HWFan

As long as you request a day off at least two weeks in advanced, you shouldn't have a problem getting off, and there aren't any office black out dates. However, it really varies by department. While the crews in the rides department may vary a little on slow vs. busy days, other departments, mainly Admissions/GR probably vary the most. In GR at least, if you were on vacation or something and managed to be off for any of the bring-a-friend days, concert days, or special weekends like the Fourth of July, your coworkers might give you a hard time in a completely playful, non-serious manner. We knew, like most of you probably did, that there would be a big crowd on Saturday. The thing is, even if you know a tsunami is coming your way, there is only so much you can do to prepare for it (i.e. it's not like another gate could be added). Unfortunately Saturday was more hectic than anyone would like, so that will help everyone prepare better and plan better for the future after seeing what works and what didn't. If the park gets slammed, whether it be without warning or with prior warning like Saturday, a lot of the non-operations departments pitch in, helping out in different areas. For example, all of the HR staff will get sent to the Toll Plaza a lot. Finance and anyone else in the admin building might come to help the front gate, as they will usually put the roll gate on the very right side up to scan in day tickets with the old handheld scanners. Even on random Saturdays in 2013 when there would be a rush at the front gate, it was common to see the Director of Operations, Director of Admissions, and other full-times down at the front gate, working side-by-side with the regular front gate team members to help get people in. I always thought that was pretty cool. None of them had egos like they were to good to help out doing such a basic job.

This will be my Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday Post Yea....I didn't really want to mention Saturday, as my work life is still consumed by the aftermath of the weekend. Now when SFZIP and others talk about the "perfect storm" from rained out days & bring a friend, you are also forgetting that the very popular "buy four or more season passes and get a season parking pass free" promotion also expired on Sunday. That added a few thousand people who were just coming to process their passes. After seeing what happened Saturday, a lot of the Operations Management Team (from GR/Admissions to Rides) really worked hard to help keep Sunday from being as bad. Instead of waiting until 10am to scan Guests into the front mall, keeping in mind that the Toll Plaza is set to open at 9:30 daily, the park entry team was ready to get people in closer to 9:40. That way they could stay ahead of the crowd, allowing them to keep the plaza there from backing up as badly. Now thanks to the great rides & security teams (spearheaded by our Director of Operations), they set up Batman plaza to open at 10am including getting Batman, Ninja, and the Joker open right around 10 as well. While Monday was a breath of fresh air for most employees (for me it was nice to only have an 8 hour shift after two 14 hour shifts), a lot of rides were having some more downtime than usual. This extended to Tuesday. Fortunately, I was told that most of the temporary downtime periods were all due to just minor, non-unusual issues. I also found that the park had some lightening strikes, which caused problems for some rides. In summation, it was a rough few days. Thank you for those who bared with all of the employees, as it is sincerely appreciated. For those who are planning to visit this week, things are getting better and better. (Even JLBM will really start to get better overall in the coming weeks.) I do plan on spending at least part of the day tomorrow riding a couple coasters, even though it is my one day off of the week. If anyone is planning on being there that day, let me know! Edit: I have not had a chance to look into the situation with the lights on Colossus yet. I'll have an answer for you sometime in the next few days...I haven't had really any 'free' time at work recently to email/call around, so I apologize for how long it is taking me.

That makes too much sense, so unfortunately it will never be considered I believe TNT explained all of the details before. Basically, that's not really possible. It has to do with the way the brake/launch fins are aligned or something. It just isn't possible. What Sounds like it Makes Sense =/= What Actually Makes Sense

If anyone is in the park today, Mr. Freeze did valley at approximately 11:15 or so. Per SOP, Thunder River immediately closed to facilitate access to Mr. Freeze by the necessary maintenance vehicles. Thunder River should be up by 2:00, but I would *guess* Freeze will be down until tomorrow. This is only the second time I've seen it valley. The first was during a power surge last year, but I don't know what the cause was this time.

^Thanks for the pics! For those interested, there is another media day report for JLBM here at Negative-G.

Actually both the regular white lights and Fright Fest orange lights stay on Colossus all year long. That is one of the nice parts of having the new, longer lasting LED lights. Without it, it would be a LOT harder to do the lights in terms of taking them down and putting them up each year. I had noticed the clock program hasn't been on for a while now. (During the 55 hour weeks, it seemed like the giant clock was almost mocking me as I left each night, counting down my hours of sleep.) I will go ahead and look into it tomorrow and report back.

I wasn't going to comment on the reason for the time of closing, but I want to make sure there isn't any misinformation. Basically, the national weather service got it wrong. Anyone hear about Holiday World's two (plus another shortly after closing early) tornado warnings? Basically it looked like after 2:00pm, through the evening, it would not be safe to have anyone in the park. Once one o'clock came around and the mega-thunderstorms didn't come, there really isn't anything you can do (especially with night shift called off) besides be thankful nothing bad happened. The park will not close early in the rain due to profit reasons. With so many Guests coming from out of town, the park must do its best to stay open, regardless of profitability.

Yea, it's been really rough, but as one Guest put it today, "hey, we are still having a blast!" Monday closed at 9, Tuesday at 7:30, Wednesday at 9, Thursday at 6:30, and today at 1:00. However, there are two great things to thank the park management for today: 1. All employees were paid for a minimum of four hours work, no matter how long they were there. 2. A group from South Carolina was at the park as their pit stop on their way to Denver for a mission trip. They drove through the night and were planning the same for tonight. Unfortunately, their bus driver has to sleep today and won't be ready to leave until 8:00 tonight. So what did Dave Roemer do? He gave them a little extra ERT on JLBM for a bit after the park technically closed. Then, he rounded up the HR vans, and the students will be transported to West County mall, where they can spend the day hanging out and shopping/eating before the bus will pick them up there. It is just one of those little things situations where the park was able to make a sucky situation suck less for the Guests.

I am happy to report that after the intervention you all staged, Cyborg was able to finally admit he was becoming a messy bachelor in his new home. He has promised to clean up his act and keep his desk area tidy.

^Thank you both for posting about that, especially for the pic. I'll pass it along to the proper members of management.

^The video for those interested.

You need to realize that just because a ride appears in that survey does not mean that it is the park's "current consideration for next year." I remember that even for the past few years, it has been shown that Six Flags will send similar surveys to people at multiple parks, even though that may not be what is being considered for that park. Also, going back through the survey trying it with multiple parks is kind of a "jerk" move (trying to censor myself). All you are doing to messing up the data for your own selfish info hunting. No. No "kudos NickLikesCoasters" on the other thread. Yea, it's not legally binding or anything (although there could technically be consequences I guess depending on the situation), but when you click the button saying that you won't post the information from the survey online, you're giving your word. Rather than just stopping at posting the information online, NickLikesCoasters, and you in reposting, have given the biggest middle finger to Six Flags by posting the link for other people to take part. If you were the person in charge of gathering this data for Six Flags, you would be really disappointed at what could easily be hundreds and hundreds of extra "TPR forum viewer" responses. People work hard to get good data, and your post 1) spreads/encourages false information in the form of new "rumors" and 2) takes a fun topic & hijacks it for selfish reasons in a way that can really screw up important data that someone works hard to collect. Seriously. How can nobody see what's wrong with this?

Go to this website: https://www.sixflags.com/stlouis/plan-your-visit/contact-us Basically paste that comment into a web comment but put "For Josh" at the beginning. I'll get back to you ASAP, and that way I can answer any other questions that might come up (and I'll be on the clock so it's not as sketchy). I agree. Prozach has actually been, dare I say it, a really constructive member recently. We all know he doesn't like dark rides. However, I see his posts as just being realistic in a lot of ways. Now as Woodie Warrior mentioned, why are people comparing this to Universal rides? Who would have suggested such a comparison?....oh wait....but I do still stand (well, technically sit) by that comparison.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet this time: 1. The vast majority of Guests are absolutely loving the ride. Talking to dozens and dozens of Guests, I have not heard a single complaint of any kind. Even better, everyone says that the ride was more than worth every second of the wait (which was 3 hours for one family during previews). 2. Dust in the queue, unfinished looking exit areas, etc may not be perfect. With Obama still being President, isn't Change to be expected? In terms of the ride itself, the main issue is a single vehicle. It isn't due to any SF attention to detail or lack thereof. Oceaneering is working around the clock and had similar issues with Transformers initially. We just gotta let that car get through its rebellious teenager phase and its #OccupyRideTrack protest.

While that TEA organization comes out with their annual report, the numbers they release for the Six Flags parks do not come from Six Flags. Six Flags never releases any kind of attendance numbers. Even the Six Flags parks don't even really spread them around at all. If any employee that is privileged with that type of information, could easily be fired for sharing that, especially as Six Flags is a public company.

If you click the following link, you can let Guest Relations know, and Robert's superiors & Dave Roemer will all see your compliment: https://www.sixflags.com/stlouis/plan-your-visit/contact-us

With the New Justice League: Battle For Metropolis and members of the Justice League roaming the park (Six Flags is auditioning super heroes), now would be a great time to bring back our Batmobile. ...Although that would be pretty cool. Do rideops have to wear the highlighter shirt for safety reasons? I wonder how long these superheroes will last. Dave said he wants to keep the ride running with all effects for a long time, but he never mentioned any of the promotional stuff going along with the ride. The ride operators just wear the normal Six Flags employee polo shirts. However, as of last year, the shirts are no longer "highlighters" as they made the switch to royal blue (a la Holiday World). Our park does have Batman, but I don't think we have any of the other heroes. Those were the same actors that did the media day in Texas as well.

I just wanted to add a couple notes to some of the great pictures you posted from media day. Marc is the director of Corporate Alliance. If you ever get a chance to talk to him, he's a really interesting guy. His work has affected the entire industry, so we're lucky to have him at our park. I had always assumed that once you programmed one vehicle, the program was just copied to all of them. However, apparently each vehicle must be programmed separately. If you look at the side of the front row, you can see that this is the ADA compliant vehicle that allows people in wheelchairs to easily transfer to the ride vehicle. It's even nicer because the seat is the perfect height compared to rides like Gobbler Getaway where there is a step up into the vehicle, making it harder. The park LOVES getting compliments for team members, so even if he didn't write anything down, I can almost guarantee it made it into the system.

While this is an extremely rough sketch, it offers a bit of a comparison between the two rides. The bottom is the station for SFSL with SFOT on the top. At SFOT, the station is at least half the size of SFSL. In Texas, there are doors at the very end of the load platform. You are immediately thrown into the ride, and even people on the dock can see into the ride. At SFSL, there are two turns and a good sized straight path that help stage the ride better. The ending is fairly similar, with SFSL just being a bit longer. There are a couple parts with some extra footage inside the ride, but the station, beginning, and ending are the main parts that use the extra 200ft. Thanks for the great media day report, HarleyGuy! Hopefully I'll see you in the park again this year (well, as long as it isn't because you had a problem). I'll try to get some more info, pics, and comments on Monday & Tuesday when I return. Rough sketch comparing the rides. (SFOT top. SFSL bottom.)

...especially since we know the park at a minimum dropped over 3.1415 mil on a new pie stand. It's good that "we" all apparently know this, but someone should probably tell the park.

I'm currently in line for Transformers at Universal, so unfortunately I do not have much time. I do have just two quick things: 1. SportsDude, I really appreciate your enthusiasm for the ride in Texas, and I hope you have a fantastic 2015 season visiting the park. However, please stop repeating the misinformation about the current state of JLBM at SFSL. The park has absolutely nothing to gain from the ride not being open, so the notion of the ride being ready for daily operation and just being shuttered for an extra week isn't factual nor logical. The incredible teams at Sally & the other companies behind the ride have been doing a fantastic job with the attraction. They have been going above and beyond to ensure that the ride can open as soon as possible. 2. Regarding the comment about trees in the park, the park is actually mandated by the state(?) park service to keep a specific number of each species in the park, due to the land it is built on. I'm not sure if you visit the park often or not (as there seems to be a lot of non-visitors making negative assumptions), but the amount of trees isn't really isn't bad at all.

Oh....I'm sorry. It was actually my idea. I thought it might be fun to keep it closed for some extra time. Now that you mention it, keeping a new ride closed for no reason at all instead of opening it as soon as humanly possible does seem a bit silly.

That's what I'd like to know so I can schedule the day off of work! I was hoping maybe HWFAN had some insight he could share. Sorry, I don't know of anything yet. I think they are going to wait a bit before announcing anything for sure. If I hear anything, I'll let you know. I was told that Marvin the Martian has been waiting on a part from Zamperla, leading to the ride being closed all season so far. Ranger Pilots & Tugboat Tailspin had been open all year until yesterday, if I'm not mistaken. I called operations yesterday after seeing your post, but all I could find out was that it was an unexpected mechanical issue. I'm not sure if the Tugboat is the same thing though. Both are closed again today. Maybe TNT might have some more information? If not, I'll dig some more when I'm back tomorrow. All in good time. Painting all around the park is still full steam ahead.

I'm glad you had so much fun and got to meet Donna! I've gotten to know her pretty well at SFSL, and she's one of the smartest/nicest people. I invited her to go around with me on opening day in the afternoon (as my only job was to talk to Guests about their day), and it was cool to see how passionate she was talking to the Guests about the ride. I convinced her to play a game after she saw a cape she liked. She's just a really cool person to meet. Here's the pic of her celebrating her win: A Glorious Win Wasting no time, Rich Hill, John Wood, and Lauren are all here at SFSL today, and a few full-timers got to preview the ride today. I was down there for a bit and even after touring the construction a half-dozen times, it still amazes me with how cool it looks. One of the main differences between SFOT and SFSL seems to be the queue. Our queue is broken up into three rooms, so 90% of it is indoors with just a bit of extra overflow queue built outside. In the end, it's an amazing ride. Just wait five years, and I think you'll see some really cool stuff going on with the existing and new rides.

Your load/unload area will be longer than ours allowing for quicker load/unload procedures. We have three extra cars to help offset this. Our rider capacity will (hopefully) be as good as yours. A big factor in deciding how many cars each ride would have was the individual park's average daily attendance as well as the fact that SFOT is open for a bigger part of the calendar year than SFSL. Theoretically, cars could be added to the ride at SFSL. Another thing helping SFSL (which I don't think is the same at SFOT) is the fact that the ride vehicles will continuously move through the station slowly. The platform in Texas doesn't seem to be long enough to allow that. Hmmm, interesting but fortunately wrong.