Danrarbc

It rained and drizzled all night.

Ummm. Guys? Xcalibur isn't listed in the app as a ride now.

They'd probably be on winter wheels already. The park isn't open today so I wouldn't pay much attention to anything other than "closed for the season". It is quite the bummer that Eagle won't be open. It was nice on year one when they opened some of Illinois - it'd be great if they just had that whole section in play. Great America has the entire park open. I do know Eagle has anti-rollbacks installed so maybe there are valley concerns - but it always seems to hit them with a ton of speed. I know there are stairs between Bugs Bunny NP and Illinois that'd be tough to clear snow and ice from, but they're optional. The Eagle exit is also stairs but you could probably cover them. You could force all traffic to the Boomerang-Superman midway if you can't clear stairs quickly.

Fixed that for you. Terror Twister II is the best teacups name ever. The lights, music and fog.makes it the best teacups ride ever period.

They probably didn't run the rides because the attendance these couple weeks is very low. You save on labor and you potentially cut down on maintenance costs if cold weather makes you replace things more often. Plus I watched a maintenance worker stand at the American Thunder control panel at SFSL for an hour or more (the ride was estopping because the trains were coming in late and the computer's timer was flagging it) during- I'm guessing they don't want to spare workers for something like that in cold weather until the event starts.

Yeesh. Looks like SFSL had rides closed too.

Mr Freeze was delayed a year because the Texas version had a major collision in testing. The LIM fins ended up raming in to the LIM motors. There were other related issues with the housings. http://web.archive.org/web/20130324040452/http://home.roadrunner.com/~gep2/mrfreeze.html

With maybe one exception the rides being down weren't necessarily the Park's fault though. That isn't really a very good point regardless of how well articulated it was.

Panda leaving is great news. At minimum this means the park gets one more wholly-owned restaurant to provide dining pass food. This means two new options in three years with Fowl Ball opening. The quality of Chop Six is at least equal to Panda (although the SFSL Panda gave me food poisoning so I'm probably more against it than most).

I was about to say. A Vekoma at this point would be wonderful. They're doing good work. And for good prices to try to gain market share again. Then again is there much of a difference between them and S&S now given the shared ownership?

I'd love to see Demon open for HITP, but I recall it struggling at times to make it to the MCBR after the tunnel (and subsequently crawling through the turnaround) last year towards the end of Last Blast. Demon didn’t just struggle to make it to the MCBR at times but on the last day of season it actually got stuck on the MCBR for a few minutes. Okay so mystery solved there. Ninja's layout just works better in the cold. As crappy as it is.

I'm shocked Demon won't be open. Ninja runs well in SFSL. Of course - this probably still isn't a complete list. Both Woodies have long queues that might be tough to clear snow from - but then again Bull, X-Flight and Superman also have long queues. And as for the Bull's trim yes I know if it doesn't trigger it means it is running slow. But that is what gives it the overhead to run in lower temps. Thicker lube = slower runs.

I told you guys it would probably be open. Without the trim enabled Raging Bull will probably run in temperatures well below that of what Nitro can at Great Adventure. They are pretty different layouts with Nitro having more airtime hills. This is Six Flags. And they seem to have a chain-wide policy in place for winter. 'Run every ride we can until they just won't run anymore.'

The name Last Call doesn't make sense when the park will still be open when the event is over.

And to answer the other question. No, Six Flags doesn't release park-level attendance numbers. All we have are rumors. And the rumors are almost always that the St Louis Park is very profitable with pretty steady attendance figures. Which I suppose is a blessing and a curse. if the figures stay pretty steady even after the addition of a new ride then there you go that's why we don't get big new additions. As for the possible sale of the park I doubt that'll happen. But maybe Six Flags doesn't want to own their Parks anymore they've been signing a lot of lease and operating agreements recently. So if anything you may see a portion sold to reduce the real estate assets but the park stays Six Flags. But there is little indication that the corporation wants to reduce real estate assets - the agreements signed aren't a strong indicator if the parks weren't for sale.

Another reason to claim it closed due to weather is the tickets have language on them that specifically States they are under no liability to reimburse you for the tickets if they closed due to weather.

What do you think this is? A Cedar Fair park?

I didn't say it's going to happen or will ever happen, I just said it would be nice. Getting a world's first Strata lift hill coaster would be nice too. And a 5 flat ride package. And a new entrance plaza plus full parking resurface. None of it will happen. I'm just saying it would be nice

A couple years ago the park took down that maze. But apparently the public didn't respond that positively to the path being fully open. Not enough for the effort to matter.

Last Friday almost everything was a walk on. But it was also cold. If you only have 8 hours on a Fright Fest Saturday Flash Pass will be essential if you hope to ride more than 4 things.

During my visit this weekend I definitely saw lights installed for HITP in every single section of the park including Southwest Territory. Great America is almost certainly going to attempt to open the entire park. As for rides X-Flight might be the biggest question B&M-wise. There are a few stall elements designed to hang you upside down for longer than you'd experience on older style rides. As the wheel lubricant thickens those stalls might become rollbacks. Goliath will probably be fine. American Eagle and Viper both have those high turns that you take at lower speeds - they might not run once the low 20s hit. Nitro in Great Adventure doesn't handle the cold as well as other rides in that park, but Raging Bull seems to be a bit more 'downhill' of a layout. With the trim off I could actually see it running pretty well at low temps. If it has to stop on the MCBR it might crawl back to the station though. I would say Chicago is probably going to Six Flags' hardest winter test, but St. Louis already hit single digit temperatures and showed what some limits are. Heaters in the stations aimed at the rolling stock can help. Great Adventure has some but they aren't used in St. Louis, maybe that could have kept a few rides running. I hope Sky Trek Tower is reopened for the event - it'd be a great way to see the lights.

Actually I'm guessing the variety of light strands is more likely related to the fact that they'll be having the ENTIRE park open for the event. They have more work to do and I'd wager both the park maintenance staff and professional installers have been working on different things. I saw lights in every single area so it'll definitely be open 100%. I hope STL will be going this route this year - the Illinois section isn't big, the biggest worry has probably been clearing snow on the stairs and that hill.

I wonder how many SFSL patrons would be offended by the jokes in GAm's Love at First Fright? Way funnier version though. Also I've noticed something interesting about their HITP setup. We have professional lights with the screw on connections nearly everywhere - but I can see a lot of locations in GAm where they've just installed normal light strands. Even just out of the box mesh lights in the entrance plaza.

Yeah I kinda forgot this was a lease agreement, not a purchase, for a second.

I suppose it's true that they may be looking at moving people the opposite direction. But how many memberships can they really start in Rockford?