teacherkim

I believe the answer is yes on rides. My son works at SFSTL and is hoping to get a call any day from them. He is not looking forward to working with a facemask either but knows it's better than keeping the park closed. I am hoping that IF there is no spike within a few weeks of these openings that face masks will become optional for the customers. Also hoping this means a very similar date for SFSTl and WOF since they must have gotten approval from the state.

Oh man, I hope we are getting close. KK announced an opening date of June 29. Really hoping CF and SF are able to start announcing some dates next week.

I know, I got really excited a week or so ago when the lead story was not about covid until I realized it was a fatal car accident. Yikes. I would love to know if the reporter dredged these two up or if they contacted the station.

So this story was on the local NBC station https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/after-six-flags-announces-safety-changes-families-demand-refunds/63-20da165f-5811-4da6-b1cf-4ab22f48c06a I'm guessing these two are in the minority but still not great PR to go out to the gp on the evening news. Hoping not so many people cancel memberships/passes as to have a big negative impact but of course some people will. I know parks are hesitant to announce a date until they are absolutely sure, and I get why, but at this point I feel like they really need to bite the bullet and put a date out there so people at least know they are opening back up. I'm guessing they have a date in mind and just have not made it public yet.

We are contemplating a HW, KK, KI, CP run in July maybe the second week. Tentative of course at this point. So, I was just mock booking reservations at the Breakers to check dates and currently they will let you book rooms starting on July 1; for whatever that's worth.

Don't know what this means as far as an opening date but employees got a survey today regarding their employment status and feelings on masks, temps be taken, hand sanitizer, etc etc. Didn't see it, got the second hand account.

Zach, I get it but a lot of this will fade with time. Just wanted to be realistic in that some changes will stay. Let's just hope they are the easier to deal with things like hand sanitizer and plexiglass. I'm still laughing that our kids have the same birthday, albeit 17 years apart

Zach, congratulations! I was kind of looking for you to post something on the SFSTl thread but whatever you say or do is excused. We all know new parents are totally sleep deprived and cannot be held accountable for what they say or do. 5 days old you say? posted on the 21st. Was your new addition born May 16? Hilarious if yes because that is my son's birthday (who you know is a ride op at SFSTl) Mine just turned 17. As far as how the parks will implement all the new queue options.......of course we are all speculating, it's what people do. And we have no choice but to wait and see. I do think it will be an ever evolving situation at least for awhile depending on too many factors to list here. Will all the changes be permanent, probably not. Will some of the changes be permanent, probably so. We will adapt just like we all adapted to the new airport normal after 9/11. I will be watching for the trip report. We are hoping to make a HW, KI, KK, CP run later in the summer if feasible.

Agreed there would be no reason not to offer fastlane. As far as needing it with lower capacity I would say that depends on what sort of sanitizing they intend to do to rides and how badly that slows ops down. However, can't imagine you would risk a fastlane sell out so I think you would be safe to get to the park and check out lines and then buy if necessary. We should have been leaving tomorrow for Coasterstock. Instead of riding Orion on his 17th birthday my son is getting cupcakes at Grandma's........not quite the same. Although he is being very gracious about it so I guess he is growing up.

Is that random or because it's the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything I took that announcement to mean they are still planning on having some sort of season albeit a somewhat amended/shortened one. Cutting out shows/parades/special events would be one way to save money on labor costs AND satisfy government rules on social distancing.

I get that you're probably joking, but nobody's getting fired for 'conflicting dates'. This is an unprecedented situation, everybody gets that, nobody with any sense is (or should be) thinking any dates they find mean anything until we get some official announcements. My home park is SFGAm. Between the app and the website, there are a bunch of May and June dates out there that are absolutely not happening. We're in the middle of a pandemic, I'm ok with a website that has some wrong dates. I was joking. It was actually a reference to a joke upthread about misinformation and "interns" doing the website management. However, the public is told to go to the apps and website to get information on hours and while they should be using common sense, it also shouldn't be that hard to remove erroneous dates from official park sites if they are incorrect.

It's not as simple as life versus money. A massive depression will cost lives as well. It's about finding the best balance. Anyway back to theme park info. The SFSTL employees were sent an email today stating they should not pay attention to dates thrown about by the media for park opening, that a date had not yet been settled on and they would be notified immediately when a date was set. Which is all fine and good.......except the park's own app and website had dates; and conflicting dates at that. Fired interns indeed.

St Louis City and County have just announced stay at home ending May 18, lower capacity, masks where social distancing not possible, etc etc. It is later than the rest of the state but KC and STL are where the majority of cases in MO occured. Would think SFSTL could start pulling in employees to restart training after that, it would be in small groups, and potentially open the park in early June (with the necessary restrictions) but will have to see if they post some sort of coherent open date that is consistent across all their media outlets. When the boy gets notified to come in I will let you all know.

The SFSTl app says July 1 but the website is advertising a summer kickoff on Memorial Day weekend.

Very true. I wonder how much of this is just them trying to satisfy the county/state as well. As we have all noted it is unlikely they reach 50% capacity the first few weeks anyway, but it sounds good on local media. I think they will have a closing time of 6 at first so a lot of people living more than an hour or so away may wait until the hours are longer anyway.

Or the carload of kids that gets dropped off and then cannot get Mom to answer her phone to come back and get them when they aren't allowed in.

That blurb on the Six Flags website must have just shown up. It was not there on Saturday. It appears they will be posting more info soon. I am assuming this will be their way to control the amount of people enough to satisfy the county health officials.

I hadn't heard anything about a spike in Eureka or West County, and I live in Ballwin, but to be fair I haven't been checking in detail either. Even though Governor Parson has started reopening the state today, St Louis County (which SFSTL is in, barely) and St Louis City are still under stay at home orders. The mayor of Eureka threatened to defy that and let businesses open and Page the county executive warned them to check with their lawyers first. So they backed off. County 1, Eureka 0

Hmmm, would be nice if they notified the employees then

I'm really not sure water parks are any more dangerous as far as virus spread than the regular parks. There are no indoor attractions (unless you maybe count enclosed slides) and there is enough chlorine in the water to choke a horse. I mean you kind of bath in disinfectant on each ride, lol. And I agree that masks would present somewhat of a drowning hazard in places where you might be completely submerged.

Going to play devil's advocate here, as I so often find myself doing. While I get that it is desirable for masks to be worn initially as we start rolling out the reopenings and I agree some park has to be the guinea pig.......I don't know that allowing them to be optional by phase 4 is that awful. I mean the point of doing it in phases is to slowly test the waters, if something goes wonky in phase 1, 2, or 3 those will get extended so, theoretically, by phase 4 results will be favorable. And just like you cannot keep quarantine going for years, neither can you keep people in masks indefinitely. It just won't happen. Remember a vaccine may come; or it may not. I am happy to hear some parks are finally announcing actual dates. Seems like they were playing a bit of a game of chicken as to who would be the first to get in the water after the shark was sighted. My son is still waiting to hear from SFSTl on when employees will restart training. They need to make some decisions because right now on the web site and app it is listing May 18 as opening date

I agree with you Bill, you cannot sue a business because you leave the house and catch an infectious disease. It was your choice. That would never stand in court, most lawyers will tell you so, and that is why it doesn't happen every year with flu, colds, whatever.

I am sure along with the copious amounts of hand sanitizer stations around the parks; there will be lots of new signage with instructions about social distancing, hand washing, not touching your face, etc etc. Which will serve the same purpose as all those signs in every ride line about not riding with certain health conditions that are complete overkill. They are there way more for protection of the park than for the consumer.

I do not believe that would hold up in court. You voluntarily chose to enter the park. The only way I think you could bring a successful lawsuit would be to prove the park knowingly withheld information pertaining to your safety. I think most parks are lawyered up enough to cover that. On the other hand I can totally see them having the waivers as a just in case. Which I personally would have no problem signing. And I have watched droves of parents sign waivers for their children for things like zip lining, white water rafting, virtual reality, ropes courses, snow skiing and tubing, and other number of activities that could cause impending death. If you are willing to plan a trip, the waiver probably won't stop you.

There was some discussion of this on the SFSTl thread in regards to their new ride, Catwoman Whip. A poster who I am pretty sure is a maintenance person at the park posted that there are no plans to scrap already announced rides. Now, I am a little nervous about next year's plan. It will be SFSTl 50th anniv and there was some hint we would be getting something to celebrate. It was one of the original 3 built from scratch Six Flags. And as Bert knows we have a nice empty spot where Tidal Wave was. Not sure how this closure might affect that.