Six Flags Fiesta Texas (SFFT) Discussion Thread

[Arthur_Seaton]

Thanks for the report, Bert. I'll likely drop down to SA to give this a ride in the coming weeks. I've always found dive coaster to be more fun than intense, and installations like this one really hit their mark in that they have huge visual appeal / draw while also mowing through crowds. And my condolences on your loss; glad to see you're getting out and spending time with friends.

[bert425]

so. . .   via a personal message from Park President Jeffrey Siebert, yesterday afternoon?

apparently they have heard the complaints regarding what happened to the food options in Sangerfest Halle (ie: they got really shitty). . and he sent me these snapshots of the menu boards, that I believe are back as of this coming Saturday.

that's why I love this park. . .they actually LISTEN and adjust accordingly.

(and yes. . those prices are nuts.   *but* most of it is on the Meal Plan as options. . . which as of my last visit the only things being served in Sangerfest were Personal Pizza, Prepackaged Salad, and Fried Chicken Strips (all Meal options tho), and the split chicken you could buy for $19.   So this is a huge step forward again.

 

[Sportsdude360]

At Fiesta now!! Dr. Diabolical's Cliffhanger is an outstanding addition of the park!! Jeffrey Siebert greeted us and personally escorted us to Dr. D! He also gave us Fright Fest and Octoberfest wristbands. Dr. D reminds me of bit of Sheikra at BGT but with way better theming! Another great example of B&M sweetness!! Every element, from the beyond vertical first drop to the second drop, airtime hill and helices are perfection!!

[Sportsdude360]

Our bricks!!! "Mad" Mike Burden and Danny Bunn "Scifidude1"! I'm honored they put my brick right next to TPR Rob and Alyssa!

 

[bert425]

Had a pretty amazing time yesterday attending American Coaster Enthusiast's FrightBash - held during Fright Fest at Six Flags Fiesta Texas with my friends.

yes, had a great time even going the day after Covid Booster AND flu shot. (lots of Tylenol every 5 hours kept the "blech" away)

and even *finally* bumped into Luke and got to spend the whole day with him! 1st time I've managed to synch up with him since TPR Japan tour in 2019 (every time he's at SFFT, I happen to be at SWSA. . no, really! I always seem to be in San Antonio on those days, but at the other park. . LOL).

we got 1st ride of the day on Poltergeist, reserved seating at the shows (including fireworks that were AMAZING), skip the lines at the haunts, and much more - including after hours ERT on Dr.D's Cliffhanger (so good at night), Iron Rattler, and Roadrunner Express.

the park was absolutely PACKED. . I mean, hard to move packed, and the lines for everything (food, haunts, rides) were insane. If you go during Frightfest? Spend the $$ for Flash Pass, as well as VIP access to the Haunts - it's the only way to get them all done!

(luckily, by attending as part of an "event", that was covered for me yesterday)

anyways, it was a blast! here are too many pictures

the badge and the agenda (Iron Rattler got added to evening ERT. . and the pass ended up being usable as Flash Pass during the day. . saved us a good 1 1/2 hour line on Bug's Flume ride!)

Park Map for Fright Fest. . . . SFFT really went all out.   and much of it is VERY adult. . I saw multiple crying kids
(to which I have to say "good". . I mean, they are warning the parents, and tho MANY families with small kids left before 7 (the park stayed packed anyways), there were a lot of strollers and little kids still in the park post 9pm)

most of the shows were very good (tho Curse of the Zombie Prom needs a bit of help figuring out what the storyline is. . .tho it's nice it's in Zaragoza. . so a/c and cushioned seats!. . and it holds a LOT of people)

I only had the Bloodbag drinks. . but oh my. . .very good. (rum drink)

 

 

 

 

OMG. .it's LUKE!

1st ride of the day, we got walked back to Poltergeist - my favorite coaster in the park!

 

we were in ~1/2 hour before park opened, so after getting a ride on Polty, some of us wandered over to Wonder Woman to be in line when the park officially opened in 10 minutes or so. 

While Iron Rattler is still 1 train ops (sad face. . they are stuck waiting on the NEW train *and* the Refurbed 2nd train (yes, still) from Gerstlaur ). . . Wondy is back up to 2 train ops. .so that's progress!   Especially since Frightfest is so packed!

empty now, because the park isn't open just yet. . so can get some great pics.

 

 

 

Rockville High is a Haunt for FrightFest (RockKill). . . we'll get a lights on walkthru tour in a little bit!

speaking of. . .   No scare actors, because it was early in the day. . but very cool to get a good look at the sets.
when we went thru later last night, the place was PACKED with scare actors.

Really good haunt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

attention to detail is impressive. . since it the dim lights later, you couldn't even see this!

these move later. . .

a visit to SFFT is never complete without lunch at Sangerfest Halle (Schnitzel sandwhich, Baked Potatoes, and 1/2 chicken are all back! and on the meal plan!). . and without a stop to say hello to "Sweet Connie" by the ladies restroom.

after a quick snack it was time for the 1st show. . . the new one "Curse of the Zombie Prom". . it was . . . um. . . ok.   
But the sets are great, and they were entertaining. . . .as was park president Jeffrey Siebert - who posed for me, when he spotted me in our row to watch the show

 

 

 

 

the scare zones around the park look great - as usual.

and interestingly, Houngans House of Voodoo (the permanent "house"), during the day is a kid friendly, lights on, walk thru. . that turns into the "Curse of Rougaru" haunt at night, with scare actors and lots of jump scares.   What a great idea, and fantastic use of an existing space!

of course, I had to ride my bunny on the Carousel.

and got Luke to ride with me

we wandered the park and rode lots of stuff (that flash pass badge was a lifesaver on a packed day like today)

next "show" was the Unleashing.

which is basically Dr. Diabolical introducing her monsters into the park.  

they used to pour into the park via the train station in CrackAxle with lights and fog effects. . but with the steampunk retheme of Crackaxle - and the heavy theming to Dr. Diabolical - this makes way more sense, and was more effective I think.   Short, but I loved this.

 

and just look how close the theater is to the ride!

 

here comes the Doctor. . from the back of the arena.. down the center aisle to the stage.

she insults and teases the audience, and tortures a couple of them (plants. . but still effective)

and then calls forth her creatures:

as noted. . .Flash Pass is a MUST during Frightfest. . .and yes, we got a little moist. . .

 

first maze after 35+ minute line for bloodbag drinks (no.. really!)
the jump scares weren't too effective here. .but the atmosphere in here (it's a collapsed mine theme).. was incredible.

it's amazing what they crammed in here.
(in fact, all the haunts LOOKED amazing. . great job Fiesta Texas. . very high end setpieces)

 

(out of order, but this was randomly in the kids section. . LOL)

 

PACKED. . this is the non-VIP pass line!

Fear Acres is the big "free" haunt zone that's over in Whitewater Bay. .

it was so packed, and with so many strollers?  we bailed on it after waiting in the line and not moving for 5 minutes. .there were too many other haunts we wanted to get thru.
heard it was fun tho, and full of fear actors.

also in the kids area. . this is supposed to be a corn maze for the daytime kiddo stuff. . but it was open, so we walked thru it.

they did an AMAZING job. . this is GREAT.   Toss some scare actors in here, and this could easily be a top haunt here.

 

 

 

headed towards RockKill and the boardwalk haunts (CarnEvil 3D (very good for what they have to work with, and the 3D effects are really good with the paper glasses they hand out) and the new outdoor Cemetery Maze)

yeah. . busy!

Wonder Woman looks SO good at night

 

 

the outdoors Cemetery haunt.

Dang my good nightvision on my phone. . makes him look WAY less scary

the atmosphere in this outdoor maze / haunt is so great!

 

 

time for the next show!  Dr. D's Monster Bash

best show of the day

 

 

if you dont' count the "Frightful Finale" fireworks.  

Some of the best non-disney evening fireworks I've ever seen.

even has an appearance of the Phantom, and the Fireworks blowing up a Chandelier that flies down over the crowd!

incredible show to end the night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[teacherkim]

We toyed with the idea of coming to this event but went to KI haunt instead..........................maybe next year?!

[Hellocoasters]

Hello! This is my first post here! Thought I would ask my questions here in this thread since there are a lot of people with good info here. My husband and I are planning on taking a trip to San Antonio this upcoming February to go to Fiesta Texas and Sea World. Just wondering if it’s even worth it since it sounds like coaster operations are “iffy” at least at SFFT. It’ll be off season and weather may be bad, I hate to go if half the coasters aren’t even running. What’s it like in February? Anybody know? Thanks!!

[coasterbill]

Book a refundable flight and refundable hotels. We go in February a lot but that's what we do. If it's below 50 (not 40, 50 at Fiesta) or too windy, they won't run much. Otherwise it's great.

[tndank]

Superbowl Sunday was a great time to visit 2 years ago.  Had the park to myself and basically everything was open.  Sat on everything as long as I wanted.

 

[bert425]

1 hour ago, Hellocoasters said:

Hello! This is my first post here! Thought I would ask my questions here in this thread since there are a lot of people with good info here. My husband and I are planning on taking a trip to San Antonio this upcoming February to go to Fiesta Texas and Sea World. Just wondering if it’s even worth it since it sounds like coaster operations are “iffy” at least at SFFT. It’ll be off season and weather may be bad, I hate to go if half the coasters aren’t even running. What’s it like in February? Anybody know? Thanks!!

there's no "off season"

SFFT and SWSA are year round parks.   (there might be weekend ops only, but probably will be open during the week for Mardi Gras stuff anyways)

bad weather has nothing to do with coaster ops at Fiesta.. it's all going to depend on how windy it is.   As it's in a quarry, if it's windy, several of the coasters will go down.

but they often get everythign back up anyways.

as to weather?  it's Texas.. . unless we get another freak snowstorm like two years ago?    It will be in the 50s or 60's and temps won't impact ride ops.

[Hellocoasters]

6 hours ago, bert425 said:

there's no "off season"

SFFT and SWSA are year round parks.   (there might be weekend ops only, but probably will be open during the week for Mardi Gras stuff anyways)

bad weather has nothing to do with coaster ops at Fiesta.. it's all going to depend on how windy it is.   As it's in a quarry, if it's windy, several of the coasters will go down.

but they often get everythign back up anyways.

as to weather?  it's Texas.. . unless we get another freak snowstorm like two years ago?    It will be in the 50s or 60's and temps won't impact ride ops.

Thanks so much and to the other two that responded!  Yeah I’ve heard about the wind affecting rides, didn’t know if colder temps would affect things. What I meant by “off” season was the months outside the late spring-summer months.  But, we are really excited for these parks and the city itself. Thanks again

[bert425]

16 minutes ago, Hellocoasters said:

Thanks so much and to the other two that responded!  Yeah I’ve heard about the wind affecting rides, didn’t know if colder temps would affect things. What I meant by “off” season was the months outside the late spring-summer months.  But, we are really excited for these parks and the city itself. Thanks again

HIGHLY recommend the San Antonio Zoo for a 1/2 day as well. . it's a great zoo, and coupons avail. on line.

also?  assume you'll have a car?  make the ~45 minute drive to Seguin to ZDTs Amusement Center (it's basically a glorified Malibu Gand Prix). . but they have the worlds only wooden Shuttle Coaster in Switchback. . and it's WELL worth the drive for just that (tho they have a few other rides there too).

https://www.zdtamusement.com/

[Hellocoasters]

46 minutes ago, bert425 said:

HIGHLY recommend the San Antonio Zoo for a 1/2 day as well. . it's a great zoo, and coupons avail. on line.

also?  assume you'll have a car?  make the ~45 minute drive to Seguin to ZDTs Amusement Center (it's basically a glorified Malibu Gand Prix). . but they have the worlds only wooden Shuttle Coaster in Switchback. . and it's WELL worth the drive for just that (tho they have a few other rides there too).

https://www.zdtamusement.com/

Yeah I would love to check out that shuttle wooden coaster. Thanks for the suggestions!

[grsupercity]

Go and enjoy the new parks and experiences! 50's and 60's is great park weather. Shouldn't be overly busy! 

[Arthur_Seaton]

I dropped by SFFT’s Halloween event tonight — a good move as the park was quite dead (ha!). From what I gather, there was some ambiguity online as to whether the park was open, so this — combined with the weeknight — may have been to blame for how quiet the place was. Either way, all of the rides were a walk-on and all of the mazes were a walk-in. I managed to ride all the usual rides multiple times as ride ops were letting folks take re-rides in open seats. Wonder Woman seemed to be having issues, and the mechanics ended up pulling one train off completely. The one that remained was not tracking well at all. Iron Rattler, Superman, and Poltergeist (the park’s best rides) were all running as well as ever.

I also took my first rides on the new dive coaster — several, in fact, since there was nobody waiting in the station when the trains returned. As such, I got try all three rows in a range of seats without having to go through the queue show rooms each time. However, it didn't quite do it for me.

I like B&M dive coasters, and I really enjoyed Valravn when it first opened even though enthusiasts didn’t seem all that enamored. This one looks good, is well placed, and does all the things it needs to do to draw crowds in. In other words, it’s fine. For me, though, I thought the first drop was the only real stand-out moment. B&M should make all subsequent dive coaster drops extra steep as the additional degrees DO make a difference. You get a proper (albeit brief) free fall feeling akin to Knotts’ Hang Time no matter where you sit. The inversions that follow are standard-fare B&M conventions, but what followed the mid-course break run felt somewhat meandering, and that bunny hill didn’t do much for me in any of the rows.

But what really surprised me was how bumpy some of my rides were. I suspect it’s the fault of the trains, as the middle seat in all three rows was much better overall. But a ride this new — especially a B&M — shouldn't feel the way this ride feels. There were three or four areas in the track where the train was not just rattling but jolting around. In fact, after five or so rides, I started to get a headache. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not unpleasantly violent or overly aggressive, but it did feel unusually jerky for a B&M.

In terms of the Halloween stuff, I’ve always had a soft-spot for the way Six Flags and their shoestring budgets handle such events. Given that it was a weekday, the event wasn’t well staffed, which I expected, so there weren’t that many scare actors around. But those who were dressed up were pretty into their roles.

In terms of the mazes, I still like Slaughterhouse the best. It’s probably the most maze-like with some of the goriest effects and tricks throughout. House of Houngan is still the most detailed and most impressive looking. Rockkill High looked the same as previous years, as did Buried Alive. However, quite a few of the main effects in Buried Alive from recent years were no longer working (the elevator effect as well as a number of animatronic props). CarnEvil just isn’t up to par, and the new Trapped was by far the least impressive of the event for me. For the most part, it was just an asylum setting with minimal props, decor, and lots of rags, sheets, blood, and smeared poop. The standard walkway scare zones weren’t particularly effective, but the park had a couple of zones that were much longer and more immersive. Fear Acres for instance, hosted in the water park, was particularly strong.

Overall, a good night to go. The mazes haven’t changed much, but (aside from Trapped), they all do the best they can with the resources available. A few pics:

Fear Acres is a good example of a scare zone functioning more like a maze. If I recall correctly, much of this used to be in the queue line for the rapids ride.

The usual entryway props.

This one was over by the water chute ride entrance.

A general view of how quiet the place was.

Same spot but different path.

More large-scale props in the main entry plaza by Boomerang.

This was the main entry way around 9pm. The place was empty.

[bert425]

^ just my 2cents:

Cliffhanger gets VERY rattly if the train is not completely full.   I don't understand that one myself, other than that since it's a new 7 seat design, it throws off the balance?   
I've ridden over a dozen times now, and I've had rattly rides, but only when the train is less than 1/2 full (and you said it was a slow night).     My favorite seat is back row, station load side - you almost touch the ground in that last helix, and it makes it more thrilling (plus a TON of airtime in the back row on the drops).

 

as to the houses?   I'd never done any of the Six Flags Houses before - other than the permanent Voodoo one during the Mardi Gras event.    
As such, I didn't notice several of them are the same as prior years.     so to ME?   Buried Alive and RockKill were impressive (as I didnt' know they were the same or some things didn't work).   

I also praised CarnEvil, and even said that for what it is, the 3D effects are quite good.

exact same impression of the new house tho. . just lots of torn sheets and smeared blood/poop. . . tho we were there on a Sat. night that was packed, so the house was crammed full of scare actors.  So that one was way less about the props, and more about the physical actors in our case, tho I too thought it was "meh" in terms of house design.   They DID hide that arcade area well tho!

[Arthur_Seaton]

^ Yes, the Cliffhanger trains were half-filled at best. In fact, the other one cycling — for quite a few laps — just had one rider also riding again and again and again. I'm guessing it's the train design as the roughest sections were basically the same moves (any turns that also doubled as dips). It can't be tracking issues for such a new ride, but it felt like tracking issues, as though the wheels were hitting potholes. It wasn't just rattly in a B&M sense but actually quite bumpy. For what it's worth, I preferred the front. I felt that the airtime on the first drop was more or less the same throughout, but the front gave a better sense of speed.

Most of the mazes were just reboots, and I doubt they even dismantle them during the year. That might be why the new one felt so cheap and basic? Because they do need to dismantle that one? In terms of the missing effects in Buried Alive, it may have been a staffing issue. The elevator effect was there, but it wasn't functioning and it was basically just a section to walk through. Last year, or the year before, the doors closed and the room started shaking to make it seem like you're going down a mine shaft. Still, I dig mazes like what SFFT (and other SF parks) offer, perhaps even more than the big-budget places. There's a camp charm to store-bought rubbery props that I kind of like. 

 

[Hellocoasters]

I believe our final plan will be going to Fiesta Texas and Sea World February 18-20th. I was listening to Drunk Riders podcast and heard there was a plan to shut down Wonder Woman sometime next year for a significant reburb. I’m hoping this won’t be shut down when we go

[bert425]

yet another reason why SFFT and the team there are among the crown jewels in the SF chain.

Very nice tribute, Mr. Siebert, and R.I.P. Mr. Zamperla

 

[bert425]

while the "special announcement" being teased for 12/10 is supposedly going to be the 2023 addition (just a feeling, but I feel *certain* it's going to be racing waterslides for the Whitewater Bay waterpark section) has everyone excited on some coaster/themepark groups. .  .

Park President Jeffrey Siebert slipped this in as a comment in a thread about Gully Washer, and why its down (one of the 4 pumps went down and it's being repaired and not expected to be back open until Spring 2023).

Someone asked when the Bumper Cars will be reopening.

his response?

 

 

(and yes, he gave permission to share this info)

I *really* hope a nice family flat will end up there. . it's a nice size plot of land.   good for something indoors (I'm hoping for that outwards facing Trabant - like Cyborg). . . but even if just a new restaurant?  I love that this park is so transparent.

[tndank]

Looks like the announcement is going to be a Skyline Attraction P-Sghetti Bowl coaster with lighted track.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thrillseekersunited1/permalink/1305989236845416/

https://skylineattractions.com/products/childrens-rides/psghetti-bowl-childrens-coaster/

 

[bert425]

^ if it is the P-Sghetti Bowl, then it's the E&F version (the "Racing" version).

 

I worry that it's too close to the Streamliner - a pretty decent kiddie coaster, with a fantastic location.
(and that might get removed if they put the new ride in where the Bumper Cars were)

 

guess we'll find out on the 10th (I'll be at the park for Feliz Fiesta, so will be there for the announcement, whatever it may be)

[Texasbest2015]

Or could be in tbe boardwalk area behind the disko ride all that land! 

[jarmor]

I noticed the wording "slide into".  Could the coaster track be a red herring?

[bert425]

oh, there's DEFINITELY something coming to the waterpark too (I assume the case for every SF waterpark that will now have a separate admission).

 

Jeffrey has been posting pics today from the waterslides on twitter all day.