so its a way to hide the true price, shady!

It is, quite simply, a horribly-run company. They deserve nothing less than to fold completely. Unfortunately the upper management who made SF the horrific company it is, will not suffer as a result ... during the shutdown they will pay themselves handsome bonuses and walk away happy, after having plundered the company they ran into the ground. But letting the company keep going in its dismal current form, is not acceptable either.

[www.sixflags.com]

"Cheesy Charlie's is great. They have a game where you put in a dollar and you get four quarters. I win every time." - Chris Griffin

So given this information I choose carnivals over amusement parks. Its cheaper for me as well, and I never have to worry about admission policies or other insane policies. The carnival people travel with the rides, and they work the rides, they set up the rides, and they KNOW the rides. They know when something is going wrong, moreso than your typical 18 year old SF employee with minimal training and no knowledge of a rides inner workings. They are also small businesses so one death would essentially put them out of business and they do not want that to happen, so they have more of an incentive to operate safely. Carnivals are also working for their own bread and butter, and if no one shows up and spends they don't get any money, so they try to do everything to make your day pleasant so you will come back next year. There is no corporate "policy" or anything like that.

I am not sure what gets into people at a theme park but its not good from what I see (some sort of alternate mentality from standing in the heat all those hours, kinda like the mentality that happens on black friday at Walmart maybe...), but people at a carnival seem to act rather normal as compared to the theme park crowd.

Before you were able to take a backpack or anything else and set it on the ground until the ride was over. Well I recently went and if you have a bag you are required to rent a locker for $1 at each ride.

@tbax929: We bailed on the NJ Six Flags after it started to be "Street Gang Weekend" every weekend...

It was much better when it wasn't owned by Six Flags...

@Smoking Pope: I will send it if you take Paypal?

If you do,then prepare to pay them a % chunk to get your money- but then again that is a subject for a different Consumerist thread...

Cedar Point's parent company (Cedar Fair) doesn't attempt this stuff... they actually know how to treat their guests well.

@Outrun1986: My kid likes "Playland" in Rye, New York. It's close to us, cheaper than 6 Flags, and has all the same rides. And if we go on coupon day and pack a lunch (so we don't buy $6 hot dogs and $4 drinks) it's really really cheap.

@Smoking Pope: Sorry, it's free to read it. If I choose to print it, however, I'll put a check in the mail. ;-)

Real estate/taxes? Should have long been calculated into admission prices.

Insurance: Ditto

Character licensing/royalties: same

Litigation from dissatisfied or injured patrons: Possibly.

Executive bonuses and golden parachutes: Hmmmmmmmmm...

Nowadays, places like that just look at customers as sheep to be clipped, and it's gotten more and more obvious.

I'm not sure if it's just that demand is down or if they get gouged in turn, but it wouldn't surprise me either way. You can only clip the sheep so close before the sheep die from blood loss and the farm goes under.

Put mine on skizsrodt's tab.

We were constantly being stalked by middle management to "ensure safety", as if we would really could've done anything worse to the already breaking rides. One day my ride broke down and when maintenance came to fix it, they completely crushed the body of it by moving one of the cars. Seatbelts and the traction on the floor were always problems too.

One of my friends worked in the theater part when he was 16 and they thought that they could pay him under minimum wage and get away with it...his parents found out and threatened to sue so they gave him all the money he was missing.

The customers were the most vile people I've ever encountered, but I'm sure they had their reasons. I honestly will never set foot in another amusement park after working that ridiculous job. It made me realize just how seedy they can be.

DOWn, baby, DOWn!

I'm still a season pass holder (access to two parks in my area? you betcha) but I find every way I can to avoid paying their extra fees.

I kind of wonder why they didn't also have a free option for leaving the tickets at will call (it costs $2.50 each for that), but c'est la vie.

Still, the $8 "facility charge" and $2.50 "convenience fee" irked me. But, at least, physical tickets could be delivered for free.

Got to "regular" parking after waiting in a long line (c. 20 minutes), they saw my "preferred" ticket and told me I went to the wrong place. I told them I'd been sent there 'cause "preferred" was full, they told me that more "preferred" space had just opened and I could go there after all. I said, "Can you GUARANTEE that by the time I work myself back out of this lot and to the "preferred" parking, that they will still have space there?" I didn't want to have to drive back to the "regular" if it wouldn't work out.

The parking attendant looked at me as if broccoli had sprouted from my ears, and just repeated what she'd said already, as if that meant something. I said, "I heard you the first time. But I'm not going there unless I have a guarantee." She refused to give one. I had to pay them $15 to park at the "regular" and once in the park, get a refund of my $20.

Inside the park there were HUNDREDS of people waiting, packed into a very small area -- basically everyone was touching, standing in the hot sun because there was NO cover -- and waited 45 minutes to get through the metal detectors into the park itself. At Guest Relations I tried to get my money for my $20 "preferred parking" that didn't exist. They insisted there WAS "preferred parking" available, as if for some reason I'd chosen to pay for "preferred parking" then choose not to use it and park in "regular" anyway.

The automaton that waited on me there eventually did cough up my $20 because I simply repeated my story several times and I wasn't going away. The word "automaton," by the way, is an apt description of the employees at SFNE ... they all have vacant eyes and only give scripted responses.

I would have asked why the park was selling vouchers for "preferred parking" that doesn't actually exist when you pull up to use it, but that was a lost cause with her just insisting that there was, in fact, "preferred parking."

I could go on with my story, including the rides that broke down while we were on them, and one halted in the middle to take an item from someone on it, ALL without even so much as a whiff of an apology or explanation from the staff. Or the food we paid WAAAAY too much money for after waiting 20 minutes in line (with only one person in front of us, it took that long to fill their order).

Or the janitor who was apparently Spanish-speaking, who was asked by a woman where there was a telephone ... he pretended not to understand, she gestured with her hand in the shape of a phone, he smiled and said, "Ah! There," and pointed into the men's room. Another janitor came by, and finally told her where the phone was. When she left, the two of them were laughing, the first one joking in Spanish that he'd tried to get her into the men's room.

All without knowing that a bystander -- an "Anglo" who happens to know Spanish -- was eavesdropping. In fact the first one had known EXACTLY what she was looking for, but maliciously tried to send her elsewhere. How nice.

When I got home I drafted a complaint to the park's manager, listing all of these problems and more, and asked if any of this appeared to be acceptable business practices. I listed the names of all the employees I saw doing things wrong, including the two janitors who tried to send a woman into a men's room. The manager replied that it was a busy day, that problems happen, rides are shut down for my safety, and that there was no "Rodolpho" working at the park so he did not believe my "send the lady into the men's room" story.

Essentially he called me a liar, and even intimated that I hadn't actually been entitled to the $20 refund for the non-existent "preferred parking."

Note: My niece was with me. Her family all had been faithful season-pass holders, frequently attending the Six Flags near them (on the opposite coast). They sent a copy of my letter to their park's manager and told them they would no longer be purchasing SF passes. They didn't give a damn.

SF has made HUNDREDS of dollars a year on my family. But not any more. That gravy train has pulled into its last station and is retired from service. SFNE chose to act like a bunch of buffoons and idiots, and they lost out on all of that. The problem is, no one else in the corporation even understands this. They threw away lots of steady future business and haven't the first clue that they should even try to retain it.

If SF goes bankrupt, all I can say is, "good riddance," and "it couldn't have happened to a company that deserved it more." Horrible people, all of them, who deserve the horrible fate of going out of business.

Capitalism. Yer Doin it Rong.

I'm always amazed at any company that charges a premium for the cheaper, labor free method of ticket delivery.

Day at the beach is very peaceful and probably free or close to free depending where you live. I am better off taking a walk in a park if I want to get away instead of going to Six Flags, free and gives me exercise.

I live in the northeast, when summer comes I want to get out a bit, but I don't want to be stuck in a captive place where I am bombarded with the things I have to deal with every day, like fees, ridiculous policies, overpriced goods I don't need and tons of ads, I want to escape and get away. I honestly would rather be in Walmart than Six Flags, so that is not saying much!

Six Flags is the Walmart of the theme park industry, except they aren't as successful as walmart.

I have no problem with this since they probably will not see my money.

But yeah, when Six Flags was selling a few parks and leaving ours to die they just started closing rides for seemingly no reason at the end of the season. Naturally people then developed a very negative attitude towards the park, and PARC had to clean all of this up. I think you could see the rides closed sign before the gates though, unlike some other parks where the sign is placed AFTER you pay admission. I have been going on amusement rides for more than 20 years (without incident might I add), and I am a fan of them, but let me tell you those rides in that park as Six Flags was selling it were NOT safe to go on!!! There was basically no maintenance or upkeep. You have to wonder how a chain that is nearly in bankruptcy is keeping up with their rides as well...

In other words, I wouldn't mind them trying to give people the illusion that they were getting a deal by chopping five dollars off the ticket price and adding a convenience charge instead. Silly marketing thing.

I do have a problem with people budgeting their money and getting ready to make a big purchase and then, when they have made up their minds, being roped into additional fees they didn't anticipate.

But I'm sure they know they'd lose business if the link said "Tickets $39.99. Only $5 to print from your own computer

@Smoking Pope: Put it on my tab

Six Flags is always a rip-off. I don't work to earn money to pay $60 for the right to be in a captive-audience park with corporate advertisements and Warner Bros crap thrown at me.

Give me a day at the beach over that nonsense any day.

@Outrun1986:
I used to go to the one in Jersey, and it was a ripoff 10 years ago. You're correct about rides being down all the time.

There was an amusement park closer to my house called Dorney Park, and it was about $75 for a season pass back then, which included their water park. That was a MUCH better deal.

@Smoking Pope:
Not a bad profit. You put in your 2 cents and get back 5 bucks.

I think our anger is misdirected.

If my airline ticket costs $500, fine. But charging me $400 and making me pay through the nose when I want to eat, drink, pee, park, or use the internet... I start to get really annoyed.

For the same money, I'd let them send me the tickets rather than use my resources to print them.

I am not keen on SF after they left our local park in ruins, only to leave the buyer of the park to clean up the mess and restore the reputation of the park to working order so they could actually get customers to come again. After a season of closed rides (for no reason) and general chaos, no maintenance and removing features of the park that they instituted at the beginning of the season. Not to mention trying to get the public to come back in an economy that can only go downward.

SF seems to be designed to take your money regardless. You have to pay for tickets and parking before you even get into the park. Then you find out the rides you want to go on are closed (the rides closed sign is after you pay for admission). Of course there are no refunds and they seem to have a "policy" for everything to make your day miserable. Including not being able to bring your own food into the park and in some cases no re-entry at all. So your forced to eat overpriced and nasty processed theme park food. Everyone at the park complains, there are no happy guests. I don't care to be around a group of people who are nothing but miserable (especially if I paid to do that). These have been my SF experiences in the past.

The first test a park has to pass for me to go to it is to have free parking, and allow you to bring food into the park, and re-entry. You are always going to need to go to the car for something.

Everyone who reads this comment owes me $5.

Pay up, deadbeats.

Ticketbastard also makes you pay to print your own tickets.

It should be called a "Really Convenient Fee".

Pretty soon, they're going to tack on some kind of "GIF Barcode Rendering Surcharge", a "Server Farm Processor Timeshare" subfee, and a "Co-Located Bandwidth Utilization" premium.

But if Ticketmaster gets away with it, and for Six Flags it's still the best of all bad deals, then they'll keep doing it. Grr.