teacherkim

Well, that's a shame about Kid Flash, we never even got to know it. How did it go so wrong? Glad for you that the haunts were mostly really well done. I would be fine if they continued with only four up here IF they could just staff them well. Sigh. I'll hope it's a work in progress for the new GM. The Stranger Things house may have just been poorly done but it probably would have been more entertaining for you if you had seen the show. I went through the Stranger Things house at HHN before I had watched the show and it was mostly just a big confusing shrug from me but would love to do it again now that I have viewed all the episodes.

I'm so glad you enjoyed the park! I'm constantly telling the local gp that bitch on FB about it being the "WoRsT pArK eVer" that they are completely off base. Lol, there are far worst parks. If you loved the Boss as it is now you would have adored it when it still had the helix in place. Completely neutered it by taking that out as far as I'm concerned; but, yes you do need a mountain sherpa to guide you to the ride station

We did a whirlwind trip last Saturday (literally flew into Philly Fri night, showed up at hotel near Hershey at 2:30 am and had just Sat at the park) It was absolutely PACKED. In anticipation of this I had just bucked it up and bought the unlimited fast lanes for both rides and haunts online ahead of time. Still took us a good half hour to redeem our wristbands when we got to the park. To minimize wasted time since the park didn't open until noon, we stopped and grabbed lunch at Subway and did our Chocolate world shopping before park open. There still would have been no way to get on everything and do all the haunts, even with the fastpasses and 10-11 hours. It did allow us to do all the rides we wanted to and get all 5 haunts in with about 45-60 min for grabbing some dinner, most of that dinner time was standing in line. Wildcat's revenge being the only coaster we didn't have, we did focus on that, got 3 rides including 1 night ride on it. Definitely a top 5 RMC. Loved it. The new restraints on Skyrush are a huge improvement. We both thought it made the coaster much more fun now and you still get the oddly satisfying "pop" on the break run. One funny note on Skyrush; we were lined up for front row after the line closed at 10 (haunts were open until 11) wondering if they would honor that when to no one's suprise they announced last train, get on or get out. This resulted in about 10 seconds of a complete keystone cops free for all with everyone scrambling to get on. We ended up in the last row in both outside seats. Definitely more intense but not uncomfortably so. As far as Dark Nights; atmosphere/decorations were very good, scare zones ok but nothing special, unfortunately we really didn't have time for the shows, haunts were mostly very very good. They were well stocked with scare actors and nice and long. I thought Descent and Haunted Coal Mine had the best scares and Estate of Evil probably the best set pieces. Part of the problem with the scare zones is that it was just so crowded that the scare actors couldn't move around quite as freely as what would make better scares.

Super quick trip report for a super quick trip. After spending Saturday at Hershey and with an 8:30 pm flight out of Philly Sunday evening we drove an hour and a half out of the way to spend about 3 and a half hours at Knoebels. Yes, we have been there before so were prepared to just hit our favorites and do an abbreviated trip. Park was open 12-5, we were there about 12:15-3:45. Parking lot was packed, but we were able to get fairly close by virtue of needing to use the EV chargers (in PA they charge by the hour fyi) We walked past the one price, one pass giant ticket booth and the line looked to easily be 45-60 min. Time we didn't have and we didn't feel was necessary. Walked up to a regular ticket booth with no line, bought $40 worth of tickets and that worked out just about perfect. Weirdly, for as packed as the parking lot was and for as long as the one pass line was.........ride lines were not as horrible as I thought they would be, not short but not ridiculous. Although even if you were able to stay all 5 hours of opening you probably would not have gotten on everything you wanted to. Longest we waited was Phoenix but it was running only one train. In the end we got on Impulse, Phoenix, Flying Turns 2x, Haunted Manison, and Flyers. Sure it was hard to not get to stay and do more but it was expected going in and it was nice to see Flying Turns running without issues. FYI - the main ride operator on Flyers was being pretty strict about snapping. That's info from my son, frankly I could care less,

About time. They bought that land over two years ago and Brad Thomas was talking in a presentation in Nov 2022 both about the amount of land they purchased and how there were plans for improvements on the entrance road and parking.......although he was very cagey about whether or not those two things were connected. Guess we will find out in a couple weeks. I am thinking new entrance is a possibility as the park outgrew the old one a long time ago, maybe along with plans for an on site hotel. Now I'll wait for the announcement to see how wrong I am.

I was confused on that too, but as I understood what was told to me, we have our own GM but share a President with SFGA; two different positions.

Speaking of food. One thing that I always thought CF did pretty well at some of the parks was bring in some local flavor, pun sort of intended, with the food choices. Like Skyline at KI or Pinks and Nathans at the east coast parks, etc, etc. Would be cool to do that in more places. KC has BBQ, bring in a locally well known chain there. St. Louis has the Hill, why not have a local pasta/pizza place..........even if it's a chain like Pasta House, or Imo's or Psghetti's it would be better than most of what they have and be unique to the park.

Every new GM? No idea. Said before, sure. You can choose to be cynical and you may be right. I can choose to be hopeful and I may be right. I wasn't giving any sort of opinion, just reporting what I was told and we can all choose to perceive it as we see appropriate. Maybe the rookie GM will be a dud, maybe he will grow into his position and get a voice. Only time will tell how it goes. In the end it's a first world problem that I hope works out. Yeah, the tilt coaster would have been fun. We're also probably a good fit for a single rail, that would be nice. Or a free spin, that would not be nice. Something small and cheaper with a re-track of Boss would probably give them the most bang for their buck. Although the full conversion of Boss would be really really nice.

No, unfortunately, they didn't really do any sort of "presentation" at lunch this year like they have in the past. Not sure if that was by design, or if they just were too busy with the opening of FF and the other large lunch groups to deal with it. The most I got was from the group sales leader on the bth scenes tour that talked about the new GM's commitment to improvements. He did mention that the upper staff is still navigating the merger and exactly what that will mean over the next few years.

We were at the park last Sat for the annual ACE event. Unfortunately, I utterly failed at my intention to find out anything about the current progress of the carousel. I just never got a chance to ask, every time someone of authority was around they were being bombarded by people and I just never got a chance. Not that they necessarily would have told me anything and certainly it wouldn't have had any affect on the answer but I was hoping to get some info. They did auction off some legs from horses that could not be used and gave away eyes from carousel horses, which was a bit creepy but appropriate for a Halloween event I guess, lol. Let's not argue about it, it's pointless and exhausting. It will take as long as it takes and I am fine with that in the end. Anyway, I did get confirmation, which is probably obvious, that the funhouse part of Joker will not be open until next year. We had ert on Eagle and RR before the park opened and they did open up Joker for us the last 20 min of that but it promptly went down after a few cycles. It did come back up over the next couple hours. All in all everything else was running well other than the obvious closures of the water rides. Eagle is still running so well after all these years! But for the first time I regretted getting on Boss. I've never minded rough woodies that much and they usually don't hurt me, even at age 56, but it wasn't an enjoyable ride. I know it's late in the season, it was hot, etc, etc.........but they definitely need to re-track/do the conversion/something. Full disclosure I've been butt hurt ever since they removal of the helix. The park gave us a few nice perks; scare characters at lunch (there was also another big company group eating so that probably helped), free haunt wristbands, and we got to ride on the train with the freaks when they make their entrance for the night. I've done that before but it's actually pretty fun. There were about 100 people there and so it was a packed train. As far as FF goes, having the same 4 houses and not very well staffed scare zones as the last few years does make it a bit anti-climatic. Don't get me wrong I LOVE Halloween events and I still had a good time, but it's definitely a bit stale. To be fair it was the first weekend and the employee giving us the behind the scenes tour of Eagle did say that the new GM (we are actually still sharing a President with Chicago) is well aware and very motivated to improve things. As we all know there has been a lot of infrastructure work, which despite what the naysayers will complain about had to be done and they have done a tremendous job engaging and updating on social media. I would actually say that improving FF should be on the same level with new rides. That might be controversial but like it or not FF has always been the biggest money maker event for the park. They really need to put their heads together and try to figure out a way to improve staffing (don't get me wrong all the staff were putting in the effort, they just need way more) and get some new houses. Just my 2 cents, I won't drone on. Funny story to end on: As we exited the Jingle Mangle house which comes out where the entrance to the cars used to be, I see a skunk run out of the log flume queue and toward the entrance to AT. Of course a group of teens (looked to be in the 16-18 age range) see it and start surrounding the poor thing trying to get selfies I tried to warn them to just leave it be, but no of course they didn't listen and cornered it against the fence. Yep. They paid the price. My son and I laughed our asses off, the skunk escaped under the fence INTO Jingle Mangle and the teens probably had some splaining to do when they got home......and based on my experience for several days when they went back to school on Monday.

Great to see your post! We did HHN in 2019 and are planning on hitting it next year when we come to get our visit to Epic. Figure late Sept/early Oct will be better crowds, some kinks worked out at the new gate, and we get HHN as a bonus. We're going to force Bert to come with us

Ok. On behalf of all the teachers that will now not have to deal with you as a parent, thank you.

Lol, sure you did. Clear implication by you that adults shouldn't be allowed to ride kid's coasters. I say it's up to the park, if they have a rule fine, if they don't then stop judging......even if you think it's weird. In my opinion you started the lecture by telling someone what they did was "cringe", that's inherently derogatory and I was simply presenting an opposing point of view. I believe I clearly stated that you had every right to take a car nap even if it's something I wouldn't do, that was kind of the point of the whole statement. I was expressing my personal views, had nothing to do with being a teacher. If I had my teacher hat on I would have given you a C- for your summarization and told you to re read my response, you missed the point of my counter point to what you said. See the difference? Sorry about your history and work schedule but you chose your situation and are perfectly capable of changing it if you feel it's damaging to your health and well being. I too was a public servant although through a different medium and it's often unappreciated work. I hope to NEVER outgrow cart riding; shopping's a drag, might as well get some fun out of it, lol!

Annnnd that is the whole problem. Everybody's normal is different. Trying to justify it as not normal because it makes you uncomfortable or weirds you out or isn't your thing or you're worried about what others may think or whatever just doesn't work for me. If you aren't breaking a rule/law or violating someone's else's rights and let's be VERY clear; somebody doing something you personally don't like is not a violation of your rights, it's only a violation of your rights if their action prevents you from exercising your free will, people tend to confuse rights and beliefs all the time........then IT. IS. OK! For example I think a public car nap that takes time out of an expensive theme park day is kind of weird and wasteful BUT it doesn't prevent me from enjoying my day so have at it. It is ok, even if I wouldn't do it.

Ok, Boomer as my son would say. Of course I mean that as attitude not literally since I am older than you. I'm 56 and I don't need car naps. Just did 14 theme parks in 14 days in Europe without a nap. And you feeling like an adult on a kiddie coaster is cringe says way more about you than them. Just like the old guy that scowled at me for riding my cart down the parking lot at Target yesterday, lol. I mean it was a perfect grade of downhill all the way to the car why not have a little fun. Why is every old man at the end of every episode of Scooby Doo against having fun?!

Don't be ashamed of your zen kiddie coaster credit. Everyone on this board has had those moments. We've been wanting to get back to get Wildcat's Revenge and since we are low on days off and funds after an epic Europe trip......we are flying in to Philly late on the first Fri in Oct, then driving to Hershey which means we will get to the hotel about 1:30 am (massively cheaper than trying to fly to Harrisburg which would also include a layover) then we'll do the park during the Halloween event all day Sat and are driving up to Knoebels on Sunday which is 2 hours out of the way, just to spend about 4 hours there before we have to be back at the Philly airport to get home Sunday night so my son can work on Monday. What could go wrong? Point is we all do super weird things to satisfy this hobby/obsession/compulsion, whatever it is.

Man..............I'm so jealous. 4 houses at SFSTL, 4 of the same old houses they have had the last several years. All pretty generic, no IP. I totally get why they don't have the Christmas event anymore but FF is very popular and I really really wish they would make some improvements. Yeah it does! We just got a new park President this year so I am going to stay positive and give him the benefit of the doubt and hope improvements keep coming down the pike, particularly for FF, although that will have to be for next year. Why don't you tell Jeffrey to give our guy a call and do some mentoring, lol.

The lounges are definitely a cool idea but it was not universal throughout the chain. Some parks had them, some didn't and I suspect staffing had a lot to do with that. When we used the one at SFOG summer 2023 they were very diligently checking or it would have been overrun, but a lot of the parks just can't afford to have a staff member standing around doing nothing but checking passes if they are short of ride ops and food servers. Some CF parks had a similar type of VIP lounge set up, although the ones I saw were all outdoors so not as useful. I suspect the whole idea is dead for the future unless they make it some sort of paid add on that they can profit from and therefore justify the use of the employees. I wonder if any of the other SF parks are doing something like a Stranger Things house? I would so love SFSTL to step up their FF offerings. It's still the biggest event of the year here.

At just barely 5'1" I have to launch myself off of wing/suspended and sometimes dive coasters in order to not lose my virginity a second time; I love Velocicoaster but the extra large codpiece, to use a historical term, is not my friend on that one. My difficulties often gets a bit of a chuckle from my son who is about 10 inches taller than me. Hope it doesn't get more difficult to execute the older I get though

I agree that this is a stopgap for one year since they knew everyone was expecting some sort of overall pass and that after next year there will be one pass to rule them all but at an increased price. Although not necessarily more than if you were already paying for passes for both chains. For several years we had SF Diamond Elite VIP memberships and CF platinum passes. For the time being I think we will just add the all park add on to our SF memberships (I mean those are really ridiculously cheap) and we can just pay as we go on food for any CF park visits next year. I still think the SF memberships are on borrowed time so I'll be curious what they come up with for 2026.

Lol, I totally am with Stacy on needing a stepstool! Always have to hoist myself up on wing coasterss.

Wow. I am quite surprised the memberships survive and that it's fairly cheap to add on the all park passport. So if I am reading all this correctly that means that for an extra $8.25 a month I retain my DEVIP perks at all original SF parks and also get parking/entry to all original CF parks but no other perks at said CF parks. Does that sound correct?

So glad you got to explore the Tower! Lol, I have a picture of Joel, age 9 sitting on the King's potty. Very jealous that you got to do the ceremony of the Keys, that's one I haven't scored yet.

I was able to spend an entire day at the British Museum years ago on a college trip. Of course the future history teacher in me relished every minute of it! Was back with my family about 12 years ago and promptly disowned every one of them when I could not get them out of Herrod's to go to the museum. Philistines. Two visits to London and I STILL haven't made it to the Victoria and Albert.

Guessing the funhouse won't be ready to go until next year but hopefully they can get the ride operational for FF. That event has always been the biggest money maker of the year for the park. We will be at the ACE event on 9/14 and I'll see what info I can wheedle out of the bigwigs. They are going to give away some sort of souvenir from the carousel and have some larger pieces that couldn't be reused available for auction, proceeds to go to ACE's preservation fund. At least I know what I will be getting Prozach for Christmas this year