teacherkim

We were there about two weeks ago and I agree with JG-77. The virtual queue was truly very easy to use and allowed you to spend very little time in the lines. If you can work a smartphone you can do the virtual lines. Waterpark definitely a different issue and there were times in the lines when social distancing was not always adhered to, however I found this to mostly be kids and one mean teacher starte normally backed them off. The only time I was truly uncomfortable was during a rainstorm closure while waiting for Cheetah Chase when a lot of people tried to huddle under the station canopy. However, it was our choice whether to leave or stay of course. And if you want to ride Mammoth you have to have a minimum of 500 lbs in your party, which means unless you have at least 3-4 in your group you will have to buddy up with strangers or pass.

OLD???? You're in your 30's, how do you think that makes those of us in our 50's feel, lol! Also, teens at a theme park? Who would have thought of such a thing, although after spending everyday with 7th graders for the last 27 years, I am glad that this is my last year teaching.

I'm guessing FF chances are pretty slim since it seems that all of the Halloween events are being cancelled industry wide. Maybe ok on HITP, although the roaming singers will probably have to be put on a stage instead of singing in people's faces I can tell you that I don't think they have made a final decision yet because employees have only been asked to post their availability through the end of September. However, my prediction is that they will be open throughout the fall but without FF. HITP I still have no idea. At least whatever happens we are better off than KC, WOF is shutting down completely after Labor Day.

I can't see them closing after Labor Day because they are still advertising jobs. I could see them not doing Halloweekends and just having "fun fall days" or something like that through October.

I mean THE shutdown, we booked the Halloweekends trip before I realized it was going to be more than a few weeks delayed start to the season. Unless you are being sarcastic then, lol, I can't tell. No they do not start giving out ride passes til 11. You can get in at 10 and on the big 4 there will be two lines, one standby that they will shut down after a certain number are in and one line pass that last until the tickets are given out. And they will only give one line pass per person so no getting in line for the group. Our experience was that you could get in the standby line and get a ride, or sometimes 3-4 rides in, and then get in the pass line to get a pass for later in the day. Also, they do a second pass handout at 3:30 for evening times.

So we stopped by the park Sat evening. We started out the day at CP and didn't get there until about 5, there was light but steady rain the whole time we were there. Lost Coaster and Tiger'r also closed for us which was a bit disappointing for my son since there were the two weird ones he really wanted to get the credit for. We could have waited but it did not look promising for either to open and with the rain and complete lack of anyone wearing masks or making any attempt to distance in the lines we did the other 3 coasters and hightailed it out of there. I'm not super paranoid or I wouldn't be going to theme parks to begin with but honestly it was pretty bad. We have never been there but it was not horribly out of the way coming home from CP so decided to stop. Now I wasn't expecting much but honestly most of the rides were pretty janky looking and at the risk of sounding elitist; I just cannot see the new owner making this thing work unless he puts some serious cash into it for upgrades in order to attract a more affluent clientele. I'm not saying he has to price people out but right now there is just not any reason to go there if you can afford better except for the most die hard enthusiasts chasing credits. Maybe it is just particularly rundown now and if so I hope he can restore it to it's former glory. You know keep the carnival boardwalk feel but do some serious updates. No offense to anyone with childhood memories of the place but just my honest observation.

I realized I should have added from our visit last week that masks and social distancing were pretty much non-existent at the waterpark even though they did have security with megaphones regularly reminding people to keep their distance. So, fair warning if you go.

Every coaster was open while we were there on Thurs, Fri, and Sat morning with the exception of SV on Thurs but that was some sort of maintenance issue. Of the non access pass coasters, Valravn seemed to have the most consistent longer lines. We actually have plans to go back the first weekend of October for Halloweekends, planned before the extent of the shutdown was realized. Now just waiting to hear if I will need to cancel that or not.

Yeah, it is not the place to go if you are uncomfortable with people not wearing masks. Although I will say the employees were making an attempt to enforce it in ride stations and such. It usually doesn't bother me if I can keep my distance but when everyone crammed into the CC station I was pretty uneasy about the situation. One very cute and funny thing I forgot to mention. Whenever they made the announcement reminding people about masks and social distancing they played the chorus from "Don't Stand so Close to Me" by the Police. Gotta appreciate anyone trying to keep some sense of humor.

Yeah, imagine that? Who could live that long without a new coaster?

You bet Bert! The boy was able to get in 5 rides on SV between 11-12 when they then would only accept access passes. The other 3 coasters looked about the same. So if you get to the gate (especially the resort gate) early, get right in at 10.....you can get at least a few rides in on one of the coasters and then get in line for an access pass.

It was super cool last year. And I meant Carowinds, don't know where carpet ds came from. Auto correct is weird. In line now and they are testing SV

We were at the park on Tuesday 7/28. Didn't even get there until about 1pm Rode SC,TR,LR a couple times each and spent a couple hours relaxing at the water park. Could have easily done more if we arrived at open. Masks required during entry, as well as in shops, bathrooms and restaurants not walking around on the midway..... Ride stations seemed to be a grey area.

Good to know, we were up by GK during the last hour so obviously missed it, bit gives us hope that it will be up tomorrow. I forgot to mention that we did see many employees cleaning rides and sanitizing queue railings.

We we're there yesterday. We did get FP+, bought them ahead of time on line. You do not need access pass for Orion if you have FP. Park looked good and the entry was stunning as always. But like all the parks I've been to in the last month there were some shops and restaurants closed. Not enough to mess up your day but just enough to harsh your vibe. However all the coasters were running 2-3 trains. Exactly what you would expect, lower than normal crowd levels but not a ghost town and due to low capacity there were still average queue times. I would say that 80-90% followed the rules pretty well and employees were doing their best to enforce it. At the Rapids ride ride opd did tell you to feel free to take it off once in the boat.Of course there was some deterioration as the day wore on. I thought Orion was awesome. Not going to get into any arguments about how it compares to Diamondback or which ride elements were good or bad, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line it is a very fun coaster that is very re ridable. Don't want to hear any complaints about the new giga when my home park doesn't even have a hyper As far as fastlane and the "is it worth it?" question: To me it was, no I didn't see any lines more than 30 min or so but with fatlane everything was a walk on. Which meant no running of the bulls and time to have a leisurely lunch and still get in everything you wanted before park close. All plusses for us since we still had to drive up to CP that evening. Don't live beyond your means but do it if you can.

So we are at CP right now. SV was down all day. Something apparently happened during testing but no one was spilling the beans. They shut it down and cleared the line before 11 and never handed out the ride passes. We had no trouble getting an early standby ride on Maverick and then passes for Mav,MF,and TTD. TTD did go down for a short time but they then did not hand out the afternoon passes and instead honored all the morning passes at any time. Gemini was indeed racing and hand slapping was in full force. Rougarou and WT were operational, in fact I believe all the coaster were running other than SV. A few long lines due to reduced capacity but definitely quieter than a normal July day. Parking lot at the Breakers half full. They did open the resort gate by ten so you could get in line for one of the big 4 and get a standby ride first thing. You will get a big advantage of you can swing staying on property with the early resort gate opening. Also if you stay on property they will do your health and temp check when you check in and give you a wristband, so no wasting time getting in the resort gate. And I agree with Zach that the Breakers is worth it. It's not about the room, it's about location and amenities. Be fairly warned, they shut the park down immediately at 8, not just rides but stores and restaurants too. I did spend some time sleuthing and chatting up some employees. Apparently the rumor going around is that there will be Halloweekends but that they might do it earlier. Not sure what advantage that would provide.....take that with a grain of salt. I was also told that the Carpet ds employees were going home in a couple weeks. I'm assuming about the time they go to weekends only. Overall it was a lot more normal than I thought but definitely a diminished experience. Missed the flower beds and living wall. But of course operations are more important. No indication whatsoever that they plan on selling g fastpasses. We'll be here tomorrow as well and will post more soon as I can.

We were there on Mon 7/27. Masks now required during entry, inside shops and restaurants. Most people were doing it. However it was pretty much do what you want at the water park. Only place there masks were required was bathroom/changing rooms. In fact during a rain storm everyone rushed under the canopy of the station for Cheetah Chase to get out of the rain; even though they were at a water park and in swim suits. Seriously. They did have social distancing markers pretty much everywhere to various degrees of success. Really just a matter of you decided to obey or not. The ride ops were policing this best they could in line. One genius tried to use his shirt pulled up over his face as a mask. Again. Seriously? All the coasters were running and I saw no shutdowns. Cheetah chase is awesome! No single rider lines for any ride but pretty low crowds. Keep in mind it was a Monday with storms predicted. The virtual queueing worked really well, I hope they keep it. Was super easy to use and if you can't figure it out, there are plenty of teenagers about to help you.

My husband also has a heights issue, but doesn't usually have a problem with water slides. We did get him to go down summit plummet at Blizzard Beach but he had to rest in the shade with multiple adult beverages to recover He isn't a huge theme park guy but has ridden quite a few coasters even though there is a lot of "AAAAHHHHH" at the top of lift hills. God's little joke, I love coasters but have to work around motion sickness and he is lukewarm but never gets sick....just has to conquer his own fear. We did both ride one flying coaster, Superman at SFGAdv, don't know if either of us ever will again. He completely freaked out looking straight down at the top of the lift and I got sick despite having a patch on. He absolutely puts his foot down with the B&M clamshell restraint. No way will he go with the "whole side open" as he puts it, lol.

Member announcements email saying Hook's Lagoon is open now. I'm a little surprised since we are so late in the summer and it's a high touch area, thought they had just given up on that area opening this year but apparently not.

BTW - I got a survey regarding FF a couple days ago. Basically asking a lot of questions about whether or not I would still attend if they couldn't offer the same experience as the normally could and my comfort level, etc, etc. Sounded like they are trying to determine what type of FF if any they will offer this year. I'm sure they are struggling with the desire to not expend too much money if attendance is way off and the desire to not lose out on the biggest cash cow of the year in a dismal economic year.

They were definitely doing a separate count for the waterpark, which I expected as I have seen it reach capacity during normal times. Anticipating this we just got there about a half hour early and waited in the HH queue which is nicely shaded.

Perfect! Thanks for the clarification. I kind of figured that was the case but nice to get the confirmation before we go. We will be there in two weeks. I'm glad they are still advertising haunt. We go to a different park for the Halloween event every year the first weekend in Oct. This year the plan was CP but of course I've been waiting to see what all the parks are doing about their events. I know it was still listed on the website.

Definitely, longest wait was when it started raining as we buckled into Maverick, or when we did standby on MF. Which reminds me to say... your best bet is staying on site if you can. We were in line for SV passes by 1015 from the resort gate. Got those within 30 seconds of distribution starting and went right to Maverick's pass line. Three minutes later we were on our way to MF. Got 12-1 passes for all three and hopped right in the standby line for MF after grabbing our passes. There was no line for MF passes either. We ended up not using the MF passes until 715 or so and by then it was almost a walk on. So are they just basically opening the resort gate for all hotel guests at about 10? I noticed it did not have us choose a park arrival time when I made the hotel reservation.

I believe at the moment it is just if you have all season OR if you had purchased a fastpass pre-shutdown. Hoping they will start selling them again like KI did. So, we are staying at Breakers at the end of the month. We were not given any option on picking a reservation time, just the assurance that you are guaranteed entry into the park. Will we automatically get the earlier time? I assumed we would get to enter at the resort gate like always. Hoping since it is still two weeks away that things will have smoothed out operationally and that maybe they will put fastpass back on the table.

I was at the park today. However, not a rides day but for the purpose of using my BFF to take my 75 year old Mom for some pool time at the waterpark due to most of the area pools being closed this summer. Still here is how our day went. The new entrance is really nice. I saw several people taking photos in front of the new Arch signage. Strolling through the cooled tent and walking right on by the thermal scan thingy was so much quicker than the handheld temp check. Just walk through at a normal pace and the employee can see your temp above your image. For those that suddenly realize they forgot their mask, they have some for sale right before the tent for $6. Also, the new scanners at the old bag check area were so much faster. I would assume they will keep those, although the old metal detectors were still there but pushed to the side. The water park did require masks during entry, in the gift shop, bathrooms, food lines, etc.....but once you were on the pool deck, walking to rides or in the water you could take them off. They did have someone disinfecting the loungers and life vests after use. The loungers were spread out in groups of 2-4 and surprisingly people were not trying to move them but respected the social distancing. They did have metal barriers around the wave pool so that there was a single entrance and exit point and there was a lifeguard keeping count and stopping the line if the pool got too full. Like I said we just were there to sunbathe and use the pool but I did take a quick look around and other than the kid's structure it seemed all the slides were operational. Bonzai Pipeline did go down for awhile and got a visit from maintenance. When we left the waterpark, Grandma decided she wanted to see where the boy works so we took the train from the St Louis station up to BB. Everything we passed between the two was open but with very low crowds. No one in line for cars, maybe 5 people on the one Thunder train that was going, log flume and rafts going with very few people. Did not see Boss go while we went by, but I have no idea if that was just timing or if it was down. Dragon's wing seemed to be doing training with a group of 5 or 6 employees, one of whom was on it. Eagle was up but didn't see the line or if they were running both trains. All the games up by Superman were closed but SM, FB, BR and SS were up. Although FB was only testing. MT was running. After our peek at the boy in action to satisfy Grandma we headed back down the hill toward the entrance. Everything I could see was pretty much a walk on. Don't know if the games by Panda and Excalibur were open but I could see that both rides were running. Ninja, the Disko, and Tsunami Soaker were up. Batman ran all day reliably because I could hear it from the waterpark. Most but not all of the food venues I could see were open. The BBQ place in the water park was closed but all the other food options were available. The picnic grove looked sad with everything stacked up and it obviously hasn't been used since last year. Overall it was nice to get out even without doing any rides and everyone I saw was behaving and having a good time. Employees I encountered were very friendly and engaging the customers and truly making an effort (and I promise that has nothing to do with my son being a ride op, we didn't talk to him, lol) However, some things in the waterpark were a little rundown on the buildings and landscaping and with some things closed and the crowd so low it was a little sad too. Just the vibe I picked up on. Crowd was very low today based on my scientific examination of how full (or not) the parking lot was. It was a Wed and there were storms in the forecast which did hit about 4 or so and I am sure the people riding were thrilled at no waits; but a little worrisome all the same. When we rode past the Catwoman location it did look as though it was stopped in mid construction. That whole area is kind of torn up.