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Mini TR: half ACE Con
For reasons related to keeping other hobbies besides coasters active
this year and visiting friends in Savannah, GA, I decided to only do
the SFOG portion of this years Con. Honestly - while I'm sure the
planners meant well, Valdosta just isn't worth the drive for me, being
I've already done the park when Cheetah was first built, and a bunch
of steel coasters in uber-crowded Myrtle Beach don't get me excited
that much either, so I voted a pass on that as well.
Anyway, met up with Tim Melago, Dave & Janna and thankfully stayed at
the Wingate right next to the park. Gotta say, that is a nice hotel -
we certainly appreciated being within walking distance of the park as
I personally didn't spend much non-ERT time in the heat of the day
there.
ACE Cons are about running into some folks you may only see once or
twice a season (if that) and while I don't remember names very well,
it was nice seeing some familiar faces even with attendance being less
than usual for a convention. Robert Ulrich's influence in the event
planning was felt and the SFOG con went quite well, I think, even if
maybe I could have gone without new event director Paul Blicks "ACE
Idol" game show segment - yikes, that was scary. But he (Paul) did a
good job with this one and the park genuinely seemed to welcome us,
something that was dramatically different from the more "hands off"
feel we had at SFGAM a few years back. Special props to the really
nice buffet lunch early in the week - far better than the typical
hamburgers/hot dogs/fried chicken that is so common to these events -
I believe it was catered and man, it was good.
Anyway, a few random thoughts about SFOG, the coasters, and so forth.
I came away from there with the feeling that SFOG is an enigma. As a
park, it still is one of the more pleasant properties within the Six
Flags chain for sure - I still think this and the two Texas properties
are the crowns of their parks, and the employees (with a few rare
exceptions usually related to food service) seemed very friendly - I
don't know if it was because we were there or they knew the big cheese
(Mark Sharpiro) was coming to town, but I don't recall the parks
employees being this friendly since my first visits in the mid 80's,
when, frankly, theme parks were just more fun overall. The park was
pretty clean - the rest rooms were spotless as well. Lower visitation
mid week meant not every store or food place was open, but that was
understandable. The enigma statement I made earlier comes in that
intermingled with quite a bit of positive praise about the place was
some rather stupid policy - yup, that no loose articles policy. For a
park that seems to be really trying to please the guests, to then
nickel and dime then for a buck locker just to store a hat, sunglasses
or whatever (or, say, as Tim pointed out, a stuffed animal they might
have won at the games, which wouldn't fit) just seems idiotic and
frankly, downright guest unfriendly. Then on top of it, when you've
prepared yourself with absolutely no loose articles and get to the
station platform, what do you see but the rules being haphazardly
enforced - I saw people riding with hats, sunglasses without straps,
and so forth. So while I have a lot of good things to say about the
overall experience there (and I do think the overall treatment we had
at the park was very, very good), it's a single but large-in-magnitude
item like this that just makes me wonder "why?". It's like going to an
upscale steak house with wallet in hand, great service, great steaks,
great atmosphere, but then the appetizers suck - one thing negative
can stand out to really offset many positive things, and that's what I
fear is happening with the park - and likely the chain. Hopefully that
will change, because I was actually surprised at how well the other
aspects of the operation were run - I did not go into this park with
high expectations. So it's an enigma.
The other *huge* bummer for me I have to lump into what I guess would
be called the "the park didn't have much choice in this 'cause it's a
corporate budget issue", and that is the wooden coaster maintenance.
Frankly, the wooden coasters are not worth riding. And that is a
damned shame. The GA Cyclone was running rough as hell, with at least
half a dozen spine-compressing potholes on the bottom of drops that
were annoying, particularly one after the 5th drop that was just
royally painful, and the tracking around the corners was just
pathetic. While the ride most cerainly still had some attitude, it
wasn't the same with the speed being bled off from the poor tracking.
The first drop was just okay (Rampages is far better), the second drop
had a bit of a shove, but not like it used to, and the 4th drop, still
the best on the ride, isn't what it used to be either. The 7th drop
wasn't anywhere as strong, and the airtime on the floater hill
following wasn't as much either. Overall, you had to put up with a lot
of discomfort and didn't get as much payoff as you used to. What gets
me is simply that instead of the park spending mega millions on the
next big ride, one would hope that the corporate office would allocate
some frickin maintenance budget to fix some really nice rides they
already have. Get Hammersly or Luiz down here for an offseason and
have them work over the woodies and guess what - you'd have a top ten
coaster in the GA Cyclone easy - there's a great ride underneath all
that crappy trackwork, but damned if anyone can tell now. And buy
another set or two of trains with soft seat cushions and make Tom
Rebbie some money - those hard seats are murder on an already rough
ride. From a ratings perspective - this thing falls into the great
"who cares" ranking zone. It could easily be top ten, but isn't close
the way it's running now. Joe Schwartz would be seriously bummed.
Great American Scream Machine of course isn't a thriller - it's a mid
pack John Allen ride that has also seen better days. No serious
potholes, but it just doesn't have any zip either. Some dollars
allocated there and I think this ride would be much more interesting
too.
Again I'll note that I don't think it's the parks fault the wooden
coasters aren't running anywhere near potential - I am guessing
(although obviously I don't really know) that the corporate budget
isn't allocating for it. The park management seems really good, and
I'd be guessing they'd love to do some things that corporate won't let
them. What a shame.
On a positive note, the steel coasters (outside of Ninja, which I'll
never ride again and strongly feel should be torn down and sold for
scrap - hell, come to think of it, use the proceeds to fix the
Cyclone...) were running damned well. I'm not the biggest steel
coaster guy on the planet but I had fun on Goliath - a sprawling 200
footer with nice airtime and a lot of kick in it's final hills. A
great ride for the public and many enthusiasts like it. And then
there's the Mindbender. Holy hell, was this coaster kicking ass - in
my mind it was *clearly* the best ride in the park. The combination
negative/lateral force on those ascents into curves in the front seat
was outstanding, and the ride was running nice and quick. Batman still
is quite possibly the most intense of the many Batmen that exist -
that ride has a bunch of power for sure.
Overall though, while I was quite aware of the wooden coasters lack of
condition and my one nitpick with the loose article policy, I actually
had a hell of a time at my 'half ace con' - the park treated us
wonderfully, everyone was as friendly as any park I've ever been to,
and it was pretty clean and well kept up as well, and the steel
coasters were running very well. It was nice running into some folks
I haven't seen in a bit as well as hanging with the usual suspects and
having a nice time away from work on vacation.
Now back to your regularly scheduled politcal posts, emotional pleas
to save totally un-marketable defunct woodies and ads for online
sneaker stores....
-m
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