Rai Fox

I did actually get on the mine train, it just didn't make too much of an impression. Having been on Thunderation the day before, it really didn't have much of a chance. An RMC Boss could be pretty fantastic; that would definitely get me back to the park! I really wanted to love the other wooden coasters. One just managed to mess my back up (it wasn't even a rough ride, it just caught me juuuust right...) and the other...well, I don't know what happened with American Thunder, but I do hope I can get on it again when it's running better sometime!

Day three was an early start and off to Six Flags St Louis. This was not among my must-do parks, but not only was I driving through the area but I have a couple local friends there, one of whom hasn't had a chance to get to an amusement park in many years, so I arranged to meet up with them and head for the park. Neither really wanted to spend a full day at a park, but I was generally fine with that; I could hit the important stuff here and then rest up a bit since SDC had been so tiring, and I still had most of a week of walking left. There was at least one thing I was looking forward to there, though not one of the coasters at all. When I was much younger, in my high school junior year, my school took us to Six Flags Great Adventure, where I really wanted to get on their giant Evolution. Of course, I walked up to the ride, took one look at it, and decided that maaaaaybe I'd try it later on after I worked up some nerve. Unfortunately, when I came back later, the ride was broken down for the day...as, apparently, was frequently the case. Two years later I returned to the park, and...it was down all day again. Shortly after that it was removed from the park, but was moved to Six Flags St Louis and renamed Excalibur, where it's now the only Bussink giant Evolution running anywhere in the world. I'd chased it halfway across the country and now I really wanted to finally get on it. Of course there was a lot of park between the gates and that ride. The entrance area is cute enough; pretty typical Six Flags but not bad! It quickly starts to look...a bit more early 2000s Six Flags again though. ...alright, not ever Six Flags is doing great with the landscaping, I guess. We skipped past American Thunder and the flume since everyone else was heading that way, and planned to start right at the back, but turned the corner to find Justice League open with absolutely no one in the queue. ...which...was good because the queue was not a particularly attractive place to hang out in the direct sunlight. A little nicer indoors, but still empty. Six Flags actually made some effort with theming on Justice League. Disney it's not, but not bad! The ride itself is definitely a budget version of some of the bigger interactive dark rides; the vast majority of the action takes place on screens with only limited physical sets, and only the screens are interactive. Two of the guns in our car didn't seem to work either. Still, it's worth a ride through, and it does make good use of the cars' movement. Not Spider-Man or even DarKastle (RIP) but amusing, especially with no wait. Heading out of that ride left me with a towering blue spire right in front of me. Well, I wasn't missing this one! Both of my friends were...not up to starting out with that kind of coaster, but there was nearly no line, so I let them find some shade while I headed over to Mr Freeze. Six Flags really could do something with the central area here and make the ride look a bit more attractive though. ...and...they could do a LOT with the area closer to the station building. Noooot the chain's best effort here. Inside, though, the station looks pretty good. It's a pretty nice setup two, with two loading areas to load and unload one train while the other is carried to the center on a transfer track and launched...backwards...out to the spire. It rides pretty much like the other older Premier launch coasters I've been on, Flight of Fear, Poltergeist etc, which is to say it's not the smoothest ride out there, but not too unbearable. The launch, especially backwards, is pretty intense. After that you've got a reasonably tall top hat, a fast overbanked turn, and then a climb up the spire before doing it all backwards. Er, front-wards. It could be a better ride with some attention to theming instead of just plopping it in a messy field, but still a fun coaster. There was absolutely no one in the station except waiting for the front row when my train returned, so I got another ride out of it, and could have stayed for more but felt a bit bad leaving my friends, so headed back to meet them, so we could finish heading to the back of the park. About the greenest part of the park... REALLY? Halfway across the country, and for the third time... I was not thrilled...but not particularly surprised either. Didn't see much need to prioritize this after just riding Spinning Dragons the other day. Supergirl...great ride, still not as good as a classic Enterprise. One of my friends said they were at least up to doing a classic wood coaster, so we both looked up at the treeline behind Supergirl and I tried not to cringe. I'd heard enough about the Boss... I was nice enough to warn my friend, but...they were not dissuaded and I was going to want to get on it eventually anyway. It...looks pretty good! I love the layout. The BANG THUNK BANG noises the train made tearing past were not promising though. There used to be a helix back there. It was apparently removed because it was too rough? ...What about the rest of the coaster? When the train comes back into the station, the op asks how the ride was, and everyone on it groans, you know what you're in for. The Boss was not the worst coaster I've ever ridden. Hercules at Dorney still takes that spot, especially the last year before it was torn down. The most painful that's still standing though? Easily. I really wish this wasn't the case; the coaster's size, speed, and layout really should make it a great one, but I barely remember what it actually did after the first drop; I was trying to brace myself to avoid major trauma, and trying to reassure my friend that no, coasters aren't usually like this. I'd love to know what The Boss is like when it's running well, if it ever runs well, but what a disaster. Needing something less likely to result in spinal fractures, and wanting to let my second friend who was not feeling up to major rides come along, we decided it was worth waiting a bit for the River King mine train. For a family coaster, it's...fine. It's not even in the same league as Thunderation, or any of the major Cedar Fair parks' mine trains, and it seems to spend more time on lift hills than actual track, but...it's fine. That's about all I can say for it. I remember seeing in Bert's report from a couple years ago that the carousel was in absolutely tragic shape. Fortunately they seem to be doing something about that. The carousel looks a little sad just sitting there without horses, but I'm not going to knock any points off the park for that if it was in such desperate need of restoration; at least they'd doing what they need to do. No one was particularly inclined to do this "coaster" either. And I didn't really need to go out of my way for another Boomerang...but Screamin' Eagle looked more tempting. According to the park map, and the app, there was a shoot-the-chute ride here. They might want to double check that, or consider some serious changes to their theft prevention strategies.. The artwork here is starting to look a bit sad. Some pretty solid floater air on the first hill here. Screamin' Eagle was not bad, certainly better than The Boss. Unfortunately it hit one serious pothole coming off of the second airtime hill, and I hit the seat just wrong and wrenched something in my back very painfully. The rest of the ride was mostly spent trying in vain to keep any more pressure off my back, so I didn't get to enjoy it much. I got off the coaster seriously concerned about my back for the rest of the trip. Definitely time for something calmer for a bit to rest after that anyway, so I gathered my friends for a circuit about the park on the train. It's a full size train, at least; somewhat more than I expected here. River King from the back side. Not exactly a monster of a coaster there. I didn't think any bandits were going to be jumping the train from this one. Scenic rusted shipping containers. Really, Six Flags. Yet Another Batman...Both of my friends were absolutely terrified of this one. Yes, I know. Hello GCI curves! Now we're talking...maybe this park had something worthwhile after all. Cute little switching engine...not sure what a small park railroad really needs one for but still... One more try for Excalibur, aaaand nope. Still closed. Ffffffff... Apparently this is a show venue, in Better Days, but just background scenery now. It was well past lunch time, and we all decided on Chop Six, which was, of course, now at the opposite end of the park, but everyone was feeling like chinese food. Well...everyone except the park. Hungry as we were, we settled for burgers and bbq at Mooseburgers Lodge. This was a nightmare. The staff in that restaurant had no idea what they were doing and wanted to be anywhere but there. I tried to buy lunch for everyone, attempting to use my meal plan for myself and the 50% off from my membership for the other two lunches, but the woman at the register could not make this happen. First it was one lunch at half off, then everything half off, then one free meal from the meal plan but the rest full price. Eventually I gave in and paid full price for my friends' meals, because we were getting nowhere. At that point we were just sort of waved off to go wait with the horde of people also waiting for their meal. No one was calling numbers; we were left to figure out on our own to bring our receipt up to the window to the kitchen area and ask the staff there for what we'd ordered. That was when I figured out that the woman on the register had rung up the wrong meal for me, because the woman who checked my receipt decided the proper response was to scream at me that I'd ordered something different than I said I had. She also would not hear it that they'd rung it up wrong, insisted I had ordered the wrong meal, and would not hear otherwise. (The two meals were, also, exactly the same price...) I understand that, especially this year, park food staff is stressed, and I try to give them a lot of extra room, but this was the single most miserable person I have ever dealt with at an amusement park. We finally managed to get three pulled pork sandwiches...not what I'd ordered but food all the same...and asked for the bottles of water we'd ordered to go with them, at which point we were told the register girl was supposed to give them to us and we had to go back through that line. For what it's worth, the BBQ was not actually bad for Six Flags food. I think it was more sauce than pork, but with how hungry we were, it tasted good. Actually getting our hands on it was a ridiculous process though. By time we managed to deal with lunch, we all figured it was time for some water rides to cool down. Six Flags St Louis has a pretty decent looking raft ride with huge twelve person rafts, and people getting off of it ranged from soaked to half-drowned. We were up for that. The queue for the raft ride there also offers some good views of Mr Freeze from the back side. We managed to get to share a raft with a guy who spent the entire time in line talking about how masks and vaccines are a hoax, there's no covid in florida, it's all just politics, etc etc, which was...quite a delight... The actual raft ride is fairly simple, just a big square loop, without much in the line of effects, waterfalls, etc, but the back stretch has a series of increasingly fast and rough rapids that, at least on our ride, the raft spun at a perfect speed to subject a new pair of seats to each one. One of my friends and I were just barely spared by the first wave, which pretty well soaked the people next to us, but they just kept getting bigger, and of course heading into the last rapids, we were riiiiight there for it. I've gotten wet on raft rides before; I have never had a wave come up over head height. Absolute drenched...a good thing in the day's heat though! Given how wet we already were, there wasn't much reason not to do the flume now. ' SFStL's flume is actually two different flumes, not mirrors of each other, but only one was running with the moderate crowds. Neither flume is particularly big, but...I'm not sure there's a such thing as a bad flume? My friends had to find somewhere to sit again though, because I was not going to a park with a GCI and skipping it. The line for American Thunder didn't look long, but it was absolutely crawling, and by time I was halfway through I was getting texts asking where I was. Ah yes. Crew of the week. Two of the crew of the week were spending quite a bit of time in the station with their heads down looking barely conscious. Again...I know staffing is hard at parks this year, but...operations were abysmal. On one hand, American Thunder is by far the smoothest of the wood coasters at this park. On the other...I don't think I've ever ridden a GCI coaster that crawled over the track like this. It barely felt like it had the momentum to get over most of the hills. I've read good things about this one in other reports, and it seemed like it should have been as good as I'd heard, if it just carried any speed...and looking up POVs on it, it definitely used to...but this year or at least when I was there, it just was not that coaster. Maybe it's just desperately in need of maintenance right now, but this was the only time I'd ever been badly disappointed in a GCI coaster. Unfortunately wrapping it in American Flags and putting up signs about how great the staff are do not replace actually taking care of the ride. As is it makes a better metaphor than a coaster... I was running out of major coasters and the only one I'd really enjoyed so far had been Mr Freeze...but I still had Ninja, which I'd been warned about as well. Still, it was a classic Arrow, I wasn't going to skip it. Not the biggest of the old arrow multi element coasters, but I rather like the layout. I was expecting a beating though. An exciting (**TURBULENT**) ride. Yeah... Gotta say though, maybe it was just a low bar with how bad I expected it to be, and how much The Boss and Screamin' Eagle had beat me up, but I didn't think it was all that bad? Certainly smoother than Vortex at KI had been (and I very much enjoyed Voxtex anyway). Much to my surprise...this ended up being one of the two coasters there that I actually liked. The half cobra roll into the helix felt pretty unique, especially on a coaster of Ninja's age. Solid ride and I'm glad to see that despite everything else Six Flags seems to be generally taking care of it. After the long wait for American Thunder, I felt a bit bad about making my friends wait any more, so I decided to pass on Batman. I'd been on plenty of those clones before and I'd get another chance at one later in the week...a somewhat more "special" one at that. My back was extremely unhappy with me, too, so we decided to make it an early day so I could rest up and hopefully not be in pain for Holiday World the next day. ...but not without a funnel cake sundae first. Six Flags' funnel cakes are generally the best but one of my friends had never had one, so... Overall...there were a couple reasonably decent rides, but Six Flags St Louis definitely does not come across as the high point of the chain. A lot of it feels badly neglected, many of the rides are in rough shape, and the staff was absolutely awful. This was, fortunately, the low point of my week and the only park I was unhappy with for the most part. If I do this trip again next year to bring others with me like I want to, I'll be skipping this one and doing the St Louis City Museum instead, I think Unless Excalibur is actually open, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Required photo of course. For anyone else coming out this way, I stayed overnight at the Baymont by Wyndham Evansville North/Haubstadt. It felt like a much more expensive hotel than the $65 or so I paid for the night, was very clean and comfortable, and offered what looked like a quite decent breakfast (that I didn't stay for, because I was headed to Holiday World).

Yeaaah, about that one...getting to that shortly. Fair enough! It's not a coaster I see in a lot of people's top fives or anything, but it definitely did just work for me. It is sad, if understandable, that the park doesn't get any real investment, but it's definitely worth a trip every once in a while.

Sorry. Fingers got ahead of my brain while typing. Last weekend I was at Great America and they sold out. This weekend going to Great Adventure and trying to get one before they do.

Does anyone with a Six Flags Membership know how to actually get the discounted flash pass? I have a diamond elite vip membership; the membership benefits sign-up page still lists discounts on flash pass for all membership levels. Once I'm in the membership portal though there's no actual mention of it, and nowhere that I can find to make additional purchases. I can buy through the app but it doesn't apply any sort of discount at all. Hoping there's a way to do it ahead of time without having to get to the park, since last weekend Great America had apparently sold out ahead of time; I don't know if that's going to be the case this coming weekend at Great Adventure but I'd rather not risk it.

Day 2 - Silver Dollar City While I ended up enjoying Worlds of Fun so much more than I expected, it hadn't been one of the parks that I'd desperately wanted to get to from the start. Silver Dollar City was; it was Time Traveler that really started me thinking about this trip. I really could not wait to get here, though if anything I was a little worried that putting it so early in the trip might ruin the rest of it, setting too high a bar for other parks to live up to. Part of me was a little worried, too, that after WoF subverted my expectations, SDC might too, in a less positive direction. This....did not turn out to be the case. Silver Dollar City is incredible. Starting from the beginning though... SDC is a sizeable park, with a lot of parking, way out behind the park. Just look at Wildfire way out there on the horizon. Fortunately they do have trams to bring you to the park entrance. I hadn't particularly cared enough about Wildfire to be all that excited to see it from back here; that would change enough later on. Right from the entrance, Silver Dollar City is a beautiful park. You can tell what sort of place you've found right from the start. If you haven't been here, Silver Dollar City is sort of a Busch Gardens part, with the very heavy theming and equal focus on shops and food, not just rides, only themed to America, so with a much less "fake" atmosphere. It's sort of what would happen if Knoebels had a Disney budget. It also has an amazing, if tiring, setting up on the mountainside. I've never been to another park quite like it (I assume Dollywood is close, but that's on my list for next year.) With the number of pictures I took here I'm going to run out of captions quickly. There's only so many ways I can say "Silver Dollar City is beautiful." Silver Dollar City IS beautiful though. I stopped on my way in to get a Trailblazer pass; I'd been given the suggestion not to get one ahead of time but to consider it if the weather was nice and I expected crowds. The weather was absolutely perfect and there seemed to be quite a bit of traffic following me into the park, so it seemed wise to pick one up. I didn't regret buying it, though I probably could have made do without it as most of the lines never got too bad. It did turn out to be convenient a couple times though, especially later on. The implementation of the Trailblazer pass is a little bit frustrating though, one of the few things that SDC that seemed anything less than perfect. To start with, instead of getting a wristband, or the fastpass watch type device, or anything along those lines, you get a literal pass card on a lanyard; one you're expected to wear and hold on to at all times, that can not be replaced. This is not the greatest of all solutions when you're doing to be riding things like Outlaw Run. I can only imagine how many of the expensive, non-replaceable passes get lost. I ended up tying mine around my wrist for most of the day but it was not the most comfortable solution. It's clear that the Trailblazer passes are a newer system as well, too; only the newest few rides look to have been designed to support them. Almost everything else just has Trailblazer entrances going in the exit, or what looks like an emergency exit, or just entirely out of the way. They're generally marked by very small signs as well and some are not at all easy to find. Scavenger hunts are fun and all but the pass is supposed to save time. Relatively minor nitpick but definitely something I think the park could improve on. Pass in hand, I headed straight for Time Traveler. This was why I was here, at Silver Dollar City, in the midwest to start with, and I was not giving it a chance to break down or anything before I got on it. One thing that very quickly became clear; Silver Dollar City does not hold back or spare a cent when it comes to their stations and the staff in them. There isn't a plain looking ride anywhere and every ride crew has their own uniform. Staff was almost universally great too, as friendly and helpful as I've seen anywhere, and all very efficient. After I got off Time Traveler the first time, this guy took a look at my Kings Island shirt and pulled me aside to tell me that since I was obviously an enthusiast, I had to go back around and try row 7 this time. Sound advice; Row 7 gets you hauled backwards over the first drop in spectacular fashion and is definitely the row of choice for TT. You don't get to see much of the ride from within the park, buried in a valley as it is, but this window from the queue does give you a look at the tangled mess of track here. Promising! One more look at the impressive cars. Not a missed detail on them. The actual ride starts with a vertical drop straight into the canyon, and after that it's hard to even keep up what happens. There's not much more disorienting than a good spin right through a corkscrew. There are a couple of brief moments to catch your breath before the two launches, the first of which brings the train to a complete stop before sending you back into the tangles of track, but beyond that it's just craziness. Not one I'd recommend for anyone who suffers from motion sickness though... Between the ride itself and the theming, Time Traveler absolutely lives up to all I'd heard. I went around for a few rides hers, but there was a lot more of SDC to see. Thunderation next, since it was right there, and a good park can do a lot with a mine train! Not sure if the 1880s Steam Train was supposed to be this one or the actual train nearby in the park, but no matter. Like a lot of coasters here, it's hard to get a lot of pictures of Thunderation, since it drops over the side of the valley and disappears from the park for most of the ride. It's quite big for a family mine train though, and gets moving faster than I'd expected through some respectable drops and tight helixes. It might not have the theming of Thunder Mountain for just the ride itself it might be the best mine train out there. It does feature a slightly odd, almost Adventure Express ending, where it climbs up a long lift hill far above the start, then dives down a sharp drop and picks up a ton of speed, only to immediately slam into the brakes and return to the station. Felt like there should have been more at that point...but still a good ride! Christmas Hollow, in August? They were already putting up Christmas lights elsewhere in the park though. Silver Dollar City does not skip a chance to theme anything. It's 2021 and even a rural park is providing charging stations, which is pretty great...but even better that they're doing it in style. SDC also had a food festival of sorts going on. This was unfortunately let down by their staffing issues meaning a significant number of their food stands weren't actually open. You really can't go to SDC and not ride the train. I just missed one leaving the station though, and with only one train running it was going to be a half hour before it returned. The station here also revealed one other minor possible issue with the trailblazer pass; with my "badge" on my lanyard here, I was stopped by three different groups of people asking questions about the train and the park, all assuming I was a park employee. Of course I'd done my research on the park, so I was able to help all of them! Not sure how well that usually works out though... Since I had time to kill I diverted over to the Flooded Mine. This is a somewhat unusual, almost Old Mill ish floating dark ride. I don't know if it's an older ride that was refitted as a shooting ride, or originally conceived that way, but it does feature guns now. I didn't have too much idea of what to expect here but it turned out to be pretty solid. The theming starts even on the bridge to the ride. Like every station in SDC, this one was entirely in theme for the ride, and the staff as well. The ride op in his "cell" was having a lot of fun playing in character and taunting riders, especially the younger ones. And here we go. I got a boat to myself; one of the ride ops suggested that I grab as many guns as I could and go at the ride with all of them at once. I did try at first, but amusing as it was it's too hard to hit anything that way. The old school dark ride type scenes do suggest that this ride existed long before shooting gallery rides were a thing. There are targets everywhere though. All of them seem to work as far as racking up score but not many seem to actually do anything in the ride scenes, which was a little bit disappointing. Toward the end we get an outdoor scene before heading back to the station. It's a reasonably lengthy ride and by time I was done and back to the train station it was almost time for the next train to arrive. And here it comes, right on time. The very charismatic conductor seemed to love his role. Definitely one of those rides that needs someone with personality for it to work well, and this guy delivered. The train almost immediately heads out into the woods behind the park, skirting the back of it to give some behind-the-scenes views. Including some great views of Outlaw Run. Sadly the coaster didn't want to oblige me with a train actually running through any of the elements while we passed them. A bit later you pass a wrecked train that supposedly flew off a curve; they do have an actual old engine just rusting in the woods for this scene. Soon after though it turns into a much more theatrical ride. As the train pulls to a stop here, it's obvious something is going to happen. Bandits, of course! The pair trick the conductor into going off into the woods to look for "yankees" and then attempt to hold the train up in cartoonishly clueless fashion, before the conductor returns to save the day. We got a bit of a special version of the show on this ride, as the conductor messed up one line and forgot what day it was, which led to everyone dropping character entirely to roast him for it. It was an amusing enough scene to start but that definitely had everyone in the train laughing. A bit predicable otherwise but quite a lot of fun and well acted. Getting off the train, I headed a little further into the park... Making a note for something I definitely was going to want to try later. Which one though? SDC is a little bit confusingly laid out, but the park helps with signs like this right on the pathways. Why don't more parks do this? Towards the back corner is a tall observation tower. It was closed off at the time but it looked like guest might be allowed in it at other times, or perhaps previous years? Firefall, the park's drop tower is small but exceptionally themed, like everything else here, built into a rustic fire station. I skipped this one though; themed or not an 80 foot drop tower didn't hold my interest all that much. Mystic River Falls though...that had my attention. Unfortunately, while it had been running for an hour or two at the start of the day, it apparently broke down just as I approached it. That doesn't seem unusual for this ride, from what I've heard. Across the path...the legend. I figured I'd save that for later though; I was going to want lunch soon and real food sounded like a good plan before treats. Christmas lights going up in August. Tom and Huck's Riverblast sits around the corner from the cinnamon bread here. This seemed to be getting completely ignored by most of the guests, but it looked fun to me! Groups of 3 or more? Groups of 1 or 2? Groups of...anyone at all? Given how warm it was, I really don't know how this ride was so overlooked. Riverblast sits you in ten person ish boats (or, in my case, one person boats) with big water cannons powered by hand cranks. These will give you a bit of a workout keeping them firing for the entire ride...but the manual power almost means you can take some people by surprise with them if you put a little more effort into cranking them! "You can't hit me up here!" Wrrrrroooooong! There are all sorts of targets through the course, and while there are no electronic score keepers on this ride, a lot of them do trigger effects; some just cute props, some that will soak spectators, other riders on your boat, or yourself! Of course, the most fun targets are the people lining up to shoot back at you from the sidelines! It's a fairly lengthy course too and densely packed with things to see, shoot, and soak. Really great water ride and I wish more parks had these! More people seemed to be interested in blasting the riders from the stationary cannons than riding it, so I got off absolutely soaked, but I'd like to think I gave better than I got! Mystic River Falls...still closed with the elevator stuck up at the top. The Great Barn Swing is an S&S screamin' swing with far better theming than the usual ones. ...is it though? Unfortunately, despite the lovely scenery, the flats at this park, even the big ones, are a tiny bit of a letdown. They all seem to run very short cycles; the screamin swing barely got up to full height before it was done. These never run long cycles but this was definitely the shortest I've seen. Outlaw Run though is not a flat ride, and I expected a bit more there... Not sure how many times I can say that SDC goes all out with their stations. If there's a bare spot they find something to put there. That's a decent sized lift hill. Outlaw Run roars back into the station sideways. So...Outlaw run was one of the coasters I was most excited for on this trip. I've never been on an RMC I didn't love. I actually got off this one a bit underwhelmed though at first. Part of that was my expectations; somehow I missed that this was not an i-box track but an older one and it definitely did not give the same sort of ride. It was actually fairly rough though with serious bumps in places I didn't expect them. It does have some great, intense elements but it didn't seem to flow all that well compared to others I've been on, and it's painfully short. I went around for a second try in the back to give it another shot, but got off that thinking that it was just something of an overrated ride. Not bad, but not so good as I'd heard. (Before anyone even says anything, let me jump ahead and spoil things a bit. I did go back on it later after dark, and...yeah. We'll get to THAT.) Lets take another look at Mystic Riv...nope. Still stuck. Not looking great here. Bitter butter sounds pretty awful to me. Muddy butter sounds worse. Silver Dollar City is pretty. I may have mentioned that. As I'd mentioned earlier, a lot of the food stands were closed due to staffing. This one was really disappointing. I'd been so looking forward to this. I wasn't sure if getting a burger at a park renowned for unique food was a good plan, but I'd passed a lot of closed places, I was getting very hungry and the Wildfire burger did look good. The outdoor seating area was really pleasant too. The burger was not bad by park food standards but maybe not up to a lot of the other food at this particular park. A bit skimpy on the toppings and the portion of fries was a little sad, but the burger itself was still very good. I didn't mind the smaller portions too much either since it meant I'd more likely have room to try other things later. That's...uplifting? No, wait, that's the opposite. I'd been waiting a long time to get on Fire in the Hole. I love unique dark rides and this was definitely that. SDC Station Porn. I didn't take any pictures in the ride itself, since apart from it being dark and them being unlikely to come out well, I knew the ride had surprise drops and I really didn't want to lose my phone in there. I'm not actually sure if the rules allowed it or not on that ride anyway; I didn't even care to look. This would not have been a good week to spend the rest of with no phone. It's a great ride though with a lot of fun scenes (and a couple good drops) but it did seem like a number of props and scenes weren't working. Maybe they were just meant to be static, but I've heard others say it needs some work too. Nothing that made it really less worth riding though. The bridge drop really is great for a dark ride. The first time through, I got very wet on the drop into the water break, too. Oddly I went back for more, got put in the exact same seat, with the same fully loaded train, and got almost no splash at all. Really though...what is it about rural american parks and dark rides about fires that burned the towns around them down? SDC has history too, not just rides. On my way to Expedition Ever...oh, nope, this is Powder Keg. Powder Keg is a very strange ride. It opened more than twenty years ago as a Premier water coaster named Buzzsaw Falls. From what I've heard, it was great if you got a chance to ride it, but it suffered absolutely constant technical issues. Only a few years later the park gave up on it in that form and called S&S in to rebuild it into a launched coaster. This resulted in a bizarre hybrid franken-ride that absolutely looks like nothing else out there. It has a very cobbled-together-from-mismatched-bits look to it, and features a bizarre station that leads into a transfer track that lifts the train diagonally up into the launch platform. From there, you get a solid launch, into an average track with some decent floater air but not a lot of real action, and then a long lift hill back up to the station area, from which you can see the troughs that used to carry the water part of the ride. It's not bad by any means, just very unusual, and definitely worth a ride, but personally I'd call it the weakest of the park's coasters, though the launch is decent. The launch section, at the top of the transfer track. From here I headed on up to Wildfire. Welllll, sort of. The Wildfire sign is about a quarter mile from the actual ride and it's not even the first ride you get to up this way! SDC is a very pretty...you know what, nevermind, just look. On the way to Wildfire I found myself at American Plunge, the park's very nice flume ride. Themed to Great American Feats of the 1880s, apparently. Outside the queue...yeah, I don't actually know what this is about. Probably best to keep it away from the Ozarks Voltage Tree though. aaaaand... Skloosh! I made my way around to the ride entrance, looking for the Trailblazer pass entrance, but I absolutely could not find it here. Not by the entrance or the exit! After getting a bit frustrated, I reasoned that the regular line wasn't really even that long and I still had a ton of time in the day, so instead of worrying about it I'd just get in the regular line. After waiting in that line for about ten minutes I looked further up the path and realized that if you ignored the signs for American Plunge, left that area and followed the signs for WIldfire...then you would find yourself at the flume's Trailblazer pass entrance. Right then. The flume itself starts by heading into a long dark tunnel that meanders about a bit... Before emptying you into a very nice little glade out here, hidden from the rest of the park! ...before it returns into a shorter tunnel...and then there's the Skloosh! GREAT flume overall though. Now I could actually head up to Wildfire. You can't see much of the ride from out here; you have to head around to the observation platform behind the park for that. Wildfire's station. Wildfire was not one of the coasters I'd heard much about. From the numbers it would make sense that it's not a standout coaster; it's very much on the smaller end for a B&M coaster, just a "plain" old sit down coaster, not particular fast. Far more than its numbers would suggest though, Wildfire is elevated by its...well, elevation. Built right on the side of the mountain, it offers incredible views out over the valley. The first immelman off of the lift hill dives down to the valley's edge, and even though it's only a 120' coaster, when the ground drops away in front of you as you twist back up into the sky, it feels hundreds of feet taller. The same in the cobra roll, if you look to the side and see Branson stretched out beneath you and the horizon so far off in the distance. It's a small coaster that gives an unlikely illusion of flight because of those views, aided by being one of the smoothest B&Ms I've been on in years. The layout isn't incredibly intense but it has a nice flow to it too, perhaps less forceful but more graceful, that works well with the scenic location. I don't think it's an incredibly well loved coaster but I have to call it one of the most underrated in my opinion. I kinda fell in love with this one and the views off of it, and went back for I don't even know how many rides...which was easy to do with no lines and the exit opening right into the empty trailblazer entrance for the front car. Wildfire goes down as one of my favorite pleasant surprises of the trip. Sure, why not. ...well. I at least hoped for something silly. That's just kinda sappy. Very...Missouri though. This is an actual functioning church and they do hold services here if you're interested in that sort of thing. Funnel cakes! These looked great but with cinnamon bread in my future, I passed. I've been trying to get in shape lately and this trip was already not going to help that. There's so much more to Silver Dollar City than rides. Like I said before it's very reminiscent of Busch Gardens with tons of shopping, shows, and demonstrations; something for everyone, definitely. Silver Dollar city is an ____________ ________ ______. You can finish on your own now! Right, that grilled cheese! I went with the brisket one in the end. Lots of cheese, plenty of brisket, tasty sourdough bread, absolutely recommended. Good sized sandwich too. Heading out towards the "expo" at the back of the park. Even the kids area here is themed to...the science of insects, okay. Multiple rides back here fit into that nicely though. The "Magnificent Wave Carousel!" Pretty but actually a little disappointing. I feel like this could have had some really spectacular views if it was positioned just a little closer to the mountainside, but as is it's mostly just trees. It also runs a very short cycle, on top of having the hard plastic seats that are anything but comfortable compared to the Zierer wave swingers. I...have no idea about these. They look tasty but very awkward to eat? Mystic River Falls...still closed but the op told me she thought they'd be open in 30-60 minutes. The elevator was moving and testing at least. Just one more shot of the park being forest-y and lovely. I had some time to kill before my scheduled lantern light cave tour...so probably to the surprise and disappointment of some on these boards, instead of Time Traveler or Outlaw Run, I spent it on Wildfire. This is, apparently, the fantasticflying machine that you are theoretically riding on Wildfire. I wonder why they call this Hill Street? SDC is wonderful, but exhausting. Some of these are perhaps a bit wiser than others. Getting closer to cave tour time, but a quick stop in the Apple Butter Store first. All kinds of sauces, jams and such here. Incredibly tempting but I had to fly home after this week, so lots of "stuff" was not a good idea. Also, I'd just visited Vermont a couple month's ago and still have a year's supply of jellies and jams (which would probably be a ten year supply for anyone else...) I did get a bit of a weird experience here though. The back of the shop has a counter selling apple turnovers and such, but the gentleman running it seemed very distracted with something and I just could not get his attention. Not wanting to yell and feel rude, I decided to just wait for him to finish, and went to look for other things. Nearby was a barrel of cold sodas, one of which had a different cap on it so I reached in for it to see what it was (it turned out to be sarsaparilla) and the man behind the counter immediately whirled around to ask what I was looking for with what felt like a very accusing tone. I asked if I could get one of the apple fritters and he told me he'd just sold out for the day, rather snappy about it too...that sounded odd with as few people in the park as there were this early, but not something I felt the need to make a big deal about. Just a very strange interaction when all the rest of the park staff was amazing. I also did make time for Grandpa's Mansion here, which is a small but fun little fun house full of optical illusions. Most of them are pretty standard park fun house stuff but some of them are quite effective. I don't want to ruin the fun too much for anyone who gets there but the final room definitely will make you question what you're looking at and feeling a bit! It was time for the cave tour then. For those that don't know the story, the tour of Marvel Cave was the original attraction for Silver Dollar City. Only when it started to get particularly popular and they had people actively waiting for tours did they start adding amusement rides to give them something else to do. As the cave tour guide put it, Silver Dollar City is just the waiting area for Marvel Cave. I've done a few good cave tours before, so I'd opted for the (very modestly priced at an extra $15) upcharge lantern light tour to make this one more interesting. Little did I know that that would not have been needed anyway... Even the map in the waiting room has a story to it; this is an original map created by one of the cave's explorers, who you'll hear about if you ever do this tour. From outside, it just looks like a big sinkhole here. Heading down into the cave entrance. The first room in the cave in incredible. Absolutely enormous; the guide pointed out that you could fit a New York city block in here with room to spare. Easily believable. Also rather terrifying for someone who doesn't love heights, coming down that tower into it. Sadly this is the only picture I got inside the cave. I'm not certain whether or not they were actually allowed further in, but I'll tell you this much...when you're navigating a cave by lanternlight, climbing a slick, wet, rough cut two foot wide staircase, hunched over with less than four feet of headroom, and a hundred and fifty foot drop into sheer blackness on the other side of the slippery handrail...well, I was not letting go of either rail nor lantern for a moment. I've been through cave tours that were giant open cavern filled with easy walking platforms for the whole family. I've been to underground boat tours. I have definitely never been to any that involved tiny passages, incredible drop offs, treacherous stairs, anything like this, nevermind doing it in the dark. The lantern night version of the tour is also extended, apart from being in the dark, and goes into parts of the cave the other tours don't. I have no idea how their insurance company allowed this. This is not in any way meant to be a complaint, just a comment on how few places would offer a tour like this; I'm glad they're able to, I absolutely loved it, though I'm never going to say I wasn't utterly terrified on some of those stairways and passages. It's beautiful too though, and definitely a notch more authentic an adventure than most of the other tours I've done. Our guide (I wish I could remember her name, I'm sorry that I can't!) was great, and a fantastic storyteller as well...and this was a place for stories. Other cave tours I've been in have guides that talk about the difference between stalactites and stalagmites, how long it takes rocks to form, and how we should never touch walls. The Marvel Cave lanternlight tour featured stories about Spanish conquistadors and native American explorers, guardian cave spirits and elves, Baldknobber bandits and underground cabins, stories about stories and the consequences of telling them. There's something to be said for geological education but I loved every minute of this...even while I was clinging white knuckled to slippery guide rails. This was an experience like nothing I'd ever done before, and I'd call it once-in-a-lifetime if I wasn't determined to get back and take friends with me. If you get get to Silver Dollar City, Absolutely Do not skip this tour. Be aware that it's going to be difficult if you don't like heights or caves, but if at all possible do it anyway. At the end you're treated to an inclined railway to get back out so you don't have to climb the whole way up again...at least when it works. I was lucky. I'd think that the staff was just playfully hyping up how unreliable it is but I've seen comments from others on TPR about people having to walk back out, so it seems it's not all exaggeration there. When I got back to the surface it was getting late in the day and the lights were just starting to come on. I still had a few things I wanted to do though. Like... Yessss, it's open! And it's popular. As soon as it opened everyone flocked to it. That Trailblazer pass finally seemed useful! It was only good for one time for Mystic River Falls but that would do. Mystic River Falls might be a bit troublesome, it might not have all the kinks worked out, but when it's working, it will ruin other raft rides for you. Even without the elevator and drop it's a very good one, with a very fast, aggressive and lengthy course that doesn't need to rely on lots of waterfalls and such to get you wet, just well designed and fast rapids, and lots of gorgeous scenery as well. The elevator and drop add so much to it too though. The elevator is a bit crazy; when you see how many moving parts it has it's easy to understand why it's down so often. Riding it up while on that big raft is exciting though, and the slide portion is far more intense that it looks from the ground. The size of the rafts makes it look deceptively slow when you're looking up at it. It is not slow. The raft barrels down the raceway and careens down that final drop into a massive splash at the end. Absolutely fantastic. Aaaand wet. I thought it might be time for some cinnamon bread, but peeking into the shop I realized they only had one size loaf and it would be too much for me to eat all at once. I didn't want to carry half of one around the park so I planned on coming back later for it. SDC gets even prettier as night falls. Especially the area around Mystic River Falls, which turns absolutely magical. I was headed for Outlaw Run though. I hadn't been impressed before but I'd still been encouraged to ride it at night. It was actually darker than it looks here; my phone likes to make night shots look bright, but by time I got on this it was almost pitch black. I would guess that more people know of the Beast's legendary difference between day and night than Outlaw Run's. Outlaw Run's is even more intense. Not only is it pitch black, but it also is apparently an entirely different coaster. During the day it ran rougher than I expected, fast but shaking its way around the course. At night it doesn't feel like it actually touches the track. It doesn't even sound the same. The wheels scream as they fly over the course. It moves like its being driven, like gravity alone doesn't seem like it should be able to explain. It seems to pick up more speed on every drop and never lose any. It takes corners and inversions and the double down like it wants you out, wants to throw you, and all while you can barely see a hint of the track ahead. The final heartline rolls before the station don't even make sense, they're too fast to keep up with, the darkness around you just goes into an impossible spin. Outlaw Run during the day was decent, but I really thought overrated, clearly RMC's freshman effort and not up to the standards of the later ones. Outlaw Run at night is indescribable. The guy riding behind me looked at my King's Island shirt and asked if I thought this was as good as The Beast at night. I'm honestly not sure. Apart from being wood (sort of) coasters that disappear into the woods, and transform at night, they're such different experiences...I can definitely say I've never been on anything that feels like Outlaw Run after dark. The Beast has something with disappearing into the woods, into a different place for a few minutes...but Outlaw Run skips anything so cutesy and just tries to show you what it can do to you in the dark. Yes please. I planned on getting to Time Traveler after dark too, but I failed that and just stayed at Outlaw Run until it was time to head out. By time I left the park looked deserted. The remaining guests were up here at a dance party; noooot what I expected but it seemed fun! I had places to be though and another drive ahead of me. I passed on taking the tram out to my car though and chose to walk out, to give myself a few more minutes at the park and to look back at its lights. Silver Dollar City is...a complete experience in a way most parks can't be. It has some top tier coasters, certainly, but there's so much more to it than that. Closer to Busch Gardens, yes, but with an authenticity that they lack in trying to set bits of other countries in themselves, while Silver Dollar City only has to be itself. It might be a cutesy idealized version of America, sure, but it's one that it makes feel real enough around you. From the settings and the food to the virtually unmatched park staff and experiences like the cave, from rides like Outlaw Run and Time Traveler (and Wildfire!) to the appealing silliness of the train ride and the River Battle, it really is a park for anyone, and I just can't imagine any way anyone could fail to have an incredible day there. Most of the small complaints I have are just 2021 being what it is, and I'm sure the park will be even better in the future when we get past these times. It was only day two of the trip but I was already certain I was going to have to do this again next year or as soon as possible to take friends alone, if only for Silver Dollar City. In all the fun and adrenaline right after a park, it's easy to say that it's my favorite and forget how much other parks were every bit as good...but even without having the absolute most rides or biggest coasters, SDC is just bigger in its own way than anywhere else I can think of, and it's somewhere I already desperately want to get back to. Oh...and in case anyone was concerned, I did remember to go back for the cinnamon bread on the way out, and made an incredible sticky mess all over my poor rental car with it. It is every bit as good as everyone says it is. I almost hate to leave off a report on such an incredible park with something so anticlimactic, but in the interests of being helpful for anyone planning their own trips, after an hour and a half ish drive I stopped at the Baymont in Ft. Leonard/Saint Robert for the night, and can easily give it a recommendation for anyone else coming through. Cozy, clean, friendly, reasonably cheap, comfy bed, easily good for more than just crashing for a night but certainly did the job for that too. That said, I don't think I've ever spent less time conscious in a hotel room than this one. I barely remember it...after a day of climbing up and down the hills of SDC and getting in at midnight, I barely made it to the bed. Day Three will be Six Flags St Louis, and a much shorter report as I didn't spend nearly as much time there.

Selfies are just not something that ever even occurs to me, I guess. I assume people are more interested in the parks than seeing me. Just a me thing, I guess! I suppose it makes sense; as much as enthusiasts want to see new rides there, the park sort of has its local market that is going to be going there no matter what they do or don't add, and that's probably about it. Not sure why I typed Kansas, I knew better, but I guess after typing Kansas City enough times, my fingers get ahead of my brain! That makes sense, as far as it being a river. Definitely a bit strange looking in the twilight though! And I do appreciate the help, thanks! SDC report coming shortly!

Day 2 - Silver Dollar City Day 3 - Six Flags St Louis Day 4 - Holiday World Day 5 - Kentucky Kingdom Day 6 - Indiana Beach BIG trip report incoming! As always I apologize for my photography; I'm terrible at it, and on top of that my phone was fighting me for much of this trip; in its old age it's decided it does not like to function in heat or direct sun, so quite a few pictures I tried to take just didn't work out. I also tend to get a bit excited about actually riding rides and forget to even take the pictures I meant to, but anyway... So, for quite a few years now I've had a list of parks I very much wanted to get to out in the Midwest. Holiday World has been on my list since I first heard of The Raven. Silver Dollar City has always looked nice, but every since Time Traveler was announced it became a must-see. Indiana Beach was one I'd badly wanted to visit, and then I thought I missed my chance entirely when it closed, only for it to get a second chance. A year or two ago I started idling thinking about how practical it would be to get to as many parks out there as possible, but figured it would just be too much driving, too much to deal with. Several months back, Time Traveler came up again and I started looking into it again. Playing around on Google Maps, I plotted out a route between parks, some places I could stop for the night, etc, and started looking for people who might want to go with me if I decided to do it. While I was in the middle of setting up the map, Robb posted a video of The Raven here. Sometimes life just gives you the little bits of encouragement you need, you know? It ended up becoming clear pretty quickly that if I was doing this trip it was going to be alone. Most of my closer friends aren't quite as into parks as I am, and seven days of them nonstop would not be their idea of fun. Those that might want to go weren't able to for a variety of reasons from work and personal ones to closed borders. I considered cancelling, but thought a bit about how much fun it would be to just go and not have to worry about what anyone else wanted to do, or them getting tired, or any sort of the usual cat-herding. Besides, I had vacation time to burn somewhere after all the quarantining. For a little while it seemed like the trip was cursed; problem after problem cropped up trying to get it planned; from difficulties with flights and cars, to the midwest suddenly becoming a COVID hotspot as well as a the site of a projected massive heat wave, to health problems flaring up just before the trip, but despite everything, last saturday I found myself at T.F.Green airport ready to fly out. I have never in my life seen an airport so deserted. Zero people in the TSA line; the gate areas were all but deserted. Despite the general state of everything, it felt amazing to just get on a plane and fly away again. Landing for a stopover in Chicago; the first time I'd see the Windy City in a week's time. I can't help but see the Hyatt Regency out there in the distance while landing; hopefully I'll be back there in a few months for a convention if the state of the world allows... After a slightly too brief stop in Chicago (45 minutes does not leave much time to grab lunch and run between terminals - especially when even McDonalds is running on a skeleton staff and painfully slow...), I was on to Kansas City. Kansas City airport is...well, it's a dump. The worst airport I've ever flown through. Stained carpets, trash everywhere, bathrooms turned into ponds by overflowing toilets. The architecture was...something, too. Not somewhere I wanted to spend any more time than I had to. The exterior of the place looks more like an abandoned strip mall than an airport. Usually I love being out in the rain but there was no denying that it just made this place look even more bleak. One shuttle bus ride later (car rental isn't actually at the airport here but a little ways away), and a short chat with a very friendly and helpful woman at the Dollar rental car counter, I was told to pick any car I wanted from the "full size" part of the rental lot. That's always much nicer that just getting whatever car they hand you the keys for! In a sea of monotone grey and black, this one instantly jumped out. I hate the trend toward colorless cars, so that was already enough for me to go straight for this one. On top of that my last several cars have been Fords and I know my way around the infotainment system and controls and such, which I figured would save me some time getting on the road and getting navigation set up. The Fusion turned out to be incredibly comfortable inside too, and I knew I was going to be spending a lot of time driving, so that was going to be important. This turned out to be a good decision; it was a great little car that made for pleasant cruising, even if the 1.5 ecoboost under the hood didn't make it particularly fast cruising. There was going to be a lot of driving in my future, but not today; my hotel for the night wasn't far away. I'd settled on the Quality Inn and Suites in Kansas City; I've had pretty terrible luck with Quality Inns in the past, but this one was cheap and well reviewed. It turned out to be nice enough that I wish I could have stayed more than one night. Big room, well kept, perfectly clean, and probably the single most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. Would easily recommend to anyone staying in the area! Being a very midwestern sort of place though...I was a little amused at having to walk down a hallway between The Prayer Wall and The Military Heroes wall to get to my room. Well...Kansas City. Can't say I was surprised. I'd noticed one other thing when pulling in, though. My hotel shared a parking lot with a little hole-in-the-wall type Mexican restaurant. Well, as those of us that travel enough know, tiny hole in the walls are either the best or worst when it comes to Mexican food, without much in between. I really planned on getting barbecue, since it was KC and all, but after being up very early and travelling all day I wasn't really in the mood to explore, and it was right there, so I checked out the reviews, and it definitely seemed promising. I figured I could just get take-out and eat in my hotel room, and save at least one indoor encounter; I wasn't planning on letting the pandemic slow me down more than necessary on this trip, since I'm vaccinated, generally healthy, and easily able to quarantine when I got home, but I also didn't see any reason to take entirely unneeded risks in a major hot spot on day 1. So, I ordered chips and beans, a "puffy fried taco", and a pork chimichanga, as well as a margarita - the place advertised their margaritas pretty heavily, so I figured that was worth a try. They offered quite a few flavors...mango, pina colada, watermelon, blackberry, blue... Not blue berry, not blue Hawaii, just "blue." Well, of course I had to order that one. One again I underestimated the amount of food I was ordering. They gave me basically an entire tostitos-bag sized bag of chips... The house hot sauce wasn't particularly hot, but it was tasty. The puffy fried taco was really tasty; under all the lettuce and tomato was a lot of nicely seasoned beef, better than I expected from the look of it. ...The blue margarita was a slush puppy. If you've ever had a blue slush puppy you know what they taste like; they're not quite just general blue raspberry but definitely have their own unique slightly odd taste to them. This was a blue slush puppy with tequila in it. Utterly ridiculous, and yet I can't say I didn't love it. And then I tried the chimichanga. Now, I already wasn't expecting it to be amazingly authentic mexican, since chimichangas aren't that to start with. I was expecting the pork to be carnitas, though. Perhaps I forgot where I was, or just misjudged Kansas City, because what it turned out to be was a bbq pork chimichanga. It was delicious. I don't care what offenses it committed to mexican cuisine, I could eat one of them every day for the rest of my life. Rapidos Mexican Cuisine, 3/10 on authenticity, and that's if I give them a point just for seasoning their taco meat, but 10/10 just plain /good/ Cheap, too; I think it barely broke $20 for all that including the good sized "margarita." Loved it. I spent a few hours lounging around playing with my Switch until I was ready to sleep, and passed out in the supremely comfy bed. I wish I could have taken it with me. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to sleep with how excited I was, but that turned out to be no issue at all, and in the morning set out for Worlds of Fun. I did not have high expectations for WoF. I hear very little about it and most of what I do hear is that Cedar Fair doesn't even care about it. The only suggestion I remember being given about it was to not even bother with it and go to Kentucky Kingdom instead. Well, at that point I'd already fit KK into the schedule, so I kept WoF in there anyway. After all, I had a Cedar Fair season pass so it wasn't going to be much of a stretch to at least check it out. After a year and a half of pandemic times and all, actually seeing this on the horizon was absolutely thrilling. The first B&M Invert I've seen in something like three years now. Patriot may not be one of the best regarded of them but I was practically desperate to ride it at this point. Keeping my eyes on Patriot on the way in. There's a lot of greenery at WoF too; shade doesn't seem like it'll be a problem. From the entry plaza, WoF is at least clean and well kept. The chain isn't neglecting it that badly at least. I visited in the middle of their "Grand Carnivale" international festival. Some of this was pretty good, some less so. The creepy heads staring over the hedges, definitely on the "less so" side. With my hotel right nearby and a good night of sleep behind me, I'd gotten there early enough to have almost a half hour to wait for rope drop. A half hour seems like a long time when you've gone a year and a half without any parks at all. (I know, that's a bit privileged, but I don't think I've gone that long without getting to one since I hit a double digit age). Being tempted by a flume through the trees. Not a huge flume, but still! More temptations. Cedar Fair parks usually have pretty great funnel cakes in my experience; 22 toppings sounded even better. Rope drop and we're in! I wasn't sure if I was going to need fastlane at all, but I'd budgeted to be able to go all out for the week, so I figured I'd get it and if I didn't need it...no big deal. After picking it up I headed for the first coaster I saw; I know, heading to the back is wiser, but there weren't many people here yet anyway, and everyone waiting at the entrance had been talking about how Spinning Dragons builds up crowds fast. The signage there isn't great so I entirely missed the fast lane entrance, but given how few people were in front of me I didn't even bother going back to look for it. Spinning Dragons is a perfectly standard spinning coaster, but I was happy enough to get on it. I was hoping to get put into a car on my own and get some really good spinning that way, too. Still watching Patriot from the queue though. Unfortunately...the only activity I'm seeing over there is someone mowing the grass. Not great... Spinning Dragons' Station. I really want to know the story behind Panel Bear and Panel Mushroom. The first attendant paired me up with three other people, but then as we moved to get into the car another asked if I was with them. I explained that I wasn't but I'd been told to ride with them; she held me back and put me in the next car on my own. Getting a solo ride on these spinners is always pretty ideal; the weight imbalance makes for a nice spinny ride. This was no exception; the coaster was running well and spun like crazy. Not a huge coaster but a fun start to the trip. Bamboozler, a pretty standard old (super?) Round Up. Points for panda theme, but I was more interested in getting to the unique rides for now; I figured I could come back to this later if I had the time. Patriot still wasn't running when I approached, and just as I started to feel disappointed, an op came over to take the "closed' sign down. Good timing! This would not be the first time this happened this week. Thanks to the delayed opening, this was the wait Patriot as I got into the station. Not needing that Fastlane pass so far. I don't remember if I got on the first or second train of the day, but definitely not much wait time. In the front, Patriot is...decent? It's an enjoyable enough ride; I don't believe there's an inverted coaster that isn't. The numbers on it aren't particularly impressive and it's not incredibly forceful, but it is a smooth ride. It suffers most from lack of theming and landscaping, I think; it's just thrown in the park over a bed of grass and gravel. In the end, it's a B&M invert and at the time that was enough to make me happy. I went around for another run to try the back, but it doesn't make a huge difference on this ride. The central plaza in this area is rather pretty. Whether you're impressed by WoF or not, there's no denying it's a nicely kept park. Windseeker! Or...whatever they call this one. Steel Hawk. Same thing. I didn't expect there to be a lot to see up there, but I do enjoy these rides; there really is a sensation of actually flying up that high. They definitely test my fear of heights, but that just made me want to get on it more; I didn't want to start a week out by chickening out of intimidating rides, or I'd risk starting a pattern I didn't want to get into for the week! (If only I knew what that fear of heights was in for later in the week...). So, I did get on it, and yes, I can definitely not confirm, most of Kansas is very, very flat. It's still a great ride, but there is not a lot to see up there. Nice view of the park though? It was a warm day and I was already getting thirsty, but I'd thought ahead enough to add unlimited drinks to my platinum pass. This was lucky, because not only was I going to need a lot of hydration that day, but... Worlds of Fun has this. I assume it's regional, I don't know, but I've never seen it before, and I probably went through a gallon and a half of it in one day. So good! From there I headed up to the back corner to find Timber Wolf waiting. \ I'm pretty sure I'd read that Timber Wolf was the park's rough coaster, and prepared myself for quite a bit of pain here. I can generally handle rough though, so I wasn't going to skip it. The entrance is around back, and teases with views of a coaster that makes Timber Wolf look like a kiddie ride beneath it. Chicken exit. Maybe chiropractor's exit if the ride was as expected? The station staff here was doing something I don't remember seeing at a park in quite a while; they were clearly enjoying their job. Just being very friendly and chatty with riders in the station, talking up the ride, trying to get people to howl like wolves if they wanted to ride; granted it was early in the day, but they were energetic and getting people psyched up for the coaster, and actually looking like they liked being there. ...Didn't expect to see that in 2021, and not at WoF. The thing is, maybe I was thinking of a different coaster, or I misread, or maybe Timber Wolf has gotten some major work done on it. I'm not sure what the case is, but it wasn't even remotely rough. (Looking it up now; it looks like it did get a retracking. Seems it was a pretty successful project then!) Definitely a "classic" style woodie with that old out of control feeling, but not what I'd call rough at all, not even slightly painful. The layout is actually a bit on the tame side; most of the hills aren't sharp enough to throw you out of your seat, and it features a a number of high, moderate speed turns, like a lot of Dinn coasters I've ridden, but for something I went into expecting to get beat up, it was a pretty enjoyable ride. Not going to be a favorite, but one I could re-ride quite a bit. Dominator, or Detonator, or whichever CF Grab Bag recycled name they used for this one. Not going to be a priority for me, I've done enough drop towers like this and far bigger. Still, it's not a bad setting. I wasn't actually sure what this was. The signs made it clear that it was an indoor spinning ride, so I guessed indoor scrambler. Not quite, though! This one is an indoor Wipeout. Unlike the ones I've ridden at Six Flags parks though, this one is set to "kill." I don't think I've ever been on a Wipeout that moved as fast as this one, and yes, that includes Knoebels'. The ride felt like it was trying to hurl its riders straight into the ceiling...which seemed very close overhead at times. It's light on special effects beyond a steampunk-y looking fog machine and some bright "glow in the dark" painting on the walls, but the actual ride cycle was long and crazy fast; without a doubt the best of the type of ride I've been on. I got off absolutely unable to stop laughing. That was about the point where I realized that, so far, despite my expectations, I was very much enjoying WoF so far. Mamba still looming over the park back there. Mustang Runner, a Huss Troika; pretty sure every CF park has one of these now. I actually do very much enjoy this for a family ride, and this one is, like the rest of the park, well kept up, nicely painted and shaded, but I decided not to worry about it yet. I'd have plenty of them to ride this summer if I didn't get back here. The center part of the park is quite pretty. Unfortunately the train was just sitting here shut down; I hoped it would run later, but didn't know at the time it had been down for a long period of time. Apparently it just started running again this last weekend, so I missed it by a week. I would have liked to get on it; it looks like a nice ride, and eal steam train, not some little diesel park toy. SDC was going to be the next day though, so not that big a heartbreak. There aren't many places in the park that you can't see Mamba from. Boomerang. Not sure why I felt the need to get on this, but...again, it had been a couple years, and there was no line. I walked up to the station, and the staff asked me to wait a bit as they were cleaning it, because someone had just thrown up on the ride. I hung out for a few minutes, and jumped on somewhere near the back. As Boomerangs go, it's one of the better ones; not quite as impossibly smooth at Morey's Piers', but other than that one, I think the best one I've ridden. The newer trains seem to help some, but LC's Zoomerang has them too and is much rougher than this one. As I was getting off, the ride ops announced that they were temporarily shutting the ride down again to clean it, because someone had been sick on it again. Poor staaff... What's that? Through the trees? YESSSSSSSS. Enterprises might have been everywhere once, but that's just not the case any more, and I'm always excited to see one that I can still get on. I was going to wait a bit on that though; it was getting to be lunch time. Sea Dragon on the way to the front of the park. Setting them over water is always a nice touch, or maybe I just think so because I insist on doing it myself in every RCT type game. I was planning on hitting the Grand Carnivale International Food Festival for lunch. Unfortunately, due to staffing, it was only going to be open for dinner hours. Still, I got to get a look at what was on offer for later. How about that authentic German cuisine? (If you don't already see it, you might want to google German Chocolate cake. Samuel German was an American baker...) Despite that little research blunder, a lot of it looked really good. Portions looked to be decent and you could get a tasting card for 6 different items for I believe $30; not at all bad. For now though I'd have to settle for a more usual park lunch. I went with pizza, figuring that would hold me over but not be too filling when I wanted to be hungry again for dinner. It was a giant piece of pizza (it doesn't look it without anything to scale; the pieces of pepperoni were similarly oversized) but rather mediocre; edible but not great. Still, mediocre pizza is still pizza...and the garlic knots that came with it were actually really good, nice and crispy and not at all short on garlic. Over to the Viking Voyager flume then, since I was right there at that point. A smallish log flume, with a very vague viking theme that didn't extend past the boats at all. Sea Dragon from the flume's station. Bumping down the flume; despite its size it was a reasonably aggressive flume and set a pretty good pace through the course. The drop at the end failed do to much more than offer me a bit of mist though; it was a warm day and I was hoping for a bit more than that. Heading back into the area where I'd seen the Enterprise, I passed the Scrambler, which appeared to be set more at "gently fold" than "scramble". Passed on that for now. Work going on on the train bridge! Maybe it was going to open soon? As I mentioned earlier it wouldn't for another week. Here we are! Zulu, the park's well maintained Huss Enterprise. I tried to get a picture from the ride while it was moving, but my phone would have none of it. This is still one of my favorite views at any park though. Rocky Point Park's Enterprise was my first big, real "thrill" ride as a kid, and nothing has ever knocked them out of my list of favorites. Zulu is an unusually good example of the remaining ones; it ran a longer cycle than most, and it pinned me into the seat with far more force than I'm used to from these anymore; most of them move fast enough to get you over the top, but with a lot of floating up there; Zulu keeps enough speed to keep you /firmly/ in your seat the entire way around. Definitely made me smile to find an increasingly rare ride running so well. Next to it though...ahh, this one I'd heard good things about! Well, any coaster with a big black kitty mascot is off to a good start with me. You can see a bit of the coaster in the background, but it's a very hard ride to photograph; most of it is far out in the corner of the park, in the woods and away from any paths. This is about the only other shot I can offer of the actual track. For any more than that you'd need a camera out on the actual ride. So, how much am I going to make you listen to me go on about Prowler? First, I have to say, the crew running Prowler that day was the absolute best I've seen, at any park, in as long as I can remember. Not only were they racing through dispatches as fast as possible given that the coaster has rather difficult and annoying newly added seat belts, they were doing it with a lot of humor and spirit. Lots of good natured teasing with each other and jokes going around, and they seemed to be challenging each other to just keep making up new spiels for dispatching the ride. In all the times I rode it (which turned out to be...a LOT...) I never heard the same line twice; some hilarious, some cute, and some so awful they were amazing. The staff had also apparently decided they were going to refer to everyone waiting to ride as "kitty cats" every chance they got and try to make people meow. (Yes, hi, if the icon didn't give it away, I am very much a furry, but my fox character is older and these days I'm more often a black cat around much of the internet...so this was amusing me quite a bit!). As good as the whole station experience was, the ride is a bit more important...and...the ride... I'm not sure where I stand these days for ride credits; I'd have to go through the whole list and try to figure that out, but if I had to guesstimate, probably in the high 200s. With that many coasters behind me, Prowler just neatly made itself my #1 wooden coaster. It's not even a big ride; I don't think it breaks a hundred feet? From the top of the lift to the brake run though, Prowler is relentless. It's like someone looked at the TPR forums here arguing over if Phoenix airtime or Twister laterals are better, and asked why they can't just do both in one coaster, but why not put some of Boulder Dash's terrain coaster style in too, and then stick it out in the woods like The Beast? I mean, why not just put the best attributes of all the best wooden coasters into a single ride? We can do that, right? They did do that. GCI built a masterpiece here. I've ridden Mystic Timbers too, which I've heard described as an even better Prowler, but as much as I did enjoy that one, I can't agree; Prowler is the better of the two. The mix of ejector air and quick turns, on top of the way it just hauls through every inch of the course like there's a jet turbine strapped to the last car...wow. In the front it's great. In the back...absolutely my current favorite. No matter what you think about Worlds of Fun in general, you need to get out there just for this coaster. I only wish I could have gotten in a night ride or two, but WoF wasn't open until sunset that that. I had to settle for nine or so times around in the day, and I wish I'd gotten more. I also wish I had better pictures, but it's really just not possible to photograph from within the park. As much as I loved Prowler, there were still other things to get on...and it was getting hot once I was in less shady areas of the park. Fortunately, the park had Fury of the Nile to take care of that! Unfortunately the line was an hour and a half. ...Back to fortunately, I did have that fastlane pass that I'd yet to need before now, and jumped right on. Fury of the Nile station. And Mamba again. The days of 205 feet being a monster coaster are long over but in a park with mostly modest sized rides, it still has a serious presence. Fury of the Nile is a solid raft ride with some light theming that mostly consists of an egyptian tomb/cave at the end. Unfortunately I ended up sharing a raft with three girls who looked to weigh about a hundred pounds each; I'm not exactly heavily built myself. With a relatively light raft like that we mostly bounced over the rapids without getting very wet at all. The girls riding with me seemed happy about this; I was hoping to be soaked though! Well...there was still one thing I could do about that. Passing Coasters on the way; Cedar Fair must have gotten a deal on prefabs for these diners or something, as far as I can tell every park has one exactly the same as the others. Here we go. Viking Voyager barely gave me a light mist; Fury of the Nile gave me a couple damp spots. Monsoon though...I was pretty sure it was up to helping deal with the day's heat. Unfortunately Monsoon is actually considered part of Oceans of Fun, not Worlds of Fun...meaning that while I could still get in, my fastlane pass wasn't good there. The shorter pass beneath the raised part of the ride was also closed for some reason, so to get to it I had to take a long detour up and around, through the changing room area of Oceans of Fun, and back down to the ride, then wait in a considerable line. ...I really wanted that splash though. I'd gotten the former picture of the actual splashdown before getting on the ride; if you go back and look at it, and the tree branch over the center of the drop, and compare to the second picture I took after getting on the ride, you might notice one detail that I hadn't before getting on the ride. That drop is a double down...in a shoot the chute ride with absolutely no actual restraints, not even a real lap bar, just a static grab bar. A double down with ejector air and no restraints, and me entirely clueless that it was coming ahead of time, going down the drop with my hands in the air... So that was definitely an unexpectedly intense (and pretty great, really) moment there...before a /huge/ splashdown. Mission successful; I was absolutely soaked. Alright then; it's been starting me down for the entire day, so... Mamba isn't an exact clone of Steel Force at Dorney but it's close enough to fool anyone who doesn't know better. That meant, if it rode mostly the same, some decent floater air at the very least, so well worth getting on, especially with no lines. These big old brick Morgan trains are a bit awkward looking but very comfortable, especially for an older design. After riding it...definitely very close to Steel Force but I have to give the edge to Mamba here. More airtime on the first couple of hills, and a much more intense feeling helix. Sadly the MCBR hit hard here and the bunny hills on the return leg weren't all that impressive. By now it was last enough for the food stands to be open, so I headed back to the front of the park and grabbed the six item tasting pass. "Taste" number 1, pretzel nuggets. They had me at beer cheese. The pretzels were good; just a bit crispy and with enough flavor that they didn't have to bury them in salt, but the cheese was the best part. I took a moment after that snack to go for a round on Fjord Fjairlane, since I was right there and I generally like the rides. Unfortunately either it was running a bizarre tame cycle, or something was wrong with the ride. Once it was up to speed the cars just sort of hung out at an angle, with one set or the other occasionally making a half-hearted attempted to ride up further, then dropping back down. Nothing at all like these rides usually run. That was about all the altitude any of the cars ever got this time. Odd. By time I got off they had one of the Grand Carnivale shows going on. These sorts of park shows are often pretty questionable but credit where it's due, the performers were putting a lot into it and seemed to be having fun doing it. I didn't stick around long though. After all, I'd been wanting the berry and lemon curd crepe all day. There was quite a lot there for a "tasting portion", and it's loaded up with lemon curd on the inside. Nice fresh berries too; I really enjoyed this one. I also went and grabbed some fried ravioli (tasty, though I don't think I'd had fried ravioli before so not much to compare it to...I liked them though and the sauce was decent as well) and a Cassata cake; Less impressive, the "cake" was a very small (though tasty) ball of pound cake in the bottom of a cup, topped by most of a cup full of strawberries and cream. That didn't stop me from devouring it before I even though to get a picture. It was getting late ish at this point, and I had a long drive to Branson that I'd been warned I didn't want to have to stop on, so I wanted to try to make it while I was awake, before dark if possible. I thought that over a bit, and decided that leaving to make sure I could make that drive as easily as possible would be the smart thing to do. And then I went back to Prowler again anyway. Priorities. One of the best wooden coasters in the world, hiding in the trees like its jungle cat namesake there. I hit Zulu for another ride too, since I don't know how long old Enterprises are for this world anymore, much less any running as well as that one does, and then rather regretfully headed out. SIlver Dollar City was calling though. I still had food credits left so I used them for the french ham sandwich and german chocolate cake, figuring those would survive the drive fine and I'd be able to have them for a snack once I got to my hotel in Branson. This is their idea of a tasting portion? It's about eight inches long and a decent lunch on its own! Was simple but very tasty, with surprisingly good bread, plenty of ham, and the herb butter was quite nice. The German Chocolate Cake might be amusingly...not German...but it was pretty spectacular anyway, covered in caramel and coconut, and delicious even at room temperature after a long drive. I had to grab a mango lassi as well on the way out, which didn't last long enough for me to get a picture of...oops. Maybe not quite as good as I've had in some Indian restaurants, but...it was a mango lassi, it was good. See you, Worlds of Fun! Given what I'd been told about it, I had the lowest expectations for Worlds of Fun of any of the parks on my list, but it really took me by surprise. Even without it having a low bar to clear I would have very much enjoyed myself there. It doesn't have the most or the biggest coasters, but the ones there are all well cared for and run great, right down to the Boomerang. The coasters I thought could torture, I enjoyed, and the one I thought I might like, I absolutely loved. The majority of the flats are in great shape and run as well great cycles, with the slow scrambler and maybe-broken Fjord Fairlane as the only exceptions. Very much to my surprise, though, it was the staff that really made the biggest difference here. The vast majority of the ride crews and even the food service staff were putting in real effort and just plain having and being fun. It might be that Worlds of Fun needs investment from the chain, it might be a bit forgotten or not change or get new rides often, but after spending a day there I feel like it doesn't get enough credit for the things it does right. It's never going to be a Cedar Point thrill destination, but it's a pleasant, clean, well maintained, friendly park with enough above-average rides to make for a great day. Even the food, at least for the Grand Carnivale event, was very good. ...Aaaaand it has Prowler. I don't know why but this made me laugh. As an east coaster, I'm entirely aware that Wichita is a real place but it just never seemed like a place I'd find myself... The drive to Branson after was much less pleasant. That area of Missouri is empty, boring, and just not a great place to be. It ranged from flat and empty... To...whatever this lake/swamp was. Low water with dead trees sticking up all through it. It looked like the bog in Mad Max, really. Creepy, especially since it got dark while I was driving through here. Fortunately my rental made for an easy drive anyway, and I had plenty of podcasts to listen to on the drive (I did a lot of catching up on Skyjacks on this trip!). Once in Branson, I checked into a motel 6...which I admit I'd been a bit cautious about, since they're not exactly generally top end lodgings... This one was just fine for an overnight though. I wasn't thrilled with the look of the simple metal frame bed but it turned out to be perfectly comfortable. Not only that but the hotel offered me an amusingly unexpected solution to a problem I'd run into that morning; I discovered that somehow I'd failed to pack a hair brush. Somewhat more of a problem for me since this is the first trip I've been on since growing my hair out...and I kept failing to remember to stop anywhere to get a new one on the drive...only to go to grab a late night drink from the hotel vending machine and find... ...I've never seen a vending machine with a hair brush stuck in next to the chips. How strange! Something about gift horses though... After the relatively long day and drive, I slept just fine on that motel bed, even excited as I was for Silver Dollar City. I'll get to that one next time though.

Nah, don't let it keep you from going. If you're going for the rides, you'll still have a good time. The staff is just lifeless; they're not going to do anything to add to the day, but they're not going to ruin it either.

Sadly I have to agree on the staff. I was there on Thursday and it was just...not good in that regard. For the most park the staff really did not seem like they wanted to be there at all. I know it's a rough year for everyone, but out of all the parks I did, KK's staffing was...well, maybe not quite as bad as Six Flags St Louis, but close.

Like Mike said it's hard to predict this year. I just did a week long tour of 7 parks ending with that one and crowds were all over. Worlds of Fun (Sunday) was moderate, Silver Dollar City (Mon) was practically abandoned, Six Flags St Louis (Tues) was fairly crowded, Holiday World (wed) was painfully crowded in the morning, before crowds moved entirely to the waterpark later. Kentucky Kingdom (thursday) had almost no one in the park at all, Indiana Beach (Friday) was very quiet. On Saturday, unfortunately, I made it to Great America, and on top of them not fully using fastpass (and being sold out before the park opened), most of the park was /packed/ I was able to get in a decent number of rides by racing to the back of the park while everyone else was queuing for Maxx Force, but most of the day was hour plus waits for anything at all. It doesn't help that almost no flats are running right now to spread the crowds out. If you're getting there on a weekday I imagine it PROBABLY won't be that bad, but, again, it's unpredictable. On a weekend, 20-30 minute waits would be asking for a near impossibility, I think.

Can't say for sure, but when I was there a couple days ago they were only offering Flash Passes for a handful of rides, apparently because they didn't have staff to have someone just working the fastpass entrance. Given the temper tantrums that people were throwing over getting fastpasses and not being able to use them on every ride, it might be possible that they're just not offering them right now.

So...just got in from SFGAm. Will be putting a full trip report together this week. Short version though, despite all the challenges this year...one of the best weeks I've ever had. Can't wait to write more about it.

Alright, got my ticket for it. $15 for that seems more than worth it.

Anyone ever do the upcharge lantern light tour? https://www.silverdollarcity.com/Tickets/Ticket-Add-Ons/SDC-Lantern-Tour? That sounds pretty tempting to me... Also is the Trailblazer pass worth it here? I have no idea what to expect for crowds there.

Definitely going to do that, thanks!

Well, the /best/ pizza is Cesari's, because if you're getting it, you're at Knoebels! Putting location aside, the best I've ever had was the Sicilian pizza from Pizza Boy II in Queens NY. It's been too long, and nothing's beaten it since.

They're much better these days; it's one of the few things at that park that's actually improved. Still no Knoebels fliers, but definitely respectable enough the last couple times I've been. They started running them at a decent speed the same year they repainted them with the warbird paint job a few years back (which I think is already gone).

Oh, I know. That's the plan. I'm not thrilled about the numbers but I'm definitely not letting it keep me from going. I've wanted to get to SDC for years, I'm not missing the chance now. I'm healthy and not in any high risk groups, I'm vaccinated, I'll have a mask...I'll be fine, sure. It's just...disappointing and frustrating, the whole attitude like you said. We should be done with this crap by now, but...I don't need to derail the topic any further. Also, a week from yesterday, not sure why I typed a day. Flying out for 7 parks in 7 days this weekend.

Yeah, not exactly great to see when I'm going to be there a day from today, but...not surprising at all either.

Just a quick mini-TR; didn't have time to take a lot of pictures or anything since I was running around with a group and trying not to hold them up. Just got back from the park; ended up being a pretty great day. I went in with low expectations knowing what parks are like in general this summer, but SFNE is really doing an impressive job handling everything, and, really, hiding the worst of it. Weather kept the crowds to a minimum at the beginning of the day, but they slowly built up to what I'd say is probably nearly normal for a sunday on another summer. The park seemed nearly fully staffed; most of the rides had full crews, all food stands and stores were open. Operations were decent for the most part, which is to say better than usual for a Six Flags park. Virtually everything was open; Houdini and Tomahawk opened a bit late, but did open. Fireball was still down; I don't think it's reopened since the storm damage, and I realize now I never checked Kontiki, but I don't remember anything else (besides Goliath) down after early afternoon. Lines were mostly pretty tolerable; we didn't bother with Fastpass this time and had no problem getting on every major ride, multiple times when we wanted, without rushing at all. The only real slowdowns or issues at all we ran into was Cyborg; with it being an indoor ride, the park still seems to be using COVID protocols, loading half the seats and wiping stopping to disinfect frequently. Probably wise since there's no real airflow or sunlight in there. Wicked Cylone gave the best rides I've ever had on it with the track wet; felt like someone strapped a rocket to the back of it. Superman is running reasonably well; a little shuffle but not so bad; similar with batman. Riddler is a mixed bag; it's definitely rough as hell, but I don't really find it to be too unpleasant with the new restraints, and it's absolutely hauling despite the bouncing around. Thunderbolt...could use a bit of track work. Supergirl isn't quite a replacement for an Enterprise if you ask me, but pretty great on its own. Harley Quinn is still the best flat out there, if you ask me. The new mexican stand that replaced Aztec Nachos, down by Batman, is pretty solid. I tried the jalapeno ranch nachos and they were definitely at the upper end of what I expect at a Six Flags park; not spicy at all despite the HOT label, but quite good. Run by an outside company, though, so not on the meal plan or eligible for any discounts, so some tradeoff compared to the old place. Just in general, the park seems to be doing a pretty good job of hiding the issues the industry is dealing with; I really would have had a hard time seeing it as anything but an ordinary July weekend there today. I'm impressed.

It's a good day to come by the park. A bit of rain supposed to stop soon and...

It's a big, and great park, with a ton of things you're going to want to do, preferably more than once. Fastpass+ is definitely going to be your friend if you're just getting one day to spend here. If you can afford it, it'll make your day so much more fun. Without, you're likely going to have to pick and choose what you want to get in in one day, and there isn't really much you want to skip here.

So, absent a lot of other information to troubleshoot with, that pretty likely means your IP has been blocked by the server. That doesn't mean that /you/ actually were, but most residential internet doesn't have static IPs...someone else could have gotten blocked for one reason or another, and then your ISP decided to go ahead and reallocate IPs and give you that one that had been blocked. On most ISPs you can get it to give you a new one by just unplugging your cable modem for a bit (overnight if you want to be sure); when you reconnect the modem it should give you a new address, and more than likely that solves that issue. If it doesn't, there are other things to look into, but that's the low effort way to fix the majority of those errors.

Not sure how they're doing it at MM but SFNE doesn't have set days this season; it's just "one bring a friend free pass, any day during the operating season." Should be able to check that on the pass/member portal easily enough.