Danrarbc

I stand corrected - it could still beat Rookie Racer. I should have looked at more of the Giga installs to see how they compared. Definitely won't be a Memorial Day ride though.

I'd like to again say that Justice League, Pandemonium and Screamin' Eagle were all open last weekend. Yes there was downtime - things come up when you go in to full operation for the first time. But all were able to open and continued to reopen after shutdowns. Justice League, in particular, is a very complex system with a lot of moving parts. It's not the first themed ride with things that stop working and it won't be the last. Even Disney's rides have failures - the difference is generally they design both an A mode and B mode so if the primary elements fail there's a fallback that can still tell a story. Justice League doesn't have that (and for the most part I don't know of many other Sally rides that do either). Disney has even had a few notorious unfixed failures over the years - the Yeti comes to mind immediately, and of course Rise of the Resistance still goes down at least once a day. That said Six Flags corporate itself is definitely is not providing enough of a budget to keep most of the Justice League rides running as well as they can. They don't have enough spare ride vehicles to keep capacity up when they have to remove one or four for motion base or sensor issues. They don't appear to have backup projectors (heck they probably removed 3D not only to not have to buy glasses but to also extend the life of the projectors - they can use them until they get way dimmer now). They don't have enough equipment on hand to keep the game system in good condition and we all know that they don't have anywhere near the ability to keep all of the effects operational. I'd argue ALL of that is on corporate - for such a signature ride across the chain and how big a showcase it was for Sally you'd think corporate would want to directly ensure it remains good. They have failed to do that on a corporate level. The only argument against that is the concept is near a decade old now so maybe it isn't considered important anymore. As for the carousel - putting chariots and horses on takes no time whatsoever. They've removed the construction wall surrounding it. The structure itself out in the park is nearly complete, with only a little painting remaining and replacement murals on the outer ring left to go. You can pretty clearly see the mechanical bits have already been restored and installed. We know that they're doing the final horses and chariots now because the park actually released that in a backstage update. It's perfectly reasonable to believe it'll open this year given the state it's in right now. ------------ The two complaints I'll entirely endorse are the state of Buccaneer and the lack of anything resembling real progress on Joker. Buccaneer really does look like a fairground ride - except worse as there's not even a lighting package. I get it's something simple and cheap to run that people will actually ride so they want it in the ride lineup, and they probably really did get a late start on the retheme but it doesn't look good at all, I'd really like to see more effort go into that in the next offseason if they plan on keeping it around. I'd like to point out that by the end of March parts of CraZanity had already arrived at Magic Mountain and that ride even with the better weather in LA didn't open until July. To my knowledge there's no hardware here in STL yet. There was construction equipment and nearly complete site prep by mid-April and that probably isn't even close to happening here, foundation work was what they were busy doing in LA around Memorial Day. There's clearly no effort being made to hit the start of summer with Joker and I'm not confident this will be open any earlier than Rookie Racer opened last year. And they already know how long it takes to get a Giga Discovery built so they'd have known when they should have started if they wanted it to be running this summer. I'm not sure if this is a corporate or local issue but it's not great either way (given the fact that footers are pretty far along at Great Adventure for Flash late opens probably aren't corporate policy).

Before their family boomerang they installed their last coaster in 2014, and it was intentionally built on a somewhat smaller scale with 5 car trains. That's a 10-year coaster drought (same gap as Boomerang to Rookie Racer). Beyond that it's been some flat rides and a couple waterslides, and they run the same trains on all of their woodies to keep costs as low as possible too. I'd venture to say more capital expenditures have been spent at SFStL in that decade than at Holiday World. That's not to say SFStL is better. Just to say that the comparison isn't cut and dried. Koch Development Corporation also happens to not be on the stock market with public shareholders and that plays a significant role in how it is run too.

Justice League was up but the first screen didn’t have the guns working. Pandemonium and Eagle were both running to you probably just looked when they had a temporary error code. Agreed. I mocked it up that way months ago and then showed using what seems to be the site plans that it absolutely would have worked turned 90 degrees. Just to highlight how rare it is for a Giga/Giant Discovery to be installed in an orientation that doesn’t highlight the pendulum motion I looked at 10 installed in North American parks. 8 of the 10 are installed so that most of the time from midways, especially the primary ‘approach to the ride, it’s angled so you can see it swinging in front of you. The two that aren’t are Discovery Kingdom’s and SF America. America is not a well run park so they just plain installed it the least impressive way on purpose. In DK’s case though it’s really tucked in behind and between two rides and even turned the way it is a support is partially in a road - if turned 90° a support would have been smack in the middle of it so it really wasn’t their choice. If SFStL turned this one 90° counterclockwise it would accentuate the pendulum motion as it swings above the arcade building AND this would also swing out directly towards the reservoir. Great America seems to understand what the most flattering angle is.

I know it’s opening day but Mine Train’s operations are ABYSMAL. Joker’s location isn’t really seeing action right now. I get the feeling the Buccaneer decision was made a bit late. There are bunch of chargers throughout the lot.

The park has continued to post updates all week. Nothing on the new Joker name though.

Nice to see the Britannia arcade get a new life. And the new signs look good.

Well there’s no way they’d give up a revenue source. You can still buy it.

All of the spaces in the photo are in Preferred. If they make the EV chargers a Preferred perk this means there’s a security associate present. They can block those spaces and then open them one by one for individual vehicles.

They have to have redone most of roofs in the park these last few years at this point. Those EV chargers in the parking lot really stick out like a sore thumb with the really old asphalt surface.

Buccaneer also had a fair amount of red IIRC. Would DC sign off on a re-theme given the "standards" they have on theming projects? Would Six Flags want to expend that kind of budget on such a thing?

Yes but between 305, Thunder Strike and ??? which will have the worst theming? Thunder Strike is off to an early lead.

National Six Flags account fail.

Still no announcement of Old-Joker’s name. But we can see one of the new colors.

I'd much rather they order Gravity Group precut if they're going to be doing something like that.

It looks like they're screens, not windows (unless they're really tinted). So probably to cut down on bees swarming the soda fountains if I had to guess.

I'm pretty sure they could have fit this in rotated 90 degrees too - just with an elongated control building that put the electrical room in a different location to make room for the sign. Edit: Then again the orientation they picked could look better from other locations in the park. So it really comes down to where you'd prefer the more picturesque side to be visible from. Obviously I'm a fan of seeing it above the arcade as you pass Pandemonium. There are no direct views of its location from the front part of the park so much of the current angle gets wasted. You'd only see it poke above certain buildings and tree lines.

I thought for sure they'd use the arcade structure just because it was already there and it might be cheaper than a new building. Guess Oddball lives. The funhouse structure in this site plan seems to be a near exact match to Fiesta's funhouse dimensions. As for queue design it looks like the funhouse would primarily be optional if they decide just not to use it on low attendance days or if something needs fixed in there, that or a bypass for those sensitive to strobe lights (not sure if those are used in Fiesta I haven't looked at a walkthrough). And looks like there will be plenty of switchbacks to hold a good number of guests, even more than Fiesta has. My biggest disappointment with this orientation is it is turned 90 degrees from my earlier mockup. So rather than a beautiful angle of it swinging over the Brittania game building as you walk back to the area you'll just see it from the least interesting angle (IMO). PS: Supergirl. Not Wonder Woman. PPS: Not complaining but NOT calling Rookie Racer Kid Flash when it'll be RIGHT NEXT to Joker and Supergirl kinda seems like a missed opportunity now (I like it when original names are used, just saying from their perspective it seems like something Six Flags would normally do).

After the video of Pandemonium testing earlier this week this update on Facebook shows more testing is coming soon. BOTH water rides are receiving TLC for decking. The work on the deck around the arcade is actually somewhat interesting to me because I don't even think it was in the worst of condition - the Colossus deck is in need of it way more. But if the arcade back there becomes Joker's funhouse for the themed queue then they're going to want anything you might see or walk on through there to look nice and fresh.

For the record. In the new Invision board software running here the button to ignore a user is found by hovering over a username for a second or two. A little profile preview pops up and you can ignore there - best I can tell you can't do this from a full profile page.

A load bearing restraining wall could be installed further back and that'd make more room too. That's what I thought you were suggesting - I just didn't see markings needed to make that happen. Here's today's update. The old radio controlled car area is being turned in to a seating area.

The shape of the Wildcat layout (Fønix) is what doesn't work in Ninja's location without alterations to the area. A large RMC order could make sense too given how much RMC-produced steel is in these parks - not only I-Box and Raptor but the S&S 4D Free Spin track as well. For a Raptor I think a Jersey Devil layout in Tidal Wave's location would be slightly better for the general public. The original layouts are a bit much for a lot of people but that layout would fit where Ninja sits. I'd still love to see Chance get a shot again too.

I'm not sure how realistic some of this is for a park our stature right now. The last Six Flags and Cedar Fair I-Box conversions were done in 2018. Vekoma has only just now built a relationship with both companies and Cedar Fair still has a bad one with Intamin even if Six Flags just went with them for a coaster in Georgia. Ninja's plot is not terribly large for a full circuit coaster. If it isn't being used for something that goes up and over Mine Train (Hyper) then you're really limited in what you can select for it. Something like a Double Heart or Sky Rocket II would end up in the short list even though they're a bit small for the space. Vekoma's smallest new generation full circuit thrill layout is the Wildcat - without reconfiguring that area by removing Axis and moving not-Joker there isn't room for it. There's only room for a Super Boomerang if Axis is deleted too (but not-Joker can stay). Chance Hyper GT-X coasters are meant for this kind of scale but obviously there aren't many of those out there.

It just looks like they tore up the old concrete and will pour more of the stuff they've been putting in everywhere else. There don't seem to be any markings suggesting that retaining wall is being demolished.