teacherkim

We legit got lost in the Dollywood parking lot once (we were there for an early entry event and had to park in a specific lot) and I use to teach Geography.............

That's a fun tradition! They should still be doing Mardi Gras then as well. We are doing our first ever OI meetup Feb 3 & 4, it's the 19 year old's Christmas present since nothing I actually can buy and wrap up impresses him at this point, lol.

At the presentations at SDC over this past weekend he did compare their 50th celebration to the one at KI. Now will that come to fruition or not? No idea but he did specifically state that. Of course to be fair what they think is a big deal for a celebration, others may not but they apparently are planning quite a bit of retheming and celebrations, along with the new coaster. Guess we will found out in 5 months.

Second week of April is a little late, guessing it will be Easter weekend which they have done in the past. That's April 7 - 9 next year

We were at the ACE Coaster Christmas event last weekend. Unfortunately, a cold snap AND a surprise little snow storm late Friday night meant that it never got above 35 on Saturday so only Thunderation and Fire in the Hole were open. They did have flooded mine going and a handful of the kids rides. Also, no giant swing. Of course the train is still closed and obviously no water rides, so.......it was not the best day for an event which was exactly no one's fault. Since there are only so many hours you can fill up with shows, food and Grandfather's mansion we left a little earlier than we normally would have on Saturday. With all those rides down the midway on the big hill that leads to the Opera House and therefore the lines backs up there was so crowded you almost couldn't get through. But huge Kudos to the park. We had presentations with coffee, hot chocolate and cinnamon rolls in the morning and since I am sure they could see it was not going to be a good day for rides every attendee (and I think it was around 200) got a free ticket for next year, some Christmas ornaments and a freebie raffle with various tchotchke's. We also had the Trailblazer pass that gives you 8 skip the lines. That we were always going to have since ert is usually impossible at this event due to, too cold before park open and too late/cold after park close. For the event tickets and trailblazer's were good for Sat and Sun. The presentations included Worlds of Fun and they gave us a nice preview of Zambezi Zinger and some of the 50th anniversary plans for next year. Brad Thomas gave a small presentation for SDC. Taking a book out of Universal's "it's just a churro stand" playbook he insisted the new building going up is a Dollar General, but he did indicate that it would not be open for customers until 2024. He also talked a bit about the big land purchase and that there would be work done on parking and road into the park. Not sure if he was connecting those two or not. He did mention that maintenance had made a path between the park and new territory that and ATV could navigate. Announcements about what would happen there to come at a future date. Our group speculated that the new land might be hotel and/or water park and/or new parking lot and entrance. Or the other option which is we have no idea whatsoever. Shockingly, no one from SFSTL showed up to present anything about future plans. Went back on Sunday armed with extra Trailblazers thanks to several people that had to leave for home first thing on Sun morning. We had a very narrow window of opportunity, approx 2-4 to get rides in while the temps were cooperating. Hit Outlaw Run (one train ops), Powder Keg (two trains), Time Traveler (also two trains) as many times as we could. Wildfire never opened, although it did test. Not sure if it was temps or mechanical. We had to leave about 4 to drive back to STL anyway and just about that time the coasters started to shut down again as the temps dropped. Gifted all the leftover Trailblazers to families with kids in the hopes they could use them that evening on kids stuff. Plan to use the tickets on a nice warm summer day next year and if I do anymore ACE Christmas events I think I'm heading down to Texas to chase the warm weather

Hey even though I was surprised at how strongly so many people claimed HITP affected their pass buying decision, if it makes you all happy then great. I mean I don't dislike it, just wasn't a factor in my pass buying decision. I am surprised they would promise it again since that is what got them into trouble in the first place, offering it then taking it away. Hope it makes money this time. I am super curious about the particulars of the deal with the company doing the parking lot drive through this year. Is SF getting a cut? OR charging them a flat rate for the space? Does it go directly to our park or just to corporate to use as they want?

I actually agree with you on that, I think real world work experience is super important. I wasn't denigrating those types of jobs just making a point in response to SF is not a fun place to work that you can say that about many places. I have found that it isn't the kids avoiding work so much as the parents wanting them to "pad" that college resume with sports, extra classes, clubs, unpaid internships, etc. The funny thing is when you talk to college admissions officers those things don't mean any more to them than work experience but for whatever reason there is a misconception amongst a lot of parents. Can't tell you how many were shocked that I would let my son "waste his time working a job like that"; the implication being that it is demeaning work and my kid is above that. Ridiculous in my opinion.

I don't think it is just a wage issue or atmosphere/boring place issue. Yes, staffing was an issue pre-Covid but of course worse after. Not being able to recruit in schools or get foreign workers was an issue for a while afterwards. But I mean there are lots of dud places to work, like any fast food place or the hardware store. Your assessment may have merit but it affects the guest more than the worker. I really really think in our particular market location coupled with so many less teens working at all is a problem. Most of the area around the park is pretty affluent and I cannot tell you how few of my son's friends had/have summer jobs in high school and/or college. Part of the reason their is such a huge lifeguard shortage. I mean I didn't grow up poor but everyone worked once they hit 15 or 16...........so many more kids doing summer classes and internships, to their detriment in this former teacher's opinion. Plus I worked in a school district that had a LOT of kids that would work and could have desperately used the money and needed something to do in the summer. Problem is it is a solid 35-45 minutes away and they cannot get there. The park does have a bus (or did at one point) that goes from the North Hanley Metro Station to the park but you have to pay to use it, scheduling is difficult, it's a long way, etc. Seems like it might be worth the investment to have transportation from some key spots around town for the employees. Like have a pickup point at South county mall or other points closer to areas where the potential employees are. I mean HW has an old school bus that drives around to key pickup points to get employees that are all spread out on farms and such. And there may be a million reasons that won't work, just off the top of my head, but there has to be something they can try.

While I realize everyone wants new rides. I really feel like the more immediate need to increase guest satisfaction at the moment is to solve our staffing issue. While it is clearly an issue at other parks and in other types of businesses, it is also seems worse at our park for some reason. I realize it is in the far out burbs but frankly so are most parks. I mean SFGAm is clearly in a larger metro area but half way between Milwaukee and Chicago so not exactly convenient to much of the populace as far as working there. So many of the things people end up complaining about like long lines and shortened hours could be solved if we simply had more staff. I mean they were never ever close to what is considered fully staffed for ride ops and the waterpark was massively short on life guards. Not sure what the answer there is but would like to see the powerful high paid muckety mucks come up with some creative solutions. I mean at least try something new, traditional methods of getting staff are not working very well.

I was there the last Saturday of FF. Some things same as always such as long lines for everything, it was packed to the point of parking went all the way to the grass area. We fastpassed the haunts and didn't worry about rides on this trip. Some things still feel not up to full steam such as the atmosphere wasn't quite like it used to be although I'm not sure I can pinpoint all the reasons why. One problem for sure was the scare zones were lacking scare actors, I mean from no one to just one or two staff. The 4 houses were fine but nothing awesome, definitely not as good as SFGAm (I mention that one because it was the only other SF FF I attended) I would be fine with only four houses if they were staffed better. Now I will say this the theming on the corn maze and slaughterhouse were in my opinion stepped up from years past. The Christmas gone bad themed one had the most potential, starting it in the catering grove and following the old antique car track was creative and it was quite long. But similarly to Camp Killamore they didn't execute it quite as well as they could have; it was fine but could have been so much better. Again staffing was a large part. The clown one was the weakest by a longshot. However my husband who hung out with me that night because the boy was working Boss and he knows I have a weird love of haunted houses which belies my suburban mom seeming appearance didn't know enough to know it wasn't the best. Along with several people in line that I talked to from various nearby dinky towns that don't go to any other parks. I think they are a lot of the bread and butter of this particular park.

Cedarflags I agree with most of what you said. Universal has always been my favorite park. Although I love Hagrid's but probably more because I've always been a big HP fan. I too thought it would be nice if they had another way to get from park to park and it might cut down the line at the train somewhat. Not sure if there is geography or infrastructure in the way of that happening or what. The Bourne show is not only the only show my son goes to without grumbling, he goes several times on every trip. My biggest disappointment with HHN, we were there in 2019, was the massive conga line style of sending people through and all of the non scare actor staff that are standing in the houses. I get why they kind of have to on both counts but just took away from the atmosphere for me.

Thanks for the clarification, good to know. I can't remember for sure. Was 2016 the first year they did HITP? 6 years seems about right. Look, we can argue about the worthiness of HITP and discuss whether passes are worth it or not......All. We. Want. It will not affect the outcome. Will enough people stop buying passes to change that. Who knows? BUT (and as I used to tell my students this is a big but ) whatever the reasons why, the parks that HITP was pulled from were clearly not making a profit or it wouldn't have been pulled. I will forever be a summer girl; I like Christmas stuff but not as much as FF stuff, SFGAdv may lose it crack den summer charm for a family Christmas vibe but I wouldn't travel there for it because it's not worth it to me due to weather, I will and do travel places for FF. How many feel like me? How many feel the opposite? How many don't give a damn? I guess that is what the CEO is gambling on..........I just hope in the end the parks survive the experiment and come out stronger in the end. Now on a different subject. If you go to the job postings on the web site which is not yet updated for next year. They have Park President listed for SFSTL, SFOT, SFGAdv, SFOG, & SFA, which is probably due to some house rule about posting all jobs to get all possible candidates but I find funny since it is usually in house or poached from some other theme park. So tell anyone you know that is qualified and maybe they can climb the corporate ladder to knock Selim out of his job

Maybe Mardi Gras/Carnival? This year Fat Tuesday is Feb 21 (but I could see the parks stretch it until Easter in early April) or do MG Jan and Feb and some sort of Spring break thing in March.

As far as the "is a pass worth it or not" that is obviously different for every individual/family based on price and what rides/events they like. I tend to think of passes not in terms of individual parks. We have SF and CF passes that are good for all the parks so we can go where we want, when we want. I realize that isn't financially feasible for everyone based on circumstances, time to travel, etc, etc but the offerings of one individual park aren't really a factor in my decision on what passes to have. We had passes for all the SW/BG parks for one year because we got a super good deal on an upgrade after a chance visit to SWSA and the fact that we knew we were going to be in Orlando and San Diego during the next calendar year, wasn't about individual offerings. I'm bring this up not to say one perspective is better than another just to point out that there are different reasons people have for getting passes, just like some of you have it for HITP which would never be a motivator for me, The real question is what will a majority of people do? What price point are they willing to go up to? And, what experiences will be important and justify the expense for them? I'm not even going to speculate, I have no idea and I'm not sure anyone else does either, including the CEO who is gambling on what he THINKS will happen. The sampling on this forum MAY be an indicator but is hardly a large enough sample to know for sure.

Ok, if you say so. I don't really get it and find it hard to believe you would have gone only maybe one other time outside of HITP but to each their own. I guess I assumed the weather was more of a factor for most people. I have no idea how many rides they are able to run in the New Jersey winter, maybe more than I think. Well as far as the profitability I truly believe almost all of the attendees for HITP were passholders, I mean many of you have stated that's why you had them, so they already had food, parking, etc included and weren't spending a lot of extra money. Whereas FF draws in people that don't normally do a lot of amusement parks and are willing to pay a lot for the experience. As far as closures my son worked 3 seasons of HITP and I know there were at least a couple days each year they closed for weather (or closed early) but sometimes they would "open" without being fully open, for example I can remember going one year on Dec 30 (when he was younger and wasn't working there yet) and it was so bitterly cold that they couldn't even open mine train, it was just the shows, JL and a handful of kiddie rides which most people with little kids weren't there because it was so cold and then they made that the last night of the season even though it was supposed to be open through New Year's Day based on the forecast of super cold weather continuing. We walked around, looked at the lights, ate some soup (included on our pass), maybe watched one show and left after an hour or so. No extra money for the park, that was just the perspective I was thinking of. I mean yes lots of nights were busier but then those nights happened. And yes, reduce ride staff needed but more entertainment staff than on an average summer operating day. Also, I believe that last few years they were contracting out for all the lights to be put up, not doing it in house, that is expensive.

I agree that area looks much better now and hope the same for KI. We got stuck on the brake run of I05 last April at the very end of the night and as we were walking out through a completely deserted park the drum/jungle music going through Jungle-X was seriously way creepier than any haunt or scare zone I've ever been through, lol.

Hysterical until it starts a chain reaction of puking, Although normally I do love a lot of theming, but no puking guy magnets on my refrigerator, where I keep the food!!

Uhhh, the barfing animatronic in NOT cool. For someone that is sometimes on the edge that would be enough to cause chain vomiting, particularly with the sneaky spinner rides.

We toyed with the idea of coming to this event but went to KI haunt instead..........................maybe next year?!

I will agree we didn't have to wait to long for food. However, they did start closing a lot of venues kind of early. JR and Mooseburger for instance closed a couple hours before the park did, so we had some limited options starting around 7 or 8 with a 10 pm close. It was a Sunday night and not Sat so that probably factored in but the park was very crowded until close since the next day was a holiday.

Exactly!! Glad someone got my reference, lol.

It wasn't so much about the jump scares, although they had a couple good ones and one in particular,(and my son is VERY hard to jump scare) but just that the scareactors did a great job staying in character and interacting with the guests. When we got to the front of the frightlane line they were checking passes a second time (totally understandable as with the long line it would have been very easy for someone to duck under the rope from the regular line) and my son had already tucked his away under his jacket and took him a minute to dig it out and the scareactor was giving him all sorts of crap as befitting the character she was playing about wasting her time and there's people waiting and etc, etc. We were both laughing about it and it was sort of like that through the whole maze

Make sure you hit Cornered over by the drop tower. It had the best cast and the best scare zone leading up to it. The only maze I felt like was a complete waste of time and totally skippable was Chaos in area 72. More mirrors than actors. Meh.

Ok, I get it, HITP is all awesomeness for you guys, lol. Guess I'm just not into spending several hours wandering around freezing my ass off with not much to ride, like the Halloween shows much more (yes I am a complete Pagan), and their smore's sucked because they used cheap chocolate. Christmas at the FL parks where I can be warm is much more my speed. Honestly HH has always been more of a motivator to me than HITP, so to each their own. BUT personal preference aside I just don't think it was worth it from the park/employee perspective. My son hated working HITP as it was not consistent since they closed often for weather and he never knew how much he was going to work, plus 7 hours was a long shift in the cold. FF has way more upcharge stuff than HITP doesn't because they clearly don't have any confidence they would be profitable or they would have done it during past events. Bottom line they were losing money and it's probably not coming back, although I agree it is kind of douchey to have advertised it when passes were on sale and then take it away, THAT is on corporate as far as I am concerned. And I never compared crowds between the carousel and any event .....so don't go there. Although apparently they did tell the attendees of the ACE event in Sept that it would be re opening in 2023, no not a specific date, but 2023 as originally planned.

So glad you are taking the time to do the trip report and hope it is therapeutic for you! Just now getting a chance to sit down and get caught up since I left for a long trip the day you started posting (as you know) Really happy for you that you got to see the Arc de Triomphe in all its naked glory............totally covered in plastic when I was there