RailRider

Lets be real. SixFlags will not change overnight, especially with their customer service, ride maintence, and atmosphere issues. These are factors that have become almost corporate culture at SixFlags. This man may have high hopes of changing these issues, but we all know it will take time. To add to these issues guests will now be charged higher gate prices and parking prices, without the added value of a large attraction or a noticeably changed park experience. Guests in my opinion will be unhappy about the higher prices, relatively the same SixFlags experience, and the lack of big ride investments. SixFlags will drive more guests away than they will attract with these new procedures. Therefore raising prices will cause lower attendence which will lead to less gate revenue generated. On top of that SF will need to put more money in to ride maintence, customer service training, and programs to change the corporate/opperations culture. How will this mans plan honestly change SixFlags, when he is not overhauling management, has decided to sell good parks, raises prices, and will possibly make other unpopular changes (like the vetoed idea of no rentry). In short raising ticket prices will not cut down on their budget deficit, because attendance will probably drop. Honestly money needs to be spent on changing the culture and experince of SixFlags. If anything cut the ticket prices add some catchy features like PKI has during the week, and market the new image change.

Good point because that is the idea behind it. I wonder if with the new ownership change how this will effect the completion of NU and following through on their claims.

Theres an article on either CNN or USA Today that talks about his ideas of bringing SixFlags back and they credit him in the article with that idea of one day addmission. Just hunt for it and youll find it. The guy in my opinion has no real idea on how to bring SixFlags back because he is going off the deep end with these new ideas. Maybee you need to focus on operations, less on ride instalation, and more on maintaining the parks you have and selling the rides you have stored or cant fix. But raising the prices and not doing anything else will solve nothing, people arent that stupid.

I still cant beleive they got rid of Mr. Six. Best promotion they have had in a long time. Then again its Six Flags, what can you expect.

Yeah make the rope climbing free, but raise admission prices along with parking prices. Thats makes a lot of sense. The man does one thing that makes sense and another that doesnt. Will be very interesting to see what happens to Six Flags under a full seasson of having this guy run the show.

Well yes Disney is a lot more expensive than Holiday World. Most of the parks in the world are more expensive than Holiday World. If cost werent an issue Disney without a doubt, because you would only need go to AK to ride EE and then you could go to IOA, USF, and BGT for the rest of your time.

removing the "Kings Island" from the name would be the worst move whoever owns it could make. Talk about destroying a lot of market credibility and distinction. That would be like removing the "Cedar Point." Im sure that wont happen.

How about SixFlags Over The Rhine... Free Kevlar and Glocks to the first 100 guests everyday. I can see it now, we could even have a Riot everyday during the Nick Parade. Oh the fun we could have.

To the 3 previous posts I could not agree more. Toomer never rode them, never used computers and thats why they are some of the roughest transitions. His own coasters made him sick. How bad is that? I agree T Tornado is the best Arrow looper I have ever been on, but am I correct in saying Toomer was no longer with Arrow when that coaster was designed? I beleive he left/retired a few years prior. I beleive Alan Schilke designed TT and he is also the designer of X. Kinda the man that was waiting in the wings while Toomer puttered around with his wire and paper.

I would never want to see KI put in a ride that expensive, but I would like to see some more major investments like SOB or TRTR

Nice pics, I am amazed at how large Great Wolf is looking. The one in Sandusky does not look near that big. I think it will be a great addition to the park.

Funny, yet sad, unfortunately true.

Not very kid friendly. Why not call the area County Fair instead of NU if you start just picking fair ride after fair ride.

Screamscape.com has posted some great photos and a nice video of Expedition Everest running during preview for seasson pass holders. It is nice to see Disney has done a first class act to adding a signature attraction to Animal Kingdom. The ride looks great and I love how the track is torn aprart at various parts of the ride. Cant wait to ride.

Yeah I agree about who it was designed to cater too, but the themeing better be tremendous or we have to ask ourselves was this really an upgrade from HB Land? Hopefully they are going to do a better anchor attraction, because NU needs an Anchor attraction. HB Land had SDHC, but transforming in to NU the area needs to have a new signature attraction and IMO Avatar is not that attraction.

Call me Mr. Obvious but here are the 3 possible scenarios for PKI's future under new ownership. 1.) The park becomes even better with more investments, keeps paramounts themes, and a better overall experience. 2.) Everything stays the course under new ownership. 3.) SixFlags Cincinnati, SixFlags Over the Rhine, SixFlags Another Park We Destroyed and Turned in to an Overpriced Piece of Crap, or its bought by an idiot that manages the park like he use to own the REDs.... (god we can only pray for the first two.) Seriously beleive we wont notice a difference unless there's more money invested in the park.

I think we all knew this was going to be a package of flat rides... So why is everyone complaining about that? Not like we are going to have carnies running everything at NU... The only thing that anyone can be disappointed with is Avatar. I hope that it is not going to be the anchor attraction like they made it out to be for NU, because it doesnt have that ability. It is a good ride, but not good enough to put on your brochure. All in all I think this is what we all expected.

Toomer, besides using the metal wire to design inversions also had a knack for doing everything on paper. This is why you have the long slopes up to some loops and massive break runs on various Arrow designs. They didnt change the design or the element, they just determined that to lessen the g-force they either needed more track or less speed. Toomer was a pioneer in design, but he never got in to customizing track for rides. As a loop on Vortex will work just fine as a loop on Drachen Fire, who cares about speed and force of the ride. We can figure that out latter.

I would imagine with normal gate prices going up, seasson passes go up also. Just makes sense.

Im sure they change those rules real fast or they start selling parks. Im sure this will help kill attendance and I doubt people will keep coming. Im ready to watch the continous downfall of SixFlags. Hold on because it is a long ways down.

Ive ridden a number of Arrow Toomer coasters and they all had a level of roughness, but nothing like Drachen Fire. I think it is a combination of the speed, transition from element to element, and design techniques used. He preferred to go at it by hand instead of using the more advanced computer modeling systems to design a coaster. I honestly think that old school approach plays a huge role in the roughness of Toomer designed coasters.

They never listed them as far as I know. Thats why Avitar was removed once it was determined to be a Disk'O. Thats why the Dizzy Disk and DollyWood for example is not listed on RCDB.

They havent decided on all parks, but most ticket prices are going up. SFMM has competition and they are going to have the highest price in the market. Does that mean they provide an experience like Disney Land? Their regional parks do ok for themselves, but by noway does that mean they should raise prices like this all around. They need to improve some major opperational issues first. I.E. Customer Service, Maintence, and Park Cleanliness. SF does not understand the importance of those qualities or they have very inept people performing those jobs.

Just curious how many know that Six Flags is now under new ownership? That the new ownership is increasing prices and going to move away from instaling big coasters every year? SF:MM is going to charge $59.99 for admission next year along with $15 to park. That is more than it costs to go to a Disney or Universal park. Does anyone beleive that SixFlags MM is worth that cost? How about the fact that they are going to raise parking at the majority of their parks and that they are also going to raise most ticket prices. Lets see, that would cost my wife and I $134.98 before taxes. Once you pay taxes you are looking at around $150.00 just to get in the park. Who is going to pay that kind of money if you dont have a seasson pass? Also the new CEO has said that SF is going to stop discounting their tickets like they have in the past. So raise prices for entrance and parking, discontinue ticket discounts, and stop building the massive coasters on a yearly basis. Does this really sound like good business, especially for a company that is strugling badly? Not to mention they already tried the notion of not letting re-entry in to the parks (No hand Stamps). What is this company thinking? Not like they provide friendly customer service, a clean environment, or they have the best maintence in the industry. I wouldn't go buying SixFlags stock anytime soon.

The most inovative part of Drachen Fire IMO was the corkscrew as you went down the first hill and then the second hill was massive on airtime. Very cool design and layout. I rode Drachen Fire 6 times without getting off at one of my visits at BGW. Must say that was a great experience on Drachen Fire eventhough I had to sit for awhile afterwards and get my brain and internal organs back together. By far one of the roughest coasters ever. SOB is nowhere close.