HWFan

Looking at the Guest Satisfaction Surveys, the parks as a whole have seen huge improvement over the last few years. Most Guests are very satisfied with parks' employees. While I am a little bit biased, SF St. Louis has statistically been in the top 3 parks for almost every category and top in some of the most important categories. However, SFSL never did anything like create shirts to brag. As the "Coaster Capital of Missouri", there's no reason to make up titles that aren't 100% clear in terms of what they mean.

Important Season Pass and Ticket Information First, in case anyone is interested, there are $20 opening weekend tickets available online. You can see a preview of the deals in the screenshot below. Second, whether you have a pass or not, make sure to check out the pass holder bring a friend dates when planning a trip to the park. For instance, Easter Sunday will most likely be the busiest day of opening weekend due to the bring a friend for $9.99 coupon. You can view all dates here: https://www.sixflags.com/stlouis/plan-your-visit/season-pass-perks Third, season pass holders will need to re-register to view their coupons. After the last system had so many technical difficulties, the company recently switched to a new system. I know it might be a pain to register again, but the park sincerely apologizes and thanks you for your understanding as the overall season pass experience is improving. You can view a screenshot of the page below and find the website here: https://mypass.sixflags.com/default.aspx Fourth, a lot of work has gone into the finger scanning machines over the off-season. Both hardware and software has been replaced/upgraded. The main thing slowing down entry last year wasn't the employees running the machines, as it may have seemed, but it was actually how slow the machines themselves ran (i.e. ten seconds for a re-entry button to load instead of instantaneous with the handheld scanners used in years past.) With these new upgrades, the estimate is that entry times should be cut by at least 50%. I know this new system has caused some problems, but thank you for baring with the park and employees last season. This was a huge step that the park needed to take, and as I've said in the past, the park has been constantly working on improving the system to make things easier for our guests. If anyone has problems or questions before the park opens, please message me so that I can give you the direct email for the very nice woman in charge of Guest Relations. She will be more than happy to help you with any issues, so that I don't get "admonished" again for working to solve problems in our system while not on the clock. Finally, if enough people are interested, I think it would be fun to have small meet-up opening weekend for lunch and a coaster perhaps. I can talk to Dave Roemer to see if he can even make it, although he may be too busy that weekend. Either way, I am really looking forward to hopefully seeing many of you at the park this year, and who knows, maybe I might even be able to convince my good buddy Prozach, who I think should change his name to Lex-apro Luther (sorry, dumb cheesy joke), to make a trip to the park.

As we approach opening day and you're trying to plan a visit to the park, make sure to check the season pass holder bring a friend schedule. For example, a bring a friend free coupon can result in a busy park no matter what the weather is like that day.

I thought I had read somewhere that the whole queue would be enclosed. Wonder if they are adding more covered area or is the ride just using a smaller section of the old building? The queue will be totally indoors, which will be great when it's hot. Unless something has changed, I know the original plans did not have the side outdoor Scooby waiting area included.

In an email conversation with Paula Werne at Holiday World in November/December 2009 (I think, as it was the removal of Paul Revere), she was talking about how they quickly learned that no matter how cool a ride's replacement is, removing rides gets a lot of sad comments fueled by nostalgia. Six Flags should have just bought the set pieces from Epcot's Maelstrom!

Here's the link: It surprised me how fast construction is moving along.

I'm sure it's a real possibility depending on how well they do at SFOT and SFSL, afterall Six Flags has in the past placed identical rides at multiple parks. Talking to the Six Flags St. Louis Park President Dave Roemer, part of the reason why SF chose to build two for 2015 was to split the production cost of the 3D film. While I don't know the future of any park besides SFSL, based on the price of that 3D video, I would definitely expect SF to take advantage of their investment by installing the ride in other parks.

From looking at those pictures and touring the JLBM construction at SFSL, the walls in Texas are just a lot taller than St. Louis. It seems like instead of making the individual scenes in the ride shorter with two levels, they just expanded the footprint with taller walls. However, I could be wrong, and I'm sure there are some high parts of the building that won't be used.

This photo was just posted by the park's Twitter account:

I would actually figure your opinion would be the opposite. Mr. Freeze makes more sense for turning the trains around because it was designed to travel half of the circuit in reverse anyway. Batman is a very intense ride as it is. Plus, you lose one row of seats in the special backwards train compared to the regular trains. If SFSL would have turned down Mr. Freeze Reverse Blast, would you consider it "just another one for the long list of thrills that have been turned down?" And I don't think anyone really thought Reverse Blast was a new attraction but rather a new way to experience an existing attraction. Also, I thought SF corporate was the main decision maker for which park gets the special train next. As someone who experiences some amount of grayout and pain whenever I ride Batman (insane amounts of stimulants send my blood pressure through the roof, which I know isn't recommended by the ride manufacturer per se), I am hoping Batman stays how it is now, but I know that's my more selfish reason.

It is interesting how the Boss can really be popular with visitors at the park though. And the Ninja to a lesser extent.

Boomerang was actually closed most/all of April because we were waiting for a part to be shipped from Vekoma. I can't remember the exact timeline of how long it was closed, but I believe it was all of April. However, it has been much more reliable this year with the new part. I'm sure there's some reason behind it, but I found it to be funny how there were problems with a Boomerang...in 2013. I'm not sure who you talked to as each department does their own staffing, some departments have a harder time getting staff in April and August. Either way, hopefully it wasn't too much of an inconvenience, and you were still able to have fun. Addressing the TR: With Xcalibur, a lot of people love the ride, and the capacity is great, but it is the least reliable in the park. When it opened at SFGAdv, after being used as a traveling carnival ride in Europe, only two people on the entire payroll knew how to operate it. The ride was only operating for around 10% of the season. When it was moved to SFSL, an entirely new control system was devised allowing it to be operated like other flat rides. However, even years later, it is still closed a lot. Thanks to the park's maintenance team though, it is usually open. Also, with the comment on the log flume, in case anyone was wondering, the log flume will be around for a long time. Hopefully you had a good time overall to the point where you'll come back in the future, and thanks for taking the time to put the trip report together!

^ Scratch that! I just checked my email, and Dave Roemer had sent a picture of the construction. I'm glad that they are ahead of schedule then. I'll get more pictures and info soon hopefully. Also, this photo was taken on December 29th. A lot has been accomplished in two weeks.

At this time, there isn't really much more to see (to my knowledge). January 5th is the day that they are scheduled to begin building all of the walls and other details needed to be installed before Sally comes in around the end of January. I'll be going back to the park around the 8th, so I'll get some pictures then.

As the Six Flags commercial announcer guy seems to live in my head permanently sometimes, I can attest to the large amount of marketing for the ride that went on in the St. Louis area. However, it was just part of the regular commercials that included the season pass specials at the time. There was some unique promotion done for the ride at some STL events downtown that included Sit-In-Spin contests (while dodging a water gun) to win season passes. While I only talked to the winners of the competitions as they came to pick up their free passes, they at least thought the whole things was a cool idea and a lot of fun.

TS has gotten mostly really great reviews. I've heard a lot of people say they like it because they can cool off without going to the water park. The water guns on the outside of the ride also help to really make that area feel more alive. It does have a large hourly capacity, leading to low wait times, but by no means is the ride not very popular. The old hannibarrels that have been turned into benches have also been very well received. In the grand scheme of things, it's a great addition in that section, even though the queue was overbuilt.

"Cameras of any size or type are only permitted on the following six rides: Holidog Express, Doggone Trail, Star Spangled Carousel, Gobbler Getaway, Prancer’s Merry-Go-Round, and The Lewis & Clark Trail. Absolutely no cameras are allowed on any of the other rides (even when the camera is secured in a pocket or fanny pack). For everyone’s safety, cell phone use is not permitted on rides." Source: http://www.holidayworld.com/help-information/rules-services/

Awesome! Thanks for sharing! Please keep us updated! Were all the switchbacks being used also? I doubt it as that would make like a three hour wait. While I'm not 100% sure, I'm almost positive that this is true. There were a couple days, some of the busiest of the last couple years, that had the longest lines I've ever seen. One Saturday night, I saw Mr. Freeze's line taking up all of the extended queue switchbacks backed up to the turn at the bottom of the small incline from the bridge after you cross it to get to the ride.

I've never heard anything about not posting youtube links, but there is a youtube video imbedding tool at the top when you post. I'm not sure when the uniforms disappeared, but yes, each area had their own uniforms that were laundered at the park itself in the huge wardrobe building (to the left of the train as you exit the maintenance shed). I do know that the park spent $600,000 per year on the costumes alone, which was the main factor leading to their replacement. Just to add to what SFZIP said, Dave Roemer actually mentioned it the other day. He said that they would use a lot of fog in the plaza, and there were mirrors placed on top of the buildings in the area. Although the lasers came from that central location, they would reflect off the mirrors making it look like they were coming from all over. The fog only helped with making the lasers very visible.

The roof is being replaced. There will be some other parts being renovated that you won't notice. However, the entire theater's facade is being redone. A lot of the white trim, especially, is in need of some work. There are also some other projects in the park that haven't started work yet, so in case something changes, I'll keep you updated once the work is actually starting.

You're welcome, but for me, the weirdest part was driving through DC Comics Plaza without the huge Scooby mansion facade. In other news, the Palace Theater is getting renovated this off season. This will restore the outside of the building and put on a new roof, which will cost as much as a pretty nice house in the area.

thank you for sharing these photos! That is simply awesome! The reuse of this building is incredible to see. The second photo is that the path from Scooby still? Yes. Before the new concrete was in, the old Scooby path was filled almost completely with dirt. Even the existing concrete was very uneven and unsuitable for the new ride, so they've actually done a lot in the past month.

^ This is the only picture I have from today. It's hard to see much from this picture, but you can definitely see the new concrete floor. There are a lot of small pipes sticking out of the ground in different areas for different electrical lines. I haven't seen/heard any indication of why it won't be ready for opening day. I'll be back in January with a more in-depth look once more vertical construction starts happening. The newer animation of the ride is really cool. It shows how each individual ride vehicle moves in the different rooms in front of the different screens. With doors separating the rooms, there will be minimum bleeding of light/audio from scene to scene. Also, there will be seven screens in the ride, even though some earlier reports said five. Building on December 16th. Concrete and floor of building on November 2nd.

JLBM Update: The new concrete floor is done. It is nice and smooth for the ride. On January 5th, the work building the walls for the different rooms/areas of the ride will begin. On January 29th, the installation of the ride system and other elements is scheduled to begin, with the walls being almost finished. Luckily, the installation of the track & thematic elements will happen fairly quickly as they are all finished and ready to be installed. Everything looks great!

As you can see, this time around they are not attempting to sell the most valuable unused land, which is the land that is on right on that frontage road (5th street?). Businesses would need to have a full-time parking lot security guard or else their lot would be full of people wanting to park for free. When Busch parks were in their prime while Six Flags was having their money issues, it would have been really cool to see SFSL bought by Busch. They could move the Clydesdales and animals from Grant's Farm out to the SF property with all that extra land, and they could sell a lot of the Grants Farm property, which is very valuable. My main thing is that if the land sells, it isn't even enough to buy a Premier Superman clone. Also, in case anyone thought I forgot, I am bringing your questions/suggestions to be answered on Monday.