deathbydinn

^ Move it plays everywhere at the top of the hour. It's meant to help motivate employees but probably annoys them more than anything. ^^ I don't know it's called, but I heard the song from the announcement video playing a few times.

If X Flight is any indication of what the future of Six Flags will bring, I'm really looking forward to whats to come. They didn't just plop the ride down and open it like they have in the past, they actually tried to make something more of an experience of it. Of course it was nothing along the lines of a Disney or Universal experience, but for Six Flags, it was really good. The queue interaction for the ride is great as you walk past nearly every element and even through two thematic elements. The ride ops had themed costumes, they had a military style loading and unloading theme, and best of all, with the exception of Move It on the top of the hour, they didn't have the normal loop of 5 pop songs playing. They actually played music that fit the theme of the ride, which I really enjoyed. I really hope they keep all of those, as I could see the park dropping them which is my one concern about the ride. The ride itself exceeded my expectations. After hearing reviews of Swarm I got a little worried seeing as they are similar, but the ride was really fantastic. The first drop is just amazing yet weird, the pacing was great, lots of hangtime, and forces were definitely there (just don't go on expecting the next Batman.) So in the end, I'm extremely happy we got this coaster and I'm sure it will be hugely popular for years to come.

^ It's open to pass holders both Saturday and Sunday.

You definitely should! Walking around the city is so nice, even though some parts are kinda run down, but those could be avoided. I know it does have a reputation for being unsafe, but I felt totally safe the whole time (East Saint Louis is a whole other story though..). I guess he makes his way to Chicago too. I couldn't hear anything he was saying, but it mustn't have been too convincing since no one was listening.

The day after the City Museum, we headed over to Six Flags Saint Louis. Already bruised and sore from the museum, so clearly going to a theme park the next day is the best thing to do. It was my first time to the park and it wasn't exactly what I expected it to be. It wasn't that the park was bad, as it wasn't, I just found parts odd. It is very hilly as well, so spending all day at it definitely gets you a good work out. Operations were fine, park was clean and had a good atmosphere. The rides were all good, however I didn't find any to stick out as particularly amazing. Here's my coaster reviews: Batman: Riding a mirror image of what I'm used to was fun. We rode in the back and it was very smooth and forceful. The only thing I didn't like was it's queue, it went on for ever! At least they made it look nice with the garden, short tunnel, and falling road section. Ninja: I've heard this ride get a lot of crap. Personally, I thought it was great. It was a little jerky for some transitions, but overall I thought it was pretty smooth with an awesome head chopper. Screaming Eagle: Hidden in the woods, this classic coaster provided a good ride. Only the slightest bit of airtime, but it ran smooth and has a great location. River King Mine Train: This was my first Arrow mine train and it was pretty...weird. It was a little short and also mostly hidden from the most of the park, but it's weird track bends and terrain interaction made it enjoyable. Pandemonium: I had ridden it's clone at MOA before and that ran a little rougher than Pandy. It was decent, but we only span for the first part of the ride. It was cool how you could see the whole thing from the queue though. American Thunder: This ride has some of the most comfortable trains I've ever sat in. It packed a good punch in it's small size and was very, very smooth. Really makes me excited to ride more twisty GCIs. Boss: On the contrary, this ride had some of the worst trains I've ever sat in. Besides being butt-ugly, it was hard to find a comfortable position in them. The ride itself was great and just looks massive, but I feel the coaster could perform better. A little more track work and some new trains and I could definitely see myself enjoying it more than I did. Onto the pics! Wouldn't be a Six Flags park without six flags in front. The entrance did look quite nice. Hurricane Harbor's entrance is conveniently placed at the entrance of the park. Despite having area names, I didn't find the themes too evident. At least they all looked nice. Batman's station looked great! Random sewer? Why not! This falling road roof was pretty cool. I love when ride queues go directly under the track as Batmans did. The exit goes close to it as well. Odd theme for a swinging ship. Ninja! <3 Seriously, it was great. One of the gift shops in the area. River King is a fun ride, but very hard to photograph. This little stretch by Ninja was pretty much all I could see of it without being on a ride. Oh god. Those chains...so tiny.. and the tower isn't exactly short. In all seriousness, I loved it. I was terrified getting on, but it ended up being a total blast. The program was kind of odd though. It went up to the top of the tower, spun around, went back down.. ...and then went up again but only to around this height. I don't know if thats a normal star flyer program or not, but I would have preferred it just stayed at the top longer like Windseekers. Didn't ride these, no big loss. This I actually did want to ride. Unfortantly, when we got in line it decided it didn't want to move, so we left and didn't get back to it later. Cool facade though. So Screaming Eagle has this big sign and what looks like the beginning of a queue line.. ..but it's entrance is actually up a hill and tucked behind some games. Would be very easy to miss. Fun ride though. I believe the smaller sign used to be on this hill or the one after it. I failed to get a picture of its (awesome) sign, so here is an awkward transition to the Excalibur pictures. The ride started kinda like an enterprise. But it just kept going. And going. It was one of the weirdest rides I've ever been on but it was so much fun at the same time. Pandemonium is situated right next to Excalibur. The queue gives some great views of the whole layout. Despite being a clone, I thought they did a good job making it fit the area. Kinda cool how some of the cars have details on the top. Very boss indeed. Peaking over the skyline. Lift hill and M&M ads on the station. Once again, this a ride without a whole lot of paths by it. Lot of crap on it's station roof. Boo. The park did have some pretty awesome signs. Such as this. I can't help but be reminded of infomercials when I hear it's name. Shazam fits with in there with Shamwow and Shammy. <3 <3 <3 There's a train in there somewhere. So twisty. No idea who they are. Just wanted the front of the train. Lifthill to heaven. Boat ride to hell. Ok not exactly. But there where ghosts, so close enough. Scooby Scooby Doo, where are you? Blah. It was mocking us from the line. At least there was still one vertical drop open in the park. S:TOP was so much fun. Not knowing when the drop was coming really added to the scare. It took me a while to figure out that when the train is at the station it goes very close to the path and wasn't waiting for people to stop walking in front of it. The park might only have one kids area, but it was really good and integrated with the rest of the park well. Park map..this probably would've made more sense at the beginning. And to end out the report here's something thats, well, not exactly right. Thanks for reading!

Just got home from opening day. Really great day and the park looked fantastic. Clearly the big change was X Flight, but there was lots of other new smaller things. I'll post a full trip report later this week, but I thought I would just post a few pictures of other little changes besides X Flight. V2 got new seats and Revolution got new restraints but I didn't take pictures of those as I'm not quite that nerdy yet. Karaoke is now in front of Iron Wolf's remains, which is amazing and it dramatically decreases the amount of time you spend hearing crappy singers! These signs are now all over the park at every ride. I believe they're for telling what rides shorter kids can go on. East River Crawler is down for 2012, but at least they didn't leave the spot empty. It does look kind of odd having a small ride in such a big spot though. Freestyle Machines in Trudys! Ok, I know this is all you really care about. I have lots of X Flight photos and they'll be up very soon!

This seasons entertainment has been released. Only notable things IMO is the return of Glow in the Park parade June 30-August 7 and Screams and Dreams Volume 2 1985 to 1999. I think "Kick It Up" is new, not positive as I really don't normally watch those types of shows. http://www.sixflags.com/greatAmerica/entertainment/AllEntertainment.aspx

The water feature in action! Link

Only the first 500 people to the park will receive free admission. Read more: K-HITS and Eddie & Jobo Live Broadcast at Six Flags Great America http://khitschicago.radio.com/events/2012/05/16/free-admission-morning-at-six-flags-great-america/#ixzz1tksp0FNQ

There is also an Aqualoop on the other side that you can't see from the angle of this concept art. I love that they combined a water coaster and a tornado slide into one. Tornado slides are great, but usually pretty short, so I hope it's something that will be brought into the US someday soon as it looks like a really awesome slide.

Agreed. Animal Kingdom looks so amazing but then you get to Dinorama and it all kinda looks like crap. Oh well. Thanks for all the great photos though! I always love looking at Animal Kingdom, really a great park despite it's smaller number of attractions. Can't wait for MGM or Hollywood Studios or whatever it's called.

A few construction pictures. Taken from their Facebook.

Shot from outside of the park, but here's another testing video. It does look like some of the elements are taken a little faster than the original video released by the park.

^ It's pretty visible, American Eagles queue goes right next to them. Sorry for the blurriness

On their recent trip to Asia, Robb and Elissa checked out one of Asia's best attractions, the lesser known cousin of Hollywood Tower of Terror... ...the Bollywood Tower of Terror!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to trek down to Saint Louis with fellow TPR members Nathan (kumba830), Griffin (GriffyTiffy) Jo (Jojo19799) and Cameron (Cameron). While the main point of the trip was Six Flags Saint Louis, downtown Saint Louis also offers one exceptionally awesome attraction, the City Museum, and that's what this post is about. The best way to describe it is pure insanity with some pain mixed in. I don't even want to call it a museum, as it's really more of a giant indoor playground of death. It is not something you want to miss if you're in the area. Since it was my first time to St. Louis and I had time to spare, I also visited the Arch and City Garden, and both are things I would recommend a visit to. Plus, besides parking both can be free to visit! A few pictures for the artsy-fartsy people Simply put, City Garden is a garden with a bunch of big sculptures. Some are even animated Others were kinda odd. There was a lot of water in the park for hotter days. In the top left corner you can see a waterfall behind a tree which goes into a small pool kids can play in. Even Pinocchio made an appearance. Onward to the icon of St. Louis, the Arch. The Arch had a pretty cool free museum underground about westward expansion. And they didn't cover up that we were pretty shady when getting land from the Native Americans! They had some cool scenes set up as well. We passed this on the way to City Museum. Frightening. I failed to get a picture of the entrance, so he's the ticket booth. We made our way to the "skate" park first. Yeah, it was insane. The skate park is also home to the worlds largest pencil. And this tiny, tiny tunnel. It reminded me a lot of those crazy looking playgrounds in Europe. The train went through this space tunnel. Unfortantly we were all too tall for it. The Rube Goldberg wasn't turned on, but this small section of it was working. Very cool and fun to watch. Not sure why this came out so dark, but the whale holds one of the entrances to the caves. And the best thing inside the caves... ..this. Ok, it was actually the ten story shoe slide. From the top. Slides play a large role in the museum. This one takes you to the main lobby. This one, despite it's small size, is probably the best. It's insane. You can kinda see how crazy steep it is. A dinosaur flying underwater next to a whale. Why not? The roof wasn't open, but the other outdoor section was. I hate heights, so this was one of the most terrifying experiences in my life. It was all a good distance from the ground, and you had to get around climbing in, over and under all sorts of weird things. There were some nice relaxing spots for those who don't want to reach it's full potential of insanity. Lots of slides outside as well. There was even a huge adult sized ball pit. It was amazing! And to finish off this section, here's Jo being buried under balls. Thanks for reading, Six Flags St. Louis pics coming soon!

You can see it here: http://sfgamworld.com/section.php?page=XFlightCam Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there has been some talk floating around that East River Crawler has a maintenance issue and that it won't reopen until late in the season or possibly 2013. Porky's Buzzy Bees from the old kids area (which did actually first open in Yankee Harbor) will supposedly take it's spot. Read about it here or here.

The keyhole is going up!

Luna Park has released a great comparison video showing the effect the trackwork has had on the ride.

The company taking the coaster down has reported on their blog that the ride will be relocated and reopened. Link Their website even has renderings of it in it's new home, posted last December. Link

The ERT for season pass holders seems to be a chain wide change this year. I know at least X Flight and Mr. Freeze at SFSTL are doing the same.

^^ Yes. I'm not sure where the idea that it wasn't going to be built came from, but as has been confirmed by the park so many times now, it will be built and construction has already started on them. Also the park confirmed on Twitter that a testing video will be released tomorrow.

^^ Literally one page back. The trains will have covers.

From their Twitter. Looks like this will be where the keyhole is.

The park confirmed on Twitter that there will be some sort of Flash Pass option for X Flight.