![]() ![]() These always make for fun rides, and I appreciate that the dual switchback sections help make for a longer ride time while not sacrificing any fun. I don’t have a way of verifying this (other than this 2004 RCDb photo showing just one car on the main circuit and a very long line anyone out there know?) but it seems like it was corrected, as there were at least five or six cars on the track, and the twenty or so people ahead of us were moved through in just a couple minutes. I had heard that due to blocking problems this was incapable or running more than three cars at a time for a number of years. Okay, I understand the need for some collateral when renting this stuff out but this felt more than a little uncomfortable to me isn’t simply having your credit card number on account more than sufficient?Īs I programmed Batman: The Ride as the first attraction on my Flash Pass, my mom and I made our way back around half of the park to do the Ragin’ Cajun, which was the only other coaster beside American Eagle not on the Flash Pass system so I wanted to get there before the lines got too long. The one catch was you had to leave your driver’s license (or some other important form of identification) behind at their offices the entire day until you returned it. The park didn’t appear that busy, and picking it up was a relatively painless process. ![]() I made sure to hurry as soon as the chains dropped, and found when I got there that somehow a large group of people had gotten there before me. Asking a supervisor I found out it was way back inside the park near the Whizzer, in the complete opposite direction I wanted to go to start the day. I thought the building would be right within the carousel entry plaza (the voucher said it was on the right after entering the park), but I couldn’t find it. I’ll be willing to justify its ethical use by claiming the added enjoyment experienced by me through its use far outweighed the aggregate loss experienced by everyone that didn’t have it, and if the park is making more money off people impatient to stand in line that hopefully can be used in ways that will improve the experience for all guests such as increased capital expansions or better staffed attractions.įirst I had to pick up our Flash Pass so I could start programming attractions in right away. ![]() ![]() So the ‘cost’ of this service is paid for by regular park visitors (reflected in longer lines and lower average ticket value) while the park receives the profits despite giving up nothing of value to them (besides provide the system overhead). Instead, the burden is supported by the rest of the park visitors using the regular queue every seat that goes to a Flash Pass user is one ‘revoked’ from a regular user. Ride throughput will be the same regardless in a single day, so the park doesn’t give anything up by allowing Flash Pass users to ride without waiting. There does seem to be a slight ethical question behind these virtual queuing systems. Here, they were more reasonably priced at about $39 for a two person unit, about the same as a single-day admission ticket (checking their website just now apparently they’ve bumped up the prices to $65 for two). Prices at Six Flags Great America were lower than at other large parks in the chain I remember considering getting one back at Great Adventure but we’d have had to shell out over $60 for barely an 8-hour day. Sunday of Labor Day weekend didn’t seem like it would be too crowded, but this time I wasn’t taking any chances. The worst scenario was back in August 2005 when we visited Six Flags Great America on a Saturday… upon leaving the park we asked a supervisor if the park had reached capacity (there was no way the midways couldn’t have been a fire hazard as they were) and he simply laughed and told us this was easy compared to several days they had in previous years. Just last year we encountered such miserably large crowds on an early June weekday with the temps approaching 100F at Six Flags Great Adventure, that we had to form an escape plan to get out of a second day trapped in the park. Despite being a struggling company that was forced to enter bankruptcy protection earlier this year, every single time I’ve been to a Six Flags park I was under the impression that they had more crowds than they could handle. Gurnee, Illinois – Sunday, September 6th, 2009 ![]()
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