castaway_kid

I mean there is a reason employees call the bring a friend free days "Bring a Felon Free Day"... There usually is a much high rate of crime on those days.

Back in the summer of 2012 Six Flags St. Louis tested Batman backwards very early in the morning. They told certain employees to get to the park around 3-4am to test something. For the test they just turned the middle two seats on the last row backwards and maintenance had to manually release us. After riding we had to fill out comment cards on what we thought of the ride. After testing they put the train back in storage to get things back to normal before the public would see. It was a more intense ride but a lot of us said we didn't like it as much, felt a lot more jerky. Anyway after testing it in the wee hours of that morning in 2012, they announced it for other parks. I've been curious if we were the only park that did the initial test for all parks or if other parks did as well. I feel like we were the test dummies as they had several corporate engineers there to watch.

A few weeks ago at the park they said that the helix on the boss was being removed. And after going up there during HIP it looked like significant work was being done on the helix, as in it was gone. At least it will be a little less painful to ride if it is indeed gone. Anyone have any other info on this?

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if Shazam got moved up there to fill the dead area. As the space left vacant by Shazam would be much smaller and easier to fill or landscape. Plus Shazam is being disassembled right now anyway and that Flings queue house is still standing. Just a guess.

I know that 1904 Hot Dog has the soup. Not sure about other locations but I have seen the posters on their windows.

Bingo.

Believe so, a high level exec is retiring so lots of people are bouncing around. It sounds like we are getting the park president from La Ronde.

I know that either last year or the year before the 10k went off property while also doing the entire 5k run inside the park. I believe it might have gone up Fox Creek road a bit.

Call the park ahead of time and ask to speak with the First Aid department. They might be able to help with the medication. And Also the Culinary Services department should have all nutritional facts in their office so just ask to speak with someone about that. Calling GR tomorrow morning would probably be your best bet and they can direct you to the proper people.

It is in fact going to be a new building, in training they said it is being built in the grassy area between the tiki bar and the main food court.

I feel like the next ride to be removed will be either Tidal Wave or Highland Fling. Excalibur has its issues especially in the 2011-2012 seasons, but it seems like it has been much more reliable since then.

The park doesn't have to be open on Mardi Gras for them to still do the event. I've been told it has been talked about this year for SFSTL to get it but probably later in the spring to early summer, when there is more attendance to justify it. The park already has a suitable parade route, and a storage location for all the floats.

I still think they will hold out until 2019 for the next HH expansion. That will be the 20th anniversary of the water park opening. Plus two different slide tower complexes would easily fit in that space left over from the paintball area north of Big Kahuna.

No, probably not. It's not just the lack of a signature coaster that makes the park suck. Just curious, when was your visit to the park and was it just a one day visit, because that is an awful lot of hate for one bad experience. I had a horrible experience at Cedar Point one time but gave it a second chance and it was pretty fun.

I would go either Tuesday or Thursday as the weather is nicer than on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, and you wont have the Weekend crowds. Probably leaning more towards Thursday though as its a bit warmer. But remember that there will be fireworks on the 31st at 9:05pm.

As for if it has been a success financially I have no idea, on the finance people will know that. All I know is they must be making a fortune on merchandise. I have never seen so many people buying stuff at the park. Attendance numbers seem to be decent. More than anticipated some days, less on others. The crowds didn't seem too worried about the temps last weekend, but the rain on Sunday did keep the park a bit quiet, but not much different than a rain day in June or July. As for working the event, it has been incredibly fun. It seems like a lot of the employees are enjoying it as they still get a paycheck in December, and after working there you get to become great friends with your coworkers so its nice not leaving them after FF ends.

The park will be closed on Sunday. As of now park will be open tomorrow

I was told that the fireworks were not originally scheduled to happen on NYE but since two of the three days of fireworks during the Fourth of July were cancelled due to weather they moved them to NYE.

So last weekend Dave Roemer came back to visit and walk around the park. Apparently he was very happy with how it turned out and was excited the park got this opportunity. I was able to briefly say hi after he watched the light show outside of Palace. Always such an awesome guy to be around. He said that he was going to go tour the park with some of the directors and Pete.

The flood lights lighting the trees were there last week, along with the lights making patterns on the ground. The flood light on American Thunder and the red white and blue lights outlining the buildings were not there last weekend, those are all new.

It is red white and blue to fit with the American Thunder Theme.

Other than some minor issues with some of the restaurants, this past weekend seemed to go very well for the parks first HIP. I did hear a lot of guests not happy that many rides were not open, but if they simply read the maps provided they would have seen that they were not meant to be open. But reading is hard... Overall it seems like a very nice environment and I'm excited to see how the rest of the event goes. I think the park might want to put signs out in front of rides only using one train to let the guest know that. Similar to what they do all summer long when rides operate at a reduced capacity, but this time on the sign educate the guest as to why they are only using one train, that way the guest doesn't just think the park doesn't want or cant have 2 train ops. Around the park looks great, they did add a few more lights to the American Thunder area which had nothing on preview night, and a little to the batman area, which still looks incomplete and too dark. But after all this is just year one, and I'm pretty sure the event gets more product each year. I heard one person complaining that it wasn't as good as Silver Dollar City. I agree, but again, this is only year one, SDC has been adding year after year for many many years, we'll get there.

Last night was a slightly busier night at the park, as someone already stated they opened up part of the north park since we had more guests. They only real complaint I heard was that a lot of the food locations were starting to run out of hot chocolate. It was nice to see that once the show began in front of palace, the train came to almost a complete stop on the first bridge so that the guests onboard could watch the trees. I also just realized yesterday that the whole area where the clowns were during FF was also decorated. Its simple but looks nice. Its fun to keep finding new areas decorated.

Yesterday went very well for the park! I sounds like the guests loved it, and I have never seen so much merch sold at our park in a single day. The retail department really outdid themselves getting very nice product that people are buying like crazy. The park was not busy but it was a good crowd and considering Harbor and north park were closed it felt a little busier. Most people seemed to stay near the Palace for the light show and then the inside show, which had probably the longest lines in the park.

It going to be a pretty cool event. I'll post more pics after I get off on Friday!