prozach626

I've always been a decent tipper. 25%, more if the service is really good. However, why is everywhere asking for tips, now? Coffee shops, smoothie shops, and quick service food restaurants (IE - Q'Doba, Chipotle), and take-out. For the first time ever, I didn't tip my local coffee shop today. The lady acted like a total B when I hit no tip on the tablet. The drinks took an actual two minutes to make, and working at a laid back coffee shop is cake. It's not even like they're curbside and bring the food out, or at the very least, have an obligation to wipe off a table when I'm finished consuming a product. I feel like this was never a thing prior to COVID, and controversy aside, everything is back to normal in my area. Wages in Illinois have significantly increased. Meanwhile, inflation has driven down my savings, essentially devaluing several thousands of dollars. Service workers, such as waitresses and bar tenders depend on gratuities to earn their living, due to lower starting wages. They typically strive to offer better services in order to earn higher wages, and it pays off from people like me. They aren't making easy step predetermined servings of coffee flavoring or sandwich recipes, being pretty much mindless unskilled labor, not paid for at a premium, while the price of their product has increased 20 or so percent. I paid $12 for two lattes, in an area with a low cost of living. (aka - I know this isn't shit in NYC, where the cost of living is high.) The guy who details my car a couple times a year, the person who manicures my yard when (I refuse to participate in fall yard work/leaf removal), and the lady who cut my hair provide meticulous (mostly) skilled services. The outcome of their product depends on their effort, skill, and craftmanship. Even bar tenders stand on their feet, sometimes have to work high speed, constantly and often have to be skillful at their jobs. I reward these people handsomely for their efforts, as long as the service isn't utter garbage. It pisses me off even more when places force you into percentage tips, vs. just being able to opt for an extra $1. Maybe I'm old school (I am...), but I'm done tipping for effortlessly made quick-service products. My wage is static, essentially leading me to take at least a 5% reduction of pay this year, with some of our healthy food products seeing as much as a 20% increase in price. Even yet, my job is exponentially more difficult, from a physical, mental, and emotional standpoint. I worked during the day, starting out in a factory, and went to school at night to earn a bachelors. I beat the odds (at that time...), sometimes quite literally 100 to 1, to enter a competitive work force. I'm not paying more for less service. #heroesdon'tworkhere (Another rant, for another time, related to the complete and utter bullshit phrase applying to 99.9% of anyone who earns a wage for their work.) PS - I finished my mediocre coffee in the time it took to make this post.

Thankful for roller coasters joining the fight for equality.

lol bruh... Just tell people you broke your wrist.

Why would they need to compete with Winterfest?

I can see Six Flags Saint Louis doing something similar to Cedar Fair's Winterfests this year. Luckily for me, it won't matter this year with a toddler. My only thrill ride at the park this year has been one ride on Screamin' Eagle.

Sounds good. Thanks.

You're doing a great job of making arguments against yourself. Again, if you're fighting for a new coaster, you've used the exact opposite strategy you should, by visiting nearly twenty times per year. I acted. You've talked.

How do you know? Do you think managing Six Flags is as easy as saying "If you build it, they will come?" I actually want to hear your response. I don't think visiting 20 times a season is pushing Six Flags Saint Louis to change. It seems like you've settled. Your actions don't match your words. At least I can say when I was frustrated the most, I didn't visit the park for four or five years. They didn't get my money or my attendance numbers. What have you done?

Maybe it's just a maintenance thing. Timberwolf has ridden like a huge piece of shit every time I made the mistake of riding. Meanwhile, American Thunder and Mystic Timbers are still incredibly smooth, with SFSTL and KI having a history of maintaining their wooden coasters very well.

Announcement time is always my favorite time of the year in this thread.

Hah. It's neat when you learn little historical things about local history from parks. We looked up the Bald Knobbers when we saw the references around town, everywhere. The only part of Outlaw Run we found uncomfortable was the pothole at the bottom of the drop in the back of the train. My lower back disapproves. Other than that, 10/10, right there with non-wheel-seat Beast and Screamin' Eagle. One train opps on Time Traveler were probably not fun. But, I'll be the douche one-upper by saying last year were waited for one-train ops and every-other-row operations. Kill me... Did you take a back row ride on it? The drop I had out of the station during one of our rides was the most insane stomach tickling drop I'd ever experienced. It even surpassed flyer pretzel loops, which I hate... (They legit scare me)

We sell beer, so F*** Silver Dollar City! You mean it will be the best coaster open in the park during HITP. As talked about, Screamin Eagle will be closed.

Yeah, those are the insecure authority types I'm referring to, when I used the mask example. Not the polite store employees, but the people who go out of their way to tell you what to do, even when it doesn't make sense. There's typically an easily identifiable right way and wrong way to go about asking/telling people to do something, and selecting the appropriate circumstances in which to do so.

Yeah, the stacking is pretty bad. I think back to Scarowinds during Fury's first year. 3 trains. No stacking. That just wasn't the case, anywhere. We really did see several instances where it was due to an overweight rider, and the crew would spend several minutes between trying to jam the restraints, and eventually releasing the restraints for that car, then securing them again. I guess the FL was hit or miss. We luck out with MT, where we've never been past the bottom of the stairs. We also managed to time The Beast just right, where we were the only ones in FL. As far as the employee telling you no, there really is a power trip for a very few amount of people. We've all seen them. "I NEED to see your ID." "No running!" The new: "Put your mask back on!" There really are some people who just enjoy telling people what to do, or telling people no, even when it doesn't make sense.

We were also at the park on Saturday. I've never been to any park that crowded, before. This is a long disorganized TR. The whole day was kind of a blur. We got to the park at 1230. Which were about consistent with a nice weather summer Saturday. -We hit Diamondback first, after about a 15-20 minute somewhat crowded FL queue. Middle of the train/outer car. Phenomenal. I don't think I've ever had that much floater before, to the point where I prefer the middle row, now. There's no shaking there, either. -Row 2 on Mystic Timbers was next. FL was bottom of the stairs. 10 minute wait. MT is consistently great. The radio in the station is working again. -We were the only people in Beast FL line. We were assigned the middle row of the back car. The Beast rode pretty rough for us in the summer, but this time we had one of the smoothest rides we'd ever had on it. -We walked around for about an hour looking for some hot cider Emily got on our last Haunt visit, to no avail. We went to Orion, and had a about a 15 minute wait. The ride host accommodated our front-row request, and it hauled ass from start to finish. 10/10 for the front row. -We were actually on the winning train for Racer, which never happens. The retracked portions were smoother than I ever remember any wooden coaster being. I felt like we were gliding over the repaired areas. Did I hear this is a pre-fab track? Here's where things went to shit: We left the park and got our re-entry ticket, with re-entry after 7pm not allowed. It was only about 3:30, so we checked into our hotel. I took my 30 minutes necessary mid-park day powernap, and we left for BC Roosters. It's a tradition for us, but despite getting there before 5, there was a 45 minute wait. WTF staffing. We were really bummed, but we went to Frickers nearby. ehhh... It was kind of acceptable, but Roosters is seriously always one of the highlights of the trip. To put it in terms we can all understand; it's the Thirsty-Pony of KI. When we got back to Kings Island, I was one of those cars 240 was talking about. We entered the parking booth line at 6pm, and it was backed out onto the roadway. By the time we got in, parked, and got to the front gates, it was after our 7pm re-entry time by a few minutes. But, despite the tension, we had no issues getting in. We claimed our Fright Lane passes, hit the walkways, and realized the place was FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFking packed. Like... Mardi Gras crowd level packed. It took us a half hour to get two beers at the Bier Garden. Emily forgot her ID, or we would have gotten two each, and sipped them slowly, to avoid another wait. Everything was a wait. Wait to get beer. Wait to go to the bathroom. Wait to get a beer again. Walk around elbow-elbow. Smell peoples' vapes and cigarettes. Have kids, patrons, and even an unapologetic scare actor bump into you and spill your beer here, there, everywhere, all throughout the night. It was hard to enjoy the atmosphere when you can't see anything past the crowd. Eventually, we realized the beer venders near the back of the park had no waits. However, the problem was we'd had several beers and no additional food. We circled the park, only to find that every food line looked 45 minutes to an hour, with many places closed. There were only 3-4 food trucks this time around, to help with the chaos. However, after waiting in line for one that had a noticeably short line, I saw a small sign that said "cash only" in a cashless park............... So much for that. By the grace of God, after lapping the park, La Rosa's had zero line. The haunted houses were OK. It was kind of a blur by that point. But, seeing how every haunted house probably had at least over an hour wait, the Fright Lane paid off huge. I was surprised to see there was no line to even redeem ours, so I guess it must not be very popular. The passes allowed us zero wait for the houses. We used our extra pass on Slaughterhouse. We usually love Kill Mart, but for some reason it seemed really underwhelming this year. Did they change anything up, or get rid of props? Anyway... the actors consistently scared the shit out of my 34-year-old wife, who is a mother, and and an administrator in her company... It pleases me to finally see some vulnerability in something so trivial... We took advantage of night rides, but we didn't have a chance to do that much, since despite the FL lanes not being terrible, you had to wait for everything else and walk at a snail's pace moving around the park. Walking the pathways was like moving through jello. -We got another ride on Diamondback, magic row 2. It was another great lap, but not as good as our first. I swear, this is now a middle-train ride for me. I didn't even know there was such a thing. -We got another row 2 ride on Mystic Timbers, which is an excellent night ride. -We managed to get our obligatory lameness antique car ride in. It's harder to appreciate it at night, when you can't see anything. -Our Orion experience was kind of frustrating, after a 20-30 minute FL wait. The grouper really sucked at her job. The two people in front of us, and Emily and I, asked for the front. She said that would be OK, but we would have to hold up for a few minutes. No big deal. However, apparently this threw a huge wrench in her thought process, combined with some priority riders boarding at the exit. The grouper was trying to scramble to fill the rows and left several rows empty on two trains, despite an hour plus standby queue line, and probably 30 minute FL queue. After waiting for several minutes, she told us we'd have to go in row two... Why not just tell us this from the start? The people in front of us were pretty butt hurt. I was only mildly irritated she told us we could have it, then after waiting awkwardly through several cycles and watching her fall apart, she told us no... It's hard to put the awkwardness into text, but more or less, just tell us no right away, next time. I'm always fine with that. She made it weird... Regardless, I can't understand how vastly different the ride feels in row 2 than it does row 1. It goes from being the absolute clear winner, and probably top 10 material (If I had one), to maybe top 3 or 4 at the park. I don't get it. For us, it's equivalent to the difference between a front row ride vs a row 2 ride on Banshee. Oddly enough, I didn't feel that way last time. -It was about 11:40 when we went to get our night ride on The Beast to close out our kinda fun day. We were the only people in the FL queue and we were directed to the only available row, which happened to be a wheel seat in one of the last cars. It beat the absolute ever living shit out of us, start to finish, and was the most miserable ride on any coaster I can remember having since T3. All of the day's frustrations culminated with that ride to completely demoralize us. As a non-enthusiast, Emily was done..... BUT, as much as I wanted to walk all the way to the car bitching about how f***ed everything had been, and how it all came to a head on the ride that just tried to kill us, I couldn't do it. We entered an empty FL queue, and got assigned row 1 on Emily's favorite coaster at the park: Mystic Timbers. We had a dynamite ride to help us not let the dumpster fire ride on The Beast completely shit on our day. MT definitely ended up being the favorite throughout the day. I'm really not kidding when I say our ride on The Beast was so bad, Emily feels sore today. I think I covered most everything, as far as what we did/rode. The night kind of all blended together, because of the insanity of the crowds, having a few beers, and not being able to find food. Because of time, we missed our obligatory rides on Adventure Express, Bumper Cars, Backlot Stunt Coaster (noooo!), Boo Blasters, the train, and even Banshee (WTF!!). Other fun, but lesser valued rides like Delirium, The Bat, Drop Zone, and Boo Blasters weren't even a consideration. That's quite a void from what we're used to, Haunt or no Haunt. (honorable mention: Race for Your Life Charlie Brown: closed for the season) Other notes: It's important for newcomers to know consistent thing about the Haunt is your FL+ is garbage from about 4-7pm. However, once it gets dark, The Haunt kicks in full swing and the lines die down, because people go to the haunted houses. One thing I noticed this trip was for most of our rides, there was at least one delay for ride operators having to try to force the restraints down on overweight riders, sometimes resulting in walks-of-shame. This would cause stacking every time. It gets worse every year, and I could hear other people getting frustrated with it, as well. The weather was great for a Haunt. At night it was in the mid-low 40's. Despite seeing people in sweaters and shorts, I was rocking a North Face jacket, three thermal tops, a thermal bottom, tennis shoes with thick wool boot socks, gloves, and a winter skull cap... I like heat. I don't like cold. I came to play. All-in-all, I honestly can't say for certain I wouldn't have done something else this weekend. I don't dig those kinds of crowds, anymore. What we experienced is exactly what I interpreted as hearing in the CP thread for years, which is why I never considered a CP halloween event. I overheard groups of guests talking on the way out about how crowded the park was, how they weren't able to get food, how they were only able to do a couple things, etc. There were a lot of conversations like this throughout the night. I really hope this isn't the permanent standard, or we'll likely dip out on park Halloween events indefinitely.

I'm just weird. I like to socialize with the people I go with, instead of being concerned with how many rides I can get. I value idiotic things like wanting to spend time with friends and family. I guess I'd rather not leave my group hanging while I jog back and forth from entrance to exit. Dumb, I know.

The lighting game is strong this year. As far as the concrete, there's one certainty. It won't be used for Goliath's station. Seems like a good place for a Skyline Attractions compact MGR.

I mean... right?

Do they still have food trucks in front of the tower, at night? They did last time we were there.

Damn. It's discouraging to hear FL+ lines were so long, compared to normal.

Weird. I don't remember the card from the last two Haunts I've been to. But... we go pretty hard when the Haunt starts.......

I think the last couple times we had a combo. Do you get two wristbands?

I was looking around on the website and couldn't find a fastlane/fright lane combo. Do you have to buy them both separately, now?

Maybe SDC finally kills Fire in the Hole. Sic transit glori. (Is nothing sacred?)

Agree . I'd be pretty at ease, compared to so many other settings. Our mall, movie theatre, and ice skating can be real shit shows when it comes to fights, incidents involving weapons, or abduction risk. (even more fights than a SF parking lot, believe it or not)