Gov. Newsom has announced today that forty-seven of the fifty-eight counties in California are now able to enter Phase One of Stage 3. This initial phase includes hair salons, barbershops, in-store retail, and religious services.
In those counties if hospitalizations and ICU numbers are stable or decreasing, they can move further into Stage 3. Deeper into Stage 3, higher risks services like movie theaters and theme parks will be able to reopen. That includes Disneyland, Disney California Adventure, Knott’s, Legoland, Sea World, Universal Studios Hollywood, and Six Flags Magic Mountain. This also includes all water parks and theme parks in Northern California.
So far Disney has not announced a date about when any of the Disneyland Resort will be open, nor have any of the other theme parks announced reopening dates. Stay tuned to this blog for continuing updated information!
According to commenter Tom Read on the latest West Coast Racers Update from Parks Bros, Six Flags will be hosting Passholder Previews for the coaster starting December 21st and running through the first week of January.
Depending on what type of pass you have will be the day you get to experience this new coaster. Using an educational guess, my thought is that the ride will be open to the general public on January 6th, 2020.
Are you a Six Flags season pass holder? Will you be going to try out this ride early? Let me know in the comments below and follow this blog for constant theme park updates!
It’s a Six Flags day today because now they have released a brand new look at the West Coast Racers trains coming hopefully soon to the construction site itself (Right now they are in the Magic Mountain parking lot). I must say they look very impressive and just like the original concept art which is fantastic. Great job by West Coast Customs for their work on the trains and in the land itself with the graffiti murals they have been painting all over.
As for West Coast Racers, the track is all done and the station box should be finishing up shortly as it looks almost fully framed. Once that is done these lovely new trains will be hoisted on the track for a slow pull through of the entire course to make sure the sizing is correct among other potential safety requirements and issues. After that full testing can begin and it is law by CalOSHA that every vehicle on every new ride at any park in California must go around its course at least 1,000 times before it can be cleared to open. So expect testing to be going over for a few weeks before hopefully on opening date by Christmas time is what I am guessing.
What do you guys think of the new trains? When do you think this ride will finally open? Do you like the comfort collars being used on these trains or would you rather it be a different type of restraint? Let me know in the comments below!
Merely weeks after Six Flags tried to buy Cedar Fair, Six Flags had their earnings call this afternoon to see how the company performed these past three months. Apparently it was not good and they were definitely trying to buy Cedar Fair for a reason as they lost a lot of money in the last quarter.
There were some positives though such as revenue being up $1 million over the previous quarter. From there it was all down hill. There was a 3% decline in attendance across the chain as well as 1% drop in guest spending and a 26% drop in corporate sponsorship’s. Lastly, net income dropped 2% or $5 million.
In my opinion this makes the decline from Cedar Fair huge as clearly Six Flags was looking for more attendance by growing the amount of parks they own. They also most likely were looking for leadership from Cedar Fair to change the way Six Flags runs its parks.
What do you think about this rough quarter for Six flags? Do you think buying Cedar Fair would have helped? Do you think Six Flags will look at these results and try to spend more on enhancing the guest experience besides new coasters and rides? Comment your thoughts down below!
Hello everyone! Sorry it has been awhile, I have been busy this week with work and other things, but I am back now and ready to continue to put out articles every few days. About ten days ago I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain with my family and while at the park I wanted to document everything the park can do to improve and become a quality theme park such as Disney and Universal. I also filmed a West Coast Racers update which can be viewed here.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE EVERYTHING
With anything, a first impression is very important because it sets the tone for the day. At Disney you park and come down the escalators to Disney music playing and a beautifully themed parking area. Here at Six Flags it is very different…
The parking area has no signage whatsoever
When you first enter the Magic Mountain (MM) parking lot it is very wide and open, yet there is no signage to the buses or even where the park is. They just go with the “Look all the roller-coasters are over there so that’s must be where I walk” thought process. Also when MM opens up the extended overflow lot, it is just a dirt lot which is not very attractive to park your car on or look at.
I suggest MM should build a parking structure on the dirt lot to add parking spaces, but also open up space for Hurricane Harbor expansion on the existing surface parking lot. They also need to add signage directing guests to the buses and parks.
Two buses not operational
When I went to the park, it was a very busy day with most people heading to Hurricane Harbor. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture above, Six Flags decided not to run all the available buses and a huge line formed in the parking lot as a result.
There was no shade by the way in that line and it was at least 95 degrees outside. So my family and I made the roughly 10-15 min walk to the entrance gates (no shade the whole way) and on the way I saw this multiple times throughout the lot.
Open trash cans filled to the brim EWWWWW
This is absolutely shameful and disgusting. Disney nor Universal first off do not have these kinds of trash cans and second they would not leave them so full that trash is spilling on to the floor. This is absolutely disgusting and again ruins that first impression a guest has when they are new to this park.
Luckily, inside the park that trash cans are closed, but just because this is the parking lot does not mean they should treat this area differently. Now it is time to move inside the park.
Cobwebs in the queue
The main gripe I have with inside the park are the operations and maintenance of things. For example in the Viper queue there are tons of cobwebs hanging on the ceiling as if it is Fright Fest 365 days a year in there or something. Most of the older rides queues are in horrible shape and vastly need to be improved.
The newer rides such as Drop of Doom have a nice clean and indoor queue which is shockingly good for Six Flags standards. Then we come to the operations and dispatches which are so incredibly slow it is insane. Six Flags coasters have mostly just two trains on the track but they are so slow in releasing each train it causes the other train to wait on the block brake for a minute or two until the train in the station leaves.
The wait times for rides were not that long, but can be vastly improved by speedier operations. Also signage that indicates the wait time in front of the rides would really help as I only noticed this on two rides the entire time I was there. Another thing Six Flags should add and promote is the Single Rider lines. When we were in line for Scream (which was only running one train) the train came through the station multiple times and left with at least 5-8 single seats open every time. A single rider line could really help to fill those remaining seats and because they were not filled, our wait time was increased by at least 20 min.
We left the park at about 9 pm and I had fun documenting all the things that Six Flags can improve in all of their parks. What do you think Six Flags should improve? Comment below!
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Theme Park Universe 