Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[Danrarbc]

Multiple parks are running their teaser campaigns for 2025 right now.

I wouldn't expect anything here big enough to tease, I guess is my point.

[KBrylczyk]

Watch them come out of nowhere and announce a T-Rex or some other huge surprise.

It'll probably be a few benches or something, though.

[prozach626]

Don't forget some new planters that turn to shit within a season.

[Danrarbc]

One by one the legacy Six Flags parks appear to be announcing today the Cedar Fair chaperone policy is being implemented.

They haven't gotten to STL yet but it's likely a matter of time.

[Danrarbc]

Also the food surcharge is being eliminated.

[Danrarbc]

2025 will officially be the first season with a season pass that covers every legacy Cedar Fair and legacy Six Flags parks. 

https://www.cedarpoint.com/blog/2024/the-all-park-passport-will-soon-take-you-further

[JimH2K]

In a shocking turn of events... The Joker will not be ready for for the advertised event this weekend!  I think we all knew it was going to come to this.  At least we have the carous... never mind.

"We are gearing up for our final weekend of Coasters, Brews, and BBQ!  On August 2 and 3, join us for an extra hour of ride time on The Boss, Pandemonium, and Rookie Racer. Unfortunately, THE JOKER: Carnival of Chaos is not quite ready for guests, but we are glad to have SUPERGIRL Sky Flyer taking its place!"

[Danrarbc]

3 hours ago, JimH2K said:

In a shocking turn of events... The Joker will not be ready for for the advertised event this weekend!  I think we all knew it was going to come to this.  At least we have the carous... never mind.

"We are gearing up for our final weekend of Coasters, Brews, and BBQ!  On August 2 and 3, join us for an extra hour of ride time on The Boss, Pandemonium, and Rookie Racer. Unfortunately, THE JOKER: Carnival of Chaos is not quite ready for guests, but we are glad to have SUPERGIRL Sky Flyer taking its place!"

Supposedly electricians went on vacation which has delayed powering up the ride and moving in to testing. Everything else looks like they could get the ride ready in just a few days.  
 

Exception is the funhouse. That still looks a ways off. But as I previously mentioned here there’s a path to bypass it in that site plan so they can open the ride without it. 

[teacherkim]

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 

[Danrarbc]

On 8/2/2024 at 4:30 PM, teacherkim said:

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 

I dunno they might still get the funhouse in action this year. They're getting the framing up inside and most of the other stuff they've installed has been prefab - the elements inside might be prefab too so they'd just need to go in when the walls are finished.

 

Found on Facebook:

[Danrarbc]

Found on Facebook. 
 

Joker is testing. 

[prozach626]

On 8/2/2024 at 8:53 AM, JimH2K said:

In a shocking turn of events... The Joker will not be ready for for the advertised event this weekend! 

There was something else that was supposed to be open by now.

[Danrarbc]

https://www.facebook.com/100026290312510/videos/1684465928977799/

 

 

[prozach626]

I'm showing the content was removed. What was it?

[Danrarbc]

1 hour ago, prozach626 said:

I'm showing the content was removed. What was it?

It's still there. It's video of Joker testing shot from the train. Full height swings.

[michaellynn4]

It's a restricted video. Hosted on a page that limits access.

Appreciate you clarifying the content in your second post, but this is why it's always recommended to post a description / summary of a link's content up front within the forum in case the link is restricted, behind a paywall, or deleted.

EDIT: I see it's no longer restricted, thanks.

[prozach626]

That thing is a beast.

[TrippinBillie]

News channels were on the Joker today - park officially said it'll open tomorrow (Friday 9/13).  Wild how long that took for a flat ride.

[prozach626]

It's even more wild when you look across the pathway.

[Danrarbc]

It's pretty wild riding it too.

Positive Gs at the bottom of every swing. Great sense of the speed as it swings too. And the airtime when it's really moving is great. It's big boy Spinsanity. There's even a fog effect they activate for the final few big swings (that I'm sure will not be maintained for more than a couple years).

[prozach626]

Good to hear. Hopefully the fog stays around next year. Cedar Fair is better at maintaining that stuff, so there's hope.

[teacherkim]

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.

[Stlouisguy]

On 9/21/2024 at 1:03 PM, teacherkim said:

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.

Did the park announce anything about future enchancements, additions, events, etc? I couldnt make it this year but last year I felt they talked about a fair share of future projects and such.

[prozach626]

New bathroom stall doors.

[teacherkim]

16 hours ago, Stlouisguy said:

Did the park announce anything about future enchancements, additions, events, etc? I couldnt make it this year but last year I felt they talked about a fair share of future projects and such.

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.