Safety is the ticket here
Visitors to Six Flags impressed with the measures it has taken as the theme park reopens to the public after 3-month virus closure
SAN ANTONIO — For the first time in almost three months, Jill and Asher Lewis were able to take their two children on an outing away from home, spending Father’s Day at the newly reopened Six Flags Fiesta Texas.
“We normally come to the water park every Sunday after church,” Jill Lewis said, relaxing on a bench while her husband took Hudson, 13, and Paisley, 9, on the nearby Joker Carnival of Chaos ride. “It’s nice for them to be outside doing something normal.”
The San Antonio park reopened Friday to members and seasonpass holders. It opened to the general public Monday.
SeaWorld San Antonio also started greeting visitors this past weekend after its long hiatus, and with the same kinds of safety protocols to help prevent the spread of COVID-19: face covering requirements, temperature screenings and online reservations among them.
Bexar County is seeing a surge in coronavirus cases, reaching 6,882 on Sunday after adding 538, its biggest one-day increase.
Operating at only 50 percent capacity meant there was plenty of room at Fiesta Texas to social distance. Like other visitors interviewed, Lewis said she was impressed by the precautions the park was taking. Along with the rest of the country, the pandemic shut down Fiesta Texas in midMarch.
The temperature screening was cool, she said, referring to the touch-free infrared screening everyone had to undergo before they could enter.
“We spent the last three weeks getting ready to reopen,” said Ron McKenzie, director of marketing.
“Most of our new protocols were developed with help from our headquarters and working with Dr. Marc Tack, an infectious disease specialist who has consulted with Six Flags for more than a decade.”
To keep occupancy levels below the state-mandated maximum, for example, visitors will for the first time ever need a reservation, available online, to get in. And they’ll have to show proof at the toll plaza to enter the park grounds.
“We’re trying to be flexible,” McKenzie said. “If we have the room, we will allow guests in who don’t have a reservation.”
The park has even extended its social distancing requirements to the parking lot, where one open space is left between each vehicle.
The temperature screening Lewis mentioned takes place as guests walk through a tent near the front gates. If the touch-free sensor reads more than 100.4 degrees, the guest will be allowed to rest in the shade for a few minutes before they’re screened again. If the second test is still too high, they’ll be sent to an auxiliary tent where they can be screened a third time.
“We’ve had to turn back very few guests,” said McKenzie.
Next, visitors walk through a low-frequency radiation machine that screens for suspicious items such as weapons without requiring park-goers to empty their pockets or have pocketbooks searched.
During one period of several minutes, at least two dozen people walked through the screening machines without having to slow down appreciably.
Inside the park, there are decals on the ground to promote social distancing while in line for rides or food. And with what McKenzie said are about 500 hand sanitizing stations sprinkled throughout the park, there always seemed to be one a few steps away.
The pandemic also spurred the park’s efforts to expand mobile ordering at all its food outlets.
“We’d already started that before things closed down,” said park president Jeffrey Siebert, who was holding a sign reading “Thank you for wearing a mask.” “Now, if you’re waiting in line for the Rattler, you can order a funnel cake online and it’ll be ready when you’re done with the ride.”
And for the forgetful guest, the park sells masks alongside all those other souvenirs — branded with its logo, of course.
While rides are not cleaned after every go-round, they are disinfected at least every 30 minutes, according to McKenzie. And, as with the parking spots, every other roller coaster seat is left unoccupied.
Some precautions are more subtle. In the Los Festivales area near the front entrance, for example, Mariachi Los Soberanos was playing from a second-floor balcony, the better to avoid getting too close to guests, which is important since singing has been shown to be an efficient way to project one’s breath and potentially the coronavirus.
“It’s nice that we can see the crowd and wave to the people,” violinist Diamantina Luna said. “But I do miss being closer to the audience. It’s a lot more personal that way.”