Working at Six Flags vs. Cedar Fair

Has any employee worked at both Six Flags and Cedar Point? I'm just looking for the pros and cons of both so I can make a choice. I originally wanted to work at Cedar Point, but then I saw you can ride op at Six Flags KK under 18 and it sounds like a good deal. Plus SFKK employees get into the not so distant Holiday World and Dollywood for free. Anyone have any info, advice, or comments?

P.S. Yes I know Six Flags will try to kill me, it wouldn't be the first time.

My first question is why...???

Now that I've gotten that out of my system.

As my understanding is, working at CP as a ride operator, you get alot more responsibility with the ride. In my professional opinion, it looks alot better to a future employer to see Cedar Point on a resume than Six Flags (even though they are more widely known). I don't know about Six Flags, but Cedar Point has housing at the park, free transportation service around town, low-cost food, recreational activities, day trips around the state, etc. If anyone who has worked at a Six Flags park could comment on some of these, that would be great.

I'm just giving you my opinion (albeit 1-sided) I think I picked the better side.

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2004 - ???
2003 - Mantis 3rd in charge
2002 - Mantis
2001 - Soak City Foods Supervisor

I'd be impressed if most employers would even look at a resume and say "Well I'm gonna hire this kid.. He worked at Cedar Point"" over a kid who has Six Flags, an internationally known company.

You have to remember, most people outside of the industry have never heard of Cedar Point. More people live within 4-6 hours of a Six Flags park than have ever heard of Cedar Point.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
*** This post was edited by Red Garter Rob 12/18/2003 9:49:38 PM ***

Well if you look at safety wise, and responsibility, cedar point is the real winner. (Just my opinion) and I have my sources to prove that.

i worked for six flags of new england in 2002 and hated every minute of it. rob i don't care what ppl haven't heard of, cedar fair is the best to work for! i am a good lemming!

I worked for Six Flags for the last two years and I will be going up to Cedar Point this year. Six Flags is a great place to work in my opinion. It's alot of fun, and I really don't have anything bad to say about it, except that the reason I left Six Flags is because I thought Cedar Point would be a better place for me to build some industry skills, because vote wise, no one is better than Cedar Point. I mean, who doesn't want to work for the best?

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Jes
Jes's Roller Coasters DJ Jes
Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure Ride-Ops Crew 2002-2003! Have fun trying to find me!

Even the X-Six flags staff is for CP! hehe lol sweetness (smart)

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Working the carnival was great, but after eating free elephant ears (3 a day) I cant have one bite even 6 months later...

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Red Garter Rob said:

You have to remember, most people outside of the industry have never heard of Cedar Point. More people live within 4-6 hours of a Six Flags park than have ever heard of Cedar Point.

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Say it ain't so, Rob! :) You mean the world at large doesn't know about the epic stuggle for dominance between Cedar Fair and Six Flags? Would you even go as far to say that Cedar Fair doesn't really even care that much about Six Flags? Say it ain't so!

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Jeff - (who agrees with Rob way too frequently these days) - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

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Jeff said:

Jeff - (who agrees with Rob way too frequently these days)

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I know.. my therapist is going to make a fortune this month.. ;)

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
*** This post was edited by Red Garter Rob 12/20/2003 3:09:03 PM ***

I worked for a Funtime (now Six Flags) park and a Cedar Fair park (as well as a Disney park) in my younger days. There are a lot of comparisons and some differences as well.

For the entry level position there is not a tremendous amount of difference (contrary to what might be assumed). Once you start getting into supervision or management the differences are much more notable.

Disney, by far, had the best training program. It was 3 days of training before you even got to your work location, and then a couple of days of training there. You were not put "out front" until trainers were sure you were prepared. That is because Disney has time on their side. The seasonal parks have to rush to get you started so training suffers a bit.

The operations end of things was most similar between the Disney park and the Cedar Fair park. I was impressed with the professionalism at the Cedar Fair park. Of course, all three companies are businesses trying to make a profit but the Funtime park felt most like they were trying to "make a buck".

I don't know if having Six Flags or Cedar Fair on your resume makes a difference but I can assure you that having Disney on your resume does.

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"You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world...but it requires people to make the dreams a reality."

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Red Garter Rob said:

You have to remember, most people outside of the industry have never heard of Cedar Point. More people live within 4-6 hours of a Six Flags park than have ever heard of Cedar Point.

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Well, I live in the Detroit area (LP,MI.) and we live 2 1/2 hours from Cedar Point and no one around here, at least by me, EVER speaks of Six Flags, they're all loyal CP fans.. But thats just on my side of the fence, I'm moving to Monroe soon, so we'll see how loyal they are there.

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Evan H. - B.O.F.H.
"Oh, well look who thinks he's clever dan."-Strong Bad
"Alls Fair In Love And Networking."

Again.. you're in the area for the parks advertising.

Outside of the 250 mile radius that CP advertises in, almost no one has heard of them.

However the 28+ Six Flags parks have a larger population base. Go to Chicago and see if anyone's heard of Cedar Point, or Texas, or California or the Boston area.

Goto Cleveland and people know of Cedar Point AND Six Flags.

Outside of industry and enthusists.. You won't find that many people.

You're dealing with a single regional park (even fewer people know of Cedar Fair) vs a company that has a single name in front of almost every park it owns in the world.

Huge difference...

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82

Been to Chicago, and even had the Chance to meet and talk to Steve Wilkos (Security of the Jerry Springer show) and they seem to have heared of it. Plus, Detroit area may only talk CP, but we get six flags advertizements like mad! And were about the Sama distance to Six Flags. BUT WHICH DO WE CHOOSE? Cedar Point.

I have said many times that I think Six Flags did themselves a disservice by throwing the brand name on each and every park it acquired.

I always considered Six Flags to be a higher end park chain. Magic Mountain, Georgia, etc were a step above. Then, Premier decided to throw the flags in front of Kentucky Kingdom, Jazzland and others and call them Six Flags parks.

Now, particularly on the internet, but even outside the enthusiast community, Six Flags has lost some of its luster. I had a cousin who knows basically nothing about the industry tell me that he was never going to a Six Flags again after visiting Kentucky Kingdom. That is pretty harsh because most of us would agree there is no comparing KK to MM.

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"You can dream, create, design and build the most wonderful place in the world...but it requires people to make the dreams a reality."

Having been to both I have to agree.. I think it has hurt them.

I never thought I'd see a park worse than SFWoA till SFKK. It was just depressing.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82

I worked as casual labor at Six Flags this year and intend on working at Cedar Point for the summer of 2005. I was very disappointed with working at SFWoA. Not to get into specifics, but I think they broke just about every child labor law with me that they possibly could. Everything was very sloppy and unprofessional. Because they were scrapping for workers, towards the end of the season I was operating coasters without even completing a ride operators 101 course. All I knew was this button did this and that button did that. There were 2 ops a ride and this person hated that person and they would yell across the train. Maybe I was just in with the wrong people, but no one seemed to have a problem with how things were run at SFWoA, but it sure did seem to bother me. When I was 5 years old I wanted to work at CP and that is still true. I thought this temporary job would give me some insight as to what it's like. Please tell me it's not. Thanks, I hope to join the CP team in the near future and stay a part of it for a long time.

I like SFKK better than WOA, but that's just my opinion. I went to Michigan's Adventure and there were these two mean little boys who had no idea what CP was. I hope to work at CP, and nothing less.

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Millennium Force is MY baby.
Where would we be without CP?:)

SFI has drawn the line somewhere. I once spent three hours at Enchanted Village/Wild Waves--SF-owned, but not flagged. That was one hour too many.

On the other hand, I spent nearly a full day at Great Escape, also an unflagged park, and enjoyed it, so go figure.

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It's not war, famine, or pestilence; it's only downtime.

I spent part of a day at SF Darien Lake, and I was bored after a few hours. When I went to SFGAm, I liked it a lot, but it was too crowded and I wanted to be back home at Cedar Point

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Millennium Force is MY baby.
Where would we be without CP?:)

Myself if i was going to work at a six flags i know i woudnt work out at SFWOA. I don't think i would want to work with alot of people that don't know what there doing.

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Coaster Rider Since 1991