I'm a tremendous aficionado of Walt Disney, the visionary who created the foundations of what has now become a greedy and an almost creatively-bankrupt entertainment empire. Walt Disney changed the world
significantly because of his ability to formulate a vision and see it through no matter what the obstacles. He had an image of the kind of
America he thought we should have and his role as America's entertainer. He was a shrewd marketer and advocate of the Disney image but this was
balanced by his morals and his desire to do the next big thing. Profits generated by his movies and cartoons were spent on developing his next
project. Disneyland began as an idea that Walt developed after taking hisdaughters to carnivals and county fairs in 1940. He was struck by the
inhospitable nature of it all: few places for parents to sit while their children were riding the merry-go-rounds, rusty equipment, and "a smell of
rancid food in the air." For a few years, he kicked around the idea of creating an amusement park of his own doing research wherever he went.
"Walt was terribly impressed by the Tivoli gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was reasonably priced and the guests were treated
well. Most important, it was immaculate. He wanted to make his park sparkle like that.
'Women don't want to take their children into dirty rest rooms.' he said."
(from Barrett, K. "The Man Behind The Magic")
Walt developed the first family theme park around these ideas of comfort, safety, and fantasy. Go into any of the Disney parks, and you'll see the
best and most visible reminders of Walt's legacy. Don't look at the stores with their gaudy and overpriced merchandise and ignore the
marketing frills posted everywhere. Look instead at how clean the parks are, the themed environments, the visual appeal of the queues, and the
wide availability of comfort areas such as restrooms, benches, shaded areas, and drinking fountains. Disney customer service is still world
class and the employees work to make sure that is a pleasant one (no matter how obnoxious or clueless the visitor).
Then there's Six Flags. Six Flags theme parks are scattered across the U.S. Six Flags parks are direct descendents of the old time carnival and
venues like Coney Island or the Santa Monica Pier. They have flashy stuff (big rides) to pull the suckers in and then lots of ways of nickel and
diming them to bits. My first experience with Six Flags was in California on the 4th of July weekend. I have fond memories of waiting an hour and a
half to ride on The Ninja, the first suspended roller coaster in California, which lasted a little less than a minute. There was a little
shade, some mist generators to cool you off, and no drinking fountains but plenty of lemonade stands selling lemonade for $1. I had fun but was not
terribly impressed. Then, 5-6 years later, I went to Six Flags over Georgia. It was spring so the heat wasn't a factor but the rides were not
only outdated but in sorry shape. I noticed that they also had The Ninja,
which had mysteriously transplanted itself from California. We went on some rickety coasters and generally had an okay time but in spite of the
park. Over the years, I watched as Six Flags acquired "New" rides, all
of which mysteriously resembled rides that I had seen advertised in California. Then an
Atlanta Journal-Constitution (unaffectionately nicknamed The Atlanta
Urinal-Constipation by most of us) article revealed that the owners were suing the
parent company for only giving them the older and outdated rides. Seven years later, I decided that Six Flags over Georgia (abbreviated 6FOG for
the rest of this piece) had enough "New" rides to be worth visiting. A
good friend of mine was leaving to move to California and so we decided that it would be a good way to spend the day.
On a Wednesday, four of us went and had breakfast ("Best Diner Food")
at the Crescent Moon in Decatur then down to Six Flags. These are some vignettes and rants about the day:
Admission
Admission is $39.99 for adults. Because they can. They have no real competition in the Southeast and in a 4-8 hour driving radius. This is
why it's good to be a monopoly. Atlanta, in many ways, is still a poor 1-horse town amongst the big cities in the United States. Disneyland, Anaheim charges $45 for one day tickets. Consider also that the park opens at 10 and closes at 9. In
the Summer. So you're paying the same price for less time and fewer rides. Fortunately, we got $25 dollar tickets from Georgia Tech and so
were only angry at the end of the day instead of really pissed off.
Parking
Parking is $9. Premium parking (you don't have to walk around a fence) is $12. Is this covered parking with elevators and cute signs? No. It's
the standard large heat sink of asphalt marked by numbered rows. Universal Studios Orlando parking was $7 but most of the parking is in a
covered garage. But 6FOG did have a silly elevated lookout nest in the middle of the parking lot with some poor parking attendant watching for
errant knavery. Although it wasn't clear what he could do. "You breaking into the car! Stop! Or I'll say 'Stop' again!"
Q-Bot Rental
Scheduling and Queues are two core Industrial Engineering areas of study. One of the newer innovations that we saw in Orlando is Fast Pass.
Basically, you give them your ticket and they schedule you a time to return so you don't have to wait in line. It's a win-win scenario. This
voluntary scheduling method increases flow of customers around the park buying random stuff and guests are happier because the lines are a little
smaller. 6FOG also has this system. It's called Q-Bot. For an extra $10 a person you can get the same benefit. So, if you're a family of 4,
without a coupon, you've now paid $90 admission and you're now paying another $40 for the "expensive" benefit of not having to wait in line
and helping the park with their scheduling and queuing problems.
Confederate Land
The South's problem in public relations is how they're represented to the rest of the world - usually as a bunch of ignorant, racist, backwards,
conservative, Bible-thumping rednecks who drawl everything. 6FOG sort of has these "themed" zones in a half-hearted bid to add some Disney-like
charm to their park. There's a "British" zone and "Cotton
States". And there's Confederate land. There's nothing really there that makes it
"Confederate" (except the flags). But it's there on the map and in
signs all over the place. I later heard that the founders of 6FOG insisted that this be a permanent fixture. So much for moving into the 21st Century.
Dippin' Dots
Space Age Ice Cream, my ass. This is not really a rant directed at Six Flags but at this particular product in general. Dippin' Dots starts with
base ice cream material and then drips it through a cold bath (like liquid Nitrogen) to produce small frozen bits of Ice Cream. For $3+ you get 3/4
of a cup of ice cream bits weighing less than 3 ounces and mediocre ice cream at that.
Gotham Hell
Batman-land or the Gotham City themed area of the park is one of the few areas with a little bit of thematic coherence. It has an Axis Chemical
arena, Gotham-looking structures housing the lines for the Batman ride and so on. It also has the gaudy carnival stuff and what must be the leftover
refuse from construction. But it works as an urban environment for a dark-themed superhero. We got in line for the first ride of the day.
General Cleanliness
Walls of gum. The walls were covered in chewing gum, some areas more than others. The fact that we were coming through a large warehouse and into
the hot and poorly ventilated Gotham sewers helped mask the fact that the place was filthy, independently of the
designer's intent. The one drinking
fountain along the way was rusty and questionable. Little did we know that this drinking fountain would be an anomaly in the park.
The Bat Cave?
6FOG is strictly a low budget affair. I've seen better high school plays in terms of set design. The "Bat Cave" was some cave walls, with a
bunch of exposed lights, a Batman costume in a case on the far side with a smiley face sticker on the outside glass, and the same 15 seconds of Danny
Elfman music playing over and over again. At least the ride was interesting - suspended roller coaster, some inverted loops, corkscrews,
and so on.
The Virtual Sledgehammer
Carnivals have lots of games that reward customers for feats of athleticism but were skewed slightly. Basketball rims were tilted
slightly forward, Milk bottles were weighed down at the base, and so on .But the Virtual Sledgehammer has got to be the silliest thing I've seen in
a while. It's the old Sledgehammer / Ring-the-bell Strong Man game but now it's virtual. Swing the sledgehammer and hit the striker and you
electronically trigger some lights that run up the pole instead of a piece of iron that would go and hit a bell. I actually saw people pay to do
this. In the back of my head, I could see programmers setting Max_Height = 90 where 100 is what you need to reach to be awarded a prize. At least
in the old game, if you really were strong enough, you could sometimes beat the carnies.
Nominal Fee Galore
Which brings us to the nominal fee issue. 6FOG also had a lot of little attractions that cost a "small nominal fee". It seemed to be all the
little things that are normally stand-alone venues in Las Vegas or Pigeon Forge, Tennessee at precisely the same prices. A $6 haunted house, $8
Indy Car ride, $5 Lazer Tag, and so on. What exactly do you pay for when you go to an amusement park? The permission to go in and spend more
money?
The Metropolis Carnival
We headed to the Metropolis section of the Cotton States, home of the newest ride based on DC comic book hero and national archetype,
Superman. This is where the majority of the carnival style games are located in addition to, for a nominal fee, a climbing wall and a giant
swing. We got in line for the Superman Ride.
The Super Eye Exam
Along the line are small billboards describing Superman's foes and friends. Naturally, they were placed about 8-12 feet away from the line
to prevent tampering. They're visually pretty. I'm nearsighted so I found myself squinting to read the fine print. I thought maybe it was
just me until I saw my friends with normal vision doing the same thing. Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do in line except strain my eyes
and wilt from the heat.
The Other Superman Ride
It's at this point in the day that we arrive at the vignette that sums up our 6FOG experience. The wait for the Superman ride was about an hour and
a half, on a weekday, in summer. The sun was shining. It was 89 degrees and about 89% humidity (we would see thunderstorms later that afternoon).
The queue wound its way up a hill charmingly landscaped with grass and no trees. There was no shade. And no drinking fountains. But every now and
then, some 6FOG employee would wind his way down the line selling cups of cold lemonade for $4/cup. That's 4 bucks for lemon-flavored water
saturated with sugar and a few ice cubes. Here's an irony. Superman stands for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. The ride uses his name
because it starts in a suspended fashion, then tilts you forward so you're facing the ground. Perhaps not coincidentally, your legs are also tucked
in under you so you're in a classic spanking (or reaming - depending on how cynical you're feeling) position. The effect of the ride is to make
it feel like you're flying like Superman and thus, the name. But if Truth, Justice, and The American Way is coercing your paying customers
into buying your overpriced drinks to avoid heat stroke, then we need a new value system. This was like seeing Honest Abe Lincoln as the
spokesperson for a Used Car Lot commercial. The queue was the most blatant example of mean and greedy rat bastardness that I'd seen in a long
while. Hot? Feeling Faint? Buy some of our over-sugared lemonade. But sugared drinks produce more dehydration which encourages you to buy more
drinks and so on. And this is their newest ride so they didn't have the excuse of not knowing better. We asked at the top of the line where the
nearest drinking fountains were which turned out to be a good ways away from the ride. In my head I was thinking the attendant was going to
direct us through the Mirrored Plaza of Sunlight, past Microwave Hill, and across the Desert Carnival to a broken drinking fountain standing next to
a shop selling cold drinks and Dippin' Dots. The ride itself wasn't bad but the load times were pretty long. We worked out that they could be
running 4 cars worth of people but couldn't be bothered, I suppose.
Monster Plantation - Audio Hell
We took a break to go through a children's ride - Monster Plantation - which is "It's a Small World" meets "The Haunted Mansion"
meets "Pirates of the Caribbean" but designed by the producers of Barney. Besides the
fact that the audio systems need to be complete replaced, and the 45 minute wait to get in (it got us out of the rain), it's a ride that can
only be understood or enjoyed under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs - hypothetically speaking of course.
The Welding Job
The day didn't get any better when overhearing this conversation in line for one of the wooden roller coasters. "Look at that welding job. That's
the worst thing I ever saw." "I could do a better job in my
garage."
Wooden Roller Coaster Headaches
There are two reasons to ride the wooden roller coasters. One, you have friends who have discovered that they can't handle anything else except up
and down rides and are doing this to keep them company. Two, these coasters are probably the most fear-inducing rides at 6FOG. We amused
ourselves by looking at the cracks in the underpainted structure and watching boards threaten to shake themselves loose in the frame. I had
already been feeling a slight headache from dehydration. It got noticeably worse as the roller coaster began rattling its way up the
hill
and horribly bad by the first turn. I remembered seeing a sign saying "keep head against headrest" and thought to give that a try. After
battering the back of my head for a few turns, I decided against that bit
of safety advice. Ow ow ow ow ow ow. (Mental note: make appt. with chiropractor to realign shattered spinal column.)
"Water" Rides
We went on the Tidal Wave style ride next. While standing in the blessedly short line (the ride itself is a simple loop with a hill and
slope), we noticed that the water was this kind of murky brown - much like the Mississippi. It didn't seem anyone else was concerned with this as
children happily ran up the bridge to be splashed by the incoming boats.
I was thinking - dirt, suntan lotion, sweat, spit, etc. of hundreds of people over a week. The log style ride wasn't much better but at least it
was only a murky algae-shade of green and you weren't soaked in it. An amusing bit was seeing a safety attendant taking a nap at the halfway
point. They must be getting close to the bi-annual water filter replacement service.
$.25 Water Cannons
The "rapids" style ride was closed for whatever reason but we wandered
over anyhow and saw that they had water cannons that you could use to splash incoming boats. For $.25, you could activate a FIXED water cannon.
Where the heck is the fun in that?
The Very Last Straw - Déjà
Vu
Déjà Vu is another "new" suspended roller coaster at 6FOG. It goes
backwards first up a tall tower, then lets go, sends the coaster through a corkscrew, a loop, then up another tower which sends you backwards back to
the line entrance. Each coaster holds 32 people. We got in line. About 15 minutes later, we noticed that we had barely moved at all. So, being
geeks, we timed it. Ride Time: 1'22". Unloading Time: 30". Loading Time: 8 minutes. You can get 32 people every 10 minutes. We would have
had to wait 2 hours for a 1'22" ride because of loading problems and an inherently bad ride design. Oh, did I mention that there were also no
drinking fountains but they did have Coke machines?
The Very Very Last Straw - Sky Tram
We didn't bother to have one Vu on Déjà Vu and decided to bail out of the
park. Shortly after we got out of line, it broke down for about 20 minutes. I suggested we take the Sky Tram back because it's a fairly old
technology and it might be fun to get an overview of the park and see some of the roof services. We waited 40 minutes to ride back to the entrance.
When you're waiting 40 minutes for what should be a very simple line there are a couple things that will send you into a white hot fury. One is
single riders in a car that fits 4-5 people. The other is seeing 11 unused cars hanging out at the other end of the ride.
Other Bits
These are funny things we saw throughout the day that say a little about the clientele of 6FOG and possibly why the 6FOG business model works.
- Mother/Daughter smoking team - we saw a teenage girl and her mother light up cigarettes in line. The fact that we were surprised, probably
just shows how sheltered our lives have been.
- We saw a group of 12-13 year old girls in heavy makeup, short shorts, and skimpy, midriff-revealing t-shirts. One was wearing a shirt that said
"Body by Hef". Another had one that said "Playmate". Maybe
I'm just getting conservative in my old age but I thought that was just wrong.
And I wasn't alone. Conversation up and down the line varied from disparaging them to disparaging parents that would allow them to dress
that way.
- Idiot Parents with Small Children - Towards the end of the day, we were held up by a mother who breezed by the sign that said 54" minimum and
tried to load her short 46" son onto a standing roller coaster. I suppose she understood that to be a suggestion and not a SAFETY guideline. Of
course, it begs the question of how she got by the idiot employee with the measuring stick standing in the middle of the line (instead of the front).
Conclusion
There's something to be said for the saying "Ignorance is Bliss." I didn't feel this annoyed at my first or even my second Six Flags trip.
But knowing what I know now about queuing theory, customer service, ride design, product placement, marketing, and greed, I have to say that I know
when I'm being treated with contempt. This is a park that only cares minimally about the comfort and enjoyment of its patrons and just wants to
separate them of their money as quickly as possible through a combination of enticement and coercion. 6FOG works because it's the only game in town
and most people don't know better or don't care. I'm surprised they haven't been sued by someone suffering heat stroke at their park.
Needless to say, I'm never going back. I've got plenty of other things in my life that cause pain, dizziness, and suffering and I get them for free!
