teacherkim

Yes, I do remember when the queue for Pandemonium was a dolphin show and then a diving show. That whole depressed area was a giant pool. Hopefully, they are making the shift to the station partitions and loading every row. That was what they are doing at SFOT, we were there a couple weeks ago. However, the ride op that lives in my house did not know a thing about it yet. Although he did report that they are indeed not requiring lockers and that MT now has cubbies ala Eagle in the station. As far as the carousel, you won't see much while they are working. Most of the refurb is taking place backstage. We saw a presentation on it last fall. They aren't going to put it all back together until they are about ready to open in up, hopefully next year. They never planned on having it done before 2022. They one completed horse that is on display is in a climate controlled display case. I think there will be several areas of the park that are in a kind of dead zone until next year when operations are back 100% and the chain has had a year to recover a bit from the Covid set back.

For God's sake let's hope so. I think we are going to try a 3rd attempt to get on the damned thing in mid-May for my son's 18th birthday.

CoasterStock tickets go on sale Mon 4/5 at 10 am (I assume that's eastern time)

So, is Atlantis closed due to Covid restrictions or because it's a water ride and not open for the season yet? We will be there on the 9th and the number of water rides that are open determines which shoes I wear, lol.

Not only that but if you book on SW you can simply change flights without even losing early bird if you have paid for that. But either way I have cancelled and rebooked like 5 times with them between Covid and Texas snowstorms

The paintball thing was doomed from the start due to the fact that you had to buy a minimum of a 3 hour slot which was a really expensive up charge. They would have had a better chance if they offered a smaller time slot for less money. Not sure if that was a park decision or the outside company running it made that choice but I knew that was not going to be popular under those parameters.

Just got an email that Coasterstock will be taking place July 9th and 10th. Tickets to go on sale "soon"

Just got a survey regarding Covid procedures. Clearly they are trying to determine how they will handle things in the parks as the various states eventually start to ease restrictions.

The ride op that lives in my house just left for his opening day shift. No shortage of hours if anyone needs a job, he is scheduled for every single day they are opened over Spring Break through next Sunday. Hope they don't have staffing issues into the summer! I may make a visit during the week just to see how things look. Oh man someone commented on the FB post that reservations were sold out!. Yikes. Coasterdawg hope you get in........

Yeah, I guess that is really what my rambling answer got to eventually. I'm not sure I understand why you weren't able to make a new reservation. Not sure how you get past the tollbooth to guest relations even if they still have spots available/

Hmmmmm, interesting question. My guess would be yes, because I really don't think they ever reached "capacity" last year on any given day until HITP, BUT that is certainly no guarantee as opening day could be very busy. And anytime I went last year they asked for my reservation at the tollbooth for parking. I would assume it all depends on whether or not they are at capacity, whatever that is. Were you not able to get back on and make a new reservation?

Ok then! I was wondering if I was going to have to put the two of you in detention..........

They usually have the registration opening the first week of February and nothing this year. If you look on the special events page it says basically to be determined and if the pictures are any hint I don't think they are planning any special events before 4th of July.

Bert, Zach..............play nice, I already broke up one fight at school today and most amazing of all somehow my mask stayed on even though I got a glancing blow to the head for my trouble. Thankfully they were two kind of small, wimpy kids. It does make way more sense to me to have the plexiglass between the station rows and not worry so much about spacing people out on the coaster. Vaccinations are ramping up quickly now, most teachers are getting a chance in the next week. I get my first shot tomorrow. Will be really interesting to see how restrictions change/evolve over the next couple of months.

So, we just got back from our whirlwind one day trip down there. Spent all of Tues, open to close at the park. It was absolutely SLAMMED. More crowded than any park I have been to since the original shutdowns last spring. Our reservation was also never scanned. Even more odd, after we walked through temp check there were park personal with computers on tables directing people where to go, right to turnstiles or ticket booth or whatever. I showed them the reservation page thinking they were scanning it there. Not only did they not scan it, they acted like they had never ever seen one and had no idea what it was. I had to explain that I have a membership and this was my reservation for the capacity limit. The employee actually said "I have no idea what to do with that, go to the ticket booth". Huh? Very odd. There was no line we did as asked and the attendant there just waved me through after barely glancing at it as I waved it at her. At the turnstiles they never even asked for it. Meanwhile at SFSTL I've had to show it multiple times to enter the park (at least as of last December, their opening day is this Saturday) Guessing that at SFOT the reservation is now mostly a dog and pony show. Curious to see if other SF parks do the same or if the reservations go away soon. And I still have no idea what the purpose of the employees with the computers between temp check and the ticket booths was. Thank goodness I had a member perk that allowed me to get Platinum fp for the same price as Gold. People with gold were still getting wait times of up to 45 minutes. Longest we had with Platinum was 15. Yes, it was that crowded. But worse than any of the ride lines were the food lines. Waited 20 minutes at a soda refill station and 1 solid hour at 3 in the afternoon for food. Every time all day we passed a food venue it looked about the same and many places were not on the mobile order list on the app. Not sure what the issue was, if they are just understaffed or still training or just got overwhelmed by the crowds or what. The cashier I had did not seem to understand how the food plan on the passes worked. I had to explain several time to talk The good side of that is that it turned into a really low calorie day for me because I just didn't feel like spending half the day in food lines. According to my smartwatch I walked almost 8 miles so with those two together hopefully I lost a few pounds The good news is we did get on every coaster even though many of them did have some down time during the day. Props to the maintenance department because nothing went down more than an hour or so. But at some point during the day Titan, MT, Skyscreamer, Freeze, and Batman all were down, and those are the ones I know about. But everyone was back up and working within an hour or so. MT train actually got stuck on the lift with passengers, but we didn't stick around long enough to see if they got it going quickly or had to evac. Mask enforcement was pretty good everywhere but the one indoor thing we did for any length of time and that was inside Johnny Rockets. The employees were trying but were being ignored. They probably really should have gotten a supervisor or security. They did crackdown on the genius that had taken his mask off and laid it on a table to hold the spot for him and his friend while they stood in line They did load every row on every ride, with the sort of exception being JL, where each party got their own car. I hope other parks do the same because I just don't see the point. I mean if people are in front of you going fast on a coaster doesn't seem like one empty row is going to help. They did have plexiglass dividers in the station between rows, which seemed reasonably intelligent. Which as I posted on the SFTTL thread ( they are doing every other row but no dividers in the station) brings up the question: Are the procedures coming down from corporate and some parks are just going rogue? Or is it at the discretion of each park president? Or is it different for each depending on the guidelines of the state and/or county that particular is located in? According to Bert from the other thread all the Texas parks are doing this so as he said, Maybe a state thing? Anyway overall it was a fun day, we got on everything we wanted to at least once or twice. Missed a night ride on NTG (which was waaay smoother than I could have anticipated) because we tried to do Titan first and sat on the brake run for almost 10 minutes, never did see or hear what the problem was and missed our last chance at the final night ride on NTG by like 3 minutes, but you know, you pays your money and takes your chances. We got up at 4 to catch a 6:30 flight, got a car, stopped for a quick breakfast, went right to the park, stayed until almost 8:30 , got to the hotel after 9.................so it is possible something happened that I just don't remember at this point, lol, but that's a basic summary of our day.

On another topic, we just got back from a quick one day trip to SFOT. They were loading every row of every coaster with at least 2 trains going. They did have plexiglass partitions between each row's waiting area in the station, which makes sense to me as that is where people are clustered. Curious if SFSTL will start this. I know as of last weekend's training they were still preparing to load every other row. Which begs the question: Are the procedures coming down from corporate and some parks are just going rogue? Of is it at the discretion of each park president? Or is it different for each depending on the guidelines of the state and/or county that particular is located in?

I agree, it dominates the skyline too much. People will still ride it even if they have to search a bit for the entrance. And since the majority of park visitors are somewhat local, everyone knows where it is anyway.

Pretty much.

Yes. And they were also using the area just inside the picnic pavilions, where they sometimes set up a buffet food option for park guests as a dining area for employees as well last summer when they first reopened after the initial lockdown. So they did not have to have indoor dining for the employees.

The pizza place did indeed close. I am guessing that back half of the park will be quiet for a year or two until they recoup some of the losses from the Covid shutdown. Maybe at some point this year some of the games will reopen just to have some activity, who knows, just speculating. I understand that everyone hates Boomerang and Fireball but at least they bring a little life to the area. I can confirm that neither Superman or Moon Cars are on the ride ops certification badge for this year. There is a tall skinny ride op at Skyscreamer and Eagle this year that will keep me apprised of whatever info he hears about

Nope. They revealed nothing other than there was a change to the meal plan (they are now doing 2nd meal 90 min after the first instead of set lunch/dinner times) which I thought was a strange thing to put on local news since that info went out to passholders in the newsletter. Other than that they only stated opening date, that this year was the 50th and that you could buy a single day ticket over spring break for as low as $24.99. It was kind of weird actually. I was like:

Lol, they just did a report on the local news about the park opening on the 20th and that it was the 50th anniversary; the stock footage they were showing included Tidal Wave and Superman and the entrance to MT from about a 100 years ago. Maybe they could get out there and record some footage from this century before the next news blip

You shouldn't have squashed the rumor mill so quickly. If you would have let this go a while longer we would be seeing maps for a layout of the giga coaster that was going to go over the parking lot and all the way to the highway. What a buzzkill you are

There are several actually. You can easily google them or use tripadvisor.

True that......Occam's Razor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!