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[Okiebenz]

Since the passes are now on sale for SDC, I did not buy passes last year and was looking at the prices and comparing to Frontier City/Six Flags.  Do the season passes at FTC not get you in their other parks anymore?  Is it only the memberships that do that?

[Dewayne]

All of us SF fans have been talking about this lately. SF changed their policies on this for next year at all of their parks. Season Passes are now only for your home theme park and home water park. Your home parks are the 2 parks you choose to go to the most, not necessarilly your closest parks. Memberships are good for all SF parks. The monthly rate on all Memberships is what you would expect to pay in full. Paying the full price all at once for a Membership is 2 to 3 times more than paying monthly. The main rule is that once you sign up for a Membership and decide to pay monthly, you MUST continue to have the Membership and pay for it for at least 12 months. Your Membership starts and you start paying for it the day you sign up. You can't end it until that same day next year. If you try to get out in any way, they will revoke your Membership and you will continue to pay for 1 full year or they may charge you on top of that. If you try to turn off or end your current debit/credit card, they will try to charge you 3 more times over the next few days. If you fail to give them a new debit/credit card, they will get their money by sending a bill collector for you. They might even sue you. Once it has been 1 full year, you may end the Membership or choose to continue. After it has been 1 full year, you may end your Membership at any time. There is no phone number to call to ask any questions. All questions are answered in full on the website. If you have any other questions to ask SF themselves, just walk into the park and talk to Guest Relations or a park manager.

There are 4 levels of Memberships. They all come with benefits, each has more benefits than another, and they all have different prices. Memberships come in Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and Diamond Elite. I currently have Platinum because I wanted just enough benefits so I didn't have to pay too much, but I also wanted to be able to use my rewards points to get other rewards that I'm not currently paying for. I mainly bought the Membership because I expected to hear better music than I have heard at SDC in the past, I plan on going to SFOT (Six Flags Over Texas, also called Over Texas or OT), possibly go to Fiesta Texas, Hurricane Harbor Arlington, I heard FC was suppose to start construction on a new ride soon, and experience Hurricane Harbor OKC for the first time. I was wrong on most of this.

I bought my Membership in late June or July of this year. I have gone to FC and HHOKC several times so far. It's rare that I ever hear a good song in FC, plus the stupid scary sound effects they play after 7 PM for Fright Fest instead of music around the park. Fright Fest before 7 PM is the only time I hear all good music (Halloween songs), except in Timber Town, that's always stupid bluegrass. During normal times, the music is country crap with the rare chance of hearing 1 old rock/pop song. Bumper Cars plays non-stop 70s rock/pop. THANK GOD FOR THAT RIDE!!! Wild West Water Works is basically a good mix of every genre. HHOKC is also a good mix of every genre.

HHOKC is the BEST water park within 150 miles of my house! Most of the slides are amazing, but 2 body drop slides have been closed for "maintenance" and 1 is closed most of the day for cleaning or staffing.

FC always has half the rides closed, if not more. 2/3 for staffing, 1/3 for maintenance. Most of the rides are crap. Nowhere near the quality that B&M, MACK, GCI, S&S, or anything else at SDC. Most of the shows are just as bleck as  the rides. Restrooms are dirty, smell bad, have puddles of mysterious liquid on the floor, etc. They go too far for Fright Fest. They even had scare actors roaming the streets! I have never been to Holiday in the Park, but I plan on still going. I don't expect much... I don't want to come back to this park the way it is. HHOKC is much better than White Water, but SDC is much better than FC. I'm torn between these 2. Plus, I hear that SDC's new Rivertown area finally plays good music?!?! I highly doubt they will, but if it's true, then I'm sold with SDC on the GREAT way they are going! Trust me, some rides at FC and other SF parks have great theming, but SDC still stands above them by having better, quality, best name brand rides!

Also, SF bought FC in 2018. They changed everything over by 2020. I read somewhere that they were promising us 1+ new rides every year. I don't see any sign of a new ride in either park. FC has done extensive infrastructure work, new maintenance area added to the Bumper Cars, and they are getting an expanded maintenance building to work on all the rides, but we still need something new to keep us customers coming in!

In my opinion, the best and most exciting coaster is Steel Lasso, which is a short family coaster... Wildcat is boring and bumpy when it's full or half full. Silver Bullet and Diamondback are rough, boring, pieces of crap!

This park has been given a slogan even before SF bought it out, which is: "Where Rides Come To Die" because this park has always sent old rides here. Some of those never worked and have been sold as scrap. We rarely get anything new. It's a bit hard to decide, but I think I'll take SDC's passes and go to that park all year, every year instead of going to HHOKC for only the summer portion of every year. OT is too far to drive for a weekend vacation every month, even though it looks and sounds like a much better SF park than FC.

I did love that I could have my Membership/pass on my phone and see everything on my phone including shows, rides, map, etc. I also like that I can check into most rides and shows to earn rewards points, even though it doesn't always work for me for every ride. The app shows open/ closed for some rides that are the opposite. SF is definately the cheap brand for a reason. They advertise a "no tolerance policy", but they don't enforce their rules unless someone tells a manager. Even then, I'm not sure they do anything. One of their rules is no cutting in line. This includes line jumping and saving spaces in line. I've seen more people cutting in line than I've seen rides open!!! Seriously! I see at least 5 people cutting in line on rides per day and I try to ride every ride that I can. FC managers tell me that I can tell the ride operators and they will call security, but the only time I did that, the employee just looked at me with "I don't care" eyes. I rarely even see 1 person cut in line when I go to SDC!
I haven't even had this membership for half a year and I am already tired of FC. I CAN'T WAIT to get back to SDC in a week so I can clear my head by riding QUALITY RIDES! I'm buying an SDC pass next year and I plan on continuing to do so!

[Okiebenz]

I did season passes to FC a couple of years, but it was before SF.  When SF came and their season passes were good at all parks, i planned on doing that again at some point so I could also go to the park in STL as well as DFW.  If you have to be locked into a membership, I am not sure I want to do that.

[shavethewhales]

Yeah, memberships are the only way to go now. Season passes are being phased out.

It's annoying though. You have to check in at your "home park" each year to activate your membership card before you go anywhere else. It auto renews until you cancel, and cancelling is not easy. I had a membership through SFOG a couple years ago since that is where I started my yearly theme park adventures that particular year. It worked well and I visited a couple other SFs that year, but I forgot about it and ended up paying it into 2020 even when everything was closed. I took awhile to figure out how to even cancel the darn thing.

They are really pushing them inside the parks though. They even have different lounges for various member levels. They literally tier and segregate their customers based on willingness to pay.

[Dewayne]

SF are doing this to try and force everyone onto a Membership. We believe they are doing this so they can make more money. Most people want to go to more than 1 park. Most people who sign up for a Membership forget about it later, but keep paying for it, even when they stop coming. When you try to cancel after a year, they send you a lower price for the future.

The only parts about a Membership that I like that much are the free drinks with our mugs and that I can see my Membership benefits on the app.

Also, if this means anything to you... I talked about how bad the staffing issue was earlier and that they are rotating most of the rides that are open. Well, a fellow member's daughter applied to work there and never got a call back. I'm not sure they really want to hire people that bad. Even though they are advertising it everywhere!

[orangesandpeaches]

Yeah, memberships are the only way to go now. Season passes are being phased out.

It's annoying though. You have to check in at your "home park" each year to activate your membership card before you go anywhere else.

This is either a change in policy, or a misunderstanding on how the membership program works. When you buy a membership, you keep the same card year to year. The only time I have had to check in and get a new card at SFStL and add it to the SF app is when I changed membership levels, or have a food season pass added to the membership, which in case of the food pass, I believe they had me keep my current card. This is what has allowed me to visit SFOT on opening weekend in February in the past.

I have a been a member for years and haven't had any major grief with the program. Keeping in mind that the payment is handled thru the member portal, and not the passholder site, also helps.

[Okiebenz]

Do the memberships every go on sale, and if is, when is the best time of year to buy them?