Photo TR: Derek, Nicole, and James do SFNE

S:ROS needs a paint job...it's almost the color of Mind Eraser from the looks of those pictures. Maybe they'll give it a solid rehab over the winter. It's a shame to let a steel coaster as amazing as Superman degrade in quality.

I completely agree. Elissa, I hate to degrade Intamin coasters, but is it just me or have the first three Intamin Hypers turn into complete crap.

S:ROS needs a paint job...it's almost the color of Mind Eraser from the looks of those pictures. Maybe they'll give it a solid rehab over the winter. It's a shame to let a steel coaster as amazing as Superman degrade in quality.

 

I completely agree. Elissa, I hate to degrade Intamin coasters, but is it just me or have the first three Intamin Hypers turn into complete crap.

Not just those three. Xcelerator at KBF needs a paint job even more and that is newer than the three hypers.

Good photo TR. I hope to go there sometime and it sucks that the staff can be so bad at such a nice looking park.

S:ROS needs a paint job...it's almost the color of Mind Eraser from the looks of those pictures. Maybe they'll give it a solid rehab over the winter. It's a shame to let a steel coaster as amazing as Superman degrade in quality.

 

I completely agree. Elissa, I hate to degrade Intamin coasters, but is it just me or have the first three Intamin Hypers turn into complete crap.

It's not the ride's fault. This was the first time I ever rode S:ROS at SFNE, and I stuck it in my #2 steel spot. It's a good ride, just a bit faded and with crappy ride operators.

First, cool pictures.

SFNE is my home park as of last season. My wife and I went toward the end of their 2006 season when the temperature was cool and we loved the park. This is marks our second that we have purchased season passes and I can tell you I regret it. I've been three times this season and each time I've left completely disappointed. The staff (except for Tim at the Thunderbolt) couldn't care less if you were in line for five minutes or five hours. I was in a "1 hour" line for S:ROS and it took over two hours. During those two hours, I witnessed two different fights in the queue line. Ironically, the 'lifeguard chair' they put in the queue was empty even though the queue was really busy. The patrons really were very rude. Besides the two fights (one involved a stolen wallet), a group of unruly teens heckled the ride op. to her face at the Houdini ride (they made fun of her hair and her makeup), line cutting was rampant, and the foul language was everywhere. SFNE is NOT a place I would bring my kid. My wife was with me on one of my trips there and a ride op. pissed her off so bad she filled out an incident report on her behavior. It is such a shame that with a such a nice park with an awesome coaster that the atmosphere would easily garner an R rating. It is time that these parks ENFORCE rules on unruly behavior (bad language, fights, line cutting, smoking) and not be apologetic about sticking to the rules they make.

Does anyone want to buy my SF season pass?

-Dean

PS - just kidding about selling the pass.

PSS - Thunderbolt rocks!

^ Ok, I would be as picky in those circumstances. I guess I've just been lucky.

SFNE does seem to attract an "urban" crowd but it didn't seem as bad in that regard as SFGAdv to me. And I haven't had a complaint about the ops yet.

aww why didn't you guys call me and jody we would have joined you. looks like typical sfne line mangment at its finest.

It wasn't so much the crowds that ruined our day, as with most parks if you get there at opening, you usually have at least 2 hours of tolerable crowds. It was the slowness of the operations that let us there to rot with all the people who arrive at the park at like 1pm in massive droves. Had the crews been showing some effort at all, we could have probably ridden everything in the park a lot sooner and headed out if we needed to. Most of what we rode early on only had like probably like 5-10 train waits, but with the slowness of operations, instead of being like 20 minutes, it ended up being like 40 minutes. Much like any job, if you putz around, you're gonna get backed up. With the SFNE crews already backed up, it messed more with the qbot crowds, giving them lines and backups which the crews could never seemed to be able to alleviate, nor did they even seem to care. It's that attitude that is commonly referred to as "the Six Flags way". You don't see the workers at Dollywood or SDC or Disney acting like that, and why families actually really enjoy going to these parks. If not for Superman, SFNE would only be receiving a Golden Ticket if they gave one out for "slowest operations".

Great Photo TR! I wanna get on Superman someday.

If not for Superman, SFNE would only be receiving a Golden Ticket if they gave one out for "slowest operations".

Exactly. I wonder how the higher ups at these places allow this to be okay. This is a service industry and they should run it as such. Maybe if an unofficial group posed "Anti Golden Ticket" awards where people could vote on the worst that parks offer, it would embarrass them to the point of actually doing something about it. They wouldn't want to be part of this list. It is too bad that some parks might need this kick in the pants to improve guest experience.

Perhaps implementing a camera system for the queue lines and busting each and every person who cuts a line will be the only solution to line cutting. If someone cuts a line, it can be proven with video, and the person can be shown the door. It is as simple as that. If I ran a park, I'd want it to be known that the park inforces the rules and visitors are just about ensured of a positive, fun experience. This isn't brain surgery. After a short time of earning a reputation for the balls-to-the-walls approach to line cutting, the number if idiots trying to cut will drop dramatically.

Okay, I'm done complaining. I need to visit a different park . . . .soon.

I was going to remain neutral and not respond, but now I'm going to remain neutral and play Devil's Advocate...

Perhaps you're glorifying a particularly bad day to make it seem as though the crews are always slow at every ride there?

I know many people can claim that it has been like this every time they visit, but I just know that I've been to at least a dozen parks that are worse.

It does stink that you didn't enjoy your day, though.

^My experience this season spanned three different days (two of which involved me bringing out of town guests to the park). Each of my three visits were marred with crap from guests mostly, but definitely slow ride operations. It was embarrassing that I brought visitors there and we had such a bad experience.

I haven't been to the water park there yet, though. Perhaps things there are toned down.

Seeing how the park was exactly the same on my previous visit there a few years ago, and the same as in all my times there since 1999, I'm going out on a limb and saying it's like that all the time. Add in that we went with James, who goes to the park often and he verified that things are usually this bad and crews are this slow all the time. Most of the ops showed no enthusiasm or even a smile with the exception of the Pandemonium crew who told us to have a great ride. Here's some of the routines I witnessed while waiting for the rides:

Cyclone's ops would casually check the train (always getting as many clicks as they could) then lean against the back wall with their ok signal in the air, no expression other than disgust and boredom. Train dispatches, returns, riders exit. After everyone is out of the station, station gates are shut by op standing in the back. Op walks back to the back, gates open for new riders. Riders sit, restraints locked, ops from the back both walk to the front and start checking the train.

Catwoman's op would open the gate to the station, let in about a trainsfull of people, then reclose the gates, make everyone pick a row, then open the gates and load the train, then figure out that there were empty rows and then reopen the gate, call out for 2 guests, then another 2 guests, when the 3 people right at the front of the line had to wait for another train. Then exit op would check the back half the train, front op would check front of the train, and with each lapbar seem to be confused why the Zierer's only have 2 locking positions, 1 for little kids, and 1 for adults.

Even Pandemonium's counter couldn't figure it out, a group of like 2 would go up, then she would call out for another group of 2 (which there were none of on the ramp). Finally someone from way back would fight their way to the front to get on the train which had already loaded and dispatched with only 2 people, and then the process would be repeated. All the while she could have very easily just called out once, and finding no one either a party of two, or not paying attention, just used 2 single riders from the singles queue.

I know Thunderbolt isn't allowed to run 2 trains, but that was really bad. 2 ops checking and the same ones also handling crowd control and 1 op running the ride. The exit op would signal to the entrance op to hold like 6 seats for qbot, so the entrance op would allow that many people into the station and they'd pick their row. train rolls into the station, guests exit train, gather belongings, leave station. Exit op closes exit gate. Gates open on entrance side to board train. Belongings are dropped, people sit down. The exit dude opens the Qbot gate so the Qbotters can fill in the rest of the seats. Buzz bar is released, entrance op walks the train and closes everyone's bar. Then goes back to the front to check seatbelts and lapbars again. Then exit op checks seatbelts and lapbars. Both ops go back to their designated spots, single ok, train dispatches. Exit guy figures out which set of qbotters is next to ride, process starts again. Just seems to be it could be worked out to be more efficient, or that they really should alter the Qbot on the ride.

On Tomahawk, after a ride the entrance op would make sure everyone was off the ride by physically walking thru the ride to the exit, and then talk with the ride operator (who would be playing with one of those penny racers in between rides). Then go back thru the ride after everyone is off the ride and open the gates, letting people in (but forgetting how many he let in). Then he'd walk into the ride and count the empty seats after everyone had dropped off their belongings. Then he'd let that many more in. Then him and the exit op would check restraints (by pushing down for that extra click, even though the restaints had no tension whatsoever and would just fall down from the moment they were released). After the green lights, they'd stroll back to their positions and give the all clear.

The only ride that wasn't stacking trains was Mind Eraser, and we tried to ride plenty of other things besides the coasters as the park has some pretty unique flats as well.

It just seems to me that the park is more concerned with having people put trash in the trashcans, as it was the only thing you really saw everywhere, and even then it didn't happen. But yeah, it was probably just a one time occurance at the park(that happens on the day I decide to go each year), even though it seems to happen to other people who go there on a regular basis.

Pretty much everyone knows that parks are extremely busy on a Saturday, but the thing is, the park wasn't crowded in the morning, and yet the waits were still pretty bad for the number of people in line.

I know the park really can't do much about it's clientelle, but maybe they could satisfy more guests if they actually didn't have to wait in lines that are only long because the crews aren't really concerned about put-thru, just dragging out their "Sentence" until they can go home at the end of the day. Eventually the families are going to say "why should I spend $200 for my family of 4 to enter the park and only ride 6 things at Six Flags in the time I'm there because of the lines when I can have a more enjoyable time at Disney and actually get to ride stuff." Oh wait, they already do that.

^Thanks for the detailing of the park's operations. We are going there the first weekend in August and I am setting my standards extremely low!

We have a wedding to go to and it is only 30 minutes from SFNE. I was excited, but now I am concerned that we won't be able to get on everything. We don't have a full day there.

After reading about the slow operations at SFNE, I'm more inclined to visit Lake Compounce!

Awesome Photo TR guys.

That is why I don't like Vekoma and unfortunately at my home park they have one of the worst Vekoma Corkscrew coasters in the world.[/img]

Great TR! It makes me really want to go back! Speaking of which, how are your experiences there? (as far as dealing with punks, thugs and crap)

Edit, (^) and that's why I don't like ear piercings!

Crainial Pericings+ Vekoma Hang-n-Bang=Not a good idea sorry James. Great Photo TR btw.

lol.. Of all the rides I have been on.. And the number of times... That was the first time I have ever bled.. Because of a coaster

This is why I adopted a Goldbot-mandatory policy for any SF park I care to ride anything of any worth more than once.

Sorry you had a "standard for me" SFNE day.

This park used to be great, but it's like they specifically picked the nicest parts of it, and by only removing a few rides, managed to turn it from a Beautiful park with a beautiful ferris wheel, a spider, the log flume, and chaos ride into an ugly crappy park. And then, they put in Wiggles world in place of Tiny Timber Town, which turned one of the nicest (non commercialized) kiddy areas in the chain into the ugliest thing I have ever seen.

Are operators trained to do this nonsense?

Depends on the parks. At Disneyland they just pull up or tap on the lap bar. Same with Universal Studios. Well, only for R.O.T.M., because on J.P. they just tell you to pull down on the lap bar and push up. Now in my experience with the S.F.'s I've been too, I think it's required for them to push down and try to get some internal bleeding going. Actually, I think I saw a memo on the Training Guide telling employees to do so.

Thanks for the photos! Having been going to this park since I was 6, I have to say that Six Flags could do so much more with the layout. Right now, there are a lot of sparse/empty areas of the park. Your comment about Batman and Crime Wave not being over where Superman is gets me as well. I keep coming up with this idea to create more themed areas at SFNE because it would make the park so much more interesting. Batman would "vanish" and just be "Knight Flight" and that area could be re-themed into Camelot, then the following year SF could bring back Batman and have a rocket coaster like Furius Baco depart from where Nightwing was (I'm still hoping they get rid of it) and travel through the woods...back there. I've always wondered why SFNE doesn't develop more...back there. Does anyone know?

I've always wondered why SFNE doesn't develop more...back there. Does anyone know?

Behind Nightwing/Superman is swampland (with an actual creek running through it) and then the Picnic Grove. Not much can be done there.

For reference, here is a satellite image. The band of trees running through is the swampy area. Superman's last curve into the brakes is often swampy, as well.

hmmm looks like you guys had fun! Superman looks great and so does the park!