News Six Flags America & Hurricane Harbor to Close Following 2025 Season

[TheCoasterNerd]

That is kinda par for the course for a lot of these places as it makes detecting and catching intruders easier as well as serving as a detergent. Hell River country still had mudic playing over thevpa a decade after it closed.

This is a fairly common misconception. The whole front half of the park (the Main Street-esque area) was still open until 2018 when the entire former park was demolished for Reflections/Lakeshore Lodge. They left the dinner show "Mickey's Backyard Barbecue" running for years and years, plus the shops were open and it still had nightly campfires. The whole area was assimilated into Fort Wilderness until 2018. So yea, they did have lights and music playing, but that was because a quarter of the park (and the most commonly visited area) was still open. Most "abandoned" videos were on days without the dinner show (it only ran 2-4 nights a week) or before/after the showtimes when they closed the gates. All the truly abandoned areas (slides, pools, the majority of the park) had the lights and music shut off, the pools filled with concrete, parts of the slides removed so they weren't climbable, etc.

 

[horsesboy]

This is a fairly common misconception. The whole front half of the park (the Main Street-esque area) was still open until 2018 when the entire former park was demolished for Reflections/Lakeshore Lodge. They left the dinner show "Mickey's Backyard Barbecue" running for years and years, plus the shops were open and it still had nightly campfires. The whole area was assimilated into Fort Wilderness until 2018. So yea, they did have lights and music playing, but that was because a quarter of the park (and the most commonly visited area) was still open. Most "abandoned" videos were on days without the dinner show (it only ran 2-4 nights a week) or before/after the showtimes when they closed the gates. All the truly abandoned areas (slides, pools, the majority of the park) had the lights and music shut off, the pools filled with concrete, parts of the slides removed so they weren't climbable, etc.

Maybe later on but when some of the first videos leaked out there were very clear videos of both music and lights functioning in the abandoned part of the park.

 

[TheCoasterNerd]

Maybe later on but when some of the first videos leaked out there were very clear videos of both music and lights functioning in the abandoned part of the park.

True. The park was “closed for refurbishment” from late ‘01-mid ‘05. It wasn’t until mid 2005 that they officially announced that it was permanently closed/abandoned, so they probably left it on to keep the appearance that it was under refurb rather than closed

 

[Jonesta6]

Watching that, it's crazy that they left old rotting food, full trash cans, merch, everything is left behind. I know that the park will be either rethemed or (more likely) demolished soon but it almost feels like a Discovery Island situation. Everything left behind. Hell, they never even properly closed the dish pit on the last night in the kitchen they walked through. There's still bleach sitting out, tubs in the sink, boxes of food sitting out.
Everyone just left everything behind...

It is fascinating, though, to watch them vlog this. Easily the best/most comprehensive look we have at the state of the park

I'm guessing most of the stuff being left out was due to the employees not caring about it given the situation.

Aside from maybe turning off open flame devices or running water before walking out, would you bother tidying up your workspace if you knew you weren't going to get paid after that evening and nobody was coming in behind you?

 

[warfelg]

I'm guessing most of the stuff being left out was due to the employees not caring about it given the situation.

Aside from maybe turning off open flame devices or running water before walking out, would you bother tidying up your workspace if you knew you weren't going to get paid after that evening and nobody was coming in behind you?

Personal thing here: they should have been instructed to package everything up. Donate to a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, or something like that. Wasting it with issues like that going on bugs me.

 

[Mushroom]

Donating anything from a SFA kitchen to a homeless shelter would just be cruel.

 

[SixFlagsIssues]

I would rather starve than eat those chicken tenders

 

[Jonesta6]

Personal thing here: they should have been instructed to package everything up. Donate to a soup kitchen, a homeless shelter, or something like that. Wasting it with issues like that going on bugs me.

I get where you're coming from, but most shelters and food banks won't accept open packaging.

Unless there was a plan for the food bank to come pick up the unopened stuff, which isn't something they can always do depending on the org, I think there would be even less interest in employees that just lost their job lifting a finger to make the donations happen.

 

[harry580]

I know this is not gonna happen but i felt Six Flags America should be converted to a movie studio lot (keep the buildings but build soundstages and studio offices)

 

[warfelg]

I get where you're coming from, but most shelters and food banks won't accept open packaging.

Unless there was a plan for the food bank to come pick up the unopened stuff, which isn't something they can always do depending on the org, I think there would be even less interest in employees that just lost their job lifting a finger to make the donations happen.

Generally you can pre-arrange with shelters to come take what they want. My family had a bakery and we had a deal with a women’s shelter near us that we could bring all unpurchased pretzels to them at the end of business. It’s honestly not that hard.

 

[harry580]

I guess Baltimore solved their problems, moving the problems to Six Flags America (reopen some restaurants while they at it and reopen wild one as entertainment)

 

[TheCoasterNerd]

Generally you can pre-arrange with shelters to come take what they want. My family had a bakery and we had a deal with a women’s shelter near us that we could bring all unpurchased pretzels to them at the end of business. It’s honestly not that hard.

Depends. I’m a 1000-hour volunteer at the largest homeless shelter in Hampton Roads. At least for us we can take food that’s not packaged (specifically, no date, nutrition facts, and ingredients list) only for dinners, store one night, and if it’s not all served in dinner or as leftovers the next night it’s tossed. We can’t store it. If it’s a partially-used bulk order box where the restaurant had sold half the product and donate the other half we toss it. If it’s sealed we take it to cook (or, we would, but our building is under renovations so we don’t have much storage)

 

[warfelg]

Depends. I’m a 1000-hour volunteer at the largest homeless shelter in Hampton Roads. At least for us we can take food that’s not packaged (specifically, no date, nutrition facts, and ingredients list) only for dinners, store one night, and if it’s not all served in dinner or as leftovers the next night it’s tossed. We can’t store it. If it’s a partially-used bulk order box where the restaurant had sold half the product and donate the other half we toss it. If it’s sealed we take it to cook (or, we would, but our building is under renovations so we don’t have much storage)

And I get that. We were always taking soft pretzels and or muffins made that day at around 4 pm. If we did have any partially used bulk order items (like hot dogs and/or ham & cheese - we made pretzel based sandwiches) our policy was to finish off the package if it was less than 25% left to donate. So even in cases of half finished tender bags, fries, ect - they could have instructed everyone to finish off any opened bags of anything.

But that's also why I would say pre-arranging would have been smart because you could find out what they want and need and you can instruct the staff to do whats needed. Or even multiple places depending on what they need or want.

TBH I fins a lot of the posts as to how disappointing food is and stuff as to why they shouldn't disheartening. Homeless shelters and various shelters (like the one we donated to) are in need of so many different things. Clothes, food, medical supplies, blankets.....there's more than just food they could have done this with. I'm a little heartbroken seeing things like that.

Unless, as my favorite story goes, its like the one time my dad and I were closing our hot dog stand. We tried to give away our last 6 hot dogs. We gave three to a homeless vet, and he was appreciative of them (along with a Gatorade and chips). We offered the other three to his friend, and the guy goes "No thanks, I'm a vegetarian".

 

[Jonesta6]

Rounding back to the thread topic a bit: is anyone familiar with local food banks near SFA and how they operate?

My understanding is the no opened food rules (alongside discarding dented packaging type rules) are more to limit liability than about desiring to toss food.

Based on the initial report, it seems inconclusive whether there was still a decent amount of unopened food items in stock, or just the opened stuff laying around.

 

[Gavin]

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[GASM]

I knew there was a video I was meaning to watch at work today and couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was, thanks for the reminder!

 

[warfelg]

That was fast. Is there one on Lakemont yet?

Tying those two together, I’m deeply saddened by the current loss of Leap the Dips, Skyliner, Wild One, and Roar. Older woodies need to be preserved and saved. They serve as such great ‘ambassadors’ for the community as a great way to introduce new generations to appreciating where we are today with coasters.

 

[TheCoasterNerd]

That was fast. Is there one on Lakemont yet?

Tying those two together, I’m deeply saddened by the current loss of Leap the Dips, Skyliner, Wild One, and Roar. Older woodies need to be preserved and saved. They serve as such great ‘ambassadors’ for the community as a great way to introduce new generations to appreciating where we are today with coasters.

Totally agree. Not roar though. Roar can rest in piss

 

[AmyUD06]

That was fast. Is there one on Lakemont yet?

Tying those two together, I’m deeply saddened by the current loss of Leap the Dips, Skyliner, Wild One, and Roar. Older woodies need to be preserved and saved. They serve as such great ‘ambassadors’ for the community as a great way to introduce new generations to appreciating where we are today with coasters.

Lakemont isn't quite dead yet...I'd call it "life support, waiting on multiple-organ transplants from different people with AB+ blood," but not quite dead LOL.

I also second @TheCoasterNerd's assessment of Roar. When I rode it on closing day, it wasn't as bad as I remember, but it still had no redeeming qualities.

 

[warfelg]

Fair enough @TheCoasterNerd and @AmyUD06 on the Roar front. I think some TLC coulda helped but not a hill I would die on to preserve it.