Our trip report – a Six Flags vs. Disney comparison

[Caleb's Mom]

We just returned from a day trip to an area Six Flags amusement park. It was myself, DH and our DS (5).

Tickets were $36.04 each for the day and that was with a pre-purchase discount from the Pick N’ Save grocery stores.

Throughout the day DH and I continued to give each other ‘the look.’ You know, ‘the I know Disney would have done this different or better look.’

We saw one show – a 3D movie with Marvin the Martian. The movie was enjoyable but as DH said he kept expecting a fan to blow with some wind or a mister to sprinkle water on us as the appropriate times during the movie – in Disney style!

Our DS is only 42” tall so he was only eligible to ride 2 of their tamer coasters but being the thrill seeker that he is, loved them both. The crowds were low and we ended up enjoying many of the lesser but still exciting rides with little to no waits. (We told our DS he must eat his veggies so he can be 44" tall by the end of this fall to ride EE at Disney and see the Yetti!)

The food. We really didn’t eat at the park. DH and DS did share a slice of pizza that was over $6 a slice not including soda or bread sticks. With soda and sticks it was over $13. I shook my head. PapaJohn’s must have a huge sponsorship deal with Six Flags – every area had a PapaJohn’s pizza booth in it. I'm sure we could have gotten a less expensive, better quality CS meal at perhaps Pizzafari at AK or at the PizzaPlanet at DS. I ordered a large pretzel but that hit the trash very quickly after only one bite - stale. Later I ordered some nachos instead and they were typical nacho fare.

I guess our most stark areas of comparison were with the staff and the ride lines. Sure we’ve all encountered a CM who was not feeling the magic, but almost all of the Six Flags staff was that way. There was no enthusiasm; they were just there to do the job. Many ride operators were difficult to understand and didn’t pronounce their directions clearly just, “yada, yada, yada – now on with the ride.” Also the ride lines lack that extra Disney-ness. No themed décor, sounds, diversions, etc. Just row after row of metal stanchions and an occasional TV mounted to the wall playing cartoons or music videos that were hard to see or hear.

The costumed characters were another area that left us scratching our heads. They would suddenly appear in the middle of a walk way. No orderly lines. The costumes were getting old and the people in the costumes didn’t have the love for the kids. A quick hug or a pat on the head and be on your way – they didn’t play along and were not animated. My 5 year old didn’t know who Porky & Petunia Pig were. When my son was 3 Pluto played with him at Disney as though he was a real dog - they frolicked and had fun together. Mickey would put his hands over his eyes or mouth to show shock or emotion.

At the end of the day, we were really wishing there was a tram to take us to our car at the outer end of the parking lot.

All in all we spent an enjoyable day as a family and in the end that’s what really counts. We did have fun and each vacation has it's own merits, just throwing a comparison out there.

 

[OhMari]

Hi neighbor, you passed my town on the way to the park, I live in Lomira, FDL is where all that road construction started and it ends in Lomira.

I pretty much agree with your assessment towards Six Flags vs. WDW. I went the last week in May and I thought the character interaction was bad too. Plus not one show was open the week before Memorial Day, luckily I am a roller coaster rider, otherwise my money would of been shot.

I agree give me WDW anyday.

 

[Nee Nee and Biddy]

There is just no magic at Six Flags. Once you get addicted to Disney, it's just sad.

 

[siouxi31]

Ut oh. I'm taking my kids to Six Flags next week. It will be our first time in about 7 years. I'm in for some disappointment.

 

[disneycutie84]

Yeah, I completely agree with your trip report. Six Flags is no fun for me since I am a wimp when it comes to roller coasters. Every time I have been to the one out here in California, I have been dissapointed.
Alot more trash scattered around and they actually leave the rides that are no longer in use....deserted! I remember at least 3 rides that were just empty and kinda sad looking. I don't think I saw a single character the entire time, hahaha!
I will say that for thrill seekers, Six Flags is a great place. Alot of my friends love it because the rides are so intense. To each his own, I suppose.
I'm glad you still had a good family day! Anytime spent with loved ones is a good day to me!

 

[joece]

I think you can have a good time at some of the Six Flags, but some of them seem to be just a mess. Our local SF, Great Adventure, seems to have rowdy crowds, avid smokers before smoking was banned in the park this year, and horrendous lines. I can say that Six Flags Fiesta Texas is the best SF park, due to the vast entertainment!

I recommend doing Disney like planning for a day at Six Flags, and to invest in Flash Pass, because crowd management is horrendous at any SF park.

Flash Pass is a pay for one time, but is nothing cheap at all, can cost 150 dollars for a family

I can also recommend going on their website in advance, and booking Bugs Bunny characters breakfast in advance for a morning at Six Flags.

SF parks do require planning at times, especially on summer weekends.

 

[HaleyB]

Joece do you mean Six Flags Over Texas? The Dallas park? Because the one in San Antonio (Fiesta) is sorta sad, I hope it is not their best one

6flags is so not Disney. Of course it also is under $100 for a season pass and 17 hours closer to me.

ETA: I do not understand how people can say Disney charges too much for food. Six Flags is so much more expensive to eat at, and the food is awful.

 

[joece]

Joece do you mean Six Flags Over Texas? The Dallas park? Because the one in San Antonio (Fiesta) is sorta sad, I hope it is not their best one

6flags is so not Disney. Of course it also is under $100 for a season pass and 17 hours closer to me.

ETA: I do not understand how people can say Disney charges too much for food. Six Flags is so much more expensive to eat at, and the food is awful.

I actually found Fiesta to be the best themed of them all, since most of them even LACK theming.

I think they also have entertainment options that cannot be found at any other of the SF parks.

Six Flags food is the most nasty food on the face of the earth

 

[ZuZugal]

We just went to Six Flags (outside of St Louis) last week. Kiddos get free tickets by doing a reading program during the school year.

My biggest comparison to Disney (and there are many) is that Disney loves to grow and tend to flowers/trees while Six Flags grows weeds - and lots of 'em!

 

[bdg100]

We are Disney nuts but comparing Disney to 6 Flags is unfair. They appeal to different audiences. Disney is an attraction park designed, primarily, to appeal to the very young and the "old enough to know better" crowd. 6 Flags is designed as a thrill ride park, appealing to to 12 - 30, tatooed crowd. Now, having said all of that, both parks have taken steps to cut into each other's primary market as evidenced by Disney's undeniable trend towards adding thrill rides, such as Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, Mt. Everist (or whatever the new roller coaster is called at Animal Kingdom, Dinosaur, Soarin and Mission Space. 6 Flags has also tried to tap into the attraction market by adding greater character interaction and more shows. However, neither business entity is as good as the other in their respective markets.

In defense of 6 Flags, understanding that it's primary market are thrill seekers, it is understandable that the food, characters and theming do not measure up to Disney standards. In addition, understanding that it's primary audience is younger, the cast members are not overly concerned with creating magic as thrill seekers want thrill rides not autographs and hugs from characters. Cleanliness is also not up to par at 6 Flags but again forgivable to a certain extent given thrill seekers (16 year old boys) aren't as picky in this regard as the first time parents of a four year old. Finally, price excuses much of the difference. A season pass at Disney for a family of 5 costs approx. $1,500. The cost of a season pass for the same family at 6 Flags is closer to $150. Proximity to your home even exagerates this comparison.

Disney provides first rate dining, shows and theming. Undeniably. However, 6 Flags has it's niche. Patrons should not be confused by the attempts of both business entities to stray from their target markets by attempting to compare the two.

 

[tmt martins]

Well they are the ones compairing themselves to Disney .Dan Snyder of the Washington Redskins put in a hostle takeover last year and did just that .
The man running the show right now is a former ESPN (Disney ) higher-up that said we need to be more like Disney to bring profit.They are going in the right direction with his surpire visits but they have a long way to go.

$40 and 45 min for a season pass and I really can't argue that much we go for just a few hours at a time during the summer so it's not that bad .But a Parde is not a few characters and 2 floats pulled by tractors and don't even get me started on the face characters.

 

[matysgrandma]

Well, I agree that it's not fair to compare the two parks. I am a HUGE Disney fan, have had annual passes for years and travel there at least 3 times a year. I am also a big fan of Six Flags Great America in Gurnee and also have an annual pass. I don't fit into the 18-30 year old tattoed crowd category (actually 57 year old grandma and I don't like thrill rides). We have been very pleased with our 3 visits we've made to Six Flags this year (though the food is definitely not a crowd pleaser). We take my 2 1/2 year old granddaughter who LOVES the kiddie areas (with NO waits, BTW) and she's tall enough to go on the Whizzer and the Log Runner, which she loves. I've found the characters to be very approachable (she's gotten her picture taken with EVERY one of them, again with no lines) and she had an absolutely great time eating Brunch with the Bunny. Very limited seating and they all knew her name by the time we left.
If I lived near Disney, I'd be there once a week. But I don't, and I prefer not to visit sunny Florida in the summertime (a little TOO sunny for me). So our trips to Great American give us a fun time during our Disney down time.
Please remember that there are MANY people who could never afford a vacation to Disney, so Six Flags serves a purpose for them.
Six Flags is an amusement park.....Disney is a destination. Big difference!

 

[dyjama]

WE are also around STL six flags, and every year we are season pass holders(they also participate in the reading program,and i usually get the passes after we use the free one) anyway we go at least once a week during the summer sometimes twice(we do not stay but for four hours at the most, because of heat.). The kids have always loved this park. We are going to WDW in thirteen days, so we have been going to six flags as much as possible because i know they will probably will not be as thrilled with six flags after disney, and might not want to go as much when we return. : Oh well my kids have no idea just how big disney is they are expecting something along the lines of six flags Thirteen more days!! --KIm

 

[harrycalder]

As a coaster/amusement park enthusiast with an opinion about almost every park operator in the U.S. (both corporate and independent), hopefully I can interject some useful ideas in this thread....

We just returned from a day trip to an area Six Flags amusement park.

Which one, if I might ask? There's nearly a world of difference between the best the chain has to offer and the worst.

We saw one show – a 3D movie with Marvin the Martian. The movie was enjoyable but as DH said he kept expecting a fan to blow with some wind or a mister to sprinkle water on us as the appropriate times during the movie – in Disney style!

I didn't even know that ANY Six Flags parks had introduced a 3D movie into their attraction line-up. I'm not surprised it was "no frills," though...the company is deeply in debt and doesn't tend to go the extra mile on these sorts of things the way Disney, Universal, or Busch would.

PapaJohn’s must have a huge sponsorship deal with Six Flags – every area had a PapaJohn’s pizza booth in it.

Yup...the aforementioned debt has ushered in new management within the past year (as another poster mentions elsewhere) and part of their corporate strategy to get out of debt is to make big sponsorship deals. If Six Flags as we know it survives, expect to see a lot of chain restaurants in the food department (which may not be a bad thing considering how poor most SF food reviews are) and tons of advertising in the queues of major rides within the next several years.

I guess our most stark areas of comparison were with the staff and the ride lines. Sure we’ve all encountered a CM who was not feeling the magic, but almost all of the Six Flags staff was that way. There was no enthusiasm; they were just there to do the job. Many ride operators were difficult to understand and didn’t pronounce their directions clearly just, “yada, yada, yada – now on with the ride.”

I think the biggest pet peeve isn't really the lack of enthusiasm by SF employees...I've given up on that long ago (i.e. they pretty much get minimum wage, what do you expect). It's the lack of efficiency. They very often take their sweet time in loading and unloading a ride, making for slower moving lines and less happy patrons. Disney, Cedar Fair, and some of the independently-owned parks (i.e. Holiday World, Knoebels, even Kennywood in most cases) have efficiency down to a science, but you won't see it very often at Six Flags. There are always exceptions, of course.

At the end of the day, we were really wishing there was a tram to take us to our car at the outer end of the parking lot.

I believe this is something the new management wants to make a point of fixing in the near future. Time will tell if they follow through on it. Either way, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the preposterous parking charge at Six Flags parks this year--$15 (or more) at some of them! I think that's a bit much for an unsecured space to park your vehicle, and it has impacted upon my visits to Six Flags properties this year. I guess with Disney up to $9 for parking and many other themers at $10, it's the wave of the future, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.

-Jason

 

[harrycalder]

Every time I have been to the one out here in California, I have been dissapointed.

I presume you mean SF Magic Mountain? There's also SF Marine World in northern California.

they actually leave the rides that are no longer in use....deserted! I remember at least 3 rides that were just empty and kinda sad looking.

Actually, I don't find this bothersome. It gives me hope that these rides may again operate (either there or elsewhere) someday. Sometimes removed rides get installed somewhere else, but sometimes they end up as scrap. If it was a particularly good ride, especially if it was a coaster, this makes me FAR more sad.

Also, it's worth noting that SF Magic Mountain has a history over the past several years of leaving some rides closed if staffing and/or attendance is poor. Some rides that look abandoned at that park may instead only be open a few days a year. I'm not even close to defending this policy, mind you, just pointing out that it could be the case for certain attractions there.

-Jason

 

[harrycalder]

Our local SF, Great Adventure, seems to have (snip) avid smokers before smoking was banned in the park this year

Having been to Great Adventure this year, I would say that they have to start working on seriously enforcing this. There were LOTS of people smoking where they shouldn't have been when I was there.

I can say that Six Flags Fiesta Texas is the best SF park, due to the vast entertainment!

Fiesta Texas does have the best shows of any park in the chain (I believe they were owned by the same people who own Dollywood and Silver Dollar City before they were owned by Six Flags and that that aspect of their pedigree remained mostly intact), but I don't think it's the best park in the chain. To me, the three that stand out as best are Six Flags Over Texas (near Dallas, it was the first and remains the pride of the chain), Six Flags Over Georgia (near Atlanta, not completely owned by Six Flags, I believe, and therefore others with higher standards have a say in it's operation), and Six Flags Great America (near Chicago, and perhaps the weakest of the three in some respects). Operationally speaking, I'd say that Magic Mountain and Six Flags America (near Washington DC) are the weakest, even though they have some very good rides. The rest are varying degrees of middling.

invest in Flash Pass, because crowd management is horrendous at any SF park.

Flash Pass is a pay for one time, but is nothing cheap at all, can cost 150 dollars for a family

Just to further elaborate, Flash Pass is the Six Flags version of FastPass. Of course, they've taken it to capitolistic extreme. At Disney, FastPass is free. At Universal, Express Pass is free, but realistically you have to pay for the premium option or be one of their resort guests to get the most out of it. At Six Flags, it's pay or wait in the standby lines all day.

Flash Pass is not ticket activated, but rather works on a pager-like unit, which in former years was called a Q-Bot (I say this because I'll refer to it this way henceforth). You must rent this device. You bring it to the queue entrance of any ride you want to get out of line for, scan as directed, and it will tell you when to come back to get on quickly. It bases your return window upon the estimate of the current wait time (and remember that accurate wait times are seldom posted for the public at most Six Flags parks). Luckily for Flash Pass users (and not so luckily for standby line dwellers), wait times are typically estimated at less than the true wait time...sometimes as much as half the true wait time. Like with FastPass, there are rules regarding how many ride reservations you can make at the same time or within certain time frames.

Note that there's usually two levels to the cost of Flash Pass. There's a rental fee for the unit itself, plus a fee per each person that can be admitted on the pass. If there's four in your party, it will cost you much more than a solo visitor, though perhaps less or about the same on a per person basis. Likewise six people will cost more than four people, etc. You may have up to six people on a single unit. The actual people that accompany the unit-holder do not have to be specific. If you have rented a unit good for four people and two of them decide to go back to the car rather than ride and then you run into a friend that would like to ride, you can let your friend weasel in on your Q-Bot reserved ride if you wish (and still have a "slot" to spare).

Also of note is that the program varies from park to park. Some SF parks don't offer it at all. Others offer different versions of it. For example, at some SF parks, for an even higher fee you can rent a Gold Q-Bot, which is essentially legalized line jumping. When you scan a Gold Q-Bot, you'll get a return window within five or ten minutes of the present time, no matter how long the line is. Needless to say, these are very expensive, very limited in quantity, and not always available at all SF parks.

Lastly, note that certain Six Flags rides push the envelope of thrills and technology, which means they're not always as reliable as rides at certain other parks. If a ride has significant downtime, this could have a negative impact upon your ride reservation, making for a wait almost as long as the standby line, or in some cases, cancellation of your reservation altogether. A ride called Kingda Ka at SF Great Adventure is particularly notorious for this. Caveat emptor, but don't let this stop you from having fun. Hope all this is helpful to someone, anyways.

-Jason

 

[harrycalder]

Well they are the ones compairing themselves to Disney .Dan Snyder of the Washington Redskins put in a hostle takeover last year and did just that .
The man running the show right now is a former ESPN (Disney ) higher-up that said we need to be more like Disney to bring profit.They are going in the right direction with his surpire visits but they have a long way to go.

Note how recent this was. New management usually takes time to make changes at their parks. Yes, they SAY they want to be more like Disney, but don't expect them to really make good on that promise immediately. There are still deals and contracts made by the old management that have to be fulfilled and Standard Operating Procedures that won't be overturned without undergoing "due dilligence" first. It may be two to three years more before the Snyder/Shapiro business model really comes to fruition as they envision it at SF. I just hope there are still Six Flags park operating by then....

a Parde is not a few characters and 2 floats pulled by tractors

Amen to that. I was invited to media day at Six Flags New England where they debuted two new rides as well as their new parade. When the parade was over, I thought to myself, "That's it? Surely they'll add more to it as the season develops." I guess that really was it and it likely hasn't been expanded. I hope they can figure out a way to improve these parades without spending too much money...I don't think they'll be taken seriously otherwise.

-Jason

 

[Minniespal]

Thanx for sharing.

 

[Todd&Copper]

Well they are the ones compairing themselves to Disney .Dan Snyder of the Washington Redskins put in a hostle takeover last year and did just that .
The man running the show right now is a former ESPN (Disney ) higher-up that said we need to be more like Disney to bring profit.They are going in the right direction with his surpire visits but they have a long way to go.

I am actually glad to hear about this. I went to SF here in MD about 5 years ago, thought it was a total dump and thought the park attendants were very rough looking and had little to no customer service skills and, for many, a dubious grasp on the English language. It was really a hang-out for "gangstas & ho's" and I was really disappointed. I went to college in Williamsburg and really liked Busch Gardens and Paramount's Kings Dominion (although I haven't been to KD in over 10 years now). I really hope Snyder can make SF better, since it is only about 20 minutes from my house and would be a funt hing to do now and then.

 

[MissMichelle]

That's too bad about the 6 flags where you are....2 weeks ago we went to 6 Flags New England for my son's birthday as we do every year (for 2 days staying at the local Hilton or Sheraton) and had a FANTASTIC time. Lucky for us it was a really raining nasty day, all rides were open (no lightening) and we NEVER saw a line, always walk on.
The *non Disney CM's* (or whatever you'd call them there) were great to my son. We did a Looney Tunes brunch we had reserved in their picnic grove area that was buffet and the characters gave him gifts and spent a ton of time with him. Almost all rides he went on for the rest of the day had employees making the riders sing to him.
Our second day there was just as great. We still had minimal wait times (rain again) happy employees and just a bunch of fun.
I DID comment QUITE a few time that it wasn't Disney, but I don't go there expecting Disney, and if you do you will be in for disappointment. JMO