Danrarbc

This is a very odd deal for Six Flags. The park is basically 75 miles from both Chicago and Milwaukee and while it is the largest water park anywhere near Chicago there are still options closer and if you're in Milwaukee the Dells would probably be your destination.

Indeed. Cedar Point will also celebrate an anniversary soon and they've already said it'll be a two-year celebration. Along with the rumors that they are planning a ride around the same time basically tells you up front that they are planning a good sized project, but it'll probably be the draw for the second year.

The helix probably always came up when people mentioned the roughness of the ride. And yeah I imagine that there was quite a bit of Wear and tear on both trains and the structure in that area. I also agree, I miss it and I think maybe there would have been room to increase the diameter of the helix by at least 50ft. It would have required many new footings though so a more expensive job.

Yeah you can spot quite a bit of new hardware. I'd love it if the park had something like Holiblog where they could do a post detailing what types of changes were required to make Colossus a continuous rotation wheel. Based on what I can just see from the outside it looks like quite a bit had to be done to modify the actual drivetrain.

Perfectly said. Back in the 90s St Louis wasn't really any more relevant nationally, but at that time corporate ownership was significantly more interested in capital improvements at this park. It isn't like Hershey PA is a 20 million person-strong metropolis. And yes back in the 90s the parks' lineups were much more similar.

Anyone remember when Hersheypark was a similar park to SFSL? I had no idea they were up to 14 coasters already. And they get 15 in 2020

I can pretty much guarantee anyone walking around a theme park full on tanked didn't do it on park beer. They smashed tallboys in the parking lot.

The bar opens around when the meat of Fright Fest begins. And the new alcohol policy has been in place all year. It's also the only place that serves in that area of the park so I hope they can find a way to make something more permanent.

Do you know if they fixed the lighting program for the giant pumpkin? That wasn't even a programming issue. Someone cut the orange light strands.

To be frank I'd rather it be torn down now so the area can be prepped early. Cedar Fair seems to try to hit opening day launches.

So still only 5 haunts for use with the wristband instead of 6. Looks like one more scare zone than last year though. Pretty meh for an anniversary. Sideshow guy not coming this season? And no Empire show?

Spot on, man. It's so disheartening to see the state of that queue. I understand changing the entry point to be more friendly to guests with disabilities, but the upkeep is just embarrassingly poor. That little grassy area between the switchbacks and the ramps up to the station often seems to be just knee high grass and weeds left to run rampant. Send someone in there with a weed whacker, and YES, do something with the roof! Also the lights in the ramp area have been out or non functional before, so you're standing in darkness at night in that part of the queue. Screamin' Eagle deserves better To be honest Eagle deserves a brand new ADA compliant queue and station - and I don't think it would be impossible to do. It'd just cost money.

Batman STL ran in to the low teens last year until ice buildup shut it down. If it was a drier cold it would have probably worked fine even lower. Ice even shut the ferris wheel down. Chicago is probably going to run in to the same issue. Moisture will shut things down before raw temperature will.

This is excellent news. I wish I would have been there for Jet Scream. IIRC my first year was 1991 or 1992, Tidal Wave was still new.

You should see before then. Six Flags St Louis released a HITP map in October IIRC. The loop layout of Great America would make it harder to have anything less than the full original loop open. And Southwest Territory isn't that big so having it open probably isn't too bad either and it has two good coasters and two flat rides that should do well in the cold.

Keep in mind all parks share the same portal so the high volume could be a sign other parks will be seeing huge throngs next season. And this Sunday will be a near ghost town.

Getting the old rides going again, as many as possible, for Labor Day weekend was probably going to influence people more than anything else. And Supergirl addressed one of those closures. Yes the GP has noticed the rides down.

The best ride coming to a Six Flags next year.

Am I the only one that thinks this is the best Batman out there? I’ve been a quite a few different ones and I have to say the terrain makes the difference in this one. Going over the water and through some of the trenches surrounded by trees it makes it feel faster then it is. In this case I’d have to say original is best. After this slot of then we’re just thrown down on empty flat plots of land. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Of course it is the best Batman out there. It is the original one built! I do agree though, the terrain makes it more fun than on some of the clones. In fairness they did try to duplicate some of the terrain features in St Louis by having it interact with queue elements and they dug a trench. But yes the original is definitely the best location Six Flags ever picked for the ride. I want to say one or two of the others rides a bit better though as B & M improved their manufacturing process.

What on Earth would drive them to choose the 24 passenger variant? That's significantly lower capacity than Fling isn't it?

if you're looking to avoid long lines Cedar Point is definitely not the place to go.

that was my point - losing rides(permanent breakdown and failure) will happen from time to time and sometimes if the ride selection is large enough in a park no big deal. SFSL is was down 2 rides(fling and Xcalibur). I guess we wait till the end of next year to find out that Xcalibur is gone forever; then we get a replacement for that as the next big ride. We were actually down 4 rides counting Shazam and Colossus. One has reopened and now we know one is being replaced so we're down to two that are down - Colossus and Xcalibur. I do expect Xcalibur to reopen as the park supposedly has the replacement component on hand now (they'd have to if they originally aimed at an August open). And that component wasn't cheap. I think many of us would be happy. But barring a Fling-like failure of yet another thing next year I don't see it happening for a while. Which also makes me happy because it is pretty unique.

Even though other parks get double or triple flat installs I've long resigned myself to the fact that we NEVER will. Even with a nice Troika in corporate ownership available we still get one ride. Oh and if Fling hadn't kicked the bucket we all know that Troika was ours. I'm not sure how much longer Fling would have lasted anyway even without the failure. Those wheels are disappearing everywhere.

This is almost certainly the same height as the one in SFGAm. They're marketing the SFFT and SFGAdv rides both a record breaking when they actually both tie Crazanity in SFMM.

Shocked the queue building isn't staying in place. Well maybe not shocked. I'd just prefer it did stay in place because these types of queues are so darn "meh".