Chiselphane

When in January are you going? If it's not the first week then I feel you could pull off both parks in one day as long as you have a game plan of what you want to ride.

We definitely did not have time to do 'everything' at AK in one day and that was during low capacity September 2020

The carousel refurbishment is a great example of what most have been saying here. A park that is 'hated' doesn't have that kind of time, effort, and money put into a ride that would be quicker, easier, and cheaper to just replace.

Yeah, that's been gone for a while now Another little thing: The ghost trap hasn't worked in ages

It's sad and frustrating because I know they can do better. Sure, some of it's not really their fault, but some of it is. The more we talked about it after our trip, the more the food situation was bugging us. It really did suck to have to wait so long for subpar service. This! This is frankly inexcusable. I can put up with a lot, I can be understanding of staffing issues or what have you, but respect my time please.

It can be a bit of a pain. Each has its' own schedule which afaik is not posted anywhere except on the restaurants themselves (and sometimes not even then!) because they can and do change hours daily. You'd think the app would at least have restaurant hours, but no. Most were pretty good about advertising their closing time if it was before park closing. It can feel almost random though. Like last weekend, some places that were open on Saturday didn't open at all on Sunday, and vice versa. Seems more staffing that stock but as I had mentioned before, they had a bunch of ingredient shortages. I understand but at the same time, almost every time that happened you wouldn't find out until after they handed you the food. "Hey wasn't this supposed to have green onions on it?" 'Yes, sorry, we're out. ' Just seems to me it'd be better to tell you that when ordering. We take that kind of thing in stride but some guests were pretty vocal about it, especially after waiting 30+ minutes in unshaded lines. Speaking of that, the food lines can get a bit chaotic on busy days, especially the stands as they don't really have queues so people just blob up wherever. Tater Twist is a good example, if there's more than a few people waiting there's nowhere for a line to form that doesn't block a path leading to other areas of the park.

Molly's Mill is a buffet restaurant but that's about it at the moment; there's also a Mine buffet but that's currently closed. The rest will be cafeteria or stands. We tend to snack rather than full meals just because there's so much to choose from, and more than normal during a festival. Its actually hard for me to recommend things because I like so much of it, but for a full meal I like Rivertown Smokehouse, for a sandwich/lighter meal (lighter being relative lol) I like Fry Bread company (which was not operating last weekend) or a skillet from Lumbercamp Falls. We never visit without getting a Tater Twist. For sweets/dessert/etc everyone will tell you to get cinnamon bread from Clara Belle's and rightly so, but don't neglect Eva & Delilah's bakery right at the entrance of the park, and easy-to-miss Sullivan's Mill has some great stuff too (including coffee ground by a grinder powered by the waterwheel you see when crossing the swinging bridge!)

Man, I really cursed myself saying I never felt the need for fastpass this time of year. We went Sat & Sun and it was crazy busy (and HOT) for the season, especially Saturday. It did not help things at all that every coaster (except FITH) was running one train. We rode Time Traveler first thing and I was all "wow the line is super short for this time of day, we really lucked out" and then it became immediately obvious why, under normal operations that line would have been almost to the queue entrance. I talked to some staff and they did not expect the level of crowds at all, there were lots of ingredient shortages and they were really scrambling at times. The lady at the Apple Butter Shop said they ran out within an hour and she didn't think she'd be able to do much better by Sunday, she just didn't have enough ingredients to keep up with the demand surge. Sunday did end up being a bit better, we actually got some walk-ons for Mystic River Falls in the morning to the point we rerode it a few times back and overall things seemed a tiny bit less hectic then Saturday, but they still stuck to one train ops. I actually got a little excited because the audio on Fire in the Hole's first half seems to have been tweaked, it was louder and clearer than I ever recall hearing it. But the back half is still a mess, if not flat out broken.

I cant speak for recent attendance/operations, but I've been going to the park this time of year pretty consistently, and I've never felt the *need* for trailblazer but I don't think it would be a complete waste of money either. Sometimes I think it'd be worth it just for Powder Keg; that line moves SLOW. It's going to be hot in the park this weekend so Mystic Falls line is going to be nasty as well.

I'm torn because I would miss both rides but I can definitely see the reasoning, at least for FITH. It's nearly 50 years old and while the ride system is fine (other than the audio issues(which really are disappointing especially if you are a long time fan and know what's supposed to happen and where)), I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a big problem is the building it's housed in; the 'backstage' views you get of it when walking to Outlaw Run aren't very pretty. And FM is even older, with the addition of it being a water ride and the structural problems that that entails. Most of the FITH rumors have been along the lines of 'destroy then rebuild'. FM feels more like the one that would go away and not be replaced. And I'd miss both, whether missing the old version of FITH no matter how good a job they do on a new one, or FM in general. But none of that would change my attendance or even overall feeling towards the park; I get there are business decisions that I am not going to be privy to, etc. I get that people don't like change, especially if from the outside it appears to be needless change. It does make me wonder if SDC should give more info on why these changes would be made, or is it not worth the trouble because people would be upset either way. To me it would make sense if they said something like "To 'fix' Fire in the Hole's show building, it would cost X dollars; to rebuild it would cost Z dollars which includes safety improvements over the original structure, other benefits, etc etc" but to those would reflexively react to any change as negative, would putting out an explanation even matter, or even make things worse.

1. I was 12 and my dad put me in charge of my stepbrothers 10 & 8 and let us loose in 1984 Magic Kingdom + EPCOT. Even then I was like "Are you sure this is ok" but that quickly wore off and we had an incredible time 2. No restrictions whatsoever. 3. I'd be comfortable with 16 solo and maybe 14 with a group of friends; i have an 18 year old but up until recently he's preferred to stay with us anyways (because he gets more food that way lol). I do little 'test cases' here and there though, for example last year at Silver Dollar City I let my 8 year old son ride, and reride, Thunderation as much as he wanted by himself. There's lots of seating in that area so I picked a spot where I could see him exiting/reentering the queue but he couldnt see me very well, so I could judge how he was handling it, and he was fine. So kind of building up to full free roam. As Mike put it though, this would definitely vary depending on the actual park. 4. Meet at X at certain time. At least a certain amount of responsiveness/acknowledgment of texting. 5. On paper the ages are the biggest difference but I can look back and see that what my dad did was probably not the best approach lol although we were fine and behaved etc etc. The technology angle is probably the biggest difference really. Having a way to contact them at any time or vice versa via cell is big.

We're going on the 9th and the 10th. The water rides will be open. I would avoid riding them shortly before dusk if possible though, it will likely get cool to chilly pretty quickly once the sun goes down. I appreciate that they run them in cooler weather though because you get low to zero lines. We usually go early spring and riding American Plunge in March will WAKE YOU UP

I keep coming within inches of booking a trip and then LR starts acting up again.

Fantastic report. I love that your enthusiasm and positivity made even Worlds of Fun look great, and yet Six Flags St Louis was "Well..."

As long as you have your shoes on when outside the barge, the ride ops usually just let it go.

We have been looking into Denver since Meow Wolf's opening a new exhibit there soon, that mini golf place will be a must do as well.

September is historically WAY different (IE less) crowds than June though, so keep that in mind too

ZeroShock is kind of amazing. Ten bucks to jump onto a big pillow.

Yikes is right. I love doing everything you possibly can in a park, but walking back up out of the cave is a hard pass. I've done the cave carrying my 5 year old son (at the time) on my back and I swear out of the corner of my eye I saw the grim reaper, checking his watch.

I've done the lantern tour and it was worth every penny. You get into some parts of the cave that the regular tour doesn't go, there's actually remains of a cabin down one of the offshoots. If you can maneuver it, try to be at the back of the tour group, i found it interesting to occasionally look back into complete darkness (especially if you can lag back just a step or two and shut your lantern off for a moment). We haven't been in the cave for a long time, it was closed (along with Grandfather's Mansion) most if not all of last year. And due to our schedule we haven't been back yet this year; watch it have to close again by the time we go in the fall.

I always appreciate how much of the full experience you capture in your reports, rather than just a laundry list of rides.

YA is NOT kidding about getting gas before dark. I gather he's referring to a safety aspect but a fair amount of stations here close really early. I don't take the same route you'd be traveling, we live in the SE corner of MO, but I got in real trouble coming home from SDC once; we just couldn't find anything open. I swear the engine was sputtering when we finally found something.

Oh it is, I just meant that I've talked to a couple staff members about it about seeing if there was a way to purchase a CD of it and they don't have a license to sell it, just to play it. They commissioned it from John Presley, of the Presley theater in Branson. So that tells me they know what they should and shouldn't be doing with music

It's weird because they're definitely aware of the issue, for example I've had conversations with staff about the Time Traveler queue music and IP rights came up. Could be a thing of "well we've done it for so long without a problem so let's keep doing it." The more you think about it, the bigger problem it is for the park. As Woodie said the shows are a huge draw for that time of year and soak up a lot of guests. And I know it seems far away but from having worked in theater, redoing not one but multiple shows from scratch in what, 4 1/2 months? And have them be good? Short of a miracle, that's impossible. Redoing the music themselves seems like it'd work but again they run into not only a time crunch but a talent and money crunch. Bad situation for them.

Maybe unpopular but I loved being able to reserve which park we were going to each day. It made planning so much easier for us. We don't go very often though, I can definitely see how it'd be a real pain in the ass for locals or people who visit frequently and just want to do what they feel like at the moment.