teacherkim

If you do decide to do express pass, which I would recommend for a first visit, since you won't want to skip things; price out Royal Pacific. It is the "cheapest" of the deluxe hotels and super convenient to either walk or boat to citywalk and the parks, if you compare the price of hotel plus buying express pass versus Royal Pacific which includes express pass you will probably find there is not a huge difference. Also, if your sister wants to bail early and go hang at the pool it will be easy to do. I agree with Bill, do not miss the Bourne Stuntacular. My sons is the typical enthusiast that normally does not like to miss ride time to see a show and he loved it so much he went to see it two days in a row. We had a great meal at Big Fire a couple months ago. All 5 family members were happy with their food including the two picky eaters which are the oldest, age 77 and the youngest, age 18. Taking the two of them to any restaurant is it's own adventure.

Well if that comes to fruition it's going to open up the CoasterCon schedule quite a bit since they are scheduled to be there Sun - Wed the third week of June. Guess the attendees can partake in all of the amenities of the new hotel at Sawmill Creek or have a couple beach days at the Breakers. I'm sure everyone will be thrilled

Just catching up on news here since we will be coming back to the park for the first time in about 4 years. Had no idea Antarctica closed down, that's interesting. I take it from a few of the comments that there were a lot of tech issues? I see on the website it is now listed as a walk through animal experience. We were in Orlando in Dec but didn't take the time to go to SWO since IB wasn't open yet and we already knew we would be back in May.

Makes it worth coming back down in early May for us even though we were JUST there in December. Can't wait to get on IG May 6th!

At GAdv we ACTUALLY saw someone smoking crack (or possibly heroin based on their reaction to it) while sitting with their family including small children just outside the King Da Ka entrance about 5 and half years ago. True story. Just last summer they had huge signs as you entered warning people that "marijuana possession would not be tolerated" even though from the skunky smell of the park that was clearly totally ignored. As far as SFFT I think their park president has a lot to do with it. He is just clearly so customer satisfaction and quality oriented and even though it sounds trite that sort of thing does trickle down to the employees and the quality of their work. We've been there once and as guests had a quality conversation with him, my son works at SFSTL and has never even met the park president there. Plus being able to design coasters to dive off of cliffs is just too cool.

They are working on re-hires and hopefully will have some success with recruitment of new employees. Being so short staffed like last year is hard on the guests and employees. Training should start in the next couple weeks.

In case anyone missed it they finally announced CoasterStock date last week. May 20-21, sale date to be announced soon. Although it is more like sale 15 minutes since that's how fast it usually sells out.

Without a doubt do the FL+, it is worth every penny. Also, imho for such a short stay I would stay at the Breakers, there is nothing like that experience and you will still waste time and have to get going extra early if staying at Express versus walking 5 min to the resort entry. However, the caveats to that are 1) If staying at the Breakers you better book now, it is already filling up for June 2) If you can only afford FL+ or Breakers then do FL+. Early entry rides vary some, kind of two strategies to that.......Gatekeeper and usually Valravn are almost always on early entry. That's because they are at entry points and it's cool optics to have riders on them whooping it up as people enter the park. They are also rides that the GP hits early since they are near afore mentioned entry points. So either do those and then as many of the open rides as you can to get them in before long lines OR use a lot of that time to line up at SV, TTD, MF or Mav and be first in line when they open. I will point out if you get the FL+ then you really don't have to worry about strategy or rushing in or doing the running of the coaster bulls. In that case you just use early entry to do (or line up for) anything that is not on FL+ or is one time use only.

Good to know. I never look into Allegiant because it doesn't operate out of the main STL airport and I would first have to drive an hour to get to the one in IL that it goes out of. Edit: I just checked for s**ts and grins. Allegiant doesn't even give you the option of going STL (really Belleville, IL) to Knoxville. Can only go American, United or Delta and have to change planes.....which is why we usually end up driving So if you can get a cheap, direct flight to Knoxville, jump on it.

Gatlinburg is only about 15 minutes from the park and is the older more sophisticated cousin of Pigeon Forge, much better place to stay in my opinion. Text or email me when you are planning and I will give you a heads up on some places to eat and/or other things to do. IF you have the time you might want to schedule an extra day or two for non park things. Just keep in mind that you will have to fly into Knoxville, it will be a good 45-60 min drive down to the PF/Gatlinburg area, and not all the airlines fly into that airport.

We're gonna be there on April 2nd. Anyone heard an open (or re-open) date? Hoping it will be ready to go by then. I think Tumbili's track is complete so thinking that is a good sign for the whole rethemed area.

Hmmm, this had not been done as of Dec 21st when we were there; however, it was down that day. I had assumed technical since one of the trains was halfway up the lift hill all day but maybe they were getting ready to start painting? Cheetah hunt had JUST reopened a few days before and it was a month ago. I'm sure someone has been there more recently and can confirm.

Guess we are going back down there for the ACE spring conference even though we were just there at Christmas. Sheesh.

Yeah but finding local investors that have the capital to make such a purchase AND have experience in the amusement park industry? A LOT easier said than done. The odds would be much more likely that this would cause the park to deteriorate rather than improve. Now outsourcing a few things, like some of the food operations, maybe.

Understood. It's not quite as good a value at the deluxe resorts with just one person and I don't think it is too likely they will sell out ahead of time on a weekday, even on a busy week so you can certainly buy in park that day if necessary. Use single rider on Hagrids they don't let you do seat requests anyway so you don't really lose anything other than you will probably get the sidecar instead of the motorcycle side. VC, Hulk, and RRR have single rider too if you aren't picky about row. The two main HP rides have single rider which you should absolutely do and so does Spiderman, Men in Black and Transformers. Not sure if you are going to Studios side or not.

Most of the schools in the New York area (and maybe other places in the NE) have the entire week of Pres Day off so it tends to get very crowded that week at the parks in Orlando. I would factor a fastpass into your plans or stay on property at one of Universal's deluxe hotels which include fastpass for everyday of your stay, including check in and check out day. We always stay at the Royal Pacific and in my opinion the price is reasonable for what you get and if you compare buying fastpasses on top of cost of hotel somewhere else it really is fairly economical, particularly if you have more than one person in your party.

Keep an eye on the website. During Christmas you could buy the lantern tour on line ahead of time. Not sure if that is always a thing or just during Christmas when it is super busy.

DC and Colonial Williamsburg are both really good ways to spend the day. If you go to DC you can park at the metro station in Old town Alexandria and take the metro in to the mall, or WH or whatever monument you want to see. If you want to tour the WH, it's free but you have to contact your local congress person's office well in advance to get tickets. You can also go to Mt Vernon (Washington's home) and easily spend a day there. It's about 10 miles from DC on the VA side, has parking, a restaurant, living displays, newly refurbed whiskey distillery, etc. Down in Williamsburg in addition to Colonial Williamsburg there is also a huge living museum at Jamestown and there is Yorktown Battlefield with a very well done museum and living displays of the American Revolution. Eat at the Yorktown Pub, fresh oysters right out of the Chesapeake. I'm with you Bert! I drove from SFA to KD in about an hour and 45 min. It was a Monday night after rush hour so I dunno, got lucky maybe? People also told me to allow like 3 hours to get from Williamsburg back up to Reagan and it didn't take me nearly that long. Maybe I'm just blessed though, I've never had a problem driving in SoCal even though everyone else carries on like it's hell

IOA/Studios are some of our favorite parks in the world. And for my not so enthusiast husband, who is always rather ho hum about parks, the first time he got off of Gringotts he thought it was the best ride he had ever been on, and he likes FJ as well (yes he is very GP much to the consternation of my son) And my 76 year old mom clapped and giggled like a schoolgirl the whole time on Gringotts, we made her read all the books before she came. But seriously, everyone is giving you good advice on VC, Hagrids and all the HP rides. As far as the screen based stuff, Spiderman still holds up and do NOT miss the new Bourne stuntacular show. Yes, it's a show, not a ride but well worth your time. We went to it twice in a 24 hour period. Don't be a coaster snob and disregard the non coaster stuff at Universal, they have some great attractions.

Ok, I knew there was a SFSTL connection but couldn't remember his position.

Aaah I got it. I didn't read carefully enough and was thinking SFFT when you said SFOT, so no I wouldn't have met him, my bad. I wonder if any other park president's are on the chopping block?

I'm thinking as far as the hours go, they are being very careful not to over promise. Not knowing what the staffing issues and/or the Covid situation will be by April. They can always add days/hours if possible which is way better than taking them away.

I assume he was laid off/forced out? What was his position? Having met the awesome park president there I admittedly don't know all the other execs

New and improved area up around Eagle. I've HATED that janky hidden entrance to such a classic coaster for years now. And for God's sake please tell me they will put up a new sign with all the logistics of the coaster and get rid of the current one that is all faded and unreadable. Also, for everyone to wait and see how operations are before we declare the park is on the way out. Maybe the new CEO is making terrible choices or maybe thinning some positions at the top will smooth things out (if screamscape is right and food ops were under the retail dept that explains a lot) or maybe some things will work and some won't but we won't know what until the season starts. Which according to the calendar is the first weekend in April. A little later than the last few years but if that helps them have more ready for opening day, I'm fine with that.

Huh? What are you talking about? I'm pretty sure that anyone in Florissant that doesn't have a car is NOT spending money on a cab to an amusement park and 99% of STL county has no trouble driving 3 1/2 hours to Branson. Am I reading you to literal? If that was a metaphor, you aren't making your point very well. Also, just because there is "reorganizing" at the corporate and managerial level doesn't mean they are selling off parks. Quite the opposite in my opinion. That would be an indication that you want to keep parks and make them more profitable (whether everyone agrees that is the way to do it or not) if you are selling things off you let the new owners decide who to keep and deal with firing people. Besides SFSTL is one of the original ground up SF parks, your post makes it sound like you are saying that it was originally a Premier Park.