teacherkim

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

Those Damn Bats. Every. Single. Time until the last ride of the weekend, lol. And why the hell did you guys ride FoF I'm so jealous of Danielle's awesome ride pics. I usually have resting bitch face.

OMG! An actual smile from a moody teenager when he was in the station on the whirlygig thing, I had no idea this existed, I was down on the ground getting pics from there. I'm sure it was because I wasn't there to witness it It's a Coasterstock miracle. The dark ride is actually Boo Blasters on Boo Hill. I know. Rolls right off your tongue.

You wouldn't have gotten a tummy ache later if you hadn't added the fried mushrooms on top of the fried chicken, (same with the fried jalapenos on top of fried lasagna at Big Chief). Just saying. #noonelistenstomom I'm actually grateful at this point to have his 19 year old eyes when it's dark and raining out. I'm sure he has better vision than I do at this point in that situation. Getting old sucks.

I have it on good authority that the SF CEO visited the park on Monday and was going on rides somewhat incognito. No idea what if any result of this will be, but he was there and interacting with employees and guests on rides. No I don't know exactly which rides he was on. Glad to hear they put in a single rider line, hopefully that helps with lines, although locals here are not very conversant with how srl work, lol. I'm going to try and stop by the park next week one day to see for myself but I've been told by someone not all that observant that the area around Catwoman looks really good.

To be fair, there were tornado warnings/watches in the area and it started lightening before the rain. As far as our TV/speaker/computer set up I'm sure Steve was this guy listening to music in the man cave while we were gone. Joel built that computer and uses his Dad's 77 inch TV as the monitor which sometimes leads to arguments over possession of said man cave.

Oh and that entrance that you were wondering about was the entrance to the parking lot but on the other side of the park we drove in from. So if you were wb on 64 you would have come in that way. We actually drove out of the parking lot through that when we left since we were continuing on toward Louisville instead of going back to STL, you just didn't realize.

You can post the picture with Steve in it if you want, he never reads this, won't even know, lol. I was up at 4:50 actually, watered all my flowers outside before we left and packed the final things in the car. Anyone that takes a picture of me after getting up that early and having already driven an hour and a half will get a tongue sticking out at them. Boo. Lol, I explained to the girl on TB that I was being goofy for a pic, it was all good. All I could think was how short and fat I look next to a young teen. Probably serves me right since technically I was mocking some FB posters that were at another theme park. Always fun to give a good healthy scare to some annoying teens. I realized that even though I have ridden Voyage many times, it was always a front seat ride. Never tried the back since I figured it would beat the shit out of me. Joel said his ride was fine and surmises we should not have ridden in the second seat of the car, odd seats only. Ironically we got the smoothest ride ever just last October on a cool (literally and figuratively) night ride. It really is too bad we got rained out of Legend, Raven and the water coasters. Stupid tornado warning. I was really hoping since it was a Thursday and the first of several "school days" it wouldn't be too bad. I was very wrong. Avoid school days. And to anyone that has ridden the janky shooting ride at HW, you will understand why Joel and I laughed out loud at Bert when he asked us if it was like Toy Story Mania

June 19 - 22 CoasterCon will be there, just fyi.

Oh boy everyone has different opinions here. I think your plan for the day is at HW is sound (as far as stash stuff at wp lockers, do TB and Voyage then wp then back over to dry park, etc) Personally I would not stay anywhere near HW. The hotel across the street is not great and anything in Jasper or Ferdinand you will just be wasting time. I would get up early and just drive right to HW for rope drop and then drive on in to Louisville that night. It's only 45-60 min and even with the time change you will be there by 10, without having to get up super early the next morning. There are a ton of hotels around KK since it is on the grounds of the convention center and just a mile or two from the airport. The wp at KK is usually busier than the dry park, but mostly because locals use it heavily not because it's better, you won't have any trouble getting on stuff. Then by all means if you want to spend a couple days in Louisville do so and/or follow the bourbon trail into Frankfort or Lexington. The Woodford Reserve distillery in Lex is beautiful and they give you bourbon balls as well as two tastings at the end of the tour.

If you say so. They were on sufficiently different topics and so I did them separately. Why is it such an issue for you? You didn't have to read them and they were all very short. What the hell are you talking about? My profile clearly states I am from St. Louis. There I answered two different posts at once. Happy now?

Yes. Is it required?

1. Normally it is. You can access the lockers and changing area for wp before park open so I would stash your wp stuff there first, go to the back of the park and do Thunderbird and Voyage then switch over to the wp, do what you want there, and then switch back over to the dry park in the afternoon when the crowd heads to the wp. 2. Yes, works like any other single rider line. You will be in close proximity with strangers in your swimsuits so if that freaks you out keep that in mind. No way will they let you ride by yourself whether you meet the weight or not. There are dividers but the legs of the person behind you will encroach into your space.

3.5 hours will be plenty of time. I've never waited more than 15 min for anything there. The wp is pretty standard other than when they turn on the super waves in the pool and that is a better spectator sport than a participation event.

We were back at the park earlier this week for a couple days. VC crew really keeps things moving, never had a wait of more than about 35 min and that was usually doing front row. We were at RP so had express for most things but I will reiterate two things for everyone. Use single rider for Hagrids, all you really give up is a chance to ride on the motorbike side, not that big a deal and even if you aren't usually a "show" person make sure to go see the Bourne Stuntacular, it is amazing.

At the park on 6/8 for the end of the ACE SpringCon (first two days at BGT) IceBreaker would be a fun family coaster if they were able to let younger kids ride it but since they shot themselves in the foot with the comfort collars which prevent said kids from riding it's all kind of eh. Manta was down all day, one of the employees told me during ert it was due to "someone doing something they were not supposed to be doing".....? I have no idea if that someone was a guest or an employee. But I can tell you that there was a crew working on the lift hill ALL day. Also Infinity Falls was closed for annual maintenance. I totally get that in a year round park that is going to happen but they knew 450 attendees were coming to the event, way ahead of time, did it have to be closed that day? Couldn't do the annual maintenance a week earlier? Just kind of butt hurt on that one because the only other time we were at the park was the summer it opened and we missed it by one week. Even though it was supposed to have a summer opening. And we were there the last week of July. Grrr. Whatever.

So we were at the park 6/6 & 6/7 for the ACE Spring Con. Probably not fair for me to give a lot of opinion on operations since we had most everything at some point on ert and had just been there over Christmas so not like we were trying to get on everything in one day. It was busy enough on Sat that with no evening ert we left about 5 since we had to drive on into Orlando. The only thing I am aware of that was down both days was Falcon's Fury (and for you Lorikeet aficionados the interactive part of the exhibit was down due to caution over the avian flu that has been spreading in the wild). IG was insanely fun and exactly as expected and our meal in the big, and wonderfully air conditioned tent, near IG was pretty good. Lots of the food festival stuff was pretty good too, but I tend to enjoy that sort of thing. The bigger news is for anyone that might stay at the Hampton Inn right across the street. As has been discussed the area around the park "ain't the greatest of neighborhoods", but I thought Hampton Inn, known entity, fairly secure. And several of the other attendees were there as well. Most of you are probably familiar with the typical free hotel breakfast you get there. Came down to eat, nothing special UNTIL about 5 women came storming in all at once through the lobby and were grabbing food left and right. Immediately the ladies that ran the breakfast area started screaming at them that the police were being called and 3 of the women bolted for the door, the fourth grabbed a few things but got out quick, but the fifth casually kept eating and claimed she was being harassed even though she was clearly stealing food. Turns out the 5 "ladies" were local prostitutes that are sent in by their pimp on a regular basis to steal food. Not exactly high priced call girls either since the brazen one that stayed had some open sores on her neck and she preceded to eat right out of the pan of eggs over and over which of course then had to be dumped. In the end she took about 5 plates of food out to said pimp, yes I saw him, and caused a ton of wasted food since she touched about everything. Thing is if she had quietly come in an just gotten a plate of food I'm not sure most of of us would have noticed. Anyway if you like a show with breakfast apparently this is a regular thing, if not you might want to avoid. Since it was during an event I've dubbed it the "Thoosies and floosies variety hour" AND this was the day after a strange meatball incident at the Tampa airport involving a man dropping a whole crap ton of meatballs from a carryout container all over the jet way as we exited the plane which happened right in front of a man exiting with his service dog. Needless to say said dog was completely incredulous that his owner expected him to bypass free meatballs that were all over the floor and available for the taking. Use your imagination for the chaos that ensued.

Perhaps but the original point was in comparison to the other SF parks.

I HAVE been to SFMM and SFGAdv (twice each) and certainly not all but most of the major SF parks. And I have to agree that SFFT is the absolute best when considering the overall park experience; not just coaster lineup.

Have to agree unless "desert wasteland" at SFMM and "crack house chic" at SFGAdv is considered theming.