Here is where I list everything that bugs me about Six Flags.
I'll start out by saying that Six Flags is worth it for the price, and has really good thrilling coasters for the most part. But Their management is insane sometimes. So here are things that bother me when I visited the various parks.
1. The ads destroy all the theming. Ads permeate every corner of the parks, but the worst offenders are smack dab right on the best themed parts of the park. This is particularly annoying because any immersion I try to squeeze out of local theme parks gets ruined immediately by seeing M&Ms cheesy ads in a pirate cave or Cheetos ads on a wild west building. You can see in this google street view here that this nostalgic 50s-era wild western movie fort is ruined by a massive banner.
Just like the old time Cowboys had!
Another egregious example in that area is the Safari loading station being in the middle of the wild west. You're walking down the western town and suddenly you see a safari gas jeep rumbling around. It's so strange.
2. Lack of Entertainment.
When I first visited Great Adventure, There were Batman Stunt shows, Wild West Reviews, Parades, Acrobats, and street entertainers, not to mention the Dolphin show, and later the Tiger show. Now there is literally nothing. Not even the 4D movie fills the empty building it once stood in, now used for fright fest. Speaking of Freight Fest, that and the Holiday in the Park are the only time you can catch shows. The Last show I saw during Holiday in the Park was a horrrrribly sexist show where a bunch of bimbo female elves chit chat and gossip while a male elf goes out buys tools and fixes the broken machines in the workshop. That kinda garbage is not something I thought people still made.
3. Bad Management
This I experienced at Six Flags New England mostly. The first time was when the stupid locker machine ate my money. Everyone I talked to in the area had no idea what to do. There was no attendant near the lockers all the way down by what used to be the Skyride station at the far north end of the park (called aptly, North End). I had to walk ALLLLL the way back to the front gate just to get five dollars back and by then the park closed. Speaking of park closing, one time there was a thunderstorm and they closed every ride including the indoor rides. I waited in the line for the Cyborg ride for like 30 minutes talking to some cute lacrosse boys to pass the time. But even that wouldn't improve my day, because after that I decided to go get a snack at the Johnny Rockets. I sat down with my beer, my cheese fries, and my burger ready to enjoy a meal while watching the storm but like 2 minutes later security came and emptied the building. 2 hours before park closing they decided everyone wanted to go home early so they booted us out. YES WITH MY FOOD! I was forced to briskly walk carrying a huge bunch of food with no tray, including a beer cup with no lid spilling all over me like some drunkard, trying to eat my burger and fries. Had I got pulled over they would definitely think I was drunk. And God forbid you ever lose anything there!
4. Maintenance
Many of the rides rattle and shake but in a bad way! They bang your head around because they are rusting. This has been improved lately however, as rides are being repainted and retracked, especially with RMC makeovers (Rocky Mountain Coasters remakes old wooden coasters into looping twisting modern marvels). The Cyclone (rumored to be designed while Bill Cobb was "GASSY"), was a very intense rough ride that was remade in Six Flags New England to have zero G rolls and a hybrid structure. The Mind Eraser found new life as The Riddler's Revenge, with a fresh green coat of paint, and finally removing vekoma's infamous head smashing over the shoulder restraints for a more seatbelt like modern version. But Other parks need to follow this lead.
5. Ignoring smaller parks
Six Flags America has really two main sections of rides. The Front part has some clones, and a few transferred rides, plus The Wild One. Roar is a mirror image of another version I think. The back part has a really cool rock n rollercoaster-esque launch coaster, but built by premier rides using the LIM system same as the Chiller and MR Freeze. It also has the same Ride of Steel as Darien Lake, and an outdated but cool vekoma flying coaster named Batwing (which ate my phone!). But, It hasn't had a major new unique ride for years! It had a really cool log flume called Typhoon Seacoaster, which YES Ripped off the Pirates of the Caribbean song, but had turntables and cool drops, with a giant skull, and pirate bones in tunnels. BUT ITS GONE! Same can be said for Six Flags La Ronde, and Six Flags Great Escape, both are small parks which are decent but need some new hits.
6. Lack of Dark Rides
The Original concept of six flags, was that it was billed as the thrills of an amusement park, with the theming of Disneyland. That doesn't hold true at all! The original park, Six Flags Over Texas set out to be the Disneyland of the American South, but it lost something over the years. A fact many people may not realize is that many people who worked on Disneyland have been involved in Six Flags parks in the early years. I think more dark rides can be a great improvement to that concept. They have already started, with the Justice League ride, and Dark Knight Coaster, but ousted some other dark rides. There is a Looney Tunes one somewhere, and something called Monster Manor replaced Tales of the Okeefenokee, which actually was a Song of the South boat ride PREDATING Splash Mountain (and Tony Baxter even admitted may have inspired him), But a few more non coaster dark rides would be nice. I REALLY am a fan of dark rides with boats btw, and think there is a sad lack of them these days.
One thing of note is the Houdini Great Escape, which is in Great Adventure and New England. The Great Adventure one recieved an update to use a similar Madam Leota effect for Houdini's head in the crystal ball. This is a Vekoma MAD HOUSE which is a very difficult attraction to describe. It creates the illusion of a house inverting while the walls move independently from the seating area. However, because the NE one is still the original version I have a unique chance to compare the two (ala Tiki Room New Management style). I've come to the conclusion that while the new one has spectacular effects (for Six Flags), The old one is far more terrifying, as the music is creepier, the narration is slower, and the preshow room lacks the annoying stage lights they put in. The effect of each candle sconce going out is ruined when the stage lights are still on! It's not dark!
7. Annoying Teens
Ok this isn't the parks fault but teenagers really stink sometimes! Aside from the fights people have read about or seen, I've noticed a lot of loudness and ruining of preshows. I've also been made fun of when visiting alone, which is fine but you shouldn't bully other people at a THEME PARK trying to have fun. I've been made fun of for being trans as well which is super lame. They also fling those basketballs they won from the basketball game stalls all over the place. Since I play basketball I make a habit of catching them when this happens but I can't always see them coming. One time I saw a guy steal a basketball jump the line for Houdini and beg us to protect him from security. It was Bizarre! Another time I swear someone tried to grope me in the wave pool but stopped when I looked their way. The Graffiti can get really bad, and the gum is everywhere. Not to mention the cursing around little kids. I'm not a fan of cursing around kids, because even though I would bring my kids up to be aware of cursewords, It's every parent's choice to not have their kids say "what does blank mean?" and fumble for an explanation or scolding. I want to note that NOT EVERY TEEN IS BAD. In fact the majority of teens are respectful now adays especially. Many come with their families too, like I did as a teen. But It's no fun having a dark ride ruined by a bunch of dumb kids chanting "Let's Go Brandon UH UH EH-EH-EH!" like some drunken football fans.
8. The randomly closed stuff
Sometimes I'll go to the park and 5 rides will be broken at a time. It's insane! This prob goes with the Maintenance but I've also noticed they close rides and let them sit abandoned for extremely long times. Six Flags New Orleans is an entire park version of this. Most times it'll be one of favorite rides that are closed, like say Kingda Ka, or Houdini, or Superman Ride of Steel, or any launch coaster ever, or the bobsled ride at Great Escape which has a very long line but is totally worth it because it's basically a coaster in a water slide tube without the water.
I was really excited to ride the big elevator ride at Magic Mountain I saw in Rollercoaster Tycoon only to realize it's just sitting there rotting.
9. The Layouts
I've never seen a more insane combination of dead ends and paths to nowhere outside of Six Flags!
You would think you could walk down Great Adventure's midway in a straight line but suddenly there is an area that's blocked off just so they can put a tiny little building that is barely ever used in your way. Then you have to go all the way around it through the games section of the boardwalk just to come back up a few feet from where you started but on the other side of a fence. It flows really badly
You would THINK you could get from the X to the Check Mark in a straight line but nope! Recalculating!
I often times find myself entering the arcade building which has a door to both areas in order to pass through because it saves SO much time!
I've heard La Ronde has a similar issue with a horseshoe shaped park around water with some empty space they could have used to connect it. Six Flags New England works better because its a straight line but also has the entire Metropolis area down a long flight of stairs. (or twisty ramp for the compliance, or for me cuz I like roughing it and going the scenic route!) Magic Mountain is so busy you really need a map just to figure out where you are! Thankfully there is a train going up to the top of the Magic Mountain itself ala LA's Angel's Flight style. Great Escape is too small to have major issues so you're ok GE! But Six Flags America has you pass under not one but TWO view blocking Rollercoasters to reach Batwing so it can be confusing to the uninitiated.
And that's really what I got for now. I probably forgot stuff. IS there anything about Six Flags that bothers you? do you disagree with me? let me know!
I'll start out by saying that Six Flags is worth it for the price, and has really good thrilling coasters for the most part. But Their management is insane sometimes. So here are things that bother me when I visited the various parks.
1. The ads destroy all the theming. Ads permeate every corner of the parks, but the worst offenders are smack dab right on the best themed parts of the park. This is particularly annoying because any immersion I try to squeeze out of local theme parks gets ruined immediately by seeing M&Ms cheesy ads in a pirate cave or Cheetos ads on a wild west building. You can see in this google street view here that this nostalgic 50s-era wild western movie fort is ruined by a massive banner.
Just like the old time Cowboys had!
Another egregious example in that area is the Safari loading station being in the middle of the wild west. You're walking down the western town and suddenly you see a safari gas jeep rumbling around. It's so strange.
2. Lack of Entertainment.
When I first visited Great Adventure, There were Batman Stunt shows, Wild West Reviews, Parades, Acrobats, and street entertainers, not to mention the Dolphin show, and later the Tiger show. Now there is literally nothing. Not even the 4D movie fills the empty building it once stood in, now used for fright fest. Speaking of Freight Fest, that and the Holiday in the Park are the only time you can catch shows. The Last show I saw during Holiday in the Park was a horrrrribly sexist show where a bunch of bimbo female elves chit chat and gossip while a male elf goes out buys tools and fixes the broken machines in the workshop. That kinda garbage is not something I thought people still made.
3. Bad Management
This I experienced at Six Flags New England mostly. The first time was when the stupid locker machine ate my money. Everyone I talked to in the area had no idea what to do. There was no attendant near the lockers all the way down by what used to be the Skyride station at the far north end of the park (called aptly, North End). I had to walk ALLLLL the way back to the front gate just to get five dollars back and by then the park closed. Speaking of park closing, one time there was a thunderstorm and they closed every ride including the indoor rides. I waited in the line for the Cyborg ride for like 30 minutes talking to some cute lacrosse boys to pass the time. But even that wouldn't improve my day, because after that I decided to go get a snack at the Johnny Rockets. I sat down with my beer, my cheese fries, and my burger ready to enjoy a meal while watching the storm but like 2 minutes later security came and emptied the building. 2 hours before park closing they decided everyone wanted to go home early so they booted us out. YES WITH MY FOOD! I was forced to briskly walk carrying a huge bunch of food with no tray, including a beer cup with no lid spilling all over me like some drunkard, trying to eat my burger and fries. Had I got pulled over they would definitely think I was drunk. And God forbid you ever lose anything there!
4. Maintenance
Many of the rides rattle and shake but in a bad way! They bang your head around because they are rusting. This has been improved lately however, as rides are being repainted and retracked, especially with RMC makeovers (Rocky Mountain Coasters remakes old wooden coasters into looping twisting modern marvels). The Cyclone (rumored to be designed while Bill Cobb was "GASSY"), was a very intense rough ride that was remade in Six Flags New England to have zero G rolls and a hybrid structure. The Mind Eraser found new life as The Riddler's Revenge, with a fresh green coat of paint, and finally removing vekoma's infamous head smashing over the shoulder restraints for a more seatbelt like modern version. But Other parks need to follow this lead.
5. Ignoring smaller parks
Six Flags America has really two main sections of rides. The Front part has some clones, and a few transferred rides, plus The Wild One. Roar is a mirror image of another version I think. The back part has a really cool rock n rollercoaster-esque launch coaster, but built by premier rides using the LIM system same as the Chiller and MR Freeze. It also has the same Ride of Steel as Darien Lake, and an outdated but cool vekoma flying coaster named Batwing (which ate my phone!). But, It hasn't had a major new unique ride for years! It had a really cool log flume called Typhoon Seacoaster, which YES Ripped off the Pirates of the Caribbean song, but had turntables and cool drops, with a giant skull, and pirate bones in tunnels. BUT ITS GONE! Same can be said for Six Flags La Ronde, and Six Flags Great Escape, both are small parks which are decent but need some new hits.
6. Lack of Dark Rides
The Original concept of six flags, was that it was billed as the thrills of an amusement park, with the theming of Disneyland. That doesn't hold true at all! The original park, Six Flags Over Texas set out to be the Disneyland of the American South, but it lost something over the years. A fact many people may not realize is that many people who worked on Disneyland have been involved in Six Flags parks in the early years. I think more dark rides can be a great improvement to that concept. They have already started, with the Justice League ride, and Dark Knight Coaster, but ousted some other dark rides. There is a Looney Tunes one somewhere, and something called Monster Manor replaced Tales of the Okeefenokee, which actually was a Song of the South boat ride PREDATING Splash Mountain (and Tony Baxter even admitted may have inspired him), But a few more non coaster dark rides would be nice. I REALLY am a fan of dark rides with boats btw, and think there is a sad lack of them these days.
One thing of note is the Houdini Great Escape, which is in Great Adventure and New England. The Great Adventure one recieved an update to use a similar Madam Leota effect for Houdini's head in the crystal ball. This is a Vekoma MAD HOUSE which is a very difficult attraction to describe. It creates the illusion of a house inverting while the walls move independently from the seating area. However, because the NE one is still the original version I have a unique chance to compare the two (ala Tiki Room New Management style). I've come to the conclusion that while the new one has spectacular effects (for Six Flags), The old one is far more terrifying, as the music is creepier, the narration is slower, and the preshow room lacks the annoying stage lights they put in. The effect of each candle sconce going out is ruined when the stage lights are still on! It's not dark!
7. Annoying Teens
Ok this isn't the parks fault but teenagers really stink sometimes! Aside from the fights people have read about or seen, I've noticed a lot of loudness and ruining of preshows. I've also been made fun of when visiting alone, which is fine but you shouldn't bully other people at a THEME PARK trying to have fun. I've been made fun of for being trans as well which is super lame. They also fling those basketballs they won from the basketball game stalls all over the place. Since I play basketball I make a habit of catching them when this happens but I can't always see them coming. One time I saw a guy steal a basketball jump the line for Houdini and beg us to protect him from security. It was Bizarre! Another time I swear someone tried to grope me in the wave pool but stopped when I looked their way. The Graffiti can get really bad, and the gum is everywhere. Not to mention the cursing around little kids. I'm not a fan of cursing around kids, because even though I would bring my kids up to be aware of cursewords, It's every parent's choice to not have their kids say "what does blank mean?" and fumble for an explanation or scolding. I want to note that NOT EVERY TEEN IS BAD. In fact the majority of teens are respectful now adays especially. Many come with their families too, like I did as a teen. But It's no fun having a dark ride ruined by a bunch of dumb kids chanting "Let's Go Brandon UH UH EH-EH-EH!" like some drunken football fans.
8. The randomly closed stuff
Sometimes I'll go to the park and 5 rides will be broken at a time. It's insane! This prob goes with the Maintenance but I've also noticed they close rides and let them sit abandoned for extremely long times. Six Flags New Orleans is an entire park version of this. Most times it'll be one of favorite rides that are closed, like say Kingda Ka, or Houdini, or Superman Ride of Steel, or any launch coaster ever, or the bobsled ride at Great Escape which has a very long line but is totally worth it because it's basically a coaster in a water slide tube without the water.
I was really excited to ride the big elevator ride at Magic Mountain I saw in Rollercoaster Tycoon only to realize it's just sitting there rotting.
9. The Layouts
I've never seen a more insane combination of dead ends and paths to nowhere outside of Six Flags!
You would think you could walk down Great Adventure's midway in a straight line but suddenly there is an area that's blocked off just so they can put a tiny little building that is barely ever used in your way. Then you have to go all the way around it through the games section of the boardwalk just to come back up a few feet from where you started but on the other side of a fence. It flows really badly
You would THINK you could get from the X to the Check Mark in a straight line but nope! Recalculating!
I often times find myself entering the arcade building which has a door to both areas in order to pass through because it saves SO much time!
I've heard La Ronde has a similar issue with a horseshoe shaped park around water with some empty space they could have used to connect it. Six Flags New England works better because its a straight line but also has the entire Metropolis area down a long flight of stairs. (or twisty ramp for the compliance, or for me cuz I like roughing it and going the scenic route!) Magic Mountain is so busy you really need a map just to figure out where you are! Thankfully there is a train going up to the top of the Magic Mountain itself ala LA's Angel's Flight style. Great Escape is too small to have major issues so you're ok GE! But Six Flags America has you pass under not one but TWO view blocking Rollercoasters to reach Batwing so it can be confusing to the uninitiated.
And that's really what I got for now. I probably forgot stuff. IS there anything about Six Flags that bothers you? do you disagree with me? let me know!