amount of interest even compared to that of a major coaster.
^ You are absolutely right with the high thrill flats. And that was a reason why I added that to the post, SFGam doesnt have competition issues like SFGAdv or whatever, its has capacity issues.... major ones at that.
Thank you Galvan for you enlightening post, however, one thing just bothers me about your post.
Since 2005 and even before then, Six Flags was fighting to stay in business and it took a major proxy fight led by Daniel Snyder, to “turn the battleship” that was Six Flags. Mark Shapiro came aboard as new CEO and changed the fundamental philosophy of cap spending at SF. Gone where the $25 million dollar roller coasters, and in there place where new family attractions that put more emphasis on lucrative family spending then teen thrill seekers. 2004 saw 3 “thrill” rides added to the park. King Chaos, Revolution and Ragin Cajun. 2006 saw the addition of “Tornado”. - El Toro 2006 $12,000,000 SFGadv - Kingda Ka 2005 $25,000,000 SFGavd - Terminator Salvation: the Ride 2009 $10,000,000 SFMM - Tatsu 2006 $21,000,000 SFMM - X2 Renovation 2008 $10,000,000 SFMM - Pandemonium 2005 $---------- SFNE - Tony Hawk's Big Spin 2008 $6,500,000 SFOT - Goliath 2006 $20,000,000 SFOT - Goliath 2008 $6,500,000 SFFT - Tony Hawk's Big Spin 2007 $6,500,000 SFFT - Goliath 2006 $18,000,000 La Ronde - Ednör - L'Attaque 2010 $-------- La Ronde - Tony Hawk's Big Spin 2007 $6,500,000 SFSL - Evel Knievel 2008 $7,000,000 SFSL - Tony Hawk's Big Spin 2008 $6,500,000 SFDK I kinda got lazy with finding prices, but I think you get the idea. I really don't want to sound like a SFGam fanboy, but let's face it I am. Some of these rides I completely understand such as the Goliath at SFOT and La Ronde because they are their headline roller coasters, as with Evel Knievel and the X2 Renovation because they were also needed. However, Six flags was clearly still spending a lot of money even though they were in trouble, maybe that's why they went bankrupt. The truth is that SFGam has been put on the back burner, not neglected just not focused on completely while they worked with other parks, for a while so they could focus on the needed rides, however, they just kept spending and spending on rides that really didn't need to be there, and the Bizarro renovations were basically just throwing money down the toilet. The thing that angers me is that we are in a non-competitive market, so I think they should focus more on us. Make SFGam the main draw of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana by making it absolutely stunning, just like what they have done to SFGadv (I mean hershey is 2 hours and 34 minutes away). I honestly think that at some point they are going to realize that SFMM is in such a competitive market that all this pouring of money into it is wasted, because let's face it Mickey Mouse could have Mr. Six hit and no one would know. Last edited by deja blues on August 19th, 2010, 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Park staff later claimed that they were offered a hundred bucks a pop to try to the slide, but refused after seeing that test dummies often emerged on the other end dismembered. The looping slide was actually closed down for most of the park’s life due to these injury concerns."
I must say, you are a very good investigator. My complaints about the "no major roller coaster" was mostly because -and I admit it- I am mad that Chang went to a park that has the tallest coaster in the world as well as the fastest. I don't think it is fair and I really do believe that we would have been better off with it.
You comment about thrill rides. Yes, Ragun' Cagin' is technically a thrill ride due to it's height restrictions. As well as King Chaos. However, we are talking in facts as you said at the beginning of your post. Most of the people on here are not talking about fcts as you can tell. We are saying we want another thrill ride. By "ride" we mean "very big, fast, tall, possibly underground-going roller coaster". We just choose not to say all of that. It would, however, help if we received a high-capacity flat. That I agree with. It seems as though high capacity rides are harder to come by these days. By that I did not mean impossible. I mean, look at how big Intamin AG has come! They started out by making Inverted Impulse Coasters, now they're making roller coasters like Maverick and Kingda Ka! At this point, they are probably as big as Bolliger & Mabillard! Case in point, Intamin AG has smaller capacity than Bolliger & Mabillard, and Six Flags seems to be eating up Intamin AG's coasters. If not obvious enough, the three biggest parks in the chain are Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags Great America, and Six Flags Great Adventure. Six Flags Great Adventure is the most populated in the chain, Six Flags Great America is the most profitable in the chain, and Six Flags Magic Mountain has the most coasters in the chain. A new thrill coaster at Six Flags Great America would grab the GP's attention (Mini Proof: When Six Flags was thinking about building Chang here they made it a huge ABC 7 News Story), and bring more money to the park. It seems that Six Flags Inc. Would want us to stay profitable to help the rest of the chain, no? If so, we would also need a coaster for that purpose. I cannot, however, express how much I agree with you that we are way too upset about not getting a roller coaster because we want one. While this is a valid reason, we do need to be happy with what we have. It could always be worse. As I say, look at Kentucky Kingdom.
Ohh, BTW Cedar Point does the best job of spreading out people that I have ever seen. I know it is a big park with a large amount of space, but it might get 2x the population of SFGam and the waits are still less than an hour because they have so many flats and the biggest draws (Maverick, Millenium, Magnum, and TTD) are all at opposite ends of the park. If they add a new roller coaster where Demon Drop was then they will have one of the best park maps ever because every corner of the park will have a main attraction. 2 weeks ago when I went, in the morning the crowds split into 5 parts and it reduces lines so much because they all head to a different corner of the park (some people stay at Raptor for a quick first ride) then over time they fill in the spots. At SFGam, the GP heads to Raging Bull or S:UF which are at the two opposite sides of the park, but Southwest territory starts out like crazy and the front of the park starts out like crazy because of Superman. I would actually want them to pull an El Toro and fit a ride into the thin space of land behind American Eagle (maybe the two interact) because then some of the crowds would be pulled towards the back of the park lowering the burden on S:UF, not sure if it could be done, but it would be cool.
"Park staff later claimed that they were offered a hundred bucks a pop to try to the slide, but refused after seeing that test dummies often emerged on the other end dismembered. The looping slide was actually closed down for most of the park’s life due to these injury concerns."
There are a few things inaccurate about this list, mainly Tatsu, and Goliath as they where not approved by the Shapiro administration and if you look at the additions to parks under Shapiro (besides SFGAm) youll see that they are attractions that attract a wide range of people, families thrill seekers etc. and they are all under well under $10 million dollars. By comparison look at the ridiculous amount of money Cedar Fair, with pretty much similar debt load has spent during that time and they've spent a wild amount of money on rides that quite honestly have more downtime then uptime. Cedar Point is also twice the size of SFGAm, I also disagree that CP knows how to "spread people around" given the fact that the main midway from the front of the park to Gemini is ride after ride after ride. The thing that CP has going for them, is they move people through the queue, but at the expense of being complete and utter jackasses to the guests while doing it. Another major coaster will have a significant impact on the lines at SFGAm. As well as create a major buzz thats certainly needed for the park.
Even spending not so crazy amounts on proto-type family attractions didn't pay off so well with Shoot the Rapids.
Not only Cedar Point, but Kings Island has done a great job of this as well. Nearly everywhere you walk in either of these parks, there is something a first time visitor would want to ride. However, both parks lack real themed areas. (Not like ours are anything special anymore.) This does make it a lot easier to plop down random generically themed rides wherever they please. Still a great example of self-crowd control at its finest!
There are a few things inaccurate about this list, mainly Tatsu, and Goliath as they where not approved by the Shapiro administration and if you look at the additions to parks under Shapiro (besides SFGAm) youll see that they are attractions that attract a wide range of people, families thrill seekers etc. and they are all under well under $10 million dollars.
No matter what they were still very expensive rides that were made after 2004. And the rides that were under 10 million dollars were just wastes of money because they were just clones of already sub-par rides. There really was little effort and the rides were not needed at the parks, I'm sure the GP would have rather waited for a better, bigger roller coaster then get a Tony Hawk's Big Spin clone. Last edited by deja blues on August 19th, 2010, 3:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Park staff later claimed that they were offered a hundred bucks a pop to try to the slide, but refused after seeing that test dummies often emerged on the other end dismembered. The looping slide was actually closed down for most of the park’s life due to these injury concerns."
I'm just going to have to disagree with you on that, I thought at least the ride ops at Cedar Point did a much better job then the ride ops at SFGam. I mean at SF they have to spout out the "go get a funnel cake today" spheel and to be quite honest torwards the end of the day they are just bored as hell and really don't care. At cedar point the ride ops were hilarious. The Maverick and Millenium force ride ops kept dispatching rides by saying " Maverick may be 200 feet shorter than Millenium Force, but it is the best of the best, its 95 degrees down, Launches from 0-70," and he listed all of the rides by spouting out every fact unique to Maverick and kept insisting it was better than MF, however the MF guy did the exact opposite by saying it was better than Maverick. I just found that entertaining, but all the Ride Ops dispatched trains with a bit of history and statistics and had fun with their jobs. Six Flags I just expect "Clear, enjoy your ride on Raging Bull" where is the fun in that? I also found the vendors to be about equal at both parks, but Cedar Point has the girls that walk around and guide you places, constantly clean, and just smile and are nice. My one complaint about Cedar Point is that the GP there has a lot more tattoos and piercings but they're still nice midwestern people. Also, I think Cedar Fair should be praised for spending money on rides that have more downtime then uptime. I mean it can be a pain in the ass to go to a park and a ride isn't working, but at least they are taking risks. Every ride Cedar Point does has a certain amount of risk in it (well STR was stupid) I mean first Hyper, Giga, and Strata coasters, first elevator lift cable, LSM launches, Cable launches, new inversions. They are setting the bar for new rides, you wouldn't have El Toro or Kingda Ka without Cedar Fair having the balls to take the risks on new systems, just my opinion. What I was saying with Cedar Point spreading the people around is that on the midway you only have TTD and Magnum close to each other. But you have Raptor and Blue streak right near the entrance, you have Disaster Transport and Wicked twister on the right side with a little walk, then you have the road split with MF and Mantis to the left, TTd to the right, you have Magnum and Gemini a little further back, and finally you have Maverick and Mean streak at the complete end. Basically the 5 biggest draws are pretty spread out (Raptor at the front, MF to the left, TTd in the center, Magnum center right, and Maverick at the complete end which pulls the guests towards the back of the park) Basically the population has to move to get to the rides which is nice. I'll give it to you that Corkscrew, TTD, Magnum and Gemini are all in a row but TTD the biggest draw has its own little path seperating so you have no blockage, unlike Whizzer's line which always spills out right into the most populated path in the park and irritates me so much because it is a disaster getting through it.[/quote] "Park staff later claimed that they were offered a hundred bucks a pop to try to the slide, but refused after seeing that test dummies often emerged on the other end dismembered. The looping slide was actually closed down for most of the park’s life due to these injury concerns."
Deja Blues, your posts contradict themselves.
On one hand its terrible for Six Flags to add as you put it " just wastes of money because they were just clones of already sub-par rides. There really was little effort and the rides were not needed at the parks, I'm sure the GP would have rather waited for a better, bigger roller coaster then get a Tony Hawk's Big Spin clone." Yet on the other hand you said Cedar Fair ought to be praised for "raising the bar" and who cares if theres downtime? The GP cares about downtime, and the GP that "waited for better bigger roller coasters" as you put it, got pissed off that the highly touted ride at CF wasn't working. You cant have it be okay at one company (CF) and not okay at the the other (SF) As for polite ride ops? What park where you at? Because I sure didnt find any at Cedar Point.... http://www.sfgamworld.com/forum/trip-reports/topic10888.html Look this isnt a topic about Cedar Fair or Cedar Point vs Six Flags or Great America. As for Whizzer's queue spilling out to the midway and being a "disaster" uh.. First of all way to be a little over dramatic, and secondly... you what walked 8 feet out of your way? And that sort of thing has never happened anywhere else? "Cedar Fair having the balls to take risks" Right because TTD, MF, Maverick, WT, Chute the Rapids, never have had any problems and work flawlessly everytime you go to CP. This is the last time im going to comment about CF and CP in this thread but, seriously? your going to seriously put that here? (I think you just gave me another idea for my Galvan Investigates series)
I come on this site rarely, but I already know that we are getting off topic.
In any case adding a new thrill coaster could be a wonderfully good thing, or a horribly bad thing. My other thoughts on this topic about where it would go is, hopefully, back in an unoccupied corner of the park. If we put a roller coaster where Chang was going to be, the front of the park would be even worse than it already is with Superman.
Let me just clarify what I wanted to say because those did contradict each other unintentionally, I apologize. First of all, to me ride quality and reliablity are different things, as in a ride could be the best thing ever like Bizarro on steriods but never be open because it uses diamonds as fuel okay. It's a really good ride but its never open, I like to keep those two things seperate. What I mean by six flags adding 6.5 million dollar rides and them being waste of money is that they are like the Dark Knight of their park they don't really add anything to the park in terms of thrills and they don't fill any spot missing like a park is missing a family ride so that would fill the void, and as you have stated they can lower park capacity because they are not B&M floorless coasters that pump people through like O'hare. So basically the six flags clones are low on ride quality but can be high in ride reliability. Okay, are you still following me on this. Now what Cedar Point does is they make rides with risks, I hope we can all agree on that. For example Millenium Force, it suffered downtime when it was first opened, as most Cedar Point roller coasters do, because it put in place new systems example elevator lift and pushed the bar further example first giga roller coaster. Still following, good, so Millenium Force is high on ride quality but low on ride reliability. I know that most of my friends would rather have a TTD or Kingda Ka then a Tony Hawk's Big Spin, as I would hope you would too Galvan. They are pretty smart, and we have gone to Cedar Point so they know that TTD and KK suffer downtime, they get the fact that when they go to the parks, they might not be open. They also know that a Tony Hawk Big Spin is going to be open all the time, at least hopefully in this case its the B&M of spinning coasters, but it's not going to be as thrilling as a Top Thrill Dragster. So basically they would rather have Ride Quality over Ride Reliability. Sorry, I just tend to flower up my writing, bad habit, so things get pushed in the middle and people get confused, again sorry. I wasn't trying to contradict myself. So now let's get rid of Cedar Point, they are gone from the ride investement category. So, basically fact is that I don't think spending 26 million dollars on 4 ehhh roller coasters is as smart as spending 24 million dollars on 2 El Toro coasters. I mean you get less, but you end up making more. I mean more people would run to just those two parks for a #2 in the world wooden roller coaster, then people would run to 4 parks for a new but ehh steel roller coaster (plus you would save 2 million dollars). I just wanted to make the point that you would make a lot more money off of high investement (somewhat high risk) roller coasters at less parks, then you would with low investement (no risk) roller coasters at more parks. Higher attendance at 2 parks for great coaster makes more money then slight increase in attendance at 4 parks (plus a great ride is going to have a much longer shelf life then a ehh ride). Okay, I hope that you and I can stop arguing about that, "I just want the world to be filled with happiness and rainbows and unicorns."
 As for your disgust with ride ops, I can't control that nor can I change your mind about that. Maybe it was luck that the couple days I travel to Cedar Point I get really funny Ride Ops and have a lot of fun with the employees. Maybe it was luck that the many days I travel to SFGam I get some funny Ride Ops and some teenagers who just need a summer job. To me it just seemed like the quality at Cedar Point was a little higher, but that is opinion, no fact there, so no point in arguing. So that topic is over. Now the arguing over CP vs Gam, I know this thread got off topic and I don't really want to argue about it. I was only saying that in my opinion Cedar Point does a good job with having the major draws in the park located away from each other so the GP spreads out. That one is a little bit fact, but again opinion. To me I just don't like how the two major draws of Gam are both relatively at the front of the park, I mean no one sprints for Iron wolf at the end as they do for Maverick at CP. Again opinion, so that topic is over too and Cedar Point can disappear completely from the conversation. Okay now on to Whizzer, what I was trying to say is that it is basically a bottle neck in the park. Not literally because it is in a plaza-esque place, but as you may have experienced a lot of people (kids mostly) like to stop there and just kinda stand around and talk because it is an open space. Then you have Whizzer's line, which in my experience people are walking and then they see all of these people standing in a line so they are like gee should we ride that and they stop. So now you don't just have the line but you have people deciding whether or not to go on and you have the people who are resting and talking. Basically, when I have been there on a very crowded day it has gotten messy and you have to kinda work/push your way through the crowd, especially when you trying to rush to Raging Bull. Maybe that has never happened to you, but it has happenned to me several a time. But again I really don't want to argue about something like that because it is just stupid, so another topic is over. In closing, I'm glad I am your muse haha! (let me know if your confused by anything, again my writing style is flowery, I apologize, and some parts it's hard for me to get my message across.) "Park staff later claimed that they were offered a hundred bucks a pop to try to the slide, but refused after seeing that test dummies often emerged on the other end dismembered. The looping slide was actually closed down for most of the park’s life due to these injury concerns."
I take this with 2 sides of the coin. Yes, I believe that the last roller coasters the park has added, the thrill people aren't going to go really nuts for, and to say all 3 stunk would be not be right to say, so I won't say it, but there have been attractions at our park within the Shapiro years, and what he has done that haven't really helped the park. The first year it opens, the lines are nuts, and than subsequent years the lines keep on getting smaller, and smaller.
My kind of problem though is that you mention CAD as a reason that SFGAm needs a huge roller coaster because of capacity, and to me that isn't something I worry about it. A CAD event has such a reduced capacity around the park that it isn't even funny. Just the waterpark being closed alone with 7100 people not being there means those people have to go elsewhere. Sure a flat could be something like 600 people a hour, but when you combine them altogether, that's a lot of people taken away from them. On top of that, you have no shows for CAD, and how many games or other attractions are really open? It's just the fact that you had two of people's big rides being down for the count, and that's why you have the big crowds. On top of that, for American Eagle they were as you said running 1 out of 4 trains in order to save some money!! And has our attendance gone up a ridiculous amount that the park needs something more to combat the crowds? The thing with our park is this. We have a HUGE waterpark at our park that takes up 7100 people which is around 7 coasters capacity per hour!! Remember, the waterpark took over tons and tons of parking spots. The park has so much more capacity than it did now even neglecting the theaters that aren't playing, and something like Space Shuttle America being gone. Shouldn't the parks attendance numbers go up in which it's like we received 7 coasters because that's what the waterpark capacity is? I'm always for new stuff as other people are for, but is it needed that we need a Scream! floorless roller coaster at the park? In my opinion, not really but I would want it! I really think the easy and cheapest solution for capacity really is to get more shows. We need something really great in the Pictorium, and in my opinion we need something great again in the Southwest Ampitheater all year! I have capacity for V2 at 610 while Iron Wolf I have at 630. Not much of a difference. V2 has 1 minute and a half launches, and they are usually always on time. "I've been staring at the world, waiting. All the trouble and all the pain we're facing. Too much light to be livin' in the dark. Why waste time? We only got one life. Together we can be the CHANGE. So go and let your heart burn bright"
^
I used the CAD incident as one specific example, you want other this year? Okay. July 5th, August 15th, This coming Sunday, Next Saturday, ALL of Fright Fest, anytime the Water park is at capacity, the hours after HH closes until the dry park closes. And yes it is perfectly acceptable to use CAD as the park was open and operational during that time. You also miss understood what I said about American Eagle, It was running 3 trains instead of 4 because at that time, the 4th train (Eagle Red's 2nd train) was not operational Vertical Velocity is "supposed to" have an hourly throughput of 1100 per hour (according to RCDB) AND Iron Wolf according to that site is 1220. I dont care what the little write on boards in the station say, the manufacturer of the specific ride states that those specific attractions should have that type of output per hour, obviously they do not. But thats pretty much the point, and the reason why we do "NEED" another coaster. I really cant believe that I have to argue a point for something that everyone is screaming about that we need. As for attendance I have some numbers for attendance that I found here from the organization that puts out these sorts of things. (sources: http://www.coastergrotto.com/theme-park-attendance.jsp and http://www.themeit.com/publications.htm SFGAm attendance: (In millions) 2003 2.5 2004 2.3 2005 2.9 2006 2.6 2007 2.6 2008 2.7 2009 2.5 7 year average attendance for SFGAm (03 to 09 period) 2.58 Million people These numbers dont lie, and its pretty obvious to see when SFGAm got major marketable new attractions 2003: Superman 2005: Waterpark 2006: Tornado 2008: The Dark Knight So anyone want to tell me again that the park isnt at capacity? How about look at it this way. according to this data, Cedar Point averages about anywhere from 450,000 to 650,000 more people on a given year with 3 more major coasters.
And quite often over the summer this waterpark hits capacity. Far too often actually.
Yes it sounds great. Put a great show in the Pictorium and host a stunt show year round in Southwest Amphitheater. Trouble is, remember the last time we had "great" things in both of those venues? Remember the Nascar Experience? I never saw that theater more than half full, if even that. That was during a visit when RTS was going on. Still, no one in there. And though not being on par with the old old old Batman Stunt Show, SpyGirl never filled up the Amphitheater either. Show's don't have a draw at a Six Flags park. Disney? Yes. Here? No.
Minute and a half launches? You're joking right?
Am I the only one that believes that Six Flags should have stopped at one S:UF? I'm sure it's a hit with the GP, but it's pretty boring.
I can't agree more to the argument that we are overpopulated with water rides. We are. There's no doubt. We're slowly being consumed by water rides in the dry park. And the problem is, their not spread out. You can get to all of the water rides within 10 minutes. We're not neglected. Simply, we're not. But when other parks receive a much more fun coaster like THBS, and we get TDK. Shapiro should have known that it would have been better for GAm. But I digress. We should know soon enough whether or not GAm is being put on the back burner with 2011.
^ The only exception being Roaring Rapids, that ride will have a line that extends out of the queue pretty much any hot day you go to the park.
I think those cup-holders would help with the appeal of the GP as well. If they were to add a new coaster then have people put their souvenir cups in a locker....well, we all know how that will end.
 ^That was just my 2 cents. Theme park review has pretty much confirmed that we are not getting another water attraction for 2011, so I don't see why we're really discussing it. I'm seriously putting bets on Thomas Town  "I've been told that some part of every wish will be heard but lately I lost sight of the truth in those words."
Didn't Weber, or someone say that they did not like the Thomas Towns? That they we're failures or something? Anyways, TT would be a horrible fit in my opinion.
Okay, I'm slightly branching off here without leaving the topic.
Has the park ever considered constructing parking structures? They have the two wide expanses of parking and little to no room to expand the park itself, wouldn't a parking structure help with that?
^ It would cost a pretty penny to add one. One of the proposals for the dead and buried Entertainment Villa that was to be constructed across the tollway was for a parking structure to be built at that site.
Honestly what you could do is close the Washington Street entrance, and use that driveway for additional parking (That has been done before on extremely busy days) Too give you an idea about the enormous costs of parking structures, consider the Museum of Science and Industry considered adding one in 2000 when they revamped and remodeled the museum, but that plan was abandoned in favor of underground parking. The estimates for a parking structure that was considered was in the neighborhood of 75 to 100 million dollars.
Adding a new coaster will not solve operational problems. V2, Little Dipper and Ragin' Cajun alone have the "wonderful" Six Flags added issues that kill capacity. Who's to say a floorless coaster will not suffer the same problems. You also get rides like the Demon and American Eagle without all their trains, which another coaster will not help those lines. People who want to ride those rides will still have to wait a long time unless operations are changed on those rides. You seem to forget it is summer in the 3rd largest city in the country with 1 theme park. Cedar Point has lives of 1-2 hours on major rides at any given point in the summer as well. So does any successful theme park. There are also plenty of rides with no lines as well. Off the top of my head Condor, Jester's Wild Ride, East River Crawler, Whirligig, all the kids rides except the coasters, Fiddler's Fling, Buccaneer Battle, The Orbit, Ricochet, Triple Play, Scenic Railway, Hometown Fun Machine and Sky Trek Tower never have lines. Add to that all the shows, which exist purely to get people out of the lines, and there are plenty of options. If people are stupid enough to wait 2 hours for any ride, that is their problem.
The company just got out of bankruptcy and has at least 4 other parks in need over this one. You find me the 15-20 million for a new ride and make it back in 4-5 years when nerds will complain "we have not got a new thrill ride in 3 years."
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