Six Flags St. Louis (SFStL) Discussion Thread

[castaway_kid]

In case anyone is coming out to the park this weekend for fireworks, they start at 9:05 both Saturday and Sunday. Best place to view is the parking lot.

[Kevin Long]

in regards to the TURKEY LEG INCIDENT -

I Worked in the park in the early 80's for 4 years - never once saw anything like this - And this is the reason I will not attend a park that is within 20 mi of my house. Too old and crotchety to put up with what amounts to a huge babysitting/child drop off center.  SfSL is barely a "family" park anymore. Get a better experience finding a parking lot Fair and riding the "wacky worm"

Disregard me - I am falling out of this demographic - sorry.

BP

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Kevin Long
forgot quote

[mikeykaise]

We were there on the 4th and it started off well in the morning but afternoon was packed. The water park was so crowded that we ended up setting our stuff down on some grass and rocks. The lines for the waterslides weren't bad but the lines waiting for tubes was very long. American Thunder was the best woody in the park. The Boss was fast but I had a hard time enjoying it because it was hurting my back a little bit. I wanted to ride American Scream which was open when we first got there but was closed in the afternoon after we gave up on the waterpark. The mine train was fun, loved the double down tunnel. I skipped Ninja, Pandemonium, and Batman. It was our first time visiting and loved that it was a small park so maybe we'll visit during the week sometime when it's not as crowded. I did like the all day dining plan for 35/person. All you can drink, 2 meals, and one snack was a pretty great deal. We ended up bailing early because we were all hot, tired, and didn't want to stand in lines anymore. I did see the infamous Turkey Leg and told my fiance about it and she was like why? They're just turkey legs... lol

[prozach626]

 

On 7/5/2021 at 5:46 AM, Kevin Long said:

I Worked in the park in the early 80's for 4 years - never once saw anything like this

Welcome to the new normal. Summer work nights have consisted of babysitting hundreds of people blocking the streets in our downtown bar district. Our goal is to prevent shootings. 8 guns seized.

This past weekend we dodged fireworks shot/thrown at us, while listening to the gunshots a block away trying to add more intimidation. We were called everything in the book, while trying to work a traffic crash with injuries, which required cops from three surrounding agencies to keep the crowd from mobbing in after they tried to catch one of the cars on fire.

There are some neighborhoods where it's unsafe for us to go in with less than 5-6 people, bare minimum. Keep in mind, the city in which I work has a population of only about 30k people. This is the worst I've ever seen in the general public, period. It's no wonder it translates into private businesses. The new Illinois anti-police legislation that went into effect July 1st doesn't help.

There's your Tuesday pick-me-up.

[mikeykaise]

^ What you and other police officer are going through is a bunch of b.s..... all I'll say is a few poor choices by a certain few does not represent the majority.

[teacherkim]

22 hours ago, mikeykaise said:

We were there on the 4th and it started off well in the morning but afternoon was packed. The water park was so crowded that we ended up setting our stuff down on some grass and rocks. The lines for the waterslides weren't bad but the lines waiting for tubes was very long. American Thunder was the best woody in the park. The Boss was fast but I had a hard time enjoying it because it was hurting my back a little bit. I wanted to ride American Scream which was open when we first got there but was closed in the afternoon after we gave up on the waterpark. The mine train was fun, loved the double down tunnel. I skipped Ninja, Pandemonium, and Batman. It was our first time visiting and loved that it was a small park so maybe we'll visit during the week sometime when it's not as crowded. I did like the all day dining plan for 35/person. All you can drink, 2 meals, and one snack was a pretty great deal. We ended up bailing early because we were all hot, tired, and didn't want to stand in lines anymore. I did see the infamous Turkey Leg and told my fiance about it and she was like why? They're just turkey legs... lol

My son said that Fri - Mon was the busiest the park has been since "before times". If you can manage a non-holiday week Tues or Wed you should find much more manageable crowds. Mon and Fri still tend to be kind of busy due to people from all the surrounding small towns taking a long weekend to come in. I assume you meant Screaming Eagle (not American Scream), if you did head for that first thing. If you go straight to the back of the park first it will have almost no line. Everyone tends to go right to Thunder or Batman first.

[prozach626]

A good strategy is also to go straight to Mr. Freeze, then proceed to the back.

[MrFurious]

Trying to make a last minute reservation for tomorrow... the app only pulls up a blank screen. Restarted the phone and everything. 

Are they letting people in without reservations? I'm kind of shocked they are still listed as necessary at this point... in Missouri... at six flags...

[MrFurious]

You know... one benefit that not having a kiddie land at hurricane harbor has... is it really drives down the numbers of people over there. Kind of nice actually. 

 

There. I said it. No tiny tots was... nice. 

[teacherkim]

On 7/7/2021 at 6:24 PM, MrFurious said:

Trying to make a last minute reservation for tomorrow... the app only pulls up a blank screen. Restarted the phone and everything. 

Are they letting people in without reservations? I'm kind of shocked they are still listed as necessary at this point... in Missouri... at six flags...

Reservations no longer needed, although I am assuming since this was several days ago you figured that out 

[Danrarbc]

Yes he did. And discovered a bit more.

[Danrarbc]

The park is indicating Fright Fest is returning.

 

[teacherkim]

I sure hope they can get enough staff to properly man the haunts. 

[AmyUD06]

1 hour ago, teacherkim said:

I sure hope they can get enough staff to properly man the haunts. 

You mean one actor per haunt?  This is Six Flags after all.

[Danrarbc]

7 minutes ago, Mike240SX said:

You mean one actor per haunt?  This is Six Flags after all.

Keep in mind IIRC they didn't operate both the Hayride and Blackout in 2019. Staffing wasn't great even then.

Hopefully the increased starting pay is working. Six Flags hasn't moved to a 5 day operating week at this point like Cedar Fair so I guess that's a good sign.

[bossstl]

 

I really don't understand why kids and even adults as seconds jobs don't want to work at the park anymore. It's a fun job if you want it to be and you build relationships and skills that last a lifetime. 

Even working something like Food Service at the park can and was for me an enjoyable experience.

If you know of a kid or even a young adult looking for a unique and memberable experience have them look at the FF and HIP jobs linked below.

https://recruiting2.ultipro.com/SIX1001SIX/JobBoard/64b20d6f-35b6-467b-8c31-abff71260fd1/?q=&o=postedDateDesc

[teacherkim]

It has gotten a bit better but I know they are still having a high turnover rate. I didn't mean it as a criticism to the park just that I know they have been having a very hard time staffing like they need to. I just posted on this over on the Dollywood board where it was stated that just raising the pay and getting rid of the enhanced unemployment would solve the problem, that it isn't that simple. Teens just don't work traditional summer/part time jobs like they used to.

This is what I posted there:

 

As a just retired teacher and parent of an 18 year old that has worked at SFSTL for the last three seasons I can tell you that teens working traditional teen or summer jobs has been on the decline for a long time, the pandemic just exacerbated it. The parks were already having trouble filling spots before the virus hit. Many suburban teens are being pushed to spend summers doing extra classes and unpaid internships, in my opinion to their detriment, in order to beef up college admission resumes. Unfortunately, they are missing out on real world skills that no amount of extra classes can give you. But it has become a bit of a "looked down upon thing" to work that summer type job a lot of us did as kids. I actually had parents in my neighborhood quite shocked that I was "allowing" my son to work. Crazy. I don't think a lot of them can see that we are raising a lot of people that look good on paper but cannot handle day to day challenges. And for some dumb reason they cannot seem to make the connection of continual school/too many activities with the fact that we had two successful suicides and and multiple attempts at our very well off, large suburban high school.

On the other hand students in very poor areas, with few job opportunities, that could really use the money; have a very difficult time actually getting to the park. Let's face it, parks in large metro areas are not usually near the more inner city neighborhoods. I worked in a very poor district but it is easily a 40-50 min one way drive to the park IF you don't hit traffic. Not feasible for most. SFSTL has a bus that brings employees from one of the metrolink stops in a disadvantaged neighborhood to the park BUT not only is it a hell of a long ride, the employees have to pay for it which cuts down on their paycheck.

I know that is a long winded answer but the changing morays of teen life and the realities of the economic divide all affect staffing at the parks. Would a pay raise help? Sure. Somewhat, they did raise the pay a bit here, but the problem is too complicated to be solved that easily.

[Danrarbc]

For the record the students that work these jobs typically don't qualify for unemployment. Often even the enhanced unemplopyment. And the enhanced program has been canceled for a month in Missouri and it hasn't changed the labor situation.

[LegendLover]

1 hour ago, Danrarbc said:

For the record the students that work these jobs typically don't qualify for unemployment. Often even the enhanced unemplopyment. And the enhanced program has been canceled for a month in Missouri and it hasn't changed the labor situation.

YES! I love my parents to death, but they are still in the group of people saying "people are still just sitting at home, making more doing that than actually working." I really just want to bring up that the enhanced unemployment benefits ended a month ago and places are still short-staffed and that if they are still sitting at home making more, then it should be a bigger problem that their job was paying them so little. 

 

What the previous user said as well with suburban teens and such, as a college student in Springfield, Missouri, I am seeing fewer and fewer of my classmates working jobs through school. Granted, I go to a private college where most of the families are upper middle class or just rich, but many of them do sports that require training through the summer. This is a bit obscure, but many of these kids train all throughout the summer just to ensure that they get and then maintain sports scholarships that pay more towards their schooling than what they could have earned from a summer job. Through school, I've been working about 35 hours a week, and I am exhausted all the time and it really does detract from some of the quality of my school work. Granted, I am still pulling a 3.8 GPA, but I know that other students struggle a lot more than I do and really do need to spend all the time they have on studying and schoolwork. 

[teacherkim]

13 hours ago, Danrarbc said:

For the record the students that work these jobs typically don't qualify for unemployment. Often even the enhanced unemplopyment. And the enhanced program has been canceled for a month in Missouri and it hasn't changed the labor situation.

That's correct. As long as someone can count you as a dependent, you cannot collect unemployment. That should be obvious but I actually did have to explain that to more than one person that wanted to know if my son collected unemployment while the park was shut down due to Covid.

[coasterbill]

On 7/13/2021 at 11:10 AM, Danrarbc said:

The park is indicating Fright Fest is returning

I'm not sure how it was in St. Louis, but I keep forgetting that Great Adventure didn't do "Fright Fest" last year. The end-product was pretty much exactly the same, crappy haunts and a ton of fog machines.

[Danrarbc]

9 minutes ago, coasterbill said:

I'm not sure how it was in St. Louis, but I keep forgetting that Great Adventure didn't do "Fright Fest" last year. The end-product was pretty much exactly the same, crappy haunts and a ton of fog machines.

Yeah Hallowfest was basically Fright Fest without the haunt mazes. When you compare it to what Cedar Fair did (at least at the parks they opted to keep open beyond Labor Day) it's remarkable how close to normal Six Flags was in 2020.

 

I don't even bother with their mazes usually, they're just not that good compared to the more dedicated ones. So for me it really wasn't any different than a Fright Fest visit.

[coasterbill]

Did they not have mazes at all? Great Adventure had all of the outdoor mazes open, and they all sucked per-usual. Honestly they were maybe a little better than normal since the socially distanced groups made it so each of the 3 scare actors in each maze scared everyone.

[thisdougsforu]

I like the discussion here because it shows actual real world examples of how the job situation is much more complex than this whole "people are lazy, cut their employment and they will get back to work" nonsense. Many industries and societal norms were already changing, for better or worse, and the COVID ordeal hastened the change to something faster than many businesses could/can deal with....and it sure seems to me instead of having a conversation about what the real problem may be with certain said businesses, there is just this odd aim to blame "lazy" people which really doesn't accomplish anything. 

Parks having to combat kids not working because of over-study or too many activities I can see being a real issue. I also do find it to be sad, because so many practical skills are learned at those first jobs. Skills that I'd argue are probably of more value than many of those advanced mathematics or other "impress the college" courses. I'm not sure what the parks are going to do to solve the issue. While Covid may be keeping some of their usual temporary labor at home for this season, I see what Kim says as a trend that isn't going to stop. 

[Danrarbc]

6 minutes ago, coasterbill said:

Did they not have mazes at all? Great Adventure had all of the outdoor mazes open, and they all sucked per-usual. Honestly they were maybe a little better than normal since the socially distanced groups made it so each of the 3 scare actors in each maze scared everyone.

Scare zones != Mazes. The scare zones existed although with barriers.

 

We're getting really close to this labor conversation getting off topic again guys.