I recently went to the Six Flags Park in the city that I live near.
My wife and I try to go there each year and enjoyed taking our kids
and other people's kids with us when we went to Six Flags. Now that
all of our children are grown she and I go there alone to ride roller
coasters and be together. It's fun!
Six Flags has never been one of those top-ranked experiences where
everything is perfect and beautiful. There are always rough edges,
the people seem to be regular people and even some not so regular
people. And the shiny parts of Six Flags at least for me tend not to
overcome the rough edges.
This year I noticed that Six Flags has gone cash less. They have big
signs up saying if you expect to buy anything in the park convert your
cash to a card here. My wife and I talked about it and that have a
feeling that because the higher minimum wage workers to work at Six
Flags they had to deal with a lot of fast. Having no cash drawers and
all terminals probably reduces that theft a lot as well as reduces the
money that they have to spend on securing their own facility from
their own people.
Technology has reached the point that the drinks and drink bottles
that Six Flags sells have chips in them and instead of having someone
staff a drink station and just refill bottles they have automated
drink stations and if your bottle doesn't have the chip the drink does
not flow. That's a cool use of technology but it does give me pause.
One of the rough edges that I noticed that was really disappointing to
me was stickers stapled to the end of boards of wood. They had
refurbished one of the wooden roller coasters in the park. And not
just the roller coasters but all the surrounding walkways that have
wood decking material and such. While I stood waiting for my wife at
one point I noticed that about half of the boards that made up the
walkway leaving the roller coaster still had the yellow
pressure-treated wood label stapled to the end of the board. It made
for a very tacky and unpolished feel. And my immediate thought was
"Disney would never tolerate that!" I read a couple of books about
Disney and have been to Disney a couple of times and the Magic Kingdom
has very strict guidelines for the people to help maintain the magic.
I read in one of the books that Disney employees are given a test they
don't even know they're in where they are walking and if they walk by
a piece of trash and do not pick the trash up and throw it away they
are fired. I don't know if that's true but it is a wonderful
philosophy that I wish more people and not just companies but
individuals would take up as a way of life.
Six Flags was fun. I got beat up by the roller coasters and enjoyed
way-overpriced junk food and drinks. The best part was being with my
wife, who I love dearly. And I love having fun with her!
