ZeroGravity55

This is clearly a situation where park management has a clear view of how they envision this parks future (which is probably the right vision because they're at the park everyday and understand what needs to be done) and the corporation that ultimately makes all of the decisions has a whole different outlook on how they're envisioning their parks future (which seems to be questionable at best). The corporate vision for Six Flags seems to be geared toward drawing in the teenage crowd, given their recent marketing ploys and ride naming choices, ext. Six Flags St. Louis really isn't set up to draw that type of crowd, IMO. It's geared more toward the family-style crowd (based on the feel I get from the park). Now I'm gonna throw this out there, but I think one of the major fails in attendance going down is the marketing SFStL is having to do. They're advertising themselves as the coaster capital of Missouri, intended to draw in the teenage crowd, but you're asking them to visit a family-style park. That's basically like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work. What I'm basically saying is that SFStL doesn't fit into the corporations vision of the future right now, which is why the parks has been getting the shaft the last few years or so on expansions. Corporate doesn't want to spend major money on a park that doesn't fit their vision, nor do they want to spend the money to make the park fit their vision.

^^ It's Christmas Eve in July. They're tying two of their themes, Thanksgiving and Christmas into their announcement.

^ Welcome to the forum! First off let me say that none of us are really experts, nor do we have any real idea of what is being built at HW. We're just making guesses on what we've read and have seen so far. So your guess is just as good as ours. Let me go ahead and correct you and say that the website is www.66daysatsea.com. Now to answer your question, I personally don't think this is a new rapids ride with a roller coaster. I'm guessing that it's a steel coaster with a water park attraction by Hyena Falls.

Apparently corporate has a different view than you do... "If we move it, they will come". I agree with you in the fact that the park needs a renaissance. In this instance, I put most of the blame on corporate, but I also think some of the blame falls on people running the park also. You've got to fight for your park. They can say what they want, but there was no logical reason in adding Boomerang other than upping your coaster count and making the irrelevant statement that you're the coaster capital of Missouri. How they can even logic that it was an appropriate response to one of their competitors building probably the most technological ground breaking roller coaster in the last 20-30 years is beyond me. Sometimes there are too many yes men in this world, but in this situation I get the feeling that if you don't agree with corporate, they'll find somebody that will. I live in between HW & SFStL. It is the exact same drive (which is about 2 hours) for people around here. Almost everybody I know chooses HW over SFStL. I even know people who choose to make the trip to Branson and Silver Dollar City over SFStL.

^ ahh never even heard of it.

Ohh I got a good chuckle out of this! This isn't going to be any type of clone. This is definitely a ride designed for HW and HW only, as it should be.

So with Six Flags targeting their older wooden coasters throughout the chain with RMC I-Box track conversions this year, has anyone given any thought to Screamin' Eagle possibly being a candidate for the conversion? I know a lot of people will probably be against it, but honestly, I would embrace it sort of like how I'm embracing all of this new technology RMC is bringing to the forefront. My way of thinking, old (no matter how much historical relevance the ride might have) doesn't make the park any money, but something that is newer and modern will. Of course, this is irrelevant when talking about this park, considering they get stuck with a 24 year old Boomerang that they are forced to try and market as something new. I cringed every time I was in the St. Louis area last year and saw a billboard or commercial talking about the "New Boomerang!" Of course, this is all in response to one of their competitors building arguably the best wooden roller coaster in America. Has corporate just given up on this park? Are they oblivious to the market around this park? There is great potential, but you have to make the right investments in the park for it to pay off. People aren't going to keep coming year after year riding and doing the same stuff. I also don't they're taking advantage of the market either. This is just an example, the St. Louis Cardinals draw 3 million people to the St. Louis region every summer. I know they advertise and do promotional days at Busch, but why not do more? How about when the Cardinals win at home, if you were at the game, bring your ticket to the front gate the next day at Six Flags and get $5-10 off general admission? How about putting together vacation packages with the team where if you buy so many Six Flags tickets and Cardinals tickets together, you get a discount. There are so many other things you can do outside of the Cardinals also, but that was just an example. I don't get what corporate is thinking when it comes to this park, nor am I sure if I want to know what they're thinking. I just hope they eventually pull their heads out their a** when it pertains to this park, and start investing and marketing things the right way. Didn't mean for this to turn into a mini rant, but after reading some of the previous posts, I got a little hot.

^ In my mind, the more RMC a park has, the much better that park becomes. Edit: Lmao I didn't see the Pathetic part of your post. That is dreaming really big for this park!

^ How about both

^ Well they've already told us they're building something big and it's the most expensive project in the parks history. There really is no sense in hiding the construction. All it is doing is adding to the speculation and keeps us talking about it.

^ Not saying you're wrong, but I thought they said they did the calculations back in 90's where they could have done a corkscrew, but the PTC's couldn't articulate fast enough to go through one. They said they had to wait until they had the technology available to them to design the Timberliners to make it happen. I believe they said that was the only thing holding them back this whole time.

^^ PTC's can't do inversions, so there is no stress on the trains to worry about. They would need new trains if they were to do the things you've suggested. Anyways, this is a expansion project, not a remodel. I think it it safe to assume that this is a brand new ride being built.

^ It is, but without mid-course break run, you can't get to that next element or utilize that part of the footprint without it. It's not necessarily what can they design with the track already there, but more of what can they design with the footers that already there. Basically what I'm saying is they can't use the footers already present to design a structure to get them to that second big swooping turn without utilizing the mcbr footers. Without those two elements, it significantly shortens the ride and as I said, takes from other parts of the ride. The rumor is out there that if RMC does get their hands on Boss, it would be a significantly shorter ride experience( heard it on here last year). It seems corporate doesn't want to pay for the full redo. From what I can tell from judging the footers, mcbr and next swooping hill/turn would be expendable, as being two of the three elements that could be removed, with the helix being the other. If you look at Medusa, the reason it looks like the perfect ride is the fact that RMC followed almost entire original layout of the ride. The park wanted 3 inversions and they were able to fit that in the design without taking away from another aspect of the ride. If you do that with a shortened Boss, you're losing aspects of the ride that would make it perfect. Basically, it wouldn't live up to the potential of the full layout. At this point, I'll take a shortened Iron Boss, but I don't think I'll be able to enjoy it as much knowing it could have been better if Six Flags chooses to go down this path.

Given the success of these RMC I-Box conversions, I think Iron Boss alone, would change the complexion of how the park is viewed. I do agree that a modern steel looping coaster would be nice too. Heck, If Iron Boss does happen, I would take a used B&M from another park. Not saying it is what I want, but it is certainly better than Ninja. I will say that after experimenting/still experimenting with an RMC redo of Boss in No Limits, I hope that they redo the majority of the coaster and not cutout the break-run and the second big swooping hill that occurs right after it. You can't have that second big swooping turn without the break-run. It's not physically possible to have one or the other using the current foot print of the ride. If you take those two elements out, it significantly shortens the ride and seems to limit the creativeness of what can be done with the track. What I mean by that is if the park wants multiple inversions, then they'll be sacrificing significant airtime/crazy RMC maneuvers for simple barrel roles, which is the only inversion that can be used due to the current foot print of the ride without the two elements I've mentioned. I'm not saying they have to use the break run as it currently stands. I have a scenario where the the train makes the turn on the break run and goes into a zero-G stall and another one that does a barrel roll. I also don't even use the second big swooping hill-turn I follow the foot print and use it has a high- G sort of low to the ground turn. Lets just say your butt would definitely be planted to the seat. I'm definitely no Alan Schilke, but I'm trying my best to envision this ride after an RMC redo.

I hate to double post, but I saw two cool things posted by the park today via the Holiblog. The first is a picture of a young lady who works at the park who found out what is being built at the park. It looked like her jaw hit the floor when she found out. That's telling to me, because she works at the park, knows something big is being built for next year, and still looked completely shocked when she found out what it was. She also didn't know the picture was being taken. You can check that out here: www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2014/06/21/get-smarter/ The second thing I saw was that the park is hosting a video contest on what's new for 2015. You can check that out here: www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2014/06/21/video-contest-whats-2015/

^ Yeah you guys have never advertised anything that wasn't true or didn't have a source to back it up. I figured that mistake was made by the reporter/news station.

What I think is funny is the park has never even advertised The Voyage has the worlds tallest wooden roller coaster. I think Matt just took the opportunity to insert nice little pun. Edit: He should also be confident in their wooden coasters. They have a very impressive trio that all offer vastly different ride experiences from one another.

Love what you said in the Holiblog post about this video! "We know we're being trolls."

^^ I'm with you. Both those rides make a lot of sense. But I also think adding a new water park attraction by Hyena Falls along with the new coaster makes some sense too.

^ I'll say this about the new trench they've dug that I saw yesterday. It's either for a sidewalk or only a Mack/ Intmain train can go through it, barely meeting clearance . It was way too close to Hyena Falls for any type of Splashdown or anything like that. I can't speak for the pit that was dug further down by the second clearing. I will say this, if it is some type of water coaster like an AquaTrax, don't you think we would see a lot more digging and concrete work going on as they would have to lay water pipes and water pumps for the ride underground, especially before they even poor footers?

^ I wanna see proof of that contract even existing. What's the point of them advertising it at IAAPA if Six Flags is the only park company that's allowed to use it right now? Also, why would a ride manufacturer like S&S be able to use the track for their 4D spin concept and try to sell it to parks if Six Flags is the only park company that can use it right now?

^^ Yeah RMC uses pre-fab footers that they just place in the ground, so you can just rule them out at this point.

^ Maybe the start of a turn? I stole this aerial photo from someone who had posted it earlier in the thread and updated it with what I saw yesterday while I was at the park. Everything in black is new. Ignore the black marks by the footers. I make a mistake and didn't feel like redoing everything. Since there has already been a photo of the footers put on here, they're not really relevant to this photo as new, but I thought I go ahead and put them on here anyway.

The footers they have poured are huge. A steel coaster is the only ride that could call for those types of footers.

^^ Yes. They were doing track work on the top running board in a few spots on the final turn yesterday. I was told by the ride attendent standing at the entrance that they had some track work to finish up and were hoping to open up later that day. They never took the trains out of storage, so I'm guessing that the issue was a lot harder to fix than they had thought.