TrippinBillie

Personally, I wouldn't want to enjoy "Christmas" while its 96 degrees outside with 99% humidity.

I mean if you look at what they did to us for Boomerang, it's not bats**t crazy to think

Can't help but wonder if Green Lantern might be on the way to SFSTL. It suits needs - but damn that thing is old. I remember loving it as a kid at Kentucky Kingdom. But it's aged and gotten rough. I could see SF slapping new paint on it and putting floorless trains, plopping it in Tidal Waves area and trying to pass it as a "new ride", bc it's such a SFSTL thing to do (see Boomerang). Thoughts? Disclaimer - I haven't ran land survey numbers to see if it'd even fit in the Tidal Wave area. Just assuming it'd have to be there as it's the flattest piece of open land.

My brother and I went this past Monday, 9/30, as we were down there for the weekend for a golf trip and decided to hit up SDC before headed back home to STL. When I tell you we had the place to ourselves, I'm not exaggerating at all! If it weren't for the ride ops making us go around, we would've had even more rides on all the coasters. The most we waited was 1 train for front row of Wildfire, which was running 1 train. I think we totaled 9ish laps on Time Traveler (all back and front rows), 2 laps on Mystic River and they let us stay on (got way soaked both times early in the day), 7 laps on Outlaw Run (first drop in the back seat should be illegal) 6 laps on Powder Keg (all in front and back - that back row on the first launch SLAPS and awesome airtime hill), 5 laps on Wildfire- (front edges and back edges) and 4 laps on TNT (back seat is ROUGH). Haven't been to the park since 2002 or so...? I was REALLY impressed. Back in High School, I wasn't a dad of 3 and paid close attention to cleanliness, theming, staff friendliness and such. SDC really has it together. We had no idea how crowds would be, but to not have to use Trailblazer and spur the extra cash and literally lap coasters and explore every avenue and non-coaster ride multiple times within a 5 hour window was a DREAM. I wanted to call out FITH separate. We only rode twice, despite not having a wait. I thought it was great and a well done tribute to the original. However, neither of us were longing to go back and do it more times. It's a great family ride and impressive presentation. Seems like a lot comes at you in a short amount of time. Found it hard to "follow", but I was also familiar with it. The new sets and blends of screens are great. It makes me think they're probably doing this over in Dollywood, given the recent plans leaked for a building 3x the size of FITH. You'd assume a similar ride, on a bigger scale in Wildwood. Not sure what the theme would be, but hopefully it's RMC. Only downside is we saw the ride go down 3-4 times in the day. So hopefully it's reliable enough. If you're looking to go on a day where you can rip thru the park and enjoy everything with no waits, fall time on a Monday is the way to go! I guess kids are in school and people come more on Thursday/Friday for long weekends. EDIT* - What's everyone think for their next addition? They spent a lot of money on the past 2 investments for families (FITH, Mystic River Falls). Seems they're due for a major thrill coaster in the next couple years. With them having a couple launch coasters already, wonder if they'll look to do something like a suspended thrill coaster from Vekoma since they got in with them for BBM at DW....?

Well said! I didn't even realize the tilt coaster is that large RE: the Ninja plot of land. Makes perfect sense for that not being sent to us. I guess a new Vekoma model would be a nice replacement for Ninja, but I can't see our park getting budget for that. It does seem Cedar is hellbent on replacing all of the old Vekoma models seeing parks like KI and others bidding goodbye to theirs - and MM having theirs on the chopping block. Regardless, would like to see Ninja be retired. The Boss is such a unique situation. I know (heard) there was contact between the park and RMC for a iron treatment and was scheduled around when Covid hit and it was scrapped. You'd THINK that would be re-let green now, but the CF thing is always a hurdle. I'm hoping the powers that be wipe the slate clean of the "offender" list. I feel it only hurts the parks by not working with industry titans like Intamin and RMC. Good to see SFNE getting an Intamin, as well as SFGa. But you never know. It's just such a glaring point of contention and would love to have it solutioned. RMC seems like the absolute win/win there from an ROI perspective.

Thought the EXACT same thing when I heard about that Tilt Coaster. How we couldn't get that into the Tidal Wave part of the park, or replace the Ninja with it is beyond me. I REALLY hope they move forward with an RMC Boss. It's like low hanging fruit. Fixes a problem child, adds to the investment in that back left corner for traffic with Lasso, Joker and RR.....and it's not a total ground up needing all new footers, infrastructure, queue housing and all the added costs of a new build.

News channels were on the Joker today - park officially said it'll open tomorrow (Friday 9/13). Wild how long that took for a flat ride.

I rode the first 2 iterations and noticed a significant difference with the lowered launch speeds. Now, with the chain, I can imagine it's slower - by literal physics going over the first top hat. I've heard from other friends and enthusiasts that it's a shell of itself from old, with respect to intensity and ride experience. With respect to your second point, your "signals" are CLEARLY off. I'm never one to purposely cause problems - nor do I intend to be negative. I just find it odd that he went through several comments to go out of the way painting it like it's LR from 2016. It wasn't a personal attack, at all. Again, this is a DISCUSSION forum. Not all opinions have to align, correct?

I saw a side by side of 2016 and 2024 Lightning Rod that was synced up at the exact same time after the crest of the first hill; I have to say it's extremely neutered. I'm sure they will take uptime and reliability over the guest frustration and guessing game of open/closed each day, but that thing is definitely a shell of it's original form. After watching the official TPR on and off-ride, you can tell that thing isn't as whippy and out of control as it's v1. As someone who rode in 2016 and then 2020, I noticed a HUGE difference in pacing and a slower launch. I can't imagine how clipped it must feel now. I'm certainly not one to cause problems or throw shade, but I'm a bit shocked and disappointed Rob continuously replied to comments on his POV YouTube that "I couldn't tell one bit of difference". I'm not sure if that is genuine, or if he was wanting to help the PR train with Dollywood....but it's sad to see videos of the old vs new with this coaster. That quad down in 2016 was literally absolute chaos and insanity. If you look at POVs from this year, that thing is crawling over that first return up and over to start the quad down. But, again, I'm sure Dollywood is happy their big investment has more uptime. I just wish people would admit to the glaring difference in pacing and how it runs.

I mean RMC the Boss would bring a MASSIVE influx in attendance for a cheaper than new coaster. Use that added park revenue to get a multi-coaster deal from Vekoma and replace the Ninja in 3 years. That's realistic and needed to stay current. In addition, the plot of land for Fonix (new gen Vekoma in Denmark) is 1.49 acres and the Ninja plot is 1.48 acres. With 1.48 acres (and change), that's a lot of land to get creative with. If not a Vekoma, maybe you make a deal with RMC to do the Boss and replace Ninja (or Tidal Wave land) with a Raptor? DO SOMETHING!

I was hoping that the merger would tip the scale in favor of how Cedar Fair was ditching all their crappy arrows and the SF parks would follow suit. Could you imagine if corporate cared just a little bit for our lil' ole' park and replaced Ninja with like a small scale Vekoma or the cheaper vertical Intamin models that just released and RMC'd the boss over the next 2-3 years? We'd have, like, an actual fun park worthy of season passes again!

I'm with @prozach626, I don't care much about "the park doing it's job", with respect to handles and new roofing on a queue line. To the point made about Fiesta posting things like that and behind the scenes type stuff: I would eat that UP if my park was consistently adding rides and rollercoasters! When a park genuinely cares about the guest experience and shows it based on re-investment in the park, you're going to have more acceptance to the small behind the scenes stuff. When we're sprinkled with a flat ride and "infrastructure improvements" (total BS imo) for a number of consecutive years, it's tough to feel "connected" to the park or feel they're really wanting to bring us along for the ride with offseason stuff. We literally don't have momentum or excitement, so why invest in time on their socials or feel thankful they're doing that? I'm not trying to be negative, just being real about my opinions - and those of fam/friends I interact with about SFSTL. Yes, I understand it has to do with corporate, capital investment and so on....but that's part of the problem too. WoF, SDC and Holiday World are LAPPING the field in the MO region for park-goers and enthusiasts. I have no idea why we're not thrown a bone of a Boss RMC, or even a Raptor or ANYTHING - while surrounding parks continue to improve and move forward. But that's beating a dead horse. Happy Friday!

As long as SOMEONE f*&%$@g RMCs the Boss, I really don't care LOL

Here's a powerpoint prezo that was reviewed in the call: https://s2.q4cdn.com/170666959/files/doc_presentations/2023/11/FINAL-Investor-Presentation-11-02-2023.pdf

Yes, I am aware of the reversal....but it only affected a couple parks. Cool, he gave us a hand-me-down Vekoma crawler thing for kids that was supposed to be going to the failed Six Flags in Dubai. And then we got a giant swing, to replace a giant swing after we lose XCalibur for next year. If he wants to see people come through for 1 day, repeat visits or annual passes, he has GOT to invest in a coaster for the park. You would get flood of people coming from all over. I remember the late 90s/early 2000s when we got investment how packed it would be. Gotta spend money to earn money. Your cheapest ROI without it being a large, drawnout project is simply a call to RMC to complete the job at a fraction of cost for a new coaster.

I see your point, and I 100% agree with you. However, they're going about it the wrong way. Can Saleem come in and jack prices up immediately and expect no objection? NO. But if they were to scale raising prices appropriately by improving the product, I think you'd see an incredible support in revenue and attendance. RMC the boss. For god's sake. You know how many regional pass members you'd get JUST from that? As a 38 year old dad with 3 kids (1 of which is 5 1/2 and asks to go all the time), there isn't anything enticing me to get a pass - other than caving for my son. However, if they properly added thrills and invested capital, that'd be a different story! Think of the draw this place would get from RMC Boss ALONE!!!!!! Then, go get an Intamin or Mack Powersplash for the old Tidal Wave plot and raise the annual passes a tad more, incrementally. You can't continue to roll out the same sh***y park year in and out, and believe that people will support it. Need more example of this?....see the STL Cardinals. The ownership is under amazing scrutiny because the fans are bought in because of success. They had their worse year since 1990 and have seen attendance crumble, season ticket sales plummet, and have seen revenue decline in the BPV and hospitality areas. Their response is that they need to spend aggressively this offseason and put a better PRODUCT ON THE FIELD. SFSTL could learn a valuable lesson from that.

They also had a slide on the Grand Carousel, but I couldn't zoom clearly to see what they said? Thought that'd get ya fired up too @prozach626

Hearing that the water on Cheetah has stopped again. Anyone know what's up with that? Makes the s bends so much better and feel faster with the water rushing by....and is just a fantastic touch. Sad to see small things like this go away. But then again.....#PantheonTheming

Well said, @prozach626- however, when you know as a corporation the VERY well-overdue thing that would boost more consumer dollars and flat-out ignore it, it's stupid for the corporation to continue turning away from that glaring need. I understand consumer frustration, to that extent. I also agree with you - don't like it, don't support it. It's just mind boggling to me they have a violent, rotting coaster that COULD be a world-class one and be half the cost of building a new, ground-up build. But that's the sh*t we deal with having SFSTL local - and them barely getting by. A small capital investment would, without question, boost their ROI/Revenue exponentially. See any other park that did an RMC conversion.

I think it has been 5 years, maybe more? I should have stated something other than they "closed" it. It's been SBNO for years. Seems like Falcon's Fury might have the same Intamin Flat luck that Phoenix has. Hope not, though.

The park is closing and dismantling their Intamin flat ship: Phoenix. I loved that thing! I thought it was so cool how it'd hang upside down. Lots of people would just watch the ride cycle. It's next to Falcon Fury, so I wonder what the future of that area will be?

I'm hoping Universal takes a page out of Port Adventura's book with their new coaster collab between Intamin and Sally. Thing looks INSANELY good! Gut F&F and put it in there!

This thing looks brilliant! I'm shocked Epic Universe didn't use this "story-telling" type ride for it. Maybe IoA or Studios could add this? Simpsons or Fear Factor Plot? Or just re-do F&F...

Side note - Spartus is a strong name! I don't see anyone mouthing off to Spartus in HR

Any idea how far planning got? I had heard that as well from a person who has family with Eureka Town Hall....so I wonder if it ever got to serious planning? Pretty cool to think what could have been. But also f'n VERY depressing. I think Steel Boss could have moved the needle for STL as WoF and SDC have had capital (SDC way more obviously than WoF).