HWFan

Any particular reason you chose not to stop at SFSTL? I figure it's pretty much on your way from SFGAm to SDC and WoF. I know it's not an amazing park, but I think that even a couple hours to ride Mr. Freeze and American Thunder would be worth it when you have a Season Pass anyway.

For everyone who received the survey, the Splash Pad would be a basketball sized splash pad with major water elements to play around in in Hurricane Harbor. It would be a high-capacity attraction with minimal staffing needs. (If you've been to Holiday World, basically the former Jungle Jets.) Just wanted to clear that up. Dave Roemer really wants it to provide a way for families to just have fun without waiting in line.

For $43.99 ($22 for Season Pass holders), Guests could get into the park, get a catered BBQ meal at the Catering Grove, and had reserved seats for the fireworks on the loungechairs in HH. Honestly it was the best deal I've seen. Hopefully they do it again next 4th of July weekend.

In the recent blog post about the 66daysatsea.com campaign, did anyone catch the statement, "Everything I think of seems to be way too obvious. I can’t just dive into this hinting thing." Leah is talking about how she isn't good at giving hints, but I was wondering if the word "dive" meant something about maybe a dive coaster.

I can second that this will be your best bets. Also, remember that any orders online will include an approximately $9 processing fee. Also, you can now buy After 4pm Tickets online only. It's a great deal for a lot of people, but you will not be able to purchase it at the gate.

You may know in your mind that you wouldn't graffiti, but the majority of graffiti is just bored people trying to leave their mark on the park. Also, if we stereotyped, that could lead to some other issues. When it comes to "well this park doesn't have metal detectors." Just looking at the facts, St. Louis and some of its surrounding areas are some of the highest crime areas of the country. Unfortunately although you may not see people being turned away with weapons, just having the metal detectors there can act as a great deterrent. People can complain as much as they want about our security, but knowing that the park is a safe place to work and play makes the couple seconds worth it. (All employees, even park directors, go through detectors on their way into work as well.) Also, Disney's tickets being around $100 is part of the reason they don't need metal detectors.

I had my first day as a "Guest" this year today. I arrived at the toll plaza at 10:45. When I parked in the handicapped parking at 10:55, there was approximately 1,000 people standing around metal detection with another 500 elsewhere in the parking lot. Metal detection opened exactly at 11:00, which was the time I went up the "exit" past metal detection. It wasn't long before the area between the front gate and ticket booths was packed. Everyone who didn't need their pass processed was being sent to the hand scanners from last year, and even though it looked slow, the admissions employees (aided by a bunch of life guards from the closed water park) were able to get people into the park really fast. By around 11:30 an announcement was made that all rides in the theme park were open. It was actually a great day. My group only encountered two lines: a 10 minute at Scooby Doo and a 20 minute at Batman in the evening. Batman was running one train because when it ran two, the trains were going out mostly empty. The attendance count for the day was actually pretty good, especially considering the rough stop, and the lack of rides showed that the operations department was doing a great job to keep things moving. Now in terms of the power: Ameren really needs to get its crap together. This was a problem all around the park. For example, I wasn't able to get my breakfast Steakburger due to their grills shutting down with the power surges. Also, the wave pool and lazy river do not drain in the event of a power outage. They can function as just a normal pool, as their pumps are mainly used to add motion to the water. However, as the water slides rely on pumps to keep water in all areas of the attraction (due to gravity), they can drain the same way Thunder River will. I hope this clears things up a little bit. It's an incredibly interesting topic, in my opinion at least, that has become even more relevant with the events of this year. As soon as the water park opened today, it was pretty packed up until it closed at 6:00. Most Guests seemed to be happier than normal, which was great to see. I also got to try Macho Nacho, which turned out to be the best food I've had at the park. Was anyone else at the park today? How did your experience mirror or differ from mine?

Thank you. There are a huge percentage of employees who are dedicated to the park (including a lot of upper management), and we, more than most probably, see some of the shortcomings of our park. Working 40, 50, 60 hours a week to actually try to help the park, it is a little bit discouraging coming home from a 15 hour day to just seeing complaints. You all have every right to complain, but I think that not feeling any optimism about the park's future is crazy. For the most part, we're doing the best we can do with what we are given, and we'll just have to be patient unfortunately.

It's the small area that is home to Tsunami Soaker. It's extremely small.

Okay, so I had the pleasure of having lunch with Dave again this week. I think that it's easy to get pessimistic about the park, but I left with a lot of hope. Dave and his team have an incredible plan for the park in terms of just improving what is there. Well, here's some points: -They are going to continue to remove as many dead areas as possible, like the Hannibarrels this year. -They want to use a lot of small improvements to lighten up the park, and breathe new life into it. -They see this period as a conversion from an "old park" to a "new park." The park has held two million without HH, so they want to keep perfecting what is there rather than crazily expanding. I can't go into too many specifics, partially because Dave doesn't even know yet. One thing that is amazing about Dave is if you bring up just small suggestions, if they're good, he makes them happen. We had a disabled Guest who had a hard time waiting for the Holiday Inn shuttle, and was wondering why we couldn't add benches. As soon as I told Dave, he immediately made multiple notes about it. I've heard he's the most down to earth park president in the chain. He started at the bottom in the mail room. The story of how he got the job as an after thought is crazy. While many are critical of the "warf" area, I think your opinion will change within the next couple years. The ideas and options for developing and reimagining that area are all great. That entire area of the park should be more refreshed in the next couple of years. As St. Louis' economy has been one of the slowest to recover from the 2008 financial mess, the park will build itself back up. By the way, if anyone has an extra $2million we can blow up the admissions area and build it back up. Just message me if you're interested.

Has anyone thought that maybe the Holiday World 2015 Steel Coaster could give us a better chance at Iron Boss? Outlaw Run got us Boomerang, which is still something. With Holiday World almost ready to start getting into the St. Louis market more, Six Flags will need something to help keep people in St. Louis.

One of the most pleasant parts of my job is getting to be the one to reply to little kids' letters that occasionally get sent to the park. The most recent was a little kid asking for a ProSlide Behemoth Bowl 60' and a Tornado Wave. He made sure to give us the contact information to ProSlide, and I can't wait to respond to this very smart kid. Another letter from May asked for an Iron Boss type transformation with a Spider Man theme. It was definitely a cool idea if we could use Marvel.

Well, considering that Batman is just to the right of the entrance and American Thunder just to the left, there's not a whole lot of room there for a coaster--and they are absolutely not removing either of those any time soon. Now your arch idea I like a lot. I know SFStL is interested in redoing the entrance and is in the process of removing ticket booths. Having an arch over the whole area would be really cool indeed, and pretty tall as well. Arches are always equal in height to the distance between the two bases. I'd guess the entrance plaza is at least 150 feet across, maybe more than that, so the arch would be pretty tall. Actually, why not make it a ride? The real arch has a gondola inside--this could be a miniature version of that. Capacity might be an issue, but it'd be the coolest observation tower. I have a dream.....of Guest Relations windows as far as the eye can see......but I guess a coaster would be cool too.

On Sunday I work before the park opens, so unless one is posted before then, I will try to get a good dozen pictures of the area sans Guests to give you a pretty good idea of how it looks/is set up

I guess the theme park running thing is gaining momentum! It'll be interesting to see how well this works outside the Disney sphere (unless there are other examples that I'm not aware of?) I've worked two 5K races at Six Flags St. Louis, and they are really a hit! Our Guests really enjoy it.

For those who have been discussing it: Saturday and Sunday are going to be extremely popular days to come to the park with the first Christian Concert day on Saturday and Bring-A-Friend free day on Sunday. This week has been fairly slow. The park closed at 8:00 (an hour early) tonight due to rain and closed at 5:00 (four hours early) on Tuesday due to the major storm that moved through the area. Tomorrow is looking like a great day to go, even if it's just a few hours after you get off work.

Welcome to the forum! The more people on here, the more dialogue, the better! And I look forward to hopefully seeing you in the park soon.

If by this you mean it's such a big lot they must be preparing for lots of visitors, on the busiest days of the season, the Legend lot and Raven lot have been almost 100% full.

^ I just assumed they were talking about tunnels. Anyway, after riding Gatekeeper for the first time yesterday, I'm on the wing coaster band wagon. However, if it is a wing coaster and uses PP's station, won't some pretty big renovations be needed to widen it and create room for lines on both sides of the track?

Luckily with the new system, all of the upgrades are just scanned onto the barcode, so we don't have to issue new cards for each purchase. Whenever a pass holder uses their card and finger scan to enter the park, that activates the dining/tube passes to be used for that day. If you pay for a single flight for him, just bring that receipt to credit to your Dragon's Wing SP purchase. We have done it a couple of times before, and if there are any problems, you have my first initial and last name in my email when I gave it to you in our earlier conversation. Also, I tried taking your name/number off the log for you, but couldn't find it at the time for whatever reason....sorry about that.

For those who haven't been to the park recently, they have refurbished some of the old Hannibarrels to use as benches next to the Tsunami Soaker. Working at 8:15am, I was able to stop by and get some pictures before my shift. A great informational sign giving the historical context to those who never rode the original ride. It's a nice shaded area with a few barrels, and there are still two barrels sitting in the back stage area. Here's a closer look at the nice padded seats inside. Also, the park has started a fun Twitter campaign to name the new ride's centerpiece.

If anyone wants to message me your questions, I would be happy to answer them. I am answering them as a fellow enthusiast, who just happens to be extremely knowledgable about park policies, not as an employee of Guest Relations as I am not on the clock. I am really sorry about the hold up at Guest Relations, and I can tell you most employees are working around the clock to get back to everyone. Because it is crazy, I will answer any of your questions "unofficially" if you will send them to me.

In theory, couldn't PP's splashdown be turned into a Mack SplashBattle? It could be easily accessible from Splashin' Safari, and then the station could be used for a Mack coaster. If they have such a great pool built already, then it seems like adding a splash battle wouldn't be too expensive. While not the same ride, I was talking to the SFSTL Park President about the new ride, and the cost of building the "pool" to hold the water and the pumps/filtration system is a monumental part of the cost to build the new Tsunami Soaker (Twist and Splash). Two great Mack rides. One child friendly, one thrill seeker friendly. By the way, has anyone thought of a Premier launched coaster back in the woods there?

Holiday World takes care of their wooden coasters better than the vast majority of parks out there. They wouldn't have spent so long with the Timberliners if they didn't want to take care of their coasters. After going to Holiday World for ten years now, unless you're just extremely sensitive, your opinion seems misinformed to me. Besides, if they are building a steel coaster, I'd rather take their wooden coasters as they are if it means getting an amazing steel coaster.

If anyone makes it out to the park this week, the construction fences have been removed around Tsunami Soaker everyone to get up close and personal with the ride. Make sure you get a good feel for the water cannons, so that you can be ready to get your maximum soak on starting May 23rd for season pass previews. Remember, everyone can enjoy the ride May 24th! Have a Six Flags Day!