teacherkim

I'm not sure if any of you are aware, BUT the interesting thing is the Tuesday before the announcement about CGA closing, ACE announced that 2024 CoasterCon will be held at CGA/SFDK/SCruz boardwalk (no not a typo I meant 2024..... 2023 Con is at Dollywood/Carowinds) Were they related? Coincidence? No idea. Maybe ACE had a heads up and decided to put Con there before it closes or maybe just random coincidence. I would think CF will give enough f**ks to keep it nice and keep all the coasters in tact to get through Con, but I may be wrong. If they do however, I would say once they get through that it might go downhill fast. I've never been to the park but looking forward to experiencing it then. Also, I wonder how much it will impact attendance and therefore investment in SFDK once they lose what I assume is their main competition. Will it improve or go the same way eventually for the same reasons as we are all aware of land values in California? I don't know the differences between the two or any comparison of land value between the two parks but the thought did occur to me.

Glad you tried the water coasters! I don't think people often believe me when I say they are something different than what you encounter at most water parks. Not only air time but I actually saw Wildebeest valley once and have to be evacuated, lol, just like a coaster. I get that it can be weird to go solo on a water ride with strangers, we often do it just to use the single rider line and my son finds that sort of thing a little difficult, not me I'll make friends with anyone but I understand the issue. Just remember you are all there for the same reason so if nothing else you have at least that one thing in common. I realized after our last visit that seat selection on Voyage (and probably the other two) makes a huge difference. After only ever riding in the front and not finding it to be rough, in fact we got a particularly smooth ride last October at night when it was much cooler, I rode in row 2 which is a wheel seat and got jackhammered all the way around. If you ever get a chance to do a night ride on Voyage it is a legit contender to Beast and with the cooler temps slowing it just enough to smooth it out but still letting it haul ass. Or the even more rare trimless night ride. Unfortunately, it is a hard thing to score because they don't often stay open late enough.

They are both running great this year! I had always ridden Beast in the front but so glad I tried row 17 this year. I'm converted!

Posted this in the Quassy thread but putting it here too since neither thread seems to have a lot of traffic. So we are going to be in the area in a few weeks and will be visiting Quassy and Lake Compounce on 7/22. Planned on doing Quassy first and then LC. Dining question..........eat lunch at Quassy and dinner at LC OR both meals at LC OR eat lunch in between at some cool, recommended local place? Or doesn't matter because it's all typical theme park food? Anything unusual about either park I need to know about?

So we are going to be in the area in a few weeks and will be visiting Quassy and Lake Compounce on 7/22. Planned on doing Quassy first and then LC. Dining question..........eat lunch at Quassy and dinner at LC OR both meals at LC OR eat lunch in between at some cool, recommended local place? Or doesn't matter because it's all typical theme park food? Anything unusual about either park I need to know about? Going to post this on the LC thread too as this one doesn't seem to get much action, lol.

They did pull out all the stops for CoasterCon ert, but not sure what they bribed the ride ops with or if they just made sure to put their top people on during that time. SV and MF crew really rocked it including doing sing a longs in the MF station. I'm just so sorry I did not get a picture of the kid that was riding MF with his swim goggles on to combat the Mayflies to post here. It was hilarious! Also our first chance to ride Snake River expedition since we haven't been in two years. I am kind of surprised at the effort they went to outfit the actor/operators and the amount of staff in these days when everyone is short handed. I do think it is a much better use of that sort of staff than the whole Forbidden Frontier experience. I mean I like the idea of it, but I just don't think it appeals to enough people for all the space and staff it uses. They need a ride or premier attraction back there. The new Farmhouse restaurant was very good. Sunday and Monday was packed, keep in mind Monday was Juneteenth which is now a federal holiday. Tuesday very low crowd and Wed only marginally higher crowd. No idea if that has been consistent this summer but keep that in mind for travel plans. Also heads up I did have some room (particularly bathroom) cleanliness issues at the Breakers, wasn't our best stay there. The ACE banquet was the first ever event held at the new Sawmill Resort and they did a fine job, food and service was good, what I saw of the resort looked nice. The main restaurant in the hotel looks fairly upscale and talked to a few people staying there for con that were happy with their rooms. And my opinion on the much discussed SV line/locker situation.....seems to me that if they just ran the line directly into the locker area instead of the long straight section adjacent to it with a FL entrance that cut off the overflow and then had one of the two lines as FL it would solve some of the congestion. I mean just have everyone walk through the locker area if they don't need them, then they just keep going. The going backwards into the lockers and then back out the same entrance, causing the going in and going out people to have to maneuver around each other is a lot of the clog up.

I don't mind the enclosed slide but not a fan of the trap door thing. Although they seem to be popular at most waterparks so interested to hear this may be done. If I remember correctly it was not an original HH ride so not that old. Is that correct or am I remembering that wrong?

Isn't that insane? I normally avoid the back end of older woodies as I favor not getting amateur spinal replacement but row 17 is amazing. I don't quite get it but truly best row on the train.

We made our first ever visit to the park pre CoasterCon on 6/16 and 6/17 and had a great visit. Wonderful Canadian hospitality as we expected and we loved the weirdness of whatever Wonder Mt and all it's inhabitants are trying to be. I mean that as a complement, truly! We had an early flight on Thursday and came straight to the park so it was kind of the bonus day since we had no idea when we would actually arrive. Planned on Friday being the big day since we could stay open to close and had FL+. Good thing too as we lost about 2 hours due to weather, not much rain but lightning in the area. Also Yukon Striker went down for wind for a while. We focused on the non FL rides on Thursday figuring Friday would be busier and that was a wise move. There were a lot of school groups both days as it was the last week of school in that area. Got 16 of the 17 coasters. The only one we didn't get on was the kiddie since we had no kid and never saw a chance to "borrow" one to ride, lol. By we I mean my son got 16 and I did 13 or 14, no way was I starting out a 10 day coaster trip getting beat up on the SLC and flying coasters tend to make me sick but we had a great couple of days. Glad you are getting a new restaurant, the choices were kind of limited; I mean do you really need 4 Subway's? What's up with that, lol?

We were there 6/23 & 6/24 for CoasterCon; Thunderbolt was never open, apparently went down right before we got there, although we did see multiple people working on the track in what I assume was a frantic effort to see if it could be operational but to no avail. Steel Curtain was open on one train ops during the day on 6/23 and for that night's ert and the next morning's ert. Right as ert ended and the park opened on 6/24 it went down, they closed the area, and announced it would be down for the rest of the weekend. Sorry. We really didn't mean to break it. All the other coasters and the old, unique flats were open. We'd never been here before. How weird is Kangaroo? BUT serious shout out to the park's culinary team. We had two dinners there, the first night they served legit filets and the second night prime rib.....both cooked to perfection. That was for 859 people. Outside. Buffet style. Amazing. And they gave us a DJ both nights which turned the dinner breaks into much more of a party than those types of events usually are.

Well...... since I'm the one that has to make and pay for haircut appointments, sorta yeah, lol. I mean I was there in person. And you almost getting bucked off the French horn did not amuse me, it mad me almost fall over laughing

Man those sure are some shaggy, crazy hair all over the place people in front of you

The water park issue is purely a shortage of life guards, all the pools around here are having massive issues as well. But high school/college kids just don't work those traditional summer jobs as much anymore. Many are busy taking summer classes or internships to pad their college resumes, to their detriment in my opinion. And that's from a former teacher. There are skills you just don't learn anywhere else.

When we toured PTC last summer, Tom Rebbie the CEO, talked to us about having to come to SFSTL and help them with the testing and issues they were having. I certainly remember the insane amount of media coverage on Eagle when it opened.

Maybe the ride op was "fragile" or maybe a person that simply does not respond well to pressure or maybe afraid she was going to get in trouble. My son had a supervisor give him a safety once over some people ignoring him when he directed them to stay seated until the go karts had all been parked and he was pretty sure they did not understand English, so hardly his fault but the supervisor didn't care. Impossible for anyone to pass judgement when they don't know the person/situation/job pressures, etc. On the other hand maybe people could stop being so defiant and just follow directions once in a while. All he had to do was wait on the ride and the whole thing would have been avoided

Only 1 year behind ya!!! Although when I was there last week and caught the ride on Eagle a little girl (maybe 8 or 9) was in row 2 right behind me with her Mom and asked if I was all by myself. I said yes and she said "that's so sad", lol. I told her it was ok, I'd been on the ride a lot and remembered when it opened, then she just kind of stared at me like I must be 100.

I would never pose for a ride pic but I did do my best this year to counteract last year's pics where I had resting bitch face in almost everyone of them! Oh, and on the issue of the grilled cheese.......actually the boys all went and rode DB while the girls all waited to collect the food. How very 1950's of us But who cares because we got the greatest grilled cheese that ever was or will be!!!

Honestly he was really trying his heart out, and in all seriousness the park is actually pretty strict with the employees and their phones. They aren't allowed to have them out unless they are in an employee only area. One of the reasons I was willing to drive my son back and forth for a couple months when he first started working there and only had his permit was the fact that it was a job outside, interacting with people and away from phones/computers.

The shower was amazing! I don't know what they did to make the exhaust system so good but it did not fog up the bathroom no matter how long you were in there. That damn bed frame on the other hand...........had bruises for days from that thing.

Ask him what side effects he had from eating that blue ice cream Hint: You may want to make that a pm, lol.

It will be busy but your best bet is to get there early and beat the church people. Good news like I said in the KK thread you will gain an hour and nullify the travel time so easy to get there early and rope drop. They will let you in to the locker area by the water park a little early so you can stash your water park stuff and go get some a couple coasters in but I would get back over and change and be ready to do water park right when it opens. Do Cheetah Chase first and then yes definitely do single rider on the other two. Then as the water park crowd builds go back over to the dry park and finish/repeat what you need to

I was at the park on Thurs 6/9. Had to do a favor for a friend that lives close to the park at a specific time and then had an appointment later in the afternoon and therefore had a 2-3 hour window when I was near the park. Been meaning to stop by because I haven't been able to change my email for my membership account and therefore not I'm not getting updates. So this was the perfect opportunity. I took care of my business at member services, where I did ask about the status of memberships and she assured me they had heard nothing about them ending for those already holding memberships. No idea if she really didn't know or wasn't saying, I'm not sure SF even has any idea what they are going to do, but at the moment it is status quo. As well as all the perks associated with it, including deluxe dining which is two meals and a snack. At this point I had about 2 hours until I had to leave and more than try to run around and ride a bunch of stuff I really wanted to take a deatailed walk around the park and see how things were going so to speak. I was at the park one night for FF and one night at Christmas but other than those two nighttime visits hadn't really been there for a year. Besides I didn't take any motion sickness meds so wasn't going to ride much anyway. Crowd was light but definitely got heavier in the couple hours I was there. Tsunami Soaker, Excalibur and Dragons Wing were down as well as Am Thunder of course. SuperGirl was initially listed as down but was running by the time I made my way over there. Catwoman did have a long line, no way I could ever ride it, and my son said it is uncomfortable but the GP love it. Heard one guy say it was the best ride in the park and several people waxing poetic about it. I don't think anything else had more than a 15 - 20 min wait. Hopped on Eagle and was surprised to find no line for front row. Got a very smooth ride and guess that lends credence to the stay out of the wheel seat theory, which is why I think Bert and I got hammered so bad on Voyage a couple weeks ago. Also rode JL which was a walk on in single rider (after I explained to the party of 5 in front of me what single rider was when they couldn't figure out why they were passing everyone up. So much for reading signs ) I didn't miss the 3D at all and all the effects seemed to be working; Joker, fire, truck except the rack of barrels almost falling on you. Although they do need to update the pre show now which gives directions on using the glasses. I know there has been some discussion on food changes so I literally poked my head in most of the dining venues to see what was up. For the most part all the usual things are still on dining plan with the exception of the double burger at JR, wings at JB's which I think are a new addition and for some weird reason funnel cakes. I find it kind of strange that first cone which is fairly good quality ice cream from a local dairy is on the plan but cheap as hell funnel cake batter is not, but whatever. The GoFresh is completely gone, no signage no menus including the shortcut stairs are blocked off, Cold Stone is gone, the Mexican place was closed. I do miss the nice wraps they had at GoFresh. Mooseburger is the only venue doing mobile order now and it is only mobile order, no walk up. They have several new items there so I decided to try their Impossible burger and it was pretty good, nice toppings and mobile order worked perfectly. Perhaps they are using it to work out the kinks? The stories about lack of condiments and napkins are true. Which would be fine if it reduces waste but when I asked for a couple of napkins she gave me 6 and was going to give me like 8 ketchup packets. All of which would have been wasteful, so I think this is a good in theory but not in practice thing. Watched some kids sneak in the side door of Fowlball and illegally get soda in the tiny free water cups they had. Gave them my harshest teacher fish eye and they ran away Harassed the ride op that lives in my house from the exit of Freeze while he was manning outpost #2 for Thunder River. Which apparently went down close to the end of the day and when they turned the pumps off one of the rafts was sucked into the reservoir. They deal with this by the high tech method of throwing a rope to the riders and pulling them to the dock, lol. I can report though that it was not only up and running today but the employee manned water cannons are once again operational. In addition to several of the midway games being gone, which I am in favor of because I think they were totally oversaturated on those and the area around the new Eagle entrance is soooo much nicer, the old time photos and the little pay to drive toy cars by the MT exit are gone. All probably outdated things. They have a new completed horse on display at the carousel. And yes I am still fine with them taking their time and doing it correctly as I HOPE that is what is happening in the park in general. There are of course lots of areas that they eventually need to deal with like the Old Glory, Tidal wave sight, defunct paintball area etc. But the new area by Eagle being an awesome first step as well as some of the improved infrastructure. Will it pan out, cautiously optimistic but only time will tell. Was not impressed with the arcades which are mostly claw machines now and the one at the TR exit is janky looking now with the wall still up for the haunted house that was back there. But I have noticed that many parks have gutted their arcades for claw machines. Kings Island use to have a great arcade that is ruined now. Only decent one I've seen in the last couple years is Hersheypark. Can't believe that many people pump money into those stupid things but I guess they must payoff. Also the gardener in my was dying looking at the wilting flowers in front of the Palace that desperately needed water. Landscaping was an eh for me yesterday but I know a lot of people could care less. No shows listed but Looney Tune characters were out, including Foghorn Leghorn which I have no idea how many kids know who he is anymore, lol. Didn't go in the water park but several slides were listed as closed including the lazy river. It's a good guess that this is all due to the lifeguard shortage that has been a major news story and also why the water park will be closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays all summer. The lack of workers was quite apparent to me BUT they did just bring back some international workers that started this week. That ride op I know could not remember where they were from but I am guessing the one that was training up at Eagle was from Latin America/Caribbean based on his accent. He was struggling just a bit with the loose article, keep your arms and legs in the car speech but hopefully practice will smooth that out. If you run into these workers PLEASE be kind to them. Remember they are young, far from home and living for the summer at crappy motels on the outer road by the highway. Probably getting an experience that falls a bit short of the cultural exchange it is supposed to be but desperately needing the money and the park desperately needs the workers! So what I saw was a park still working to come out of the effects of the pandemic and dealing with the same worker shortage as lots of other businesses and hopefully they can make a steady climb out of the crap of the last few years, even if it is kind of a slow climb and we will need to be patient. The one thing I would beg of the park is please for the love of God paint Eagle for her birthday in a few years. Every lady deserves a new outfit for her 50th!

Dont forget that HW is in the Central time zone, which will help you out Sunday morning as you will essentially eliminate your hour commute. If you like water parks they are both worth it, if it's not your thing then try to hit the three water coasters at HW. They are at another level and of course you'll wait shirtless, unless you want to get your shirt wet

FYI - CoasterCon will be there June 23 & 24