Six Flags to close

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a shame it's such a crap park because the proximity to DC would make it such a fantastic destination. Like if it were as nice as King's Dominion or Hershey's, it would be absolutely packed every weekend and most weekdays in the summer. Between locals looking for things to do and the enormous number of tourists in the area who would happily tack a day at an amusement park onto a DC visit, especially if it was 30 minutes from downtown, it's a golden opportunity.

They had to TRY to make it that bad. It took work, active neglect. I feel this way about a lot of things in this area.

+1 it’s hard to imagine how you fumble the bag that badly on a big amusement park a short drive from DC. But here we are.

I think this is indicative of a larger economic downturn too. Entertainment and travel spending is the first thing to be cut when the economy goes south. If we had stronger economic indicators, they’d probably keep it going a few more summers. Instead they’re just cutting bait now.

You are way, way, way overthinking it bro.

White people weren't safe there. So we didn't go. That's ~40% of the marketplace opting out.

I’m the PP that used to go all the time. I’m white and never felt unsafe. We typically left by about 4 pm (or by 7 for the fall festival). There were teens that got a little rowdy in the later evenings but I never felt unsafe — we just kept our distance from any large group of congregating teens. I realize there were some bad fights in the parking lot over the years but I don’t think it was a regular occurrence and it wasn’t targeted at white people.

I do think it struggled because of racist attitudes about it being in PG and being mostly staffed by black youth. Lots of white peolle I talked to seemed to have negative attitudes without ever going.

Also six flags has been the down market amusement park chain for decades and is almost always hovering around bankruptcy. So there were periods when they put a splurge of investment into the park and then long periods when they ignored it and let us get run down. They really needed better management and probably to pay their staff more. I get the impression at Hershey that those folks are thrilled to have gotten that as a summer job (suggesting pay is decent) whereas I always got the impression at six flags that the people working there hated their jobs with a passion and were doing the bare minimum (suggesting it wasn’t great pay and wasn’t anyone’s first choice for the summer).

+1 to everything you said here. We liked going there for several years.
-White dad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a shame it's such a crap park because the proximity to DC would make it such a fantastic destination. Like if it were as nice as King's Dominion or Hershey's, it would be absolutely packed every weekend and most weekdays in the summer. Between locals looking for things to do and the enormous number of tourists in the area who would happily tack a day at an amusement park onto a DC visit, especially if it was 30 minutes from downtown, it's a golden opportunity.

They had to TRY to make it that bad. It took work, active neglect. I feel this way about a lot of things in this area.

+1 it’s hard to imagine how you fumble the bag that badly on a big amusement park a short drive from DC. But here we are.

I think this is indicative of a larger economic downturn too. Entertainment and travel spending is the first thing to be cut when the economy goes south. If we had stronger economic indicators, they’d probably keep it going a few more summers. Instead they’re just cutting bait now.

You are way, way, way overthinking it bro.

White people weren't safe there. So we didn't go. That's ~40% of the marketplace opting out.

Meh. Let's be honest - while white people may not have felt safe, weren't most of the riots/fights between black teens? The white people were safe. I'm a white person and I usually felt safe when going there. It's the black people who weren't safe there.

Also six flags has been the down market amusement park chain for decades and is almost always hovering around bankruptcy. So there were periods when they put a splurge of investment into the park and then long periods when they ignored it and let us get run down. They really needed better management and probably to pay their staff more. I get the impression at Hershey that those folks are thrilled to have gotten that as a summer job (suggesting pay is decent) whereas I always got the impression at six flags that the people working there hated their jobs with a passion and were doing the bare minimum (suggesting it wasn’t great pay and wasn’t anyone’s first choice for the summer).

Six Flags and Cedar Fair (another amusement park operator. Their best known amusement park is Cedar Point) merged. Cedar Fair does not have down market amusement parks. Cedar Fair amusement parks are much nicer than that. I wonder if that was part of the reason? Cedar Fair knew its reputation of being a ghetto park, didn't think it was worth investing a lot of money/time/effort into changing its perception since there are nicer parks in close radius so decided the park wasn't worth it any more and decided the land would be more valuable to developers.

[Anonymous]

Do you guys remember that post here a long time ago where a parent was considering getting the food pass and eating there tiwce a day all summer long as it was much cheaper than groceries?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was Six Flags originally Wild World?

Yes…

We're old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seemed like a hotbed for BRAWLS and violence

Lots of unsupervised teens causing trouble

Will miss that one roller coaster that goes upside down

May need to make a final trip but only if I can bring my firearm for protection!

These happened. But usually at the end of the night when the park was closing.

And other than the one or two times they just smashed dozens of car windows for fun, the occasional brawls/violence generally involved groups of local teens / crews who knew each other from the area. We only saw this once in the parking lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you guys remember that post here a long time ago where a parent was considering getting the food pass and eating there tiwce a day all summer long as it was much cheaper than groceries?

Yes! Lol

[Anonymous]

At least in the late 90s and early 2000s, Six Flags America was better than Kings Dominion when it came to roller coaster line up. In a few years, they added Roar, Jokers Jinx, Two-Face (now gone), Superman, and Batwing. Batwing was one of the first coasters of it's kind, and Superman was one of the tallest and fastest coasters on the East Coast when it opened. Dan Snyder turned the park into crap, sold Two-Face, and neglected the park for years. After that, the park only got "new" hand me down rides from other Six Flags parks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least in the late 90s and early 2000s, Six Flags America was better than Kings Dominion when it came to roller coaster line up. In a few years, they added Roar, Jokers Jinx, Two-Face (now gone), Superman, and Batwing. Batwing was one of the first coasters of it's kind, and Superman was one of the tallest and fastest coasters on the East Coast when it opened. Dan Snyder turned the park into crap, sold Two-Face, and neglected the park for years. After that, the park only got "new" hand me down rides from other Six Flags parks.

They got hand me down rides? Really?

[Anonymous]

Unclean bathrooms and long food lines for terrible food. That’s about all I remember from the one time I went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's a shame it's such a crap park because the proximity to DC would make it such a fantastic destination. Like if it were as nice as King's Dominion or Hershey's, it would be absolutely packed every weekend and most weekdays in the summer. Between locals looking for things to do and the enormous number of tourists in the area who would happily tack a day at an amusement park onto a DC visit, especially if it was 30 minutes from downtown, it's a golden opportunity.

They had to TRY to make it that bad. It took work, active neglect. I feel this way about a lot of things in this area.

+1 it’s hard to imagine how you fumble the bag that badly on a big amusement park a short drive from DC. But here we are.

I think this is indicative of a larger economic downturn too. Entertainment and travel spending is the first thing to be cut when the economy goes south. If we had stronger economic indicators, they’d probably keep it going a few more summers. Instead they’re just cutting bait now.

You are way, way, way overthinking it bro.

White people weren't safe there. So we didn't go. That's ~40% of the marketplace opting out.

I’m the PP that used to go all the time. I’m white and never felt unsafe. We typically left by about 4 pm (or by 7 for the fall festival). There were teens that got a little rowdy in the later evenings but I never felt unsafe — we just kept our distance from any large group of congregating teens. I realize there were some bad fights in the parking lot over the years but I don’t think it was a regular occurrence and it wasn’t targeted at white people.

I do think it struggled because of racist attitudes about it being in PG and being mostly staffed by black youth. Lots of white peolle I talked to seemed to have negative attitudes without ever going.

Also six flags has been the down market amusement park chain for decades and is almost always hovering around bankruptcy. So there were periods when they put a splurge of investment into the park and then long periods when they ignored it and let us get run down. They really needed better management and probably to pay their staff more. I get the impression at Hershey that those folks are thrilled to have gotten that as a summer job (suggesting pay is decent) whereas I always got the impression at six flags that the people working there hated their jobs with a passion and were doing the bare minimum (suggesting it wasn’t great pay and wasn’t anyone’s first choice for the summer).

You are assuming that pay is the factor which determines the customer service levels of low-skilled workers.

As someone who spends a lot of time in both MoCo, PG, and rural America, this is very much not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m curious if those of you slamming it ever actually went?
I went twice last summer with my kid and had a great time. It was clean , not long lines, felt safe.
It was daytime so maybe it’s different but no issuer except the prices.

I’ve been going for 10+ years. While it was a bit run down and the customer service was marginal, I never had any bad experiences. It was always somewhat empty, so I can understand why it went under. I’m sorry to see it go.