teacherkim

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.

And speaking of torture. There is video from a vlogger of people (he thought probably employees) riding IG from last week, just to remind us it will be awesome, it's ready to go, but no coaster for you until March Maybe they were filming riders for promotional purposes but it's just gonna start new rumors. People commenting on the vlog were convinced this means a soft opening is coming for Christmas season, which is not going to happen no matter how much I wish it would

We were at the park yesterday. We had actually never been there when the water park wasn't open and we had a fun day but for me personally I'm not sure if the 6 hour round trip was worth it without the water park rides. There was a point for a couple hours in the late afternoon when we were just kind of killing time waiting for dark; BUT if you have younger kids then it would be totally worth it to go. Lots of kids in their costumes which was very cute, trick or treating for them in the water park entrance plaza, corn maze/hay ride, a couple cute shows that kids could enjoy and 3 very family friendly haunted houses. The decorations/landscaping was all seasonal and made the park look extra nice and there were some extra eating choices with the seasonal food offerings. It was a beautiful day to hang out at a park. and as usual the park looked great. It was very crowded and Legend was down. I know it was reported down over the summer but I'm not sure if it has been closed all the time or if this was a more recent closure, but I can tell you that there were no trains in the maintenance shed or the station and it was dead there. In fact squirrels were playing on the lift hill, so I guess it's been quiet for a while. Unfortunately, that was one less major ride to disperse the large crowd. Voyage gave us the smoothest ride we've ever had on it, I'm guessing the cooler temps slowed it just enough to smooth it out but not so much that it wasn't still hauling ass. We got a very epic night ride on Voyage that legit gives the Beast some serious competition for best night ride. Also got a night ride on TB which was great too. They did close many of the lines 15-30 min before close, which is normal for Voyage. No complaints I understand why, just be aware if you go. We tried to get a night ride on Raven on the way out but missed the line closure by probably a few minutes. This applies to some of the flats and kid's rides as well so prepare your young'uns for that if you take them and plan accordingly. They were working on the rapids ride and ended up opening it late afternoon, but there was no way I was getting wet when it was around 60 degrees, lol, but I did see some people ride it. If any of you have little kids and are wondering how they will react to Halloween stuff, this would be a good intro for them. Oh and they have, like many other parks, switched over to the seamless walk through at security instead of searching every dang bag and making you take out keys and phones, which makes it all go so much faster. That is one change brought on by the pandemic that I hope will stay.

We haven't actually made it down to the park since the re-opening week in June of 2020, one train ops that day too, but it was understandable at the time. Have they pretty much been on one train ops all this time? Yikes. Like I said we will be down there for Coaster Christmas in Nov and will be curious to see if the seasonal closure of a few of the rides (like the 3 water rides) relieves any of the staffing pressures and maybe allows a few of the bigger coasters to add a train.

We will be there on 12/22, they better reopen it on time............I'm already super disappointed/angry about IG. It's so frustrating since we are there anyway for a family Christmas trip and know IG is sitting there perfectly capable of operating AND we happen to have passes that are good until April 9th.

Have fun Zach!

LOL, I love how so many people on FB are like, FITH is SACRED!!!!!!!!!!!! How DARE they change anything about the park. I'm never going again. This is the last straw!" , Yada, yada, yada...... My God. Why don't they at least wait and see for sure what they are doing before they lose their shit. We will be at ACE Coaster Christmas event in Nov. I'll see if we get any info from the powers that be.

Glad you had fun and sorry about LR. Took my son 3 tries to get it As a short person I HATE the restraints on MM, there is so much space between my shoulder and the restraint that it jams me up and actually gives me bruises on the tops of my shoulders. Don't pass up Dragonflier next time though, no joke, it is a very very fun coaster. Hope you got to see some of the Smokies and the surrounding area.

When my husband, Steve, rode steve he thought it was rough and that the RMC trains were uncomfortable. However, he is not an enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, so what does he know. There that statement is grammatically correct, on topic and factual On a serious note I have a huge soft spot for dive coasters, so guess we will just have to come back down to SFFT to try out DDC (is that the abbreviation we are using?) even though we were there earlier this year. Darn.

RP is seriously one of my favorite hotels that I have ever stayed at, and I am counting theme park and non theme park venues. I love that place.

Edit to the there is nothing going in where TW was comment; apparently there is a haunt maze in that space, so any "activity" anyone noticed before FF was that going in.

You must just go across the bridge really slow while you are watching Eagles Four hours sounds about right from your neighborhood, unless you stop off at Fast Eddie's for a few beers and a basket of peel and eat shrimp first.

Griffon is by far my favorite of the dive coasters (have not made it up to Yukon Striker yet) but I can't quite put my finger on why. I just know that I find Shiekra and Valravn really fun BUT Griffon usually has me laughing like crazy. And as Bert and Zach know I took one of the most serious faced coaster ride pics ever on Orion, lol, so I don't always show it.

Been out of the country for the last 10 days so just getting caught up. While we would all love a new coaster, I've always agreed with the stance that investments in the park that bring in the masses are better for the bottom line. For example many enthusiasts ignore the water park BUT the mom that has to sit all day while the kids ride stuff and she doesn't will notice the quality of the water park as that's where she will spend the day to relax and have a "pool" day. Multi-generational rides like JL, water slides, and the carousel are an investment and get a good roi for this particular park. We can argue all day about the demographics that make that reality, different for every park. Doesn't mean that corporate hates us or loves us, they do what's best for the bottom line. At some point we will get a new coaster, it just isn't a priority right now for park investment imho. As far as TW site goes, the boy says you are all crazy. He looked at it and there are no markers or any sign of anything happening there Zach, why does it take you 5 hours to get to SDC? Do you stop and eat rolls at Lamberts for two hours?

It's not really a cost issue, there just traditionally haven't been any flights from STL into Knoxville that don't go some super round about way like through Denver or I can fly into Nashville and still have a 3 and half hour drive which seems dumb. Ends up taking the same amount of time as driving and costing more so not worth it. Apparently Delta has just added a flight with a short layover in ATL (been getting some notifications since I am flying Delta soon to Paris) So that MAY be a game changer. I'll pay for it if saves me a lot of time.

When we finally got some rides on it in May of this year, it was my son's third attempt and my second. Keep in mind that is a one way 8 - 8 1/2 hour drive with not a real flight option to cut the time. First time we were on it as we were pulling out of the station he insisted he would not believe it was happening and/or celebrate in any way until we crested the lift hill, lol.

Not yet but the boy is mostly working SkyScreamer now that Eagle is closed so I will tell him to try to get some info out of the supervisors. Of course he is 18 so he's not very talented at spying yet.

Should be. As far as price it varies a lot depending on whether or not they have a two for one going or pass/member discount (which is usually in play) or buy one get one half off or any number of other promotions. Worst case scenario it shouldn't cost you more than $15 pp

This is definitely a good thing even though it will be a short term bummer. I too hope they restore the rock mosaic, it really was super cool. As well as perhaps new signage that lists all of the coasters parameters that made it a world record breaker at the time. The current sign at the entrance/exit is in very sad shape and almost unreadable. I actually talked to Tom Rebbie the owner/CEO of PTC about Eagle (we got to tour PTC at CoasterCon) and he definitely has a fondness for it since it was the last coaster designed by the company, whom John Allen worked for at the time. The company often gives out awards similar to ACE's landmark coaster thing, which Eagle already is, to parks that preserve PTC's.

I did but I think Zach was being his usual sarcastic self and metaphorically giving his opinion that Eagle is the only good ride; therefore if it is closed for him the park might as well be closed. If I have to explain you to others Zach you aren't composing your posts well

Well I never found out what caused the fight but as an fyi to anyone headed to the park in the near future, latest intel from the ride op that lives in my house; Eagle is closed probably for the rest of the year with work walls all around the old games area, entrance and Superman. This is to facilitate the dismantling of Superman and construction of Catwoman Whip. Several of the games buildings have already been torn down. On the plus side, apparently when it is all done they will go back to using the original entrance of Eagle.

^ There's a difference between being stuck in gridlocked interstate traffic with no escape heading into the Cajon Pass, and driving around the surface streets of Hollywood with a billion different means of escape if Fairfax gets backed up. Guess I have gotten lucky, lol! Driven all around San Francisco and multiple times around LA and never had gridlock that lasted more than 10 minutes and I've always found California drivers to be aggressive but fair and decent drivers. Where I live people speed up and purposely try to block you getting on the highway all the time. Stupid. But I actually like to drive, my husband hates driving......so to each their own.

And I would take the traffic in LA (just drove all over for a week there) over the people in my hometown that simply Do. Not. Know. How. To. Drive. Lots of volume in LA but at least drivers know how to merge and are relatively courteous about it compared to St. Louis. In fact we kind of had fun driving all around Hollywood when we made a stop at the La Brea tar pits on our way from SFMM to Belmont Park in SD. Funny how differently we all view the same thing, lol.

Sorry if I over abbreviated! SkyScreamer and Boomerang.

There was a brawl that needed lots of security toward the end of the day between SS and Boomer yesterday. Bad enough that they had to cease operation of SS which double sucked because it was down all day Sat and much of the day Sun. Let you know if I get any details on it after today.