Another Season in the Books

[FRD714]

SFGAm is now officially closed for the 2006 season. Now its time to recap on the good, and the bad.

I was only able to take 5 trips this year, so I cant say too much. I thought Dejavu ran great this season, even though it opened in late May. Kind of sad to see Revy closed up until last week, but a great effort by the park to get it running. And I didnt get to take a trip to FF, so I cant say anything about it.

Post your thoughts...

[DejaVuGurl1203]

Deja Vu ran okay (as in not great but not horrible) up until this weekend I'd say. It miscaught like CRAZY! Every other ride was a miscatch almost, well at least around 12 today it was basically like that. I witnessed 2, and the first one was my first time ever seeing one, and once I saw it go back down the tower I just died laughing. I actually thought they'd keep it open all day, seeing as they kept it open after having so many miscatches earlier. But when we went past later on at 8 it was closed.

SFGAm is great for opening Revy last weekend.

FF was great.

And will it ever stop? I witnessed WAY too many linejumpers this year, and only saw a few people getting caught. This really disappoints me.

Props to SFGAm though, they made it through a tough season.

[Mr. D.T.]

The new no-smoking policy was near faithfully observed this season -- until FRIGHT FEST! No wonder FF's crowds are different.

It's too sad they kept Deja Vu and Rev closed most of the season and Triple Play not operating ALL season. Power Dive continues to rot in the junkyard. Maybe THAT can be used as another prop for something.

They should've brought back all the Marriott soundtracks in their entirety instead of replacing them with something ENTIRELY different. And the 45th Anniversary is NO excuse. Oh well, there's always next season.

Maybe they could theme up the train ride and use the props from past rides.

[Jackluver18]

Everything for FF was amazing, all except Hold up Express. In my opinion i was rather bored with it but oh well, Necropolis was awesome and I regret not going in last year. Hopefully most likely yes i'll go in next year but let me tell you it won't be the same, I don't know if I can tell but I won't im just saying one character won't be there next year and it's upsetting I don't know if I can wait till next year it's too depressing. Other than that, everything else was great.

LAFF was amazing as usual, I saw Susan Rosan and that show was hysterical. WTMN was very good, Snakes on at Train looked boring, Demon's theming once again was great, Vu's downtime ticked me off, ZJ was the best parade ever, I still love it. I didn't see DFDMP oh well it's ok. But anyways everything else was great, I would have expected a few more props and stuff, like there was nothing on the ground in Necro like there was last year and just some other things missing. Hopefully things will be better for next year.

[LAFFfan4lyfe]

i thought this season was okay, but i liked last season better. I met some great people, rode a lot of rides, saw some good shows, and had some good times. The rides ran okay this year...and Tornado proved very successful this season...... I was sad leaving the parking lot last night, but it was just hoping for a better 2007 season.....

[w00dland]

Everything for FF was amazing, all except Hold up Express.

That show was amazing! That show kicks Scooby's butt any day of the week. It has comedy, crowd interaction, and plays off to the families.

Overall SFGAm did some really good things and some not so good things this year.

1. American Eagle- So here we are celebrating Eagle's 25th year of operation, yet for more than 3 quarters the season it only has one side running. Why pick this year to rehab the ride like crazy?

3. Shows. I think that the Shows were stepped up a bit this year, Tribute was a pretty fun show to watch, and I loved the wild animal show in SWTA. LAFF was a hit as usual and the Hold up Express was a big improvement.

2. This was more of a SFI problem in general, but it seemed once July 31st hit, the nice additions the park had (characters, bathroom attendants) all but disappeared. The entire Justice League was reduced to 1 or two members and instead of Streetmosphere people roaming around the park the whole day the only characters to be seen were Bugs and a friend near Carousal Plaza. Why give up so quickly SFI?

3. Ride operations (with the exception of AE, and the rides that suffered from major mechanical problems) were pretty normal this year, Bull usually on 3 trains over the summer; Batman and Demon's line moved very quickly throughout the year. Tornado seemed to be a hit with the public, but I was still unhappy because the water park seemed to never actually be running at full capacity.

I think that the SFI shakeup really hit the park this year, and what started out as a really awesome season sort of fizzled out near the end. Hopefully Mark Shapiro will make up his damn mind about what he wants to accomplish in the next year or two. I havn't given up on him yet.

[LAFFfan4lyfe]

^^^^ neither have I. I think that Shapiro has some good ideas...but the atmosphere of the park did die early on. I wil disagree about the justice league though....i saw three of them yesterday, and two or three of them the previous sunday.

good luck next year is all i can say.....i'll be there....and i haven't given up yet.

[Bob O]

I thought overall the park was run very well this year!!
I thought the ride-ops did a excellant job, the park was very clean, the employee's were friendly and the no-smoking policy was a good addition.
The only negative was the amount of ride's that had issue's, like Revolution, AE and removing Triple Play(why should some park in TX gets our ride?). Hopefully this year they will get rides like AE fixed in the off season when rehabs should be completed and not during the operating season.
As for DeJaVu it was done as often as it ran which is par for the course with this attraction.
While i would guess we wont get anything major next year, it would be nice if all rides were up and running on opening day without having to be down for large parts of the regular season, some of this cant be avoided, but some of it could be taken care of in the off season.
But aq big kudo's to the employee's who did a great job this year.

[jjp5225]

I will have to agree what did happen to the atmosphere? it did die. I remember opening day and all of the entertainers, after July they went away. I think that sfgam could have had a better season rides wise, its understandable with revy because they didn't have the part, but AE blue down for a lot of the season, especially fright fest with long lines was a let down. As for bull and batman they sent most trains on a consistant basis taking waits down.

[rct2wizard360]

Sorry Dan, but I still think 2005 was better.

*runs before being flamed*

[joiclarrissa]

^ I agree. 2005 was better but 2004, for me was the best. This year I didn't get on as many rides as I wished I could, many things conflicted schedule wise so trips were cancelled, and there was alot of bad weather on the days I went. It just was not the best year for me. I didn't even get on Dejavu!

[RagingBullrider12]

i thought this season was ok but every time i went it would never be crowded. here is a tip always go on Mondays OR THURSDAYS best day to go nobady really is there. but it was strange the way stt triple play trailblazer and revolution was closed most of the season at least revolution opened at the last weekend i never went i was but i was busy and giant drop opened the first day of fright fest i went the second and it was fun. But lets hope in 07 all the rides that were closed are opened up again

[Sedir]

I had the most trips I've ever had this year but eh, a lot of them were cut short. Never got a chance to go to the water park, never got on Ragin Cajun. Only got to fright fest once and it was only for a few hours. I still had fun this year, finally got on deja vu more than once in a year and also got my first breakdown on it (and another one later on RB). So that was fun. But I've had better years.

I donno about fright fest, I had a lot of fun for the little that we did but I was there on a saturday night, and there weren't many scaracters at all. The only area that I saw that had them was Seven Sins Cementary (I didn't go through Area 51 until after closing). And Necropolis only had about 3 scaracters walking around when I was there (not to mention there was a gigantic line to get in at the time). Also, there weren't any living bushes when I went through either, so that was dissapointing.

[RagingBullrider12]

what was area 51 i never got very close to that?? when i was there

[perseus the hero]

Hometown square is transformed into area 51 for fright fest.

[raginbullrider]

i liked 2005 better but this year i went into necropolis for the first time and a living bush touched on the back and scared the crap out of me because i didn't expect that to happen

[w00dland]

Joe I'll agree with you about 2005. Although if they kept the atmosphere of the park throughout the year and stepped up the Fright Fest actors it would be a different story from me.

[RagingBullrider12]

2005 was much better at fright fest personally i think that more rides that were closed this year were operating

[Trailblazer Tony]

^Well 2005 is still the best year in my mind, but this year was pretty good. This was my second year with a season pass and although i didn't go as much as normal and i never made it around to ride Tornado, it was still a good year.

It kind of stunk having my two favorite rides (Trailblazer and Triple Play) down most of the year and the raised prices were a bother, but that's okay.

Favorite memories of this year:

-Papa John's Pizza!!!!
-Being one of the few to actually ride Revolution!
-Getting stuck on Superman
-Seeing LAFF and Superstition for the first time!
-Finally getting around to goin with my childhood friend, especially since me and her happened to be there during Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huck Jam..which brings me to my last point
-Tony Hawk rocked!!!

[Drkstarboard]

- Déjà Vu ran great this year (not as great as last year), except for all the miscatches and parks

-V2 didn't have it's little downtime period.

-Riding V2 over 60 times (I totally lost count. It could be in the 70s or 80s. who knows)

-WORKING AT SIX FLAGS GREAT AMERICA!!!!!!!

[T.K.]

Things I liked about 2006:
- I enjoyed Papa Johns pizza
- I REALLY LOVED the adittion of street atmphere guys at the begining of the season
- Good job for bathroom att.
- Dejavu ran great this uear, but crew could have done better. Also liked the oral directions to guest on Vu before loading, and that Yellow tags on Vu actually grouped guests and did speak loud and clear.
- Saw aditions of landscaping by Viper- good job.
- Viper crew great job.
- Park was cleaner.
- Love the non smoking policy.
- I loved internationals spieling on rides.
- Tornado
- New cars on giant drop
- New Vu sign
New aunt martha sign
- orbit lit lights
- re done Farmer's square
- i love the big park maps

Things i did not like about 2006:
- Street atmopshere guys disapeared too quickly- and i'm very mad, i really hope they will be back for 07- for the entire season.
- Not all cast members enforced the non smoking policy.
- AE wasn't apinted all.
- Batman did not recieved new harnesses as it was supposed to
- Not all trains on Bull got new harnesses as they were suppose to.
- cast member number was high during season, then everything was cut

things I will love about 2007:
- since not many additions, SFI will save more money
- new dress code, and conduct lol
- new stunt show will be intresting
- single rider line for DejaVu

[Danhockey04]

Ok, I think '06 was better than '05, though they were really close. The only bad parts of '06 were Vu's extreme lateness causing me 106 less rides this year on it and Papa John's Pizza. That pizza in the park was horrible, it is much better at the actual place, bring back Simply Slices (Firehouse pizza)! That was good pizza.

[Bob O]

I would say the worst part about the season was the horrible Papa Johns Pizza!!!
This casued me to eat 1 meal at SFGAM the whole year. I miss the old firehouse pizza/cheese fry's I ate in past years!!

[RagingBullrider12]

well i guess 2006 was ok i mean every time i went there was never a crowd before fright fest