teacherkim

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.

Yeah we rode it at DL when boarding pass still in place, but that helped space out the crowd immensely; at WDW there was a massive overflow queue and you are talking between 1 and 2 hours just to get to the point of the start of the normal queue. Completely different animal when your only choice is standby or buy ILL. And one morning it was down until just after park open which totally screwed the standby rope drop people.

Having just been there, I agree 100% with Bill. And if you do rope drop get there early so you can be one of the first regular guests in, entrances to the left are closest to where you need to go. You want to go past Star Tours and into that entrance of GE as ROTR is right there. Don't go all the way around through Toy Story land.

Bert I love ya, but I still don't get waiting in line more than 15 minutes for it, unless MAYBE you had many days scheduled and had lots of time to kill!! Of course we waited 2 hours 2 days in a row for them to get Hagrid's up over at Universal the year it opened so.........to each their own and thank goodness for variety being the spice of life

Nrthwnd, I do understand the historical aspect/nostalgia of it. I didn't particularly mind the phone so much but didn't have to use it at MK since we did the party. Booking Genie + rides at the other parks was just a minute or two on the phone each time but I totally get not wanting to mess with it. Personally I preferred the phone to the running of the fastpass kiosks at rope drop. Although it would be helpful if it didn't glitch on Disney's end. I found the wait times are often exaggerated closer to closing time for obvious reasons. I think one of the things that annoys me about Disney more than booking ride times/fastpass is the dining situation. I loathe having to try to pinpoint where and when you might want to eat months ahead of time but risking no chance at some of the better restaurants if you don't. I would much prefer if everything was just walk up with no reservations. I mean if something is a long wait you are in a theme park, it's not like you can't entertain yourself while waiting for a table.

It's funny that you mention Peter Pan. We are casual Disney goers, we go once in a while and never were willing to wait for Peter Pan because we couldn't imagine it would be worth it. So we went this year just because we were there with a larger family group for Christmas and since it is probably the only time that will happen we did the Magic Kingdom after hours party (worth it to me for the lines alone but admittedly ridiculously priced) So during the party PP was only about a 10 min wait so we hopped on just to see and I still don't get it, nostalgia I guess, which is a lot of what the Disney faithful are really fans of I think. The fact that 7 Dwarfs was only about a 20 min wait during the party probably made it more fun than it was; along with the fact that you could walk around the park and watch the fireworks in a reasonable crowd not the normal Disney crush of humanity. The thing that gets me about a Disney visit is the tedious amount of pre-planning and reservations that you have to do ahead of time. Annoying.

Ok I just got a seriously weird survey about possible new animal exhibits at SFDK despite the fact that I stated I had never been there and lived closest to SFSTL On top of that it will not be accurate because they were asking opinions about exhibits without giving anywhere near enough info to accurately have an opinion, plus there were typos, plus they asked on one question to check all that apply but would only let you choose one, and when I answered on one thing that I had not been to a location since before 2018 they then on the very next question asked about my experience there in the last 3 years.............WTF!!

Oh and I have to add that I soooo regret not being able to record my 76 year old mother yelling at my 77 year old dad (and this is a direct quote) "KEEP PUSHING THE F**KING BUTTON" while they were doing the part of the gunners on Falcon

True, but that just goes to show how much we really liked VC, especially since he has always loved RMC. Now what happens when he gets a chance to ride Gwazi, who knows

Just a follow up for everyone now that we are back home. Ummmm, Bill you were so correct, SDD kind of blows. Our expectations were not even that high and it still was kind of a disappointment, massively overhyped for us, a one and done. We actually had way more fun on Seven Dwarves. That being said with a multi generational family group, not all the members being regular theme park fans; the strategy of doing ILL for Rise and regular Genie + LL for Falcon and then the two of us just rope dropping Slinky worked like a charm. Also, fyi, on a second morning just the two of us rope dropped Rise. If you are experienced and know what you are doing, like everyone here on the forum, and are willing to get going early.....you can totally rope drop Rise and then Falcon with almost no wait (in fact we also did Rock n Roller Coaster single rider and were back at the resort by 9:45) BUT that is with the caveat that we were staying on property and they let us in over an hour before park open and started running Rise that day a good 45-50 min before park open. Your only chance if not on property would be to line up at the gate like two hours early so you would be the first of the "regular" guests in.

Ok we just returned from a Florida Christmas trip and having been to Universal many times I have to say that Velocicoaster is amazing! I thought nothing would ever replace SV at CP for my son as his #1 but he is reevaluating that at the moment. It really is the whole package of great coaster and awesome theming.

We were there on the 22nd and had very similar experience. I would say the QQ was worth it for us strictly due to the massive crowds and the fact that we live a 1000 miles away and can't go on a regular basis. Not sure I would have dealt with the crowds but we were already in Clearwater Beach with the rest of our family. FF and Sheikra went down for very short periods but were back up quick. Montu was down all day. Cheetah hunt def had the longest QQ wait with the one station, two train being a big factor as stated. The holiday food booths were pretty good quality wise but were a little too heavy on just desserts versus savory items so to speak. Fine for snacking but not enough to really replace a meal in my opinion. In fact one indication of how crowded it was and prices probably getting to people, etc. The Olive Garden across the street had a 15 minute wait at 9:45 pm

Wow. Been out of town for a couple of weeks and just getting caught up on all the posts. First I've heard of any of this news. I can tell you that sometime last week the park made the decision to not open on Jan 1st and 2nd and make Dec 31st the last day of the season, but no reason why was given. I always thought Jan 2nd was kind of a dumb day to open anyway since it is after the holiday and school starts for most the next day. Interested (and a little worried) about how this plays out but will stay optimistic and hope it benefits operations in the long run.

Yeah I decided it was stupid to chance it with Christmas crowds. Bought them on line today so we are locked in for the 22nd, it should be fine. (She says as she knocks on wood)

Ok, thanks, that makes sense. I'm sure that was the problem. I'll have him work on it when he gets home, in fact that will be one of his jobs tomorrow while I am trying to pack to give him something to do!

So we're gonna be there on the 22nd, I know the hordes will have descended by that time so planning on QQ. Am I safe to wait until we get there that day or is there a sell out risk. The ONLY reason I am even hesitating to buy ahead of time is if just in case we end up switching to the 23rd due to unforeseen long ass family vacation plans getting moved around.

Our main goal for Slinky is to get the credit But hopefully it's a fun little coaster as well. Which is why my son and I will just utilize early entry and try to rush Slinky first. Which will allow us to book ROR and SR at 7 for the whole group. However, the other day my son downloaded the app and tried to link everyone in the group and it wouldn't let him since I already had everyone linked to mine, so I'm wondering if you can even do two people in the group booking now. I'll find out when I'm down there and report back.

Guess the park had better weather info than I did this afternoon, because here come the tornado sirens. Still a little surprised, they use to always pull everyone in anyway, but turns out to be the right decision tonight since they were supposed to be open 5-10

Employees were notified about an hour ago that the park is not opening tonight for inclement weather. Kind of a head scratcher to me since the rain is supposed to be over by 5 or 6 and it's not cold. I remember one year they had employees come in the Friday night of Labor Day weekend when we were under a tornado warning with 100% rain for the entire evening predicted and they were clearly not going to be able to open anything. Guess they are trying to be more careful about spending after the losses of last year? They did end up having to pay everyone for two hours that night before they shut down since there were only about 4 guests that showed up.

Don't count your chickens too quick it may depend what day you go. MT and Spinsanity were up on Sat but not on Fri or Sun.