teacherkim

I talked to a member of the Koch family that owns HW at a special event once. They have never considered a fast pass that I know of, I think they just feel that it goes against the "family feel" of the park. I think they might potentially face a backlash from the rather conservative clientele that live within a 2-3 radius of the park. I can tell you that he said that they made their hugest jump in profit the year they started giving free drinks and just raised the ticket prices a buck or two. I was there once when the county was under a boil order so they could not use their fountain drinks and they drove to a distributor and loaded a truck with canned sodas so they could honor the free drinks as advertised. I do advise, even if you are not a "waterpark person", NOT to skip this water park. The 3 water coasters there are incredible and I know at least two of them have single rider lines that are totally worth it. The most unfortunate thing to me is that there is nothing else to do anywhere near the park, I mean it is literally in the middle of a corn field. Like you can see a corn field from the line of Thunderbird, lol. So we have more than once made it a 6 hour round trip and just go for the day rather than spend the night in the one dumpy hotel there.

Pigeon Forge is pure tourist hoop la (not saying there aren't fun things to do there just be aware it is hillbilly Vegas) The Old Mill restaurant actually is very very good but there will likely be a 1-2 hour wait, although lots of little shops and stuff to look around in while you are waiting. Gatlinburg is Pigeon Forge's more sophisticated cousin. Shops and most restaurants are just a cut above quality wise to PF. Agree that the aquarium is very good. Pancake pantry is great for breakfast and Anakeesta has a chair lift up to a cool mountain view along with a single rail alpine coaster, zip line, rope walk, restaurant, etc. If you want to go up there and do any of that strongly suggest you buy tickets on their website ahead of time or you will spend a long time in line. Just outside of Gatlinburg (I mean maybe 5 minutes from the main drag) there is a Sugarland Ranger station for Smoky Mt Park. They can give you all the info on trails and lengths/difficulties of hikes. Just google it and you will find it. If you have time do try to spend at least part of a day in SMNP the contrast between the natural beauty of the park and the mess of "civilization" that is PF is rather jaw dropping, lol. Gatlinburg is kind of a bridge between the two. There are good alpine coasters in both GB and PF, again you can google them and find them all.

The last time my son used his "get in free" to HW they asked for a pay stub, which he did not have. We finally convinced her by showing not only his badge but his current work schedule on the employee portal. We did not try to use it last year at SDC since you had to purchase tickets on line and I couldn't find anyway to do the free park employee thing and decided it was kind of churlish under last year's Covid circumstances anyway.

You know, there are groundhogs that hang around Ninja and Screaming Eagle at SFSTL and have been there for years. Are groundhogs secretly coaster enthusiasts? Or have they developed an affinity for theme park nachos?

I also have to say that sitting by the fountains and watching the running of the rope drop bulls while you guys were in Starbucks, knowing we could saunter at leisure with the FL+ was really really pleasant.

Small correction - I do upside down stuff but also tend to be one and done with many inverts and tend to avoid most boomerangs at this point, since they are not only redundant but concussion inducing. KI coasters that have inversions aren't their best, remember I've been here more than once

I know, at 5'1" with short, stumpy legs sometimes I can't believe I grew him. Fortunately for him he takes after his Dad!

As far as Joel making it onto Orion from Beast with 5 minutes to spare...........he has pulled that sort of thing off a bunch of times. Amazing that he can make it all the way across a theme park in a couple minutes but takes him hours to clean up his room or do a simple homework assignment or take a shower, etc, etc, Teens. Are. Annoying.

OMG! That kid on Racer! So the whole time we were loading and getting secured he was non stop talking telling me about his past adventures on the coaster, and I was wondering how much snot was gonna fly on me during the ride and I asked him if he was there with someone and Mom or Grandma or somebody was waiting for him, couldn't understand.......none of which freaked me out after all my years teaching. So as we are going up the lift hill I said to him "so are we going hands up?" and he got super agitated, pointed to the sign that said hands and arms inside at all times and was adamant that we hold on to the grab bar. So I humored him and we rode strictly to code. Then as we came into the brake run he put his hands over his ears and expressed his apparently repeated fear that it would not stop. I think the noise in the covered brake run really bothered him. So I told him "it's ok" and I threw out my hand in front of us doing a stop sign and yelled "STOP TRAIN" and got really lucky and it all timed out like I controlled it and he just stared at me the entire time we were unbuckling and getting off. I mean he almost fell over because he was watching me instead of where he was walking as we exited, lol. I do regret not having a picture. The benefit of taking the bullet as Bert phrased it is that while they were stuck on the brake run I was able to see all of the fireworks from the little bridge that overlooks the station.

We finally got a chance to eat at the Brewhouse the next day (Zach gave us a "use the bar to order" hack) and the food was very very good there as well.

Joel did take some pics. Will look through them soon as I can!

Wow, you have done a good job remembering the day. The only thing I can think of (and this only partially affected you) was that after you got the Starbucks you caught up with us at Tom & Chee to have a bite of the greatest grilled cheese that ever was or ever will be.

Also that guy with the beard in the DB photo that is trying to hold onto his Coasterstock lanyard lost that battle, the thing ripped off halfway round and flapped right past me, first ride on day 1. What kind of enthusiast doesn't know how to tuck it in his shirt? Amateur.

Ha, I didn't notice that kid behind us on MT grabbing his Dad's arm all terrified before! And I am still totally butt hurt that the radio in the shed wasn't working.

No mazes at all and I personally would not call what they had scare zones. They basically had a few areas where some scare actors were inside a barricaded zone that they stayed inside of and guests were on the outside so it was totally up to the guest how close to the zone and monsters you got, there was no element of them jumping out at you or chasing. Just you standing there watching them try to be scary. Pretty much a dud. I thought they did better with the HITP offerings.

That's correct. As long as someone can count you as a dependent, you cannot collect unemployment. That should be obvious but I actually did have to explain that to more than one person that wanted to know if my son collected unemployment while the park was shut down due to Covid.

It has gotten a bit better but I know they are still having a high turnover rate. I didn't mean it as a criticism to the park just that I know they have been having a very hard time staffing like they need to. I just posted on this over on the Dollywood board where it was stated that just raising the pay and getting rid of the enhanced unemployment would solve the problem, that it isn't that simple. Teens just don't work traditional summer/part time jobs like they used to. This is what I posted there: As a just retired teacher and parent of an 18 year old that has worked at SFSTL for the last three seasons I can tell you that teens working traditional teen or summer jobs has been on the decline for a long time, the pandemic just exacerbated it. The parks were already having trouble filling spots before the virus hit. Many suburban teens are being pushed to spend summers doing extra classes and unpaid internships, in my opinion to their detriment, in order to beef up college admission resumes. Unfortunately, they are missing out on real world skills that no amount of extra classes can give you. But it has become a bit of a "looked down upon thing" to work that summer type job a lot of us did as kids. I actually had parents in my neighborhood quite shocked that I was "allowing" my son to work. Crazy. I don't think a lot of them can see that we are raising a lot of people that look good on paper but cannot handle day to day challenges. And for some dumb reason they cannot seem to make the connection of continual school/too many activities with the fact that we had two successful suicides and and multiple attempts at our very well off, large suburban high school. On the other hand students in very poor areas, with few job opportunities, that could really use the money; have a very difficult time actually getting to the park. Let's face it, parks in large metro areas are not usually near the more inner city neighborhoods. I worked in a very poor district but it is easily a 40-50 min one way drive to the park IF you don't hit traffic. Not feasible for most. SFSTL has a bus that brings employees from one of the metrolink stops in a disadvantaged neighborhood to the park BUT not only is it a hell of a long ride, the employees have to pay for it which cuts down on their paycheck. I know that is a long winded answer but the changing morays of teen life and the realities of the economic divide all affect staffing at the parks. Would a pay raise help? Sure. Somewhat, they did raise the pay a bit here, but the problem is too complicated to be solved that easily.

As a just retired teacher and parent of an 18 year old that has worked at SFSTL for the last three seasons I can tell you that teens working traditional teen or summer jobs has been on the decline for a long time, the pandemic just exacerbated it. The parks were already having trouble filling spots before the virus hit. Many suburban teens are being pushed to spend summers doing extra classes and unpaid internships, in my opinion to their detriment, in order to beef up college admission resumes. Unfortunately, they are missing out on real world skills that no amount of extra classes can give you. But it has become a bit of a "looked down upon thing" to work that summer type job a lot of us did as kids. I actually had parents in my neighborhood quite shocked that I was "allowing" my son to work. Crazy. I don't think a lot of them can see that we are raising a lot of people that look good on paper but cannot handle day to day challenges. And for some dumb reason they cannot seem to make the connection of continual school/too many activities with the fact that we had two successful suicides and and multiple attempts at our very well off, large suburban high school. On the other hand students in very poor areas, with few job opportunities, that could really use the money; have a very difficult time actually getting to the park. Let's face it, parks in large metro areas are not usually near the more inner city neighborhoods. I worked in a very poor district but it is easily a 40-50 min one way drive to the park IF you don't hit traffic. Not feasible for most. SFSTL has a bus that brings employees from one of the metrolink stops in a disadvantaged neighborhood to the park BUT not only is it a hell of a long ride, the employees have to pay for it which cuts down on their paycheck. I know that is a long winded answer but the changing morays of teen life and the realities of the economic divide all affect staffing at the parks. Would a pay raise help? Sure. Somewhat, they did raise the pay a bit here, but the problem is too complicated to be solved that easily.

I sure hope they can get enough staff to properly man the haunts.

Reservations no longer needed, although I am assuming since this was several days ago you figured that out

Just packing up our stuff! We have about a 6 hour drive so will head out late morning tomorrow. Looking forward to hanging out with everyone.

My son said that Fri - Mon was the busiest the park has been since "before times". If you can manage a non-holiday week Tues or Wed you should find much more manageable crowds. Mon and Fri still tend to be kind of busy due to people from all the surrounding small towns taking a long weekend to come in. I assume you meant Screaming Eagle (not American Scream), if you did head for that first thing. If you go straight to the back of the park first it will have almost no line. Everyone tends to go right to Thunder or Batman first.

We were there Fri and Sat for Coastercon. Flyers and Skyride were open both days. They opened Flying Turns just for ert for those attending Con on Fri morning, Fri night, and Sat night. Sat morning some of us got to walk the "trough" on it, which was very cool. I truly did feel bad for the GP who saw us lining up for the nighttime ert and thought it was open but were told just for a private event, could tell the employees felt a little awkward about it too. During the walk through we learned what a maintenance nightmare the thing is and it does make me wonder how the time and expense will affect it's longevity. Hopefully, they will be able to run it more the rest of the year but they did state that staffing was an issue. We also got lights on rides on BD and Haunted Mansion. And a completely lights off ride on Phoenix.

But do they then still play the Phineas and Furb theme song after the National Anthem. It's hilarious to see a bunch of kids (and probably plenty of teachers in disguise) yelling out "it's 104 days of summer vacation......." I can't remember if they did it last summer, everything being not quite right and all. Look forward to meeting you, we will be hanging with Bert all day. It's my fault he ended up signing up for Coasterstock, he he.

For those wondering about Flying Turns being ready to open. Coastercon is going to Knoebels Fri 6/25 & Sat 6/26. I am pretty sure they will do everything in their power to have it open for that. It is still listed on ert and as a bts tour, although they could change that last minute. They are actually offering a limited number of "walk the trough" spots on Flying Turns. We will be at con and really looking forward to the two days here since we have never been.