Don't waste your time and/or money...

[Dear readers: this is a long blog, and there are a lot of italicized words (see, one just went by). This is a sure sign that I am not pleased. So brace yourself. You have been warned.]

Unless you really love the animal/sea creature experience, don't bother going to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.

Now, you know and I know (and I told the kids) that amusement parks are all about the waiting. You spend an hour in line, take a 1-2 minute thrill ride, and you love it because it's worth it. Not so at this park. For some reason I cannot fathom, the majority of the rides we chose had only one car running on them. In the middle of their most peak time--summer weekend day, beautiful weather--they had one car running on ROAR (the 'tallest, fastest wooden coaster in NorCal'). They had a whopping two cars (well, boats really) on their get-drenched-by-water ride (which was only a 45 second ride but still took over an hour to get on).

To that wait, you can add a dizzying and death-defying surprise wait time extension: Discovery Kingdom has tried to add a "Fast Pass" feature to their park. Disney has one, and if you are not familiar with it, it is implemented perfectly. You scan your admission ticket to get a pass which allows you to take a shorter line on the most popular rides. You have to come back during a one hour window, and you cannot get another fast pass until that window arrives. It is brilliant, and with a little forethought and planning enables you to see much more of the park.

Discovery Kingdom's works like this: you pay *extra* money to get a handful of ride coupons that allow you to--get this--cut to the front of the line through the exit ramp. There is no rhyme or reason to it, you just walk up, someone in a DK costume (yes, I get the Donkey Kong reference--it was intentional) takes your ticket, and you walk right on to wherever you choose to sit. Imagine my children's chagrin when, after waiting an hour and a half for their first ride in the park, we were delayed again when we were only two spots from getting on the ride. Someone walked right up and stole one of our seat rows, forcing us to wait not one more run, but two more. And that could have gone on indefinitely.

To make matters worse, the place was staffed horribly. Having managed a retail food operation before, I can appreciate the challenges faced by employers in that arena, but here are a few highlights: the food booth we chose to eat at was staffed by three--yes, three--employees. One at the fryer, cooking up batches of chicken strips and fries (how would you like that job?), and one in each of two windows. So each order took about 3-5 minutes to get to the customer, which with a line of twenty people would equal...oh, look, mommy! We get to wait an hour for our FOOD, too! (I will save the irony of waiting nearly an hour for "Fast" food for another time, and a different blog.)

And not only were they understaffed, they were wrongstaffed. On one of the rides, the operator at the board stood talking casually with another employee and DOING HER MAKEUP WITH AN OPEN COMPACT. How is that for making you feel safe? Not to mention that I witnessed this delightful little spectacle on the water ride, which was moving intolerably slow in the first place. It's a one-minute long ride, for chrissake! And the control panel was literally right next to the line--she had the guts to do her makeup and have her little gossipy chat with her friend right within earshot of all of us in line. When I got up next to them, I simply leaned it and made eye contact, letting them know how fascinating I thought their conversation was. They actually focused on their work after that, for all of ten minutes.

In addition to this loveliness, DK has also instituted a little hidden fee move that is corporate america genius. I had asked the kids to bring along a hoodie for later in the evening when it got chilly, and thought I would just drop them in a locker on the way in. Guess how much a smallish locker cost at the front entrance? NINE BUCKS. I looked at my little group and declared, 'Gentlemen, for nine bucks you can tie your hoodie around your waist and carry it.' I was flummoxed, but not too much so. You see, in the past, they used to have little cubby holes (ala those spaces you had in Kindergarten for your backpack) that you could store your belongings in while you were on the ride. You just crossed the car, put your bag in a cubby, rode the ride, and picked up your stuff on the way to the exit ramp. I figured we would just carry all our stuff and drop it in the cubbies when we got on rides. It would be a pain, but we could work it.

Nuh-uh. See, they now have a park RULE that says you cannot carry ANY items on rides. And--here is the corporate america genius part--they have lockers at the entrance to those rides that you can put your junk in for a dollar. Lest you think you might be clever and use one of those lockers instead, they are time stamped for 120 minutes. Nothing like a hidden charge on every single ride to make you feel like you really are going to enjoy your stay at the park.

And the good stuff doesn't stop there--there are 48" flat screen monitors on nearly every line blaring out advertisements so loud that you have to yell to be heard by the rest of the people in your party. And several of the rides are "sponsored" by companies--Cornnuts, for example--with logos everywhere ala the professional sports venues (which is a kvetch for another time--boy does that little practice shout "we're money grubbing bastages and we don't care if you know it or not"). Speaking of advertising, every single ride we went on had a GEICO ad just before the end of the line: "You are 15 minutes away from the ride. In that amount of time, you could have saved 15% on your car insurance." I shit you not.

Going back to the people we encountered--the DK uniform consists of a neon yellow shirt and khakis. The neon yellow shirt says on the back: "Please keep the park clean, my family comes here too". I wonder if the employees ever read it. Their attitude doesn't indicate that they are even aware it is there. (Google that phrase and you'll find some acerbic reviews by other guests that will confirm my experience was not isolated.)

Oh, and lest you think the visit there was all about the folks who worked there, let me assure you it was not. On walking into the park, we were not handed a map or a schedule or anything. After the main locker incident, I realized they had forgotten (I try to assume the best) to give us a map. I sent Thing 1 to get one, and he returned upset and sullen. I asked why, and he said, 'I picked up a map, and someone snatched it right out of my hand'. I tried to comfort him (again, trying to assume the best), but found I was the confused one. The people at that park were messy, rude and selfish. We saw line hopping like we never had in our lives--I counted no less than forty-five people passing us during our time waiting in line for a ride. That is no exaggeration. People walked by us in both directions like it was a high school dance or something. And right in front of employees who are supposed to enforce the line hop rule (guess they were too busy forcing people to store their stuff in lockers to notice).

Now, look--there are some saving graces at this park. I absolutely LOVE the stingray petting tank, and the shark exhibit. There is a wonderful butterfly conservatory there--a big giant greenhouse with beautiful butterflies in it (we missed it because it is not open the whole day, and we wasted all our time in line, but I went the last time I was there). There are some good shows (the Shouka killer whale show is their piece de resistance). But the rest of the animals look drugged and penned in too small spaces, and the reptile exhibit is no better than our local fish store's.

We got to ride a new attraction (only open 10 days ago) called Tony Hawk's Big Spin, and that ride was AWESOME. They managed to effectively steal a page from the Disney playbook and actually involve you all along the line. There is semi-cool set dressing, and big screens showing the evolution of not just skateboarding, but other extreme sports as well (BMX and FMX, chiefly). Non-Disney parks don't typically do this, and I cannot figure out why. And the ride itself was very cool--imagine combining a tight, smooth, fast rollercoaster with a Tilt-A-Whirl and you'll get a brief idea. And, instead of one of those snap-a-photo-of-you-during-the-ride booths at the end, you can actually get a video of yourself during the ride. Pretty fun, but not enough to save the rest of the experience, which was mostly dreadful.

I was going to argue that it's close to you if you live in Northern California, but after I thought about it a bit, it takes 45 min even if there is no event at the old Sears Point Raceway. You're better off driving an extra hour to Great America, where the rides are 'hecka fun' as Thing 1 says, the place is clean, and the service is better. Or, if you want to stay local, hit the Sonoma County Fair in the next week or so.