Another boneheaded Six Flags decision comes back to bite them

I think this is not only an indictment of Six Flags, but of Skyline Attractions. Every major installation by Skyline has been a huge debacle, and I have no doubt that Six Flags got a massive discount to select the manufacturer for these new attractions. Six Flags definitely knew what they were getting into, especially after what they should have learned from the Larsen Loops, but Skyline's reputation was on the line here and yet they still delivered another pair of complete duds (both at SFFT and SFoG). I can definitely see the temptation from a company like SF trying to save some money and betting on company that almost certainly had to deliver in order to resuscitate itself, but this was entirely predictable and preventable. In the end, you get what you pay for (how many times have we seen this over the past 5+ years), and SF tried to penny pinch their way to having some new attractions only to have it backfire yet again.

Hopefully Cedar Fair's superior management will keep SF from continuously repeating these mistakes over and over (though Cedar Fair hasn't had the greatest track record of late either trying to pinch pennies - TT2 most notably).

FYI, Kid Flash did not have a "major breakdown," it had technical difficulties that were resolved and it reopened before the end of the day. It also didn't only operate for "a few weeks" last year, but operated from its opening in early November through the rest of the operating season. It also did operate briefly at the beginning of this season before an issue took it down for several months.

Was Six Flags incredibly stupid for going to Skyline and purchasing two of these prototype coasters? Absolutely. However, I don't blame them for anything related to the project behind that. Skyline sold them at IAAPA 2022 with a promised completion date of May 2023, then failed to deliver on that and wound up with them being delayed by six months. Since then, the rides have not performed as expected, and that's entirely on Skyline's poor design of the mechanical elements of the attraction. We'll see what happens here...Skyline had to buy back Harley Quinn Crazy Coaster to avoid a lawsuit, and if they have to do that once again I'm not sure they'll survive as a company. However, if you can't even produce a working junior coaster, you've got no business selling any sort of coaster product in the industry.

I also know you've got a vendetta against Six Flags so these posts are heavily biased, but I'll say this...my experience at a variety of parks over the past couple years show that while Six Flags is performing below par, Cedar Fair and United really aren't doing any better. My local Cedar Fair park (Knott's Berry Farm) actually has more closed rides and one train operations than my local Six Flags park (Magic Mountain) at the moment, and Cedar Point is about to host their biggest enthusiast event of the year with a headliner ride they've been hyping for three years down due to similarly boneheaded budget-driven decisions coming back to bite them.

The main issue I have with Six Flags is that after the bankruptcy the company actually recovered and was doing pretty well for a while, but instead of using that momentum to fix their parks up and improve their reputation they went right back to what made everyone hate them in the first place (poor maintenance, operations etc).

At that time they also started building carnival rides and advertising them as major new additions, and then most of them ended up getting removed just a few years later for being chintzy and unpopular. Mardi Gras Hangover at SFGAm was advertised as the "world's tallest loop coaster." Keep in mind in 1988 (30 YEARS EARLIER) they opened Shockwave which was the world's tallest and fastest coaster and had 7 inversions. I mean, opening a carnival ride 30 years later and advertising it as the "world's tallest loop coaster" is such a ridiculous and insane idea to a huge market park where the clientele is used to getting actual record-breaking coasters (also Mardi Gras Hangover has been removed and the queue and empty plot are just sitting there vacant).

I guess that wouldn't be so bad if they just operated their parks in an acceptable manner, but they don't, so I feel justified in my opposition to giving this company money. I haven't been to any SF parks since 2018 because of a trip to the northeast where SFGAdv and SFNE were ran so unacceptably poorly that I just couldn't anymore (keep in mind i'm middle aged and been going to parks chronically since I was 10 years old). Look at what happened to El Toro a few years ago: the maintenance people knew there was a problem, but because of attrition, lack of budget, and general apathy they didn't know what caused it or what to do about it, so it ended up having an inevitable accident. Dozens of people injured and the ride SBNO for most of the season. And on top of that it was the second accident it had in two years (I don't know what caused the first one).

Regarding your note about Cedar Fair I actually planned to end my Six Flags boycott and go to SFGAm this season because I am going to the Chicago with a toddler and SFGAm does have a lot of good family rides, but after double and triple checking the state of the park decided not to and will be going to CP instead (driving 5 hours of the way well worth it IMO).
Ironically last time I went to CP it was one of the worst ran parks I have ever been to, but from all reports I have seen they have fixed those issues (plus I will be going in July this time so they should be fully staffed). I have heard KBF has been having lots of issues since the pandemic (haven't been there since 2012 as none of their new additions make me want to go there) but that is pretty sad since their vice president is literally the former VP of Disneyland and he seemed to care there (I used to work at DLR when he was there).

Just an observation the_man7 - you state that you haven't physically visited a SF park since 2018, yet you find every opportunity to continue to criticize a company you haven't frequented for nearly 6 years? It would be like spotting a hair on your Big Mac and not going back to McDonald's yet blasting the company every time there's a reported issue even though you haven't personally eaten there in years.

You certainly have the right to not visit a SF, and perhaps to highlight some of their failings that cause you to continue to boycott their parks. However, the vitriol you seem to feel toward the chain seems a bit extreme and unfounded. I'm not saying they're the model of consistency (in fact they're probably the polar opposite), but given the current theme park market, all of the chains are failing somewhere (including Disney and Universal). I'm sure every contributor here can cite a long list of grievances against many of the parks they visit, and I doubt even those of us that make dozens of theme park visits every single year can claim to have ever had a "perfect" theme park day - come to think of it, one of the closest I think I ever came was at of all places SFGAdv when we stopped on a whim on the way home from NYC after a thunderstorm had rolled through where the park was virtually abandoned and every coaster was walk-on (we rode 8 big rides in the span of 2 hours). I've even had subpar days at UO despite having Unlimited Universal Express from staying at one of their Deluxe Resorts. I went to Hersheypark a couple of weeks ago and rode a grand total of 3 rides over the 6+ hours I was in the park.

However, while I would agree that Six Flags more often than not fails to reach the same bar that other companies hit more consistently, I understand that it's a value proposition built into the price that I pay for their admission/season pass. Ultimately you get what you pay for, and while there are aspects of every SF park that I find annoying, I know that what I pay for my pass is commensurate with the entertainment I receive.

Do I wish SF would be better? Absolutely!! But I don't think I would ever pay Disney/Universal prices to visit ANY SF park even if they offered Disney/Universal-level service, and I certainly wouldn't visit SF parks as frequently as a do if it weren't for the value proposition they offer, particularly the ability to visit all of the parks in the chain for what is a bargain basement price. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad, and know that you have to recalibrate your expectations to the price that you're paying. For what it costs to visit a SF (particularly on a season pass), it's actually not that bad, especially if you visit multiple times in a year when you're likely to have at least 1-2 decent days with short lines and good ops.