Opening Day is FINALLY Here :D

[stormalert123]

im leave this place at 6 am i live in kenosha so i can be the frist in

[Bob O]

Will also be at the park for media day, and also opening day!!

[CoasterDemon]

I'll be threre on media day! 9-2 Can't wait! Anyone else?

Me!

Me too

[onyxhotel08]

Please, everyone if you do a trip report remember opening day reports require pictures. Or you will be fined.

[sfgam#1]

I wonder if it will be crowded because tickets are 20 dollars ....

[w00dland]

Have fun kids, say hi to Sky Trek Tower for me.

[[jonrev]]

I wonder if it will be crowded because tickets are 20 dollars ....

As long as the rain stays north, it will...

[RBullFan97]

Fortunately with high school the offseason was pretty short for me, and I'll be there today to kick off the season. Been to opening weekend every year since 2008.

[CstrFan512]

Gogogogogo!!! Get to raging bull!!!

[woohoodude11]

Anyone comin in from the south via 94 prepare for traffic just after lake cook. Ruined my chances of getting there before 10 :-\

[RagingBull14]

im leave this place at 6 am i live in kenosha so i can be the frist in

me 2 i will get there around 10 30

[ttd rox]

I'm going tomorrow. Is anybody getting a PTR of the park today?

[Ilovthevu']

^I'll just say a some things:

--Buzzy Bees (The bee ride like Dumbo that was at Looney Tunes before) is already where East River Crawler is. It's open.
--Triple Play has ORANGE regular bulb lights on the YELLOW arm? Why would they do this? Is the yellow arm going to become Orange? Orange is better than yellow, so I hope this happens, but I rather have a Blue or Teal arm. With the lights because I just love how they change the Whirligig every year now. NOT. It has red, blue, white, and.... Orange..?? Why couldn't they just leave it Red, White, and Blue. They had yellow, red, white, blue, orange, and did they have green one year?
--Demon doesn't have a blocked off row anymore. Instead, they moved the flash pass people to the right line (There are two lines - right & left. Before, no one would go be on the left side line. People would only go on the right side line) where they merge at the end with the other line. So, no more Flash pass people in the actual station anymore wasting more of the workers time. This is a great improvement to me!

--Maybe it's just me, but it feels like they moved the bins up closer to the trains instead of them all the way back which I think is better.
--Orbit fencing needs paint. Looks bad.
--They need new bumper cars. Sometimes you get a good one, and sometimes you get one that barely moves. They really need to make an investment in them already.
--X-Flight was testing second half of the day for awhile.

[Luxornv]

Anyone comin in from the south via 94 prepare for traffic just after lake cook. Ruined my chances of getting there before 10 :-\

I ran into that too. I didn't know they were doing anything there. I'll prepare for that next weekend though.

[CoasterDemon]

Quick report of the day (maybe I should say *rant*):

Eagle had 3 trains, 2 blue 1 red. Whizzer 2. Superman 1 (one!). You would think after doing this for so long, "they" would more prepared for opening day - especially one where they offer $20 admission.

I got the season "Dining Pass." The Grandma's place by Whizzer; there were 12 people in line and it took us about 20 minutes to get our food. They were out of corn, the fries were cold and the chicken wrap I had was mostly lettuce. Literally.

I got in line for food *THEN* found out I had to go over to the other side of Hometown Square - and get in another line, first - to get a dining pass ticket. I hope they fix that.

What do I expect on opening day on a Saturday? I dunno, just remember SFGAm being more together.

Good stuff - Eagle red has it's brakes off coming out of the big helix ("barrel" they call it). Last year at fright fest, those brakes were on - glad they are back off. Fast as a bat outta hell, but needs a little trackwork.

Whizzer was great as well. That's all I rode with my friends - Eagle red and Whizzer 3 times at the end or the night.

edit - I forgot, X-Flight looks great. Even for a B&M. Watched it testing some. Very cool how you can go right up to it, under it, touch supports... That's nice in a park where most coasters are so far away.

[CoasterDemon]

My 2.5 second video and a couple phone pics I took today:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3513285623699





and an oldie for good measure:

[Bob O]

Raging Bull also only had 2 trains on the ride, the teal one was missing.
I guess the off season isnt long enough to have everything operational LOL!!!

[Chitown]

That is how it goes. If you don't work the maintenance crew, you don't know what goes on. Stop being know it alls during the off-season. Sick of you guys making claims that they aren't doing their job.

[RBullFan97]

I thought X-Flight looked great and works nicely in the skyline. It'll look even better once the grass and foliage eventually fill in like Superman.

[SFGAm Viper]

That is how it goes. If you don't work the maintenance crew, you don't know what goes on. Stop being know it alls during the off-season. Sick of you guys making claims that they aren't doing their job.

If this was facebook I'd like this comment 1000 times

[Ilovthevu']

Raging Bull also only had 2 trains on the ride, the teal one was missing.
I guess the off season isnt long enough to have everything operational LOL!!!

For something like that, it's probably about the park saving money by not hiring as many workers in the station until later in the season. I think Whizzer had 2 also going. It really bugs me about Superman though because that is one of the more popular rides at the park, and they only had 1 going, and it's been like that a couple of years now at the beginning of the season.

_____________________
Two workers I noticed were a little panicky towards the end of the day on Saturday. One was the Flash Pass lady for Batman the Ride where she is like Excuse Me really loud and just sounded mean (She didn't sound nice to the people.) to people in line as for the people to go, and she did it twice. This was about 7:30 pm. For the Dark Knight, at the end the mechanic guy is like okay I'll group you, you go with you, you go with, etc. The guy wasn't a regular employee, but was a mechanic guy standing right where the clown faces are. He also walked the entire line just to see how long the line was. I felt like he was saying --Hurry up, I have to get out of here, right now, or I have to pee really badly, and they won't me leave. It's ridiculous really. They are acting like people don't want to get on the ride as fast as possible even towards the end of the night. The regular employee that says do I have 2 people (grouping the ride) is good enough. They don't a mechanic doing that type of stuff.

[Corkscrew07]

I thought opening day was a great success! Clearly the 20 dollar online admission went well, and obviously season pass sales are very healthy, based on the lines in Hometown Square.

To be fair, I didn't purchase any food in the park, it's no secret that food and beverage are the parks weakest points, but other than that I thought everything was great.

In fact, I think this is the best the park has ever looked on opening day. Everything except Yankee Clipper was open at some point, (And X-Flight, and the Railway obviously). Everyone we encountered was in high spirits and very friendly. A few small nitpick complaints, but nothing glaring, well done Six Flags!

[Bob O]

The problem is the park had way more than enough time to have the rides up and running too capacity if they cared enough about there guests to do so. And that might have meant spending extra money to give the employee's more time/hours to get the job done, but they werent willing to do so, and guests do notice things like this. It is never good to start off a new year with a bad impression with lines way too long due not having your rides running to capacity due to not having the full compliment of trains on your rides
but having no problem selling flashpass passes to make more money. Some might wonder if this is done intentionally to spur on flash pass sales?? I never made any claim that anybody wasnt doing there job,the emlpoyee's from what I have seen do a great job, not having rides running at capacity at the start of a new season is a managment issue. The park was very busy on saturday which made the lines far longer due to the missing trains.

As for the park, it did look very nice and other than the food service employee's the service was very good/friendly. The ride op-s did a excellant job with the crowds!! As some have mentioned I was sure glad I got my season pass during FF as the lines were very long!! I thought it was a very nice touch that they were celebrating Batman the Rides 20th Anniv and had the ride op's wearing white button downshirts and black bow ties, very well done!!

X-flight looks very good and the employee's were working very hard getting it ready for its debut. It should look excellant once all the grass/shrubbery etc has a chance to grow.

The park itself looked very good and the employee's working did a great job, the only issue i had was with several coasters missing trains at the start of the season. I can see trains breaking down, because that can always happen, but you would hope with a 6 month off season that at least on your marque attractions like superman/raging bull the trains would all be on the tracks.

[ianmac79]

Here is the video I took of Hank Salemi's opening day speech. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCpRaWKhE4g

[Stoogie]

That is how it goes. If you don't work the maintenance crew, you don't know what goes on. Stop being know it alls during the off-season. Sick of you guys making claims that they aren't doing their job.

like

Seriously though, It's only opening weekend. They will get it together and we'll have fun. I have faith in them..lol.