ryder

I was at the park today, and even though the park was open at 10:30, by 11:30, there were 23 rides still closed on the app, and only 15 rides (5 of which were kiddie rides) were open. It was one of the worst ops I've ever experienced at SFMM. Closed rides included: Goliath, Drop of Doom, Buccaneer, Swashbuckler, Full Throttle, X2, Viper, Jet Stream, Scream (which the entire pathway to it was blocked off, implying it wasn't going to open at all), Wonder Woman, JL, Crazanity, WCR, Apocalypse, Ninja, and Superman. The last three were going to be closed all day, the entire top of the mountain was closed. Crazanity had a crane on site and a motor seemed to be on the ground. To their very small credit, by the time I left around noon, a few of those rides finally managed to open (as far as I could tell: Goliath, Ninja, FT, Viper, Buccaneer, and JL). If you're going on a weekday, you shouldn't need Flashpass. But expect many closed rides, particularly: Superman, Ninja, and Apocalypse, which now only seem to operate on weekends.

It's a day off for most schools in the area (Rosh Hashanah)

There's also a Goth on the Mountain (private after hours) event coming up, which is kinda cool IMO

If it's anything like the restraints on SFMM's Wonder Woman (where the comfort collars are attached to the restraint), there's no slow down at all. They're easy to get into, lock, and check super fast, as anyone who's been on the ride can attest. In a way, it could actually speed up operations, as they now wouldn't have to check a lap bar and seat belt separately, and take all that extra time locking seat belts for empty seats.

I also noticed just today that, without any notification whatsoever, SF added $4 to my membership monthly rate. And according to their own terms, price increases are supposed to be given an email notification in advance. While an extra $4 a month isn't going to break me, it's more about the underhanded way they did it that's worrisome.

Rode it 3 times this morning. Two preshow rooms, they seemed finished to me. I live in LA, so I wasn’t really following construction threads, so I was surprised to hear the Dr. Diabolical character is a woman! Nice touch. Also was surprised by the ride audio stating for rides to scream on the drops. It’s pretty awesome! The locker system is pretty great… use your pass barcode to scan for free (bar codes are provided if you don’t have your pass on you), and you retrieve your items on the other side, so there’s no cross traffic. Been a long time coming. And there was a sign saying it was offering SR.

I was there just a few days ago, and it was pretty dead as well. We had four FOL pass3s from an old membership, and we didn’t even need to use any of them. It was still super hot, and one ride op said most kids have gone back to school already. I’m not a local; is that true?

I believe the locker situation is now better because they added a free cubbies as an option. Sounds like it's speeding things up considerably. You should have been given the OPTION to pause payments during the pandemic in an email the park sent out. If you didn't request it, they kept the payments going. In exchange, you got updated to a "Diamond Elite VIP", which gives a total of 4 FOL passes per visit and I believe bigger discounts. And as noted above, they were offering gift cards for the value, but you have to get it in person. Mine was for about $256, but do note they can't be used for any sort of online purchases... so that limits it to mostly merch and food (non-mobile order, as last I checked, they don't have a way to upload a gift card into the mobile ordering app), though you can also get Flashpass or Hurricane Harbor cabanas... it just has to be done in person the day of purchase.

As far as I know, the cubby would be a new addition. It wasn't there Friday morning, so I'd guess it was put there to help out.

I saw that too, and it's the locker situation. There's such a huge back up at the lockers with a single kiosk and no available lockers, there's no one available to ride.

I'm sure this policy will likely change in the future (especially when WW is a part of Flashpass), but yesterday during the AP previews, they were allowing people with no loose articles directly into the Flashpass line, skipping at least 2+ hours of waiting. TIP: Use the lockers by Batman to store items, hardly anyone was using them, then head over to Flashpass. Again, once Flashpass kicks in (and would it today?), I don't know if they'd still do it this way... maybe ask at the Flashpass entrance first to be sure they're still doing it that way

Pics have been showing up on various sources, so I feel it's credible

That's why I only do pockets with closures when I visit them parks. Never have lost anything yet.

Looks like the thumbnail image of those clickbait YouTube coaster accident videos

In this day where a park can simply call a known crew of social media bloggers, which will give the park additional free publicity, I feel the age of open call riders are going to be a thing of the past.

It's not on the POV, so I wouldn't get your hopes up

The promotional art also had a large WW logo at the top of the lift hill, but I notice it's been removed in the ride video.

The carousel at SCBB? You're kidding, right? That thing is massive, in terms of both width and height. Where in the world would it have space for it there? Not to mention the fact they have their own historic carousel already. That said, I do agree it should be saved. But I think SCBB is not going to happen. The Sky Tower would be interesting, but are their any height ordinances at SCBB? I know many beach towns have them, so that nearby houses don't have obscured views of the beach (Santa Barbara does), though I don't know about Santa Cruz.

I don't think it's necessarily too big for a flat ride. I'd guess it's nearly a perfect size for an Endeavor. Also was at the park today, and while DoD was down, from Goliath, the area is nearly 50% paved. I will give them some credit, because it's largely designed concrete with some patterns to it, not just a single color slurry. Can also say with some confidence that the area where The Flash was is going to be just landscaping. There's a small curved, bone-shaped curb in that spot. Not walls, just a curb. Still a fair amount of room behind it... maybe an OVD? The building going up between WW:FoC and Batman is maybe 65% done externally, if that. At first I thought it'd be retail, but I'm now suspecting it'll be a new food service location. Just a gut feeling, but they did tear out the old food location (Titans Pizza), so I would suspect this will be the replacement. I think that, and the pavement, will be the big hold ups for the area. If they can get the pavement done, and at least the external part of the new building, I could see them opening up the area for the rides, and opening up the food (or whatever will be inside the building) later on. It'd be pushing it, but it's not out of the question it could be done to that point in 3-4 weeks. The Round Up, aside from signage and placing the character cut outs, looks totally ready to go... it's been repainted, and the tarps in the center part of the ride have been replaced and are all blue.

I agree. There's still a lot of work to do in the area it self. A lot of concrete hasn't even been poured on most of the walkways. Atom Smasher is gone from that area. There was a rumor that it was going to be moved to Pistachio Park/Swiss Twist area, but that plan seems to have been scrapped. It either may move to another park, or get scrapped entirely. FWIW, you can still see the cars from Scream, they're being stored right behind the batwing element. There's something being outlined in the ground where it was, but it's hard to say if it'll be a small building (like a snack station), or landscaping.

While there's still a lot of work to do in the area, it's moving pretty fast. Late July is optimistic, but August/September is realistic. Really, while I'm fairly sure I'll enjoy the ride, I kinda miss the access to Batman more.

JL has dropped the 3D and glasses. Screens are now in 4K. You can still walk right through the two pre-show rooms. The animation still sucks, but it is an improvement.

I was in the park today, and it was indeed open. Got a ride on it. But I was only in the park for 3 hours (short after work visit), and it went down twice according to both the app and in park wait time screens. Goliath went down for a bit with a train stopped at the mid course break. JL and Apocalypse were closed.

Well, SFMM confirmed it themselves on their own IG, so I think we can believe it

If the ride crosses the street (or goes under it), that could affect utilities and infrastructure, so of course the city would have to be involved.