teacherkim

Hang on. I get that you can book at 7 but I thought the two hour window did not start counting until park open, so if you book Slinky at 7 you wouldn't be able to book Smugglers Run until you use Slinky OR 11 whichever comes first. (assuming a 9 am park open) Am I confused on that? We are staying on property Dec 13-17 with multi gen family members. They don't care about Slinky but want to see GE and do the stuff there. So I think we will book the ILL for Rise and regular LL for Smugglers at 7 (2 people on 2 phones should be able to do it) and then my son and I will use early entry to standby Slinky. We're staying at CBR so can hop the skyliner and be in before 7:30 for an 8 am regular opening. Geez. This is why I don't do Disney very often so f***ing complicated.

Wow. That's why I always stay at the RP with the included express pass, but I've never seen the wait that bad. I've been keeping my eye on things down there since we will be at Disney/Universal Dec 14-20, hoping to visit before the worst of the hordes show up and we will spend Christmas week at the beach (although we will probably hit BGT on the 22nd but will just get QQ) Apparently Disney is so busy this week that Genie+ already crashed

I was pretty sure JL was not on the very first list, but frankly it doesn't matter/not going to argue over that/I could certainly be wrong. It IS very interesting that you relayed that conversation about the employee. My son was only scheduled two out of three days next weekend even though he said he was willing to work all 3 (he's starting school in Jan so has the time) and he said there was at least one person looking to add a shift yesterday and that they had more than enough ride ops on Saturday. To be fair he did say that they have had issues all year with people calling in at the last minute. So maybe admin is a bit gun shy about offering too many rides at the moment? Not sure. I do agree that the lights are not very evenly distributed and also heard that they weren't having Mrs Claus read "Twas the Night before Christmas" on the train this year like last year, which I thought was strange. While this year is still less than normal operations it seems odd to downgrade anything from last year. That area by Thunder is never decorated well with flume closed and now no cars. Seems that would be a good spot for some seasonal food/drink booths or food trucks. I think that if they are going to continue to offer a small ride lineup, which may have as much to do with anticipated poor weather as staffing, then they will need to really up the game on lights, food, shows, activities, etc, etc Although I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt this year since it is still a snafu. Another thought that just occurred to me is that if they have a shortage of maintenance staff they may need a longer downtime season for some of the rides in order to get necessary work completed. Dunno. Just a thought.

Hmmm, we were there for Coaster Christmas the Sat before the fire. Back in 2018 about a week after we were at BGW for CoasterCon, Escape from Pompeii caught on fire. On the other hand I probably shouldn't be pointing out such patterns on a public forum

Justice League was also added to the list and a supervisor told my son that Freeze would be open but he was working Colossus and the Train and never saw it go, so take that for whatever it's worth. I stick to my original thought that the ride list will be somewhat fluid for all of HITP depending on weather and/or available staff.

Yeah, next year they are just making it a two day event. Runaway Mt Coaster had a cool lighting package but omg it was cold riding it Fri night! Also, since ert is always iffy at this event due to temps I was told they are "working" on trailblazers for the attendees instead of ert which would be really, really nice.

Went to the ACE event this weekend and they tried, really tried to give the event attendees morning ert but since the temps were so low the only coaster they could run before 11 when the park opened to the public was FITH. Oh well, no one can control the weather and they soothed our tortured souls with hot chocolate and pastries. The only truly ridiculous food lines I saw were for hot chocolate, it only made it out of the 40's for a couple hours in mid afternoon and that was only to about 51, so it was a cold coaster riding day. TT and OR on one train ops Sat and Sun. We noticed that OR had a different train on Sun versus Sat so that would negate the idea that a train was down since they were taking turns with both of them, and as far as we could tell they had enough staff to run two. Not sure what that is all about. Lines for both of those topped an hour by sunset when the crowds had grown to see the lights. Thankfully, we were given some skip the line passes which we used exclusively on those two since everything else generally had wait times under 30 min. But oh my God! The parade was hilarious. If any of you read Bert's SW trip report and the stoned carousel horses he encountered then I think you will appreciate that this guy must have been at the same party.

Well glad to hear they did some sort of compensation. Essentially they are refunding the night, just with credit instead of cash. So is the way of the world. Hopefully, you made your point about the refusal of the manager to contact you and he or she will get admonished for it by corporate, although unfortunately you will never know. Going through Honors was probably a smart move as their whole job is to keep you loyal to the brand.

That ACE event happening this weekend that was mentioned earlier has almost 200 attendees and they all have tickets for Sat and Sun so that will bump up the crowd levels just a bit. On the other hand they will try really hard to run all the coasters to not disappoint the group.

So they have posted ride ops schedules for the first weekend of HITP and the ride op that lives in my house is listed for "training" on a new ride (which he was told would probably happen as they move ops around for HITP and more rides are closed) but it doesn't say which ride, so even he doesn't know where he will be at this point. Since they have no reason whatsoever to be secretive about what will be open I am guessing the HITP ride situation is highly fluid right now and the 8 or 9 they listed are the "for sure's" and the rest they just don't know yet and may change from day to day depending on how many and which ride ops are available on any particular shift.

Wow. That sucks about the hotel. Never had an issue like that with Hilton and I stay at a lot of Hampton/Hilton Garden Inns on various coaster trips. I will be very curious to see if they make it right. Howl o Scream looked like a good event. As you know Joel and I were there in April, on a brutally hot day, so didn't mind getting wet on the water rides. We 100% agree that Texas Stingray was the best ride in the park, and that WaveBreaker was fun for a family coaster but not super interesting. As for Steel Eel I was very underwhelmed by it.......boring compared to Mamba at WOF or Steel Force at Dorney, which are pretty fun. Joel didn't complain about his balls but we were up front and maybe that's not something you would bring up to your Mom anyway Confusing Queen with the Gap Band and Sweet with Meatloaf and Rocky Horror...................how is that even possible?

The great holiday overlap season?

Well that list blows my thoughts on Thunder and I am happy to be wrong on that but I agree it seems incomplete. I showed it to the ride op that lives in my house and he doesn't believe that is all that will be open, also thinks the list is incomplete. That list of 9 rides would require only somewhere in the neighborhood of 17-20 ride ops for all of them. I can't believe they are losing that many for the end of the year. Just the rides that were open when I was there a couple weeks ago for FF (and I thought quite a few were down) needed at least twice that many and that is not taking into account that the hours were long enough to require two shifts on Sat and Sun so really quadruple that. Hours are short enough during HITP that there will be only one shift of ride ops needed each day. And it is weirdly spread out. I mean why would you open JL and not Shazam which only needs one ride op? It may be a combo of being incomplete and/or mistakes on the web site. There is already a mistake on there because they have the train listed twice. On the other hand it's been a weird year and a half so who the hell knows. As soon as they post the schedule and the boy knows what ride he will be working for the first weekend, that may give me some new info.

A little additional info after the boy got home from work. Ride ops were told MT is a definite no as well and he knows Batman is a definite yes. And of course everything outside the tracks will be closed. Nothing else confirmed, other than all Bugs rides open as stated above. If I had to guess I think Thunder could be on the no list due to the fact that with cars gone and flume out of season that part of the park is pretty dead anyway. They also don't tend to decorate much over there and Thunder tends to do a really really slow crawl on the brake run when cold. I would think Freeze, Shazam, and JL would be safe due to traffic at the bar of JB's and the Christmas tree that is usually in DC plaza as well as the tunnels usually being decorated. But all of that is total speculation on my part, not based on any rumors or anything.

That and staffing and those weekends are probably not big moneymakers and they are still in the mode of trying to recoup last year's losses. I get it. So I did find out for HITP that the ride ops in the SkyScreamer/MT area of the park have been told a definite no on SS (not unusual it is sometimes open but being on the wrong side of the tracks not always), yes on Bugs rides and a maybe for MT (which would be unusual and a bummer) They did post availability for the ride ops on the employee page for all of HITP. So I suspect that they will use the next week or so while closed to look at staffing, crunch numbers, yada, yada, yada........and then decide which rides to open during HITP. They did make a change in hours, most days are now 3-9 instead of 2-8, with a few Fri night 5-10 on days when school is still in session. That makes total sense, same amount of staffed hours, more of it after dark for the lights. The web site now says this, "Enjoy family rides at Holiday In The Park Lights and some select thrill rides while our other rides hibernate until next Spring", under the rides portion of HITP which would seem to support the idea that they are just not sure what will be open yet. All in all I suspect like FF it will be still be a somewhat neutered event but they will do the best they can with what staff they have. I mean WOF has a few more weekends and no holiday offering, HW is done after today and it was never as big as SDC anyway, so it is what it is. Hopefully the weather holds out and our Christmas wish will be for better staffing next year.

Hmmm, that's interesting. I'll see what I can find out. I know they usually do not open anything outside the train tracks. The exception to that being SkyScreamer is sometimes open but the boy told me it would not be this year and he works that ride. They may limit it to mostly kids/family rides, which would be too bad since MT, Panda, Batman, Thunder, Freeze and Ninja are usually open out of the coaster line up. The area around Thunder is usually not decorated that well and kind of dead with no flume during HITP. Since the cars are gone now too I could see them just not opening Thunder and closing off that whole section. Although that will make for a long, dark train section. It is unusual as well that they are not open the first couple of weekends in November, in the past they called those "fall weekends" and were open 12-6. Here's to hoping that all the parks can solve their staffing woes for next year

As stated that is correct, but if you have express pass for everything else it helps to offset the time for those two rides, particularly Hagrids. I agree with Zach that you want to get there early and rope drop Hagrids. Even the most dignified of us does the running of the bulls occasionally

I have mixed feelings on Toon Lagoon. Yes, it's dated. Yes, my friend and I had to explain to our kids who Dudley Do Right and Popeye were the first time we took them. Betty Boop was even harder as that was mostly even before my time And, yes, they probably will re theme it eventually (although I don't think that is high on their priority list right now) On the other hand: We are doing a December trip and have talked Grandma and Grandpa into going since it is Christmas time and they will enjoy all the references, so it probably still serves a multi generational group fairly well at this point.

We were on it for the first time in August. I really wouldn't say one was better than the other. They are different and both have their pros and cons. Totally agree that it's nice to have two different versions so you aren't just repeating the same thing; let's each park have it's own character.

I think you could definitely get most of both parks, but on a weekend, even in January you would probably need express pass. The good news is it will be cheaper on those dates after the Christmas rush is over. Or stay at Royal Pacific. It's the cheapest of the "deluxe" hotels, express pass included, and is totally worth it if you are only there a couple of nights.

A short trip report and on topic with the most recent postings. I was at the park last night with a friend who is about as opposite an enthusiast as anyone could possibly be. She won't ride anything but the very slowest of rides, too scared to go into a haunted house, and made the ultimate rookie mistake of telling one of the actors in a scare zone "don't scare me now, I'm old" (she is in her early 60's not exactly decrepit) which of course ensured he dogged her the entire way through the zone. She knows nothing of coaster wars, ride ops, when we last got a "good" ride, etc, etc. In fact she lives less than 3 miles from the park, drives by it regularly and had NEVER even been inside it. But before you write her off it might be useful to entertain a different perspective. She is a longtime friend who due to some recent minor personal issues just really needed a night out and to do something different. So we grabbed dinner at Joe Boccardi's in Eureka, used my member benefits of free preferred parking and a free anytime ticket and went for a stroll around the park partly because she was curious and partly to get out of her comfort zone and see the Halloween decorations. Note we did not get in line for the parking booths until about 6:45. Took us a solid 45 min to park, get through security, entry and officially enter the park. All the parking lot toll booth workers were doing both sides of their booths so really only about half of the booths were open. After parking the line for security started at the drop off area, wound past preferred parking almost to the entrance of that lot, and back up to security. And then a good 10-15 minutes to get through the entrance gate. Now to the unpracticed eye it looked like the entire population of St Louis county was there BUT when you realized that all those people were being funneled through 2 of the walk through security scanners and you really looked around the park it was clear that while crowded it was nothing abnormal for FF. The paths were walkable. We rode the train which was a walk on. Line for JL was not even out of the building. I saw no extraordinarily long lines as compared to any other FF I have attended. Including food venues or any of the haunted houses, which I would have liked to have gone in but my friends are all scaredy cats and the boy is working everyday of FF, lol. That was with Batman not even opening until after 8, Eagle down of course, no more Superman, no more Go Karts, no more cars, no Dragon's wing, no water rides, no carousel, Colossus down, Spinsanity down.......so not the best availability for the crowd to disperse. She noticed nothing about lines cause they were not important to her. She did notice the arch with the roller coaster on it in the entry plaza and thought it looked cool. She was very interested in the carousel refurb due to being a someone who owns horses and having grown up in Cleveland and going to CP, Euclid Park, and Luna Park in her youth. She did spend money on a drink at the Blood Bank, thoroughly enjoyed all the decorations, and bought a shirt in the studio store because she is really into vintage movies and stuff. What is my point? Despite me getting her in for free, my friend spent money on high mark up items and the ride line up meant nothing to her. She now wants to come back in the summer to hang out at the water park and see the summer landscaping and see the carousel whenever it is finished. She will NEVER ride a roller coaster; or anything more extreme than the train, carousel, MAYBE JL, but she will spend money on food and merch. She has no kids and won't be a frequent attendee, just saying for every super enthusiast there is probably someone like her and/or grandparents that are just hanging out and enjoying the park with no consideration to what rides are available. While the park was certainly crowded and FF has always been the big money maker for SFSTL it was not unusually crowded. The optics made it seem way worse than the reality. While this was certainly a massive improvement over last years pseudo FF, in my opinion it was still only about 75-80% of what true FF normally is. The shortage of staff was very apparent and it impacted the number of attractions and the atmosphere. Don't get me wrong I think the park did the best they could with the staff available. Certainly better to have less attractions and have them properly staffed than the alternative. The work the park is doing may be boring or inconsequential to some but it's like putting a new roof on your house or new tires on your car. Necessary to keep everything in good working order, but not much to show off for your money. Infrastructure has to be dealt with and is usually way more money than anyone realizes. Yes, we have all agreed we would love that new coaster BUT you cannot compare SFSTL to parks that are open year round or are in more tourist centric areas. It is a very nice regional park with some true gems that enthusiasts can appreciate but mostly set up for the local populace that views it as just a regular local hang out. I mean its real operating calendar is only about 7 months or so. HITP is a fun Christmas attraction but is rather limited on ride availability and always iffy on possible weather closures. Sure keep lobbying for great new rides/attractions but let's be happy they are taking measures to keep the park operational and classy looking for the future.

I can't wait to compare Indy to Dinosaur. Last went on Dinosaur about 7 years ago. Rode Indy for the first time at the end of August and going back to WDW in December. My eyes loved everything about Indy, of course it's one of my all time favorite movies since it's about the coolest history teacher in the world my neck on the other hand was cranky for several weeks after the ride, so we will see how Dino goes. Sucks getting older.

Lol, the real Bald Knobbers were a post civil war vigilante group that roamed around the Ozarks. If you look them up on Wikipedia it references them as the theme to FITH but points out the ride and the stage show are historically inaccurate.

In a sense they have some of the same worker issues as CP, popular park but in a small town with no where enough locals to fill what are essentially seasonal positions, even though the "season" is much longer than it used to be. They may have to do what CP does and try to recruit at colleges around the state and as mentioned have dorms. I mean the area would not be a bad place to spend a summer if you are a college kid, there is a ton to do on days off. It will be interesting to see how they handle Christmas when we are down there. I too hope they can figure it out by next summer..... (I was gonna add 'when things are back to normal' but I'm never saying that phrase again)

Vonni is correct. Neither Eagle or Boss will be open. Boss has a really high operating temp, something like 52 degrees. Basically, based on past events, if you look at the park map everything inside the train tracks will be open (minus the obvious water rides) and everything outside the train tracks will be closed; subject to technical down time of course. The train itself should be open with Mrs Claus reading the Night Before Christmas.