Pride in the Park

At a meeting this evening, I got word that Six Flags America is doing Pride in the Park again.  Three years ago I attended one of these, and it was not a great experience, as my letters to Six Flags and to Metro Weekly explain.  However, this year I'm willing to try and give it another shot, because maybe, just maybe, if people would actually show up, invade the park, and show off their pride, it can be turned into a fun day, instead of an "oh hi, some people who got discounts showed up, that's nice." type of day.

Six Flags vs Cedar Fair

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I took a trip down to Kings Dominion.  For those who are not aware, KD was owned by Paramount, but 3 years ago, Cedar Fair (CF), the parent company of the famous Cedar Point park bought KD and a number of other properties.  The next closest Cedar Fair owned park around here is Dorney Park up in Allentown, PA.

For the last two summers, I have been in touch with my love of roller coasters.  The first summer, I had a pass to Six Flags (SF) here in MD, and last summer, I had a season pass to both the Six Flags and Kings Dominion Parks, and I have to say that I am beginning to see a large difference in how each of the parks operate.  It has started to give me a preference as to which type of park I would rather go to.  Simply put, I get what I pay for.

I pay more for my pass to KD than SFA ($150 vs $95) with what looks like the same benefits on paper.  I get unlimited admission to my home park, and several other parks owned by the same company, free parking, and various discounts.  Of course, if I was at a different SF, I would actually pay more for my pass because I have seen that other SF locations charge more for their season passes.  That's not entirely the point.

I find that I get a much higher quality of a visit from visiting a Cedar Fair owned park than a Six Flags owned park.  Both of them do have plenty of roller coasters and other thrill rides and such, along with your usual restaurants and shops, so that part is pretty much the same.  However, it's a wildly different experience as to how I am treated as a patron at times.

First and foremost, there is a huge difference in attitudes among the workers at the parks.  At SF, most of the folks look like they're bored, they don't want to be there, and their work reflects it.  Hell, I felt at KD that they wanted me to be there, which is not a feeling I have gotten at any SF park.  I experienced more breakdowns of coasters at SF parks last year; not that there wasn't the occasional mishap at a CF owned park, but it seems that they moved really fast to get things going again and to keep the folks happy.  

One other thing I noticed was more often than not, it would be at an SF owned park that the coaster would run one car at a time when they have the capacity to run 2-3 cars, and the line is approaching an hour.  Very annoying.  At KD I rode Dominator, which is a very popular ride, but the most I waited was about an hour, and that was with the line being all the way back to the entrance, yet because it seems their workers understand that it's important to keep things moving, I had no issue with standing in line.  In fact, at Cedar Point, I don't remember waiting an obscene amount of time to ride their coaster, they kept the line moving. 

Also, while SF has the cheaper season pass, they make up for it by nickel and diming you with fees.  They have taken away the bins next to the rides for people to leave their stuff.  Now you have to pay for a "ride locker" before you can even get in line for a ride.  It's typically $1 for 2 hours, and it's a one-time use locker; once you open it again, it's done.  It makes bringing a backpack very inconvenient, they likely do it so that you don't carry around water bottles and such and instead buy food at the park.  Personally, I'd rather keep my Camelbak with me so I can just drink water as I stand in line and drop it in the bin when I actually ride.  One way I have been able to get around it on occasion is to rent a locker for a flat fee at an SF attached water park since those you can typically get in and out all day.  Any CF owned park I have been to does not have a ride locker, they still have their bins next to the ride itself that you drop your stuff in, and I hope they will keep it that way.  At least I can be happy to report that KD has them this year.

Hell, now that I think about it, CF owned parks don't have to utilize a "fast pass" type of system because they tend to keep their lines moving.  A few times I actually paid extra money at an SF park to be allowed the privilege to line jump using their "flash pass" system, and that was because the lines would get way too long for their own good.  Then again, if their workers actually cared about their job, they might actually move people through the line efficiently.  Of course, if that were to happen, fewer people would buy flash passes, the park wouldn't make as much money off of fees for extras like that, and those workers would probably get fired.

So ultimately, even though I pay a bit more money up front for a season pass to a CF owned park, the quality of my visits make it worth every penny of the extra fee.  Considering how many extra "fees" I would have to pay at an SF park, I probably end up paying for that pass in the end.  This is why I find if I have a choice, I'd rather go to a CF owned park.  It's only the proximity and slightly lower cost of the SF season pass that keeps me buying, but if they ever raise their rates, I wouldn't be as upset to drop buying a pass from them.  

Perhaps I am not the only one that thinks this way about the parks, and perhaps that is why Six Flags is in trouble financially while Cedar Fair is doing just fine for the most part. 

One Day Sale - Buy Now!

If you're a roller coaster junkie like I am, you're going to want to take advantage of this. For today only, Six flags is offering their season passes for 20% off of the pre-Memorial Day price. This is an awesome deal, especially in my area.

Here's how it breaks down:

If you buy your season pass after Memorial day at Six Flags America, it's $90. If you buy it before Memorial Day, you pay $5o. If you buy it today, it's $40. Consider that the cost of a 1 day ticket is $50, your total savings today off of the regular season pass rate is the same as a 1 day ticket. If you will go to the park at least once, this is an awesome deal!

Here's the further benefit, you can also purchase season parking for another $45, which means being able to park all season long for free. Consider that parking is $15, that's worth it. Oh, and did I mention that your season pass and parking will work at any Six Flags in the country? That's right, you don't just have to stay in Maryland, you can drive 2 hours to New Jersey and go to the Six Flags there with free parking and admission. I may make a trip out to CA to go to Magic Mountain this year on the pass :-D

So if you like the coasters and you'll go to the park at least once...buy now!

Yes I'm Still Alive

Wow, just over two weeks without posting, that is totally not like me right now. Especially when it is an unintentional vacation.

So what have I been up to since posting about going to Hershey Park?

• I went to Kings Dominion with JH, CD, and V on the 4th of July. The park was fun, we got to ride their new coaster, Dominator (JH had ridden it when it was over at Geauga Lake). We cooled off in the water park, yes it was crowded, but worth the trip.
• Saw the fireworks on the National Mall on the 4th, I have video saved to my phone that I need to review, and possibly post to YouTube.
  
• Went to Philadelphia with JH, DP, and BD and wandered around there for a bit. The next day we went to Six Flags Great Adventure where I finally rode Kingda Ka. Now I can say that I have ridden the worlds tallest and fastest roller coaster (456 feet at 128 mph). They have got to make that ride longer though, 28 seconds is not enough!
• Started rehearsals for Children of Eden, I'll be playing Cain in Act I and Japheth in Act II. I'll provide more details later.
• Attended the wedding of my friends CJ and George two Saturdays ago. The wedding was great and the reception was well done. I got to chat with a few folks that I haven't seen in a while, and I hope to see again soon.
• Attended a party after the wedding of my friend Chandra, where I saw a few of my Baltimore friends, the night wasn't complete without making someone from my past paranoid, which I admit I had fun with. Karma is a bitch my friend, and you brought it on yourself.
  
• Saw Mr GreenGenes this past Friday at Power Plant Live in Baltimore. The show was awesome of course.
• Went to the Eastern Shore with JH and had fresh steamed crab last Saturday. One of the many advantages of living near a bay.
• I haven't even mentioned work yet, but it's going fine, I have a project that's going to be released for production next month. Next up is a revision to the survey from hell, which will take up my time from now until April 2009.
• After all of my recent coaster trips, I have now ridden 80 rollercoasters in the world. That still puts me 70 behind JH, which I will probably never catch up to since he has a bunch of credits on coasters that don't exist now :-P

So that's the summary of all that has happened so far. Clearly this is what happens when you have a BF who is not a stay at home guy, you don't get much time in front of the computer ;-)

New England

Continuing my series of trips to various amusement parks to hit roller coasters, JH and I went to Six Flags New England. We flew into Hartford via Southwest, which worked out well for a short flight. It's great for once to not have to take a plane flight alone :-)

We got into Hartford, and then got our rental car, we decided to spring for the GPS since we were both in very unfamiliar territory, and the previously printed Google maps were just not making sense at the moment. JH and I were pleasantly surprised at how close Six Flags was from the airport; about 10 miles via a back road.

We got to the park and the first thing we did was go over a purchase a Flash Pass. The Flash Pass is an item you can buy so that you're not standing around waiting in line. You set the pass for a ride, and it provides a reservation time. When it's your time, you go to the Flash Pass line, and they let you in. The limitation is that you can only do this for one ride at a time. If you get the basic Flash Pass, you'll have a reservation time that is far enough ahead of time as if you were waiting in line. If you spend the extra cash and get the Gold Flash Pass, your reservation waiting time is much much shorter. Neither of us had used the new Flash Pass system, but we decided to spring for a gold one. The biggest reason for that was because for Superman: Ride of Steel, the trip reports from other visitors had been that they were only running one train at a time. Considering it's one of the most popular coasters, why put ourselves through waiting for 2-3 hours?

I have got to say that overall by the end of the day, the Gold Flash Pass was worth every penny because it meant we were able to ride every single rollercoaster at least once on Saturday. As soon as we would get into the waiting station to get on the ride, JH would reserve the next ride, and the wait time would be approximately 10 minutes away, so by the time we finished our current coaster ride and walked to the one we had reserved, it was already our reservation time. Also, if certain rides happen to be delayed or closed that day, you'll know on the screen. If you had a reservation and they have temporarily closed the ride, it will push your time back until the ride opens up again.

Getting back to the park, once again we managed to show up on a weekend where there was a cheerleading competition! Third park, third competition; WTF is up with that? Next year I'm checking the calendar of a park before we a trip to it during the spring. So we got to deal with cheerleaders running all over the place, there was no stage mom drama to report this time around. However, there was that moment where some of the more naive girls rode on the raging rapids ride, and they had not even performed yet, so they were freaking out about getting wet and of course they got wet. Girls, this is why you don't listen to your little brother when he tells you that you won't get wet. Littler brothers like to mess with you, haven't you figured that out yet?

So the first ride was on Superman: Ride of Steel. This coaster has been voted as the number 1 coaster in the world so we went into it expecting great things. The ride elements were good and the coaster was fast, but it didn't give the airtime that I was expecting. It wasn't until we rode in the very front later that weekend that the ride got good, so my recommendation is to wait for the very front of the coaster.

Next ride was on the Mind Eraser, which is the same layout as the Mind Eraser at Six Flags America. It was a pretty standard hanging ride, nothing too wild to report there. At first I didn't recognize it because this one still has its original color scheme of teal and red, whereas the one at America has orange and yellow.

Moving onward to Batman: The Ride, this one is different in that it is a floorless coaster rather than an inverted coaster. I have to admit it can be hard to keep all of these coasters straight when they use the same name. Thank god when I was setting up my credits list, I could locate pictures of coasters to figure out if I ever rode them. The ride was better than other Batman coasters in that it didn't feel like I was gypped on the length of the ride.

Thunderbolt is a wooden coaster that's based on a design from the 1939 World's Fair, it has the feel of the Cyclone at Coney Island, but in this case, I didn't end up breaking my ass while riding! Flashback was the next ride, and this one I like because you basically are pulled back up the hill, you fly back down, go through a cobra roll and loop, come up the other hill where you stop...and then go back through the loop and the cobra roll backwards! This was my second time riding one as I did take one ride on Two-Face at SFA last year before it was basically broken for the rest of the summer.

Pandemonium introduces a newer concept to roller coasters that I would like to see on a bigger scale and in a closer park. Not only are you going up and down hills and around bends on the track, the car is able to spin freely as you're doing so. It makes for a fun experience as you basically change positions. We rode that one three or four times that weekend and no two rides were exactly the same. That one would be a good one to take kids on since it's not too scary for them.

After that it was over to Houdini's House. How this ride works is that while you're strapped down to these benches, you feel like you're being raised up while the room is spinning around. JH explained to me that they pull you back and forth at only a 15 degree angle, but because you're surrounded by what is essentially a spinning cylinder, it disorients you and makes you think you're being raised up much more. Next was Tomahawk, which is what is known as a frisbee ride. This one spins while swinging back and forth. I must be gaining a tolerance for these kinds of rides because I didn't feel sick like I used to in the past.

We moved on to ride Cyclone, which was this big wooden coaster in the park. That one was a blast, especially because of the amazing amount of airtime we got on while riding. After the ride, they closed the ride for a few minutes so they could load a second car onto the track. Neither one of us had ever witnessed this being done, so we stood at the exit ramp and watched. Basically they unlock a section of the track, slide it over in front of the garage, roll the new train onto the track, then slide the track back into place. Once it's secured, the car then rolls to the first lift hill and goes through the coaster. It was pretty neat to watch.

After a few more rides, we decided to head out of the park and go to our hotel. This hotel was pretty nice and comfortable. We headed out to dinner at an Italian place that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. We watched some TV and then crashed.

The next morning we tried to figure out what we wanted to do, we could go to the park, but I was more in the mood to go exploring the area and see what we could find. We figured we'd head north on the highway towards Vermont and would see where that would take us. Our Sunday drive took us up to Vermont, over to New Hampshire, and then back down to Springfield. It was a good way to see the sights, and hey, it meant more states that we got to visit! We did go back to the park, and since there was no competition going on and it was cloudy, there was very little crowding, so we were able to get some rides in without a problem. As the day came to an end, we returned to Hartford to fly back to Baltimore.

The trip was a great one, I would do it again in a heartbeat...or at least when another $49 fare from Southwest comes along :-)

New Jersey and New York

Friday while I was in Atlanta, JH texted me about going over to Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey since I had never been there before. An opportunity to travel to a new place, you bet I was going! It doesn't hurt being a season pass holder either.

Saturday Morning we drove up to New Jersey and got there soon after the park opened. We started out by riding Blackbeard's Treasure Train because I need the coaster credits, and JH wanted to start with smaller rollercoasters just to make sure the g-forces weren't going to bother his nose. It's a nice coaster for the kids and their parents.

Next was Skull Mountain, which was alright, especially for an inside coaster. We moved onward to Nitro, which I ended up enjoying the ride. Afterwards was Batman The Ride, which is a clone of the Batman The Ride at Magic Mountain. I last rode that one eight years ago, and it was just like I remembered it, which is that the ride is too freaking short. You get into some good turns and thrills and then bang! It's over.

Onward to Medusa, which freaking rocked, we would ride the coaster once more over the weekend. I love it when the coasters go fast and space their elements so that you're not being thrown all over the place. Definitely one of the best steel coasters I have ever been on.

We got over to El Toro, which was finally when we hit the point where lines took a while. I had gotten used to waiting 10-15 mins at the most to get on, but in this case it would take almost 2 hours. Did I mention that there was a cheerleading competition at the park, so it was basically overrun with the kids and their stage parents? At one point they tried to bring on a second train to handle the crowd, but it was taken off, so I think it had flunked a safety check. Yeah, I got bitchy about that, which was over the line for me, oh well.

Afterwards we tried to get food, and that was another line from hell thanks to the larger than normal crowds for the weekend and lack of staff. I should have just jumped to another restaurant, but I was foolish enough not to; lesson learned for next time.

By the time lunch was over, it was actually late in the afternoon, so we headed over to our hotel to rest for a while. JH got in touch with some family in the area, and we visited them for dinner. I like his cousin, she's raunchy, and can dish it out as well as take it, much like JH.

JH at one point made a spontaneous suggestion to go up to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone since I had never been there. I got in touch with a friend of mine in the area, KS. The story about KS and I is that she saw that I belonged to a fan group for Sirius Radio on MySpace, and we had gone to college in the same area (She went to NMSU in Las Cruces, I went to WNMU in Silver City) so we started E-mailing back and forth and cultivated a friendship. She happened to move to NYC from LA for her career so it was just perfect timing that we could finally meet. JH and I drove into the city and met near Times Square before walking over to a local cafe for brunch. It went well, we had fun, and as JH joked, he now has a lesbian friend!

After brunch JH and I headed towards Coney Island, and the Google Maps directions did not make sense, but we were able to find an alternate route that got us over to where we needed to be. After parking it was off to hit Coney Island and the Cyclone.

At the Cyclone, I ended up in the back car, which was fine. JH warned me the ride was going to be rough, but what happened next was unexpected. While the seats were padded, there was a weak spot in my seat that I paid the price for. There was a bar below the padding, and after we went over the hill and I came up and back down into the seat (a lap bar can only hold you so well) my tailbone smacked right into the bar. I ended up doing that again on the next hill, so I spent the rest of the ride scooting as far forward as possible so I wouldn't land on it again. I basically broke my ass on that ride. When we pulled into the station, they offered to let us go again for a discount price, there was no way in hell I was doing it right then. Hell, I'm still not completely healed from it, but that could be because I aggravated it the next weekend at SFNE. The next time I ever ride that, I'm not sitting in the very back car.

JH and I got chili cheese dogs at Nathan's because then we could say we had them at the original place. Afterwards it was time to head out of the city and head back to SFGA for another go-round of the rollercoasters.

The first coaster we hit was The Great American Scream Machine (AKA Greta), which for being an older steel coaster, was still fun to ride, especially because it had one of my favorite elements from Viper at Magic Mountain, which was a butterfly turn. As I would recently learn, Viper is actually the sister coaster of Greta, which explained why the ride reminded me so much of being on Viper. Next was Superman: Ultimate Flight, which was one of the best flying coasters I have been on to date. I liked it better because instead of laying flat on your back, you were laying as if you were flying like Superman.

Next was Kingda Ka, which is billed as the world's tallest and fastest coaster. Unfortunately I would not get to ride it because right as we were 2 people away from riding, it broke down. Normally I can deal with things breaking down, but the workers there hit on a pet peeve of mine so I basically ended up bailing after 20 mins of waiting. Despite what JH may have said, he was ready to bail as well. Here's the thing, stuff breaks down, it happens, whatever, but if I see two ride operators and two maintenance workers standing at the control booth and it looks like they're just screwing around rather than doing their jobs (they looked like they were laughing and joking around) then I'm just going to get really pissed off.

We bailed and headed over to El Toro, which had a quicker wait. I have to say that riding in the front was so much better than riding in the back, definitely go for the front if you can. It has to be the best wooden roller coaster I have ridden at this point.

We rode Medusa again and then headed towards Greta because I wanted another ride. Along the way JH and I saw a Porky Pig character, and JH said "MMMMMMM! Bacon!" to which the person inside the costume proceeded to give us the middle finger. We laughed at it, though JH wanted to report him for unprofessionalism later. I gotta admit that sometimes you do forget where you are and will throw up the middle finger without thinking about it when you should really put it away. At my old job in college, I was in a training with all of my co-workers and bosses, and one of my co-workers said something mildly insulting to me, and I gave him the finger, which basically shocked everyone in the room. I basically did it without thinking about it, my bad.

So we rode Greta again, along with Nitro, Batman, and Skull Mountain before we did some shopping and drove allllllll the way back to Maryland. That was a great trip, and there should be a few more.

Once again, if you managed to make it this far, click the picture at the top to see the pictures from the trip.

After This Weekend...

I have now visited 30 states in the US



create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.


I have also ridden 56 rollercoasters in the world overall. I have some work to do this Summer as JH is about 3x ahead of me.

There will be blog entries about it, in the next few days, there will be reports about my trip to Atlanta, Six Flags Great Adventure, New York City, Coney Island, and now Six Flags New England.

Yeah, I've been well traveled for the past month.

I am *so* there

Tony Hawk's Half-Pipe

I am soooooo doing this on or right after May 24th (when that part of the park opens). I already have my season pass, and I absolutely love water slides as it is.

Thank god for my Wednesdays off in the early summer as well, the park is not very crowded then :-D

Where Was Metro Weekly on July 7?

To Whom it May Concern:

On June 10, 2007 I was one of many folks who attended the Capital Pride festival in Washington DC. One booth that was at the event was advertising that Six Flags America in Largo, MD would be holding Pride in the Park on July 7, 2007, which was a day for GLBT customers and their families to come to the park and enjoy what it had to offer. Metro Weekly billed itself as the media sponsor of Pride in the Park and it advertised the day in the paper as well. I also received an E-mail for a drawing from Metro Weekly for free tickets to go to the park, and a discount code to use for group tickets.

I coordinated a group of friends from a local GLBT community group in Maryland to attend Pride in the Park. We went, expecting to have a good time, and while some aspects of being at Six Flags were good, there was one glaring omission on July 7. There was no acknowledgement that it was Pride in the Park from Six Flags. They basically acted like it was any other Saturday at the park. Now I wasn't expecting them to go all out and start hanging rainbow flags everywhere, but even their staff had no real idea of what day it was at the park.

I could solely lay the blame on Six Flags, but Metro Weekly seems to have dropped the ball on Pride in the Park as well. When Disney does their gay days, it is handled by outside sponsors, including media sponsors, but to show solidarity, they tell folks to wear a certain color shirt to the park. Well I saw no sort of advertisement that we as GLBT folks should wear a certain color shirt to the park, in fact, I only saw that the local GLBT community group I went with wore shirts that advertised their group. Why was there no coordination of something to wear, or even a place for GLBT folks to gather at the park? Metro Weekly also tends to take pictures of GLBT events in and around DC as well as folks out at the local bars. Why wasn't Metro Weekly at Six Flags America to take pictures during Pride in the Park?

I hope that next year if Six Flags puts on Pride in the Park again, that there will be more recognition of GLBT people and their families who patronize the park from both Six Flags and Metro Weekly. I am severely disappointed in both entities right now because it really feels like the both of you told me "Thanks for giving us your money, now go back in the closet before the neighbors see you!"

Sincerely,

theblackdog
Greenbelt, MD

Letter to Six Flags America

To Whom It May Concern:

On June 10, 2007, I attended the Capital Pride Festival in Washington DC. There was a person down there with a booth at the festival advertising that Six Flags America was going to be holding "Pride in the Park" on July 7, 2007. Pride in the Park was going to be a day where Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) customers and their families and friends were encouraged to come to Six Flags and enjoy what the park had to offer. It also included a concert put on by the Village People as well.

Since I am already a regular patron to your park, I passed along information about this day to a local GLBT organization in Maryland and coordinated bringing a group of people to the park on July 7. Many of these people had either never visited Six Flags America, or they had not come to the park in years. To myself and everyone else, it was not only exciting to see what Six Flags America had to offer, but we felt it was nice to see that there would be some recognition of the diversity of the patrons that visit the park. Unfortunately on July 7, we were disappointed.

Arriving at the park, we saw nothing to indicate that it was Pride in the Park day. There were no signs, no gathering area for GLBT patrons, not even an indication from the staff that Six Flags America respects and appreciates the diversity of their staff and patrons. The Village People concert advertisements said nothing about it being Pride in the Park, instead the concert was billed as "Retro Rewind." My boyfriend asked a staff member if there was any sort of awareness about the day in the park, and the staff member had no real idea of what was going on.

This lack of action from Six Flags confuses me, as there was advertising in the Metro Weekly, a GLBT newspaper, about Pride in the Park. For the park to advertise that there is a special day at the park, but then try to make it like it's just any other Saturday at Six Flags. It really left myself and others feeling like Six Flags did not want GLBT folks to be there and to be open about who they are. It's like you sent the message to us that "We're glad you as GLBT folk showed up; now go back into the closet."

I don't ask for much, all I ask is that Six Flags America in some way, shape, or form recognize the unique people who visit their park on special days such as Pride in the Park, instead of trying to bury it and act like it's just an ordinary Saturday in the park. It's not like you have to go crazy and completely redecorate the place and cater to our every whim, but at least some sort of statement from the staff or signage that we are welcome and appreciated would be nice. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Theblackdog
Greenbelt, MD