Woodie Warrior

Yep, as a ride op it started being common to have to work 2 kids rides on less busy summer weekdays. We walked through Sunday and noticed the signs up, I couldn't believe they were doing it on a Fright Fest afternoon.

Missouri summers are only getting hotter and hotter, and there are very few jobs that pay minimum wage and require you to be constantly moving in direct sunlight for at least 6 hours at a time. I worked at the park for a few summers, but only because I had always wanted to work at a theme park. To most people, a job at a fast food joint in AC for the same pay as SF (or more) makes more sense. Six Flags also screwed itself by trying to market itself as the "value" brand theme park. That model just isn't economically friendly in 2023. Right now you can get an annual pass for $65, which I think is about how much they charged back in the 2010s. The only way to hire more workers, add exciting additions, and maintain what they already have is to raise prices, but their current product just wouldn't really attract many people if they did actually raise their admission price.

Made it out to the park yesterday, hadn't been in a couple of years. Crowds were pretty mild for late October, but I guess it was a Sunday. Managed to get a ride on Rookie Racer, but most of the day it had an almost hour wait, which I don't think it's worth unless you are a small child or are with a small child. The line did have lots of groups of teens in it, so I guess it has wider appeal than I expected. The audio that follows the train around the track was a nice touch, and the first drop has a nice pop of air in the backseat. Not a ride I'd go out of my way to ride again, but it's a nice addition, and a much gentler beginners coaster than Mine Train. Dragon's Wing's plot is completely leveled now, so hopefully Joker will be ready before October of next year... Justice League needs so much TLC. The lack of 3D isn't as bad as I thought it would be, but the Joker animatronic wasn't working, none of the fog/fire effects were working, we got stuck on both of the simulator screens, and the final screen had large amounts of pixels that were out. Oktoberfest was a nice addition, we tried the pierogis and schnitzel which were alright. The schnitzel was just a breaded buffalo chicken breast on a stick so that was... interesting I guess? But when knockoff Panda Express is $20 a plate, $9 didn't seem too bad. Sad to see almost all of the flat rides, and a few coasters, closed during the day. Colossus/Supergirl/Ninja/Spinsanity/Fireball were all down when we got there, I think the first three opened in the evening. Not a good look when you already have so many empty plots around the park from recently removed attractions.

Told by higher up at the park that it is slated to go in Dragon's Wing's old spot. Don't think it would fit in Xcalibur's old footprint, and it will probably help the GP to differentiate between the two. I don't think the park plans to remove the current Joker, so I guess we'll have Joker, Inc. and Joker: Carnival of Chaos, unless they spend the money to retheme the swinging ship.

Xcalibur is gone :(

I should’ve been more clear, Dragon’s Wing will be removed before the start of the season along with Xcalibur.

Dragon's Wing is set to be removed this off-season. The coaster will either go in that spot, or where the Go-Karts were.

The Tidal Wave "construction" is just the haunted maze they put there for Fright Fest.

So if one has a Six Flags season pass/membership from another park that guarantees admission to all Six Flags parks, do the SFMM blackout days apply to them? This is going to piss a lot of current members off.

Repainting Boomerang makes sense considering Tidal Wave's location will probably have a new ride soon. As well as Catwoman being put nearby, that area should look pretty nice soon. Obviously Boomerang isn't my favorite, but it's paint job has looked horrendous for the past 5 years so I'm glad it's getting some love. And yeah, Colossus is for sure going to be open. It was listed in a pass holder email.

We have three major wooden coasters, all of which require lots of upkeep over the off-season. All of them run pretty well (Boss might not be the smoothest but I don't think any amount of track work could fix those godawful trains). That requires a large maintenance budget alone. Yeah, it's annoying we haven't gotten a major coaster in awhile. But the bellyaching, "corporate-is-ignoring-us" comments are so tired at this point. There's like 4 parks in the chain that get new coasters regularly. Coasters also aren't the only investments parks need. I mean, we were in the first pair of parks to receive Justice League, which is more exciting to me than most of the recent Six Flags coasters. We are also receiving millions to renovate a carousel, which most parks would have discarded of by now.

I mean... you do realize every park in the industry is dealing with these issues at the moment?

So word on the street is that many longtime entertainers at the park have been recently let go, including a large chunk of the Christmas Carol cast. Apparently the park has run into copyright claim issues considering the music featured in both major Christmas shows are all songs ripped from pre-existing musicals (which I assumed the park had licensed years ago, but evidently not). It seems like Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life are gone for now, which is not only a disappointing loss to the Christmas festival, but also seems like a crowd issue, considering the 1,000ish people at a show each hour will now have to find someplace else in the park to spend their time.

It's nice to see investments made into the water park, and Hook's Lagoon has been in bad shape for awhile. Buttt this looks like a downgrade.

I was also at the park yesterday, and by the time we made it over to Lightning Rod (around 12ish?) it was one train operations.

I don't see SFSTL ever doing a drive thru event. STL has a ridiculous amount of well-established drive thru displays already, and as fun as it is to walk around the park during HIP, I'm not sure I see anybody paying money to drive through a lightly decorated theme park, especially with Jellystone being right next door.

Not necessarily, the maintenance costs of Superman might outweigh the costs of a whole new, more efficient drop tower. Especially when the new one can be marketed as a new ride, such as one of the new S&S spinning drop towers (although I feel like that type of tower might have just as much downtime so who knows).

Yeah, rumors about Superman leaving have been spreading among employees the past few weeks. To be fair, talk about that happening has been going on for years now, so all COVID did was probably move up the removal date a couple of seasons. It's been a maintenance nightmare ever since it opened.

Maybe it’s going to run two cycles with riders next year before it closes for a month again...

Thanks for the advice y’all. Is SV overall more or less accommodating than the Intamins?

Hey y'all, I may be making a spontaneous trip out to CP next weekend. I have been on a weight loss journey this year (down 40 pounds so far), that was caused by walks of shame on Outlaw Run and Mr. Freeze. In the past month, I was able to make it on both of those rides. I haven't been to CP in years- does Steel Vengeance tend to be stricter than OR when it comes to the restraints? My issue with OR wasn't getting the green light, it was getting the seatbelt to buckle, which I was able to do recently. I'm also worried about MF and TTD. I'm 6'3" and around 280 pounds for reference. I don't really have a huge gut, most of my weight is in the legs (hence the issues with the seatbelts). For additional reference, Batman @ SFSL is a very tight fit with my shoulders and how my butt fits in the small seat, but the ride ops have always been able to squish me in. On Wildfire @ SDC, I'm able to squish myself in well enough. The only rides I still don't think I could fit on are Superman and Fireball @ SFSL, just due to the seatbelts not closing (which is an unfortunate mix of my weight and height).

Per the park's Facebook page- SFSTL will not open until April at the earliest.

Six Flags St. Louis will be closed until April at the earliest. Edit: Looks like it's the entire chain.

People in the US are being turned away from testing if they don't match every single symptom, because the government is saying we don't have enough tests available. But somehow we have enough to test every member of the Utah Jazz team? Our health care system is fine if you're rich and wealthy enough. It's about to fail the rest of us. Sometimes there is no way to not make a discussion political- this is a global pandemic and governments need to be doing their job. It's simply cocky and (very American) to believe that this virus isn't going to hit us just as hard as it's hitting Italy. The fact that Six Flags and Cedar Fair haven't announced closings yet is crazy to me. It's inevitable at this point, I'd be shocked if they don't announce by this weekend.

GR will be in a new building to the far left side of the plaza. I wouldn't get my hopes up for that, but you never know. The TLC I was referring to is some shops/restaurants getting overhauled.