teacherkim

OK, those of you who frequent HW, we're thinking of a day trip Labor Day weekend (probably on Sunday, try to beat the church people) Are the crowds down a bit now that school is back and people aren't traveling as much or am I completely kidding myself that the water park won't be insane Labor Day weekend?

Weather was fine, cloudy, but dry and in the upper 70's by the time this happened in the afternoon. Had been wet and cold the day before but it was running fine all morning. My son thought your second explanation about the lift chain stopping just enough to slow it down but the power outage was on Sunday and this was on Monday and like I said it was working fine in the morning. Doesn't mean there was not a power outage on Monday, just that we never witnessed one. We had gotten off Eagle and were cutting back through kid's area when we came upon the situation; and everything around it was working fine. Maybe just some malfunction on the lift hill?

We were at the park today. Fairly light crowd, said RIP to Highland Fling, and witnessed these guys having a bad day on Pandemonium. Not sure what caused this to valley, we only came upon the aftermath. And the rescue effort Maybe a park employee knows what happened. A nice surprise is that it seems they have been working on cleaning up the various roofs you can see from some of the ride lines. And I noticed today that many planting areas that in previous years were basically empty were nicely filled in with flowers! As someone who gardens a lot, the flowers look really nice this year (I hadn't really been in the main part of the park since very early in the summer). Other than Pandemonium, reduced capacity in the afternoon on JLBM, and Thunder River having no water in it everything else seemed to be running well today

Hahaha! I can believe it! We have them in Virginia too so I'm used to them but they absolutely sound like a rattlesnake. The incident was comical and I think I would have pissed my pants had I not known what it was. This one was not only massive in size but also in perversion... who smacks a lady in the dark on a wooded mountainside at 11PM right in the crotch and then goes for the back door?! I mean really! I have a lot to report on our day at Dollywood yesterday. It was so beautiful out that I was snapping away all day and have some good pics to post too. Might have time to type it up in a bit but not sure so I'll leave you with this: PUT ALL YOUR CRAP IN THE BINS ON RIDES! My SO's wallet went flying out of his buttoned pocket on LR yesterday 20 minutes after we arrived at the park and has not been recovered yet. Something else got lost as well (Bert knows - don't spoil it!) but that second item was eventually located. It was quite a memorable day for many reasons and despite it all, we can't wait to go back. I told you, they are demonic, lol!! Schools in St Lou start mostly the week of the 14th. I'm sure that is what is affecting the closures. As much due to loss of all the teen employees as reduced attendance. SFStl calendar coincides precisely with the 2 biggest districts in west St Louis county.

I remember the year the 13 year swarm and the 17 year swarm coincided here in St Louis. You literally could not hear someone standing right next to you over the noise. Got pelted with them trying to mow the yard under a big tree. Thankfully it was before the days of youtube so my leaping about and frantically trying to disentangle a dozen or so cicadas from my hair was not immortalized for eternity. And the periodic swarms are demonic looking things with red eyes.

Well having been to the water park a few times this year I can tell you that the speed slides have been closed a lot, or open late, or only 2 of the 3 are open or some combination of those. I was thinking staffing issues. But a couple weeks ago my son and his friend rode the 2 that were open and they both had red, scratched up backs from the slides and decided once was enough. When 14 yr olds decide it's rough, then it's probably becoming a somewhat unpleasant experience. I haven't been on those slides in a few years (no mom pushing 50 needs the atomic wedgie said slides produce) but I don't remember them being that rough. So, I wonder if they are in a situation where the slides need to be completely overhauled and they are just choosing to replace. Bonzai pipeline is a similar type thrill slide so they would be more or less covered. And.........I have to say water coasters are great fun!

But, that area does draw a lot of people with the Boss entrance, Go karts, Dragon's wing, Pandemonium exit and every single person with a little kid going to the carousel and then under Pandemonium to the kid's area. In fact it's always kind of a congested area so maybe they could use the space to ease the crowd a bit in some way.

I agree with this totally however don't you think it wouldn't hurt to put in a big new attraction every once in a while to help increase season pass and one day ticket sales? Sure the numbers would probably go up for a season or two and then drop back to where they have been prior to said addition but IMO SFStL needs to keep up with its competition, even if it may not have any direct consequences right away. You hear more about what Holiday World and SDC have done than you do SFStL. Isn't it time for SFStL to do something that would draw more attention to the park? MAYBE for 2021 on the 50th anniversary. They would get lots of local press for that. GP aren't reading TPR or Screamscape.

Exactly. AND as I've pointed out before, even a family like ours that has an "enthusiast" in it is still going to go to their hometown park more than others. We usually hit HW once a year, maybe SDC, we went to SFMM this year. He made a trip to DW this year. Last year we made stops at CP and SFGAdv......BUT my son will still go to SFSTl 15-20 times; because we live HERE and his friends are HERE and school trips are HERE. So, parks like HW and SDC are not either/or propositions. We didn't reduce the number of days we attended SFSTl nor did it affect us purchasing season passes and much of the GP wouldn't spend the time or money to go to another park UNLESS they are already there on vacation.

Yep. Took a friend's young daughter with us to the SFSTL water park last week to help her out on a day when she needed some last minute daycare. The kid loved it so much I told my friend that we could just hop in the car early one morning and have a day at the water park at Holiday World and she thought I was absolutely insane. Couldn't fathom that I would consider a 6 hour round trip drive for a water park, or any amusement park. Most of the GP just doesn't even consider that an option. Several people I know were equally mystified that we made a stop in LA on the way to Hawaii just to go to SFMM. SF has to market to their base, so to speak, especially in this area.

We are at the water park a lot, so I would love a water coaster. That's one of my favorite types of rides. I would say a water coaster and the free spin over the next 2 years. Six one, half dozen the other what comes first. Those will have a pretty good ROI and keep them in the news with "new" ride announcements. IF there is to be a big new coaster in the future, I'm guessing 2021 on the 50th anniversary will be the best bet.

Nope. My son just used them in June, it's unlimited. The regular timesaver pass has a punch card for the ride ops to punch off your rides on the stuff that is one time use only. The unlimited simply says unlimited, there's no way to keep track, because it's unlimited.

When you buy them on line (I was just looking because someone sent me a pm to get the link) there is no limit listed for the regular timesaver but the unlimited which gets you unlimited rides on LR as well does have a daily purchase limit, when I purchased 2 it listed over 200 still available for that day. Don't know how many had purchased before me. You have to pick a specific day on the unlimited timesaver but not on the regular timesaver. So, I would guess on the regular they will sell as many as they can which is why they limit LR to one ride on those and why they will only sell a finite number of the unlimited. Make sense? Based on other theme parks I have been too and their fastpasses; DW's are pretty cheap at $35 & $45. And if LR is open, to me, the extra 10 bucks is a no brainer to get unlimited rides on it.

Is that what that ramp came from? God, I think I've been trying to figure that question out since I was three. I think that might be the biggest mystery of my childhood. Do you mean the wooden ramp they use to load the haunted hayride? I don't think so. I don't remember the ramp being a part of the old haunted house, thought it was just for the current FF, but I could be totally wrong on that.

Well I was 14 in '82, maybe I blocked the scareactors out! Just don't have a strong memory of the workers there, but definitely remember walking through the dang thing and scaring each other.

LOL! I'm old enough to remember the haunted house! And for you young'uns, we're talking about a haunted house without any scareactors. Nothing like what they have at frightfest today.

Sat afternoon will probably be pretty busy so I would just prioritize your rides and get to what you can. You will have better luck on Sunday. Get there a bit before open and you can beat all the church people! If JL is a must for you do it first thing on Sunday and/or utilize the very very underutilized single rider line. Your best bet for days when you arrive in the afternoon is to hope it's superhot because the water park will suck people away.

Yeah but Tidal Wave is almost always a walk on, even on hot days, and rarely goes with a full boat. And as mentioned that section is a little dull.

Woohoo! It said TC earlier so that's great that it's back up. Can you buy the unlimited time saver passes online? I'm admittedly not the best at navigating websites sometimes but I don't see the option to. I can purchase season passes or multi-day tickets but that's it. Yes but you pick up when you get there... Not sure if you can buy them without a ticket or not.. last time I saw the online option to buy, it was an add-on item after tickets had been added to the cart Sent from my MHA-L29 using Tapatalk You can buy them online without a ticket but you have to pick a specific day. My son and dad went in early June. My Dad bought the tickets at the Park Vista in Gatlinburg upon arrival because he stays there frequently and had a discount. I purchased the unlimited time saver here in St Louis online before they left. Print out bar code voucher and redeem at park.

We visited MM on Mon 6/26, SFSTL is our home park. First of all thanks to all who gave me some tips! We were staying down in Santa Monica, got out of town early to avoid the LA rush hour, ate a lovely breakfast at Eggs N Things in Valencia, and were the fourth or fifth car in line at the turnstiles. My son and I have gold passes and we used an ACE free ticket coupon for my husband. They did let him enter the with us at the gold pass entry (there was some dispute on the thread when I asked about it so I thought I would let you all know) Since we had no layout of money for entry or food and we only had the one day I did let my son talk me into getting Platinum FP. This gave us one time ride on X2, TC, and Superman. Since we got there so early we were able to ride X2 and TC without much of a line and then save the one time FP for later in the day when it was getting crowded. It was really hot that day so I'm thinking the water park probably sucked some people away as well. Would he have been able to ride everything without the FP? Maybe, but no way would there have been multiples. He was chasing credits for ACE and hit #100 on Tatsu. The ride ops were really nice about letting me get in front of the front row to take a pic while loading was going on.

Platinum is up there and I don't usually let myself get talked into it, BUT since we aren't likely to go back to MM and we already have gold passes with no layout for food or entry; I bucked up. Riddler was also closed, forgot about that til you asked, it was being repainted. I wouldn't call it a dump but there is more of a parking lot, less vegetation quality to a lot of it than SFSTL. Part of that is probably location as it's much more desert like there. We are actually quite lucky with all of the mature trees we have at our park. I thought SFGAdv was a bit devoid of landscaping too when we were there last summer. Seems like Superman was the only ride I thought they did some real theming on and their JL was still under construction and not yet open. We stayed for a few days at the Waikiki Marriott, closer to the Diamondhead end of the strip. Then we spent a week on an NCL cruise ship that went around the main islands. Gave us 2 days each on Maui, the Big Island, and Kauai.

BTW - I was answering Prozach who was the one that asked for me to report. Not sure why the quote thing didn't show it as his quote and only showed mine. We are going to hit up the water park tomorrow with some friends who want to poach our BFF day but at least we will get a chance to see the Mardi Gras stuff. Oh and at MM we did get FP, I bucked up for the Platinum since it was a one day shot there and I knew the boy could get all possible credits that way. They do it differently there, platinum does not get you a double ride but there are certain coasters only on that level and even X2 and TC were one time only use unless you wanted to pay an upcharge above the FP price. Get it? I didn't at first, had to read it 3 times and being a teacher I'm a fairly literate person

I hope you guys have a good trip. Let us know how everything goes! Sorry I'm reporting back so late, but we went on to spend 10 days in Hawaii after the LA visit. MM was good! Full Throttle was down all day so my son was a bit disappointed on that one be we got to ride everything else. He hit #100 on his coaster count on Tatsu (which Mom learned the hard way at SFGAdv NOT to ride flying coasters if you are prone to motion sickness!) so I took pics of him with his #100 sign to send into ACE and the staff was very nice about letting me stand in front of the front row during loading to get the pic. The staff member at the Gold Pass early entry also let my husband enter with us even though the people on the MM thread insisted this would not be allowed. Twisted Colloseus was definitely my fav coaster, I think just because it was so unique and on one of our rides we got a duel which apparently doesn't happen much anymore. Food choices were good. I wish, wish, wish SFSTL would put in a sandwich shop. They had a legitimately good one there. It was hotter than hell that day, 102 degrees although with no humidity like here and the park had tons of misters so it was easy to stay cool. Only issue we had (and it wasn't a huge problem) was using our ACE free ticket for Dad. Took about 30 min to get his ticket printed. The girls at guest relations had never seen one, and the code wouldn't go through, and they had to make multiple calls to upper management, yada, yada, yada. If anyone had any questions about MM, feel free to fire away at me!

I believe the upcharge is $15 per X2 reservation. Rather than pay that though, just head to X2 at opening and you won't wait very long. Recently, they've had FP vendors out in the entry plaza, so you could get your FP before you even enter the park. If not, just head straight to X2 then come back down the hill and grab your FP. You don't get a Superman reservation with the Gold FP, so just wait to ride it until the end of the day. Superman is usually pretty dead the last 30-45 minutes before closing and I can usually get 2-3 rides in during that time. Thanks! We had already planned on going right to X2, my son is just thinking about multiple rides Good to know about Superman and we will be there early enough to get the FP in the plaza so that should work. Since we only have one day we promised him open to close!

Hey all you locals! Another question from the out of towners that will be there on Monday. How much is the upcharge for X2 on the FP. I'll will probably pop for them since we have just one day and being Gold pass holders with dining plan aren't spending money on anything else there.