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Truthfully, I do think it is a loss. The shows obviously didn’t appeal to us as theme park fans, but they filled up during peak times and added more “movie” things to the park. The park is definitely going to feel having the new rumored ride, studio tour, lower lot, and Springfield/Simpsons all on one narrow path and no longer having two shows to suck some people off the midways for a bit.

This thread is hilarious. Two thoughts. A company offering a product should attempt to please a consumer, more than a consumer should attempt to please the company. What I mean is that these bullshit loyalty claims throughout the industry of "supporting the park," with disregard to product satisfaction is really twisted. Giving to a corporation is not giving to a charity. For example, on a Silver Dollar City Facebook group I watched some lady get destroyed by fanboys because she simply said she wasn't going to renew her passes if the train wasn't operational by next season. She said her family enjoys the train the most. She was shamed for not supporting the park. My second thought, on behalf of parks, is that they also don't owe you anything. Parks are simply offering their product as is and leaving it up to the consumer to make their purchasing decision. They should, and only will please you, if it benefits their profits margin. Companies will change their product depending on current market target trends and profit. A company's goal is return on investment, which usually comes from customer satisfaction resulting in purchasing the product. The bottom line is about your money, not your feelings, despite them being typically related. However, the relationship is much less personable than people want it to be. If you're not satisfied with the product being offered, don't renew your passes. Corporate doesn't take this personal. You have a right to be pissed if you want, but there's really no reason to expect anything other than profit driven decisions. Six Flags Saint Louis is currently pleasing enough guests to justify their decisions to not add new attractions. If they're not pleasing you, there's no need to have blind loyalty. Wait for them to offer a product you want to pay for. Don't pay first and expect your desired product as a result of some false loyalty. That's counterintuitive. As for us, I'd love to not renew our passes this year, but Eve crossed the 36" threshold. There may not be anything new for me, but there's plenty new for her. We'll see.

Awesome TR. Shawn and I went there for Christmas a few years ago and just loved it. Also, they bake and sell the cinnamon bread AT the hotel! We may or may not have had it for breakfast two mornings in a row. (we did!!) IMG_9262.MOV

Great report as always Bert looks like it was a good trip. We took our kids there for Christmas last year and just had the best time, we're already planning on another Christmas trip for next year. It's a great park and at Christmas time it does just feel a little extra special.

Rode Cosmic Rewind twice this trip... very smooth and a lot of fun. I get motion sick on Ratatouille and a little less so on Flight of Passage and had no problem with this ride. The "spins" are gradual and tend to flow along with the elements. Great addition and a must do at Epcot!

Part 2 - evening on Saturday, 12/3/22 as mentioned above, it got dark really quickly. . and by the time we had finished with the Teacups and the *hot* Hot Chocolate incident, and came back up to try and catch the train that was leaving in 20 minutes, it already looked like this. just gorgeous over here. by the way..the train depot is on the left out of picture range. . and this picture is taken from where we ended up in the line for the NEXT train, that was scheduled for 45 minutes from now! as noted, we debated, and decided just to stay in line, as the train was a must do, and we were here already. So just enjoyed the lights, and sipped our drinks. the folks that joined the line BEHIND us shortly after. . and partially why we decided to just stay in the line. yeah. . the train during the Holidays is popular (you'll see why in a moment) after about 20 minutes, the line in the walkways was funnelled into the train depot - well, some of it was, there was still quite a few folks who didn't make it into the depot and would have to wait for the next train. Luckily, we made it in and moved towards the front of the station - which they packed solid with folks, telling everyone "if you're in the Depot, you SHOULD get on" it was a lot of people, but they were packing them in the train rows like sardines, so we felt pretty confident in getting on. and success! here's the group I was with: back row: Amy and Scott our row: Me, Londyn, Jamie, Joseph, Xander and now. . . a handful of blurry pics from a moving train. (apologies for the blurry pics, but thought some might wanna see them, so included some of those that were blurred from the moving train) the new coaster. . . big portions of it built up already. and looks like almost all the track is on site and stacked up ready so if you've never taken the Dollywood train (and most of us had not) - it actually goes outside the park, and up the mountain! resulting in some fantastic views of the park. . . but what really makes this a must do during the Holidays? up in the mountain, there's a big "turn around" (the train uses the same tracks going up and down the mountain) that circles a large field. during the Holidays? Dollywood covers the field with *millions* of LED lights that play in patterns and colors. oh, and the train plays Christmas Carols by Dolly, and her telling stories over the speakers while the train is going. anyways. .here's some looks at the field of lights: and then you turn around and head back down the mountain, so the other side of the train gets some great views. again, that's the new coaster on the far right (orange track) coming back into the station, we were greeted upon disembarking by an acapella show. the "Mistletones". . . hokey name, but dang, they were good. So we stood and listened for a bit. then we headed towards the section of the park we hadn't been to yet - and had seen from the train - the area with the tree/Mystery Mine/Thunderhead, and wildwood grove. to get there tho, we had to pass Blazing Fury first - which looked lovely at night. Londyn wanted to "mine for crystals" - so they stopped there to do that while myself and the guys headed towards the tree. Scott hadn't been on Blazing Fury yet. . .so we stopped and took a ride. what's interesting. . is literally 30 seconds after I snapped this pic? the whole ride went dark - all lights on it out, and folks streamed out of the queue building. so we barely missed getting trapped and evacced from Blazing Fury (which would have been cool. . but there was only so much time left in the day, and way too much we still wanted to do, so I'm glad we weren't on it when the power went down) strangely the power outage only affected Blazing Fury. . the giant (and absolutely beautiful) area of icicle lights next to it that led up to Tennesse Tornado and Firechaser remained lit up. beautiful. . and color changing. . . looking back towards Blazing Fury eventually, we all met up at the Dollywood Christmas Tree. and to say I was impressed is an understatement. it was beautiful, but I didn't realize that the LED lights on it were going to tell a story. . and the whole tree is color changing! the speakers in the area came on, the crowd gathered, and the tree told us a story thru images and words. and there was quite the subtext in the story too. . . supposedly it was about a Polar Bear and a Brown Bear who are "friends" and the Polar Bear travels from the North Pole to spend Christmas with the Brown Bear. . . where they sled together, wrap presents together, and hold hands. yeah. . . LOL... never thought I'd see a gay interracial relationship celebrated at Dollywood (hey, that's how *I* took it) awww. . reaching out to hold hands and then, once they touch hands? yeah. . it started "snowing". . . . Dr. Frued ? analysis please? LOL but, it was so neat, really. recommended viewing. this is Scott's WTF is this face when the snow started "erupting" . . . LOL I have this as my desktop at the moment. perhaps my favorite pic I took on the trip: once the tree show was done, Joseph and I headed over to Mystery Mine, to grab a ride since it was close to walk on. I braced myself for the roughness, even tho I had heard that they had done some major track work on it (and in fact, the old U-shaped banked turn is still there! the new track just bypasses it). but at the end of the day it's a Gerstlauer, so I was prepared to hate it. . but was gonna ride regardless as all the coasters here were new to me. and you know what? it wasn't bad! yes, this park has a decent Arrow, a very good Vekoma (Dragonflier) AND a decent Gerstlauer. it was a Christmas miracle! (and it looks pretty amazing at night) after our ride, we all made our way down to Wildwood Grove to meet up with Amy and family who had continued walking while we stopped to ride. very overcast, but loved how the lights reflected off the clouds. big fences up for the new coaster. . lots of dirt and construction over here, where the station is gonna go. the tree they had put in the center of this area (that I had forgotten I'd heard stuff about when it first opened). I thought it was recycled materials or something about conservation (when I saw it from the train, I REALLY thought it was a 'trash tree'). . but getting closer? it's covered in LED lit Butterflies. very pretty, even if I couldn't tell what it was until we got close to it. what's this? ride a bear? oh my gawd!!! can adults ride it? I was embarrassed to ask, so instead we went into the gift shop next to it. and watched it. but then I saw like, 7 adult men get in line with no kids. . so quickly joined in behind them. OMG. . how awesome! it's not a Carousel. . but my goofy ass loves this crap. so much I even got the ride attendant to snap a pic for me. look how happy! what else is down here in this area? let's take a look: it was getting late, and park close was in ~ 1/2 hour. . but we decided that since we were here and DragonFlier was posting a 10 minute wait? we'd go for it. low to the ground, and seemed to be running pretty fast for a "family" coaster. they were only running one train tho - the only coaster we'd seen that on today. the flyers across from the queue looked fun, but we were tight on time, so would save those for tomorrow. soon enough it was our turn, and I adored this. so fast, so low to the ground, and that tunnel! I didnt' expect a dive into a tunnel. A little short, but really. . a Vekoma in the USA that's this good? be sure to ride it if at Dollywood. so fast, that the best I could get of the train was a blur as we walked by to try and get to Thunderhead before park close. we made it! walk on. . . we rode in the back, and it was SO good. so much airtime, and in the dark, no idea what was going on with the track. I loved it so much, we decided to try and get another ride in, even tho it was park closing time. operators told us we'd have to exit and walk around, but there was still a few minutes left, so to do that. . so we did. and ended up near the front of the train (more airtime, but also quite a bit rougher - maybe because it wasn't a full train). . but we got the last ride of the night, as they closed the queue just after we got back in it. The operator even announced it was the last train of the night and to make some noise. Amy had never had that experience.. so I'm glad I got her to ride with me again, even if the roughness of this second ride did hurt her back a little bit. woot! and before leaving the station to head to the front gates, was able to get this pic. . which I also love. Arctic Passage - which is a tunnel of lights leading back to the front of the park. and comes out right by the preferred parking entrance/exit. But we wanted to shop, so followed the crowd around to the Emporium. and I'm glad we did. . because not only was it "snowing" over here too? but Santa was waving goodnight to everyone, since the park exit at night is thru the Emporium. Ho Ho Ho ending the day in a deserted park, with a lit up version of the pic I started the day with. we were (shockingly after that huge lunch earlier) a bit hungry this is when we discovered that pretty much everything in Pigeon Forge was closed - at 9pm on a Saturday ! Amy's googling found that some of the restaurants at the Island were open until 11, including Margaritaville. I'd never been there, but was game, so we all headed over there for Margs and food. (having never been there, I didn't know that the "large" comes in a plastic souvenir cup shaped like a blender. sheesh. . my empty cup got gifted to Londyn) walking back to the car park, I snapped some pics of the ferris wheel at the Island. it was pretty, but also cold, and we were wiped out from a long day. . . . so the hot tub was calling. So just took some pics. and with that, we headed back to the cabin to soak and then crash. it had been a fantastic day - even tho we didn't get any Cinnamon Bread (when we passed it on the way to the tree, the line was really, really long. . so we decided to wait a day for it so we wouldn't miss anything). a Great 1st visit to Dollywood. I managed to get on every coaster except Firechaser and the Kiddie Coaster (which I didn't care about). . multiple rides on some of em. . and most of the flats I cared about. so tomorrow the only thing I really wanted to do was: Firechaser, DropLine, and Thunderhead in the daytime. anything else would just be gravy. so I went to bed this night very happy I had come, and I had dreams of Nick, that made for a really great night's sleep. tomorrow? Day 2 at Dollywood. (and it was freaking cold! ) thanks for reading along!

Corporate doesn't hate SFSTL. They just hate you.

Aw, look at that optimism! It's so cute. New roofs don't get people into the park. Those are just necessary expenditures. You know what does get people into the park? Rides. We got nothing for two years, we get woman whip only this year, which hasn't exactly been open everyday when the park was open. And now, we get nothing for 2023. So tell me, what's new and exciting that will attract crowds and people in general? Sticking up a poster saying we got new roofs and paint doesn't do that. No one goes home and tells their neighbors they painted a building. No one except us anyway, because we are crazy like that. Six flags has closed parks before. Just look at Astroworld. Our parks death will come. And it will come sooner, rather than later.

Well this has been all a joy to read. The slow realization that I was right all along has settled among you all. There was once a time our park was considered one of the greatest in the chain, the founder, having a vision of a park that would rival Disney world. That time has since passed. I give it 10 years before our park is closed.