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Six Flags St. Louis (June 13th and 14th) PTR

Let us know how your day at the park was.
Postby RollingCoasting on June 15th, 2017, 11:49 pm
After 5 years of wanting to visit, I finally hit up SFSTL this week. Compared to SFGAm, it is quite a bit smaller and has more of an old-timey feel to it. Another thing is that the place was pretty much dead both days, with every coaster either being a station wait or a walk-on, something that would be very rare here in Chicago, but supposedly normal for St. Louis.

Upon entering the park we picked up some maps and headed to American Thunder. It was only running 1 train (blue), but we were still able to board in less than 10 minutes. As it was my first GCI, we opted for back row. I have to say, I was impressed. It had the same strong floater airtime of Viper, but was more intense. I still don't know which I prefer, since Viper is much longer despite being less forceful, though they both sit right outside of my top 5.

With the temperature nearing 90°, we took advantage of the non-existent line for the Log Flume and rode twice. It was fun, but barely got me wet. The sloped speed drop towards the middle of the ride was a pretty cool element, probably my favorite part of the ride.

I was interested in seeing how the original Justice League: Battle for Metropolis compares to SFGAm's 2.0 version so it was my next stop. At just over 10 minutes, it had the "longest" wait of the day. Just from the queue itself, it wasn't hard to tell this was a prototype version of the ride. A lot less theming in the indoor queue and the screens/Cyborg were a bit glitchy and would randomly shut off every now and then. The actual ride itself was also a bit of a downgrade, with many effects off, seemingly emptier rooms, and more glitches. The worst difference, in my opinion, was that the subway chase scene was split into two different rooms, which really killed the effect. I know that all sounds really negative, but nevertheless, it was a fun ride, as usual. Sally Corp. really improved the ride in the 2.0 version, and I bet the 3.0 at MM, OG, and GADv is even better.

Across the midway was the ride I was most looking forward to on this trip - Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast. We walked all the way up to the station and waited 1 cycle for the "front" (seat with the best view). I was confused on where to fasten the seatbelt at first, but quickly realized it was to the side. :oops: Anyways, it was a kicka$$ ride from start to finish. The top-hat inversion is easily one of my favorites. The overbanked turn is as forceful as it looks, and of course the back spike is amazing. I do prefer backwards, but going forwards on the return trip was fun as well.

Still hot, we decided to ride Thunder River next. I got soaked from some water cannons not too long after departing the station, but managed to avoid any extreme soaking for the remainder of the ride. I have to give a slight preference to Roaring Rapids for having a better setting and providing more opportunities to get wet. I'm glad we did this one when we did, because not too long after it was drained and stayed closed for the rest of the day.

Back to credit-hunting, we hit up Pandemonium. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, actually liking it better than Ragin' Cajun. (Only other spinner I've ridden) I was lucky enough to have been facing backwards on both the main drop, and the MCBR drop, both of which provided a nice pop of air.

It got a bit cloudy so we quickly got in line for The Boss, anticipating a storm. On our way to The Boss, we noticed that Highland Fling (Schwarzkopf Enterprise) was unfortunately down (And would be down both days). I was really looking forward to riding it since we lost The Orbit last August, but oh well. Once in the station we noticed that nobody was waiting for the fourth last row so that's where we went. It started to drizzle a bit when we were on the lift hill, so that was pretty cool I guess. It wasn't B&M smooth, but it wasn't nearly as bad as some people had made it out to be, I actually enjoyed it despite it not having much airtime at all. My 2nd ride on it later in the day, was quite different, however...

It ended up not raining like it was supposed to thankfully, so everything continued to operate. We had lunch at 1904 Classic (Foot long hot dogs) and got back to riding.

I was honestly expecting Screamin' Eagle to be the park's "hidden gem", but it didn't do much for me. I refuse to call any coaster without head/ear banging rough, but it wasn't smooth by any means. The airtime wasn't anything special, even for the back seat. I did like how it went through the trees, but overall it was just okay, nothing to write home about...

Earlier we were told River King Mine Train (and Ninja) were closed due to a family of deer being too close to the track but they must've left because it just opened back up when we walked past, allowing us to score a literal walk-on for the back-row. Based on POVS and being a family coaster, I wasn't expecting too much, and I was right. I did enjoy the final drop into the tunnel, though.

Normally I'd expect a new attraction to have a long wait, but apparently not at SFSTL :lol:. We were able to walk right on to Spinsanity. Pretty slow loading process here. It kind of felt like a spinning disk on a Zamperla Disk'O track. Tame, but fun. I wouldn't wait more than 20 minutes for it, though.

Ninja had opened back up but we decided to save it for later and ride The Joker Inc. Only a minute wait and we were able to get 2nd last row. Didn't seem as intense as River Rocker for some reason, but I like how SFSTL's flat rides had pretty good theming.

It was funny finally seeing Batman's infamously long queue line in person. One group of kids thought it was a good idea to jump over the railings to save some time walking resulting in one boy falling head-first on the ground and making a blood stain. His two friends/siblings had to carry him out of the queue. Anyways, the station was empty like every other coaster, except Batman was running 2 trains, meaning it was marathon time. We did front and back twice each and did front again, totaling 5 rides, all without leaving the station to board again. It did seem a bit jerkier than SFGAm's but it was still a great ride. We actually got stopped at the top of the lift hill for half a minute on our last ride, so I guess I can cross off getting stuck on a roller coaster off my bucket list. :D

We cooled off a bit and went back to American Thunder, going for row 3 this time. I did like back row better but it's still a great ride regardless of seat.

I'm a sucker for an antique cars ride and the Moon Antique Cars delivered. It was short but brought back some old memories of GAm Raceway.

Did Pandemonium again, generally the same as before, though I did find some change from the previous rider in my seat, most of which fell out during the spinning.

Round 2 on The Boss was not as good as the first. Wanting a different experience, we chose to ride in row 2. This is DEFINITELY a back seat coaster, but not for airtime - for smoothness. As early as after the first drop, I noticed weird vibrations and shuffling of the train that made for an unpleasant ride. It dropped a bit in my rankings due to this ride on it.

We rode the Tommy G. Robertson Railway next. Some cool views of the edges of the park.

Tsunami Soaker was an interesting flat. Kind of like a cross-over between a splash battle and a very slow tea-cup ride. Nice way to cool off

I had been looking forward to trying a Skyscreamer for quite some time so we did that next. Not that thrilling, but very fun and some spectacular views.

It'd been 8-10 years since my last ride on a shoot-the-chutes so I wanted to ride Tidal Wave while we were there. Easily the park's best water ride (In my opinion) aside from it's length, and I got drenched. I'm no expert on Six Flags St. Louis but I've heard rumors that this ride may be on it's way out soon. My guess is that if that's the case, it'll be replaced with an S&S Freefly or Zamperla Giant Discovery. (Those rides don't exactly have the same footprint but I think they could make either work with the space given) That'd really round out that corner of the park.

Next was Superman: Tower of Power. I was impressed with how fast the cars moved up to the top of the tower. Good 'ol 2nd Gen. drop ride, but I prefer Giant Drop for having better theming and better views. :P

Hoping to get a different perspective of Screamin' Eagle, I rode again. I did ride towards the back again, which probably wasn't a good idea for trying to get a different ride, but it had the shortest wait. Same experience as before. Moving on...

Fireball was something I was really looking forward to. I only had to wait about 2 minutes before I was on. I was a bit irritated because I had been waiting for the edge seat, but the guests who were on the previous cycle decided to stay in that spot :roll: The rule at other rides was that if someone was waiting for your row, you had to move if you wanted to re-ride but I guess the ride ops didn't care here. What can you do I guess.
That aside, I rode in the second from the edge row and thoroughly enjoyed my ride. Very comfortable restraints, decent length cycle, and you get some wicked hangtime at the top of the loop. This was my favorite non-coaster ride.

I was craving another ride on Mr. Freeze so we went back there. This time we tried "back" row (Seat that would reach the top of the vertical spike). Just as good as before, if not better.

I enjoy a good scrambler so we rode Shazam!, another excellent themed flat ride.

We'd been wanting to try Colossus all day so we took it for a whirl. A large ferris wheel is one of few classic flat rides missing from SFGAm's line-up, so it was nice to be able to ride one here.

I'd heard Xcalibur made many people feel queasy, but I felt just fine when I rode it. Actually, I'd say it was my 3rd favorite flat at the park after Fireball and Superman. It didn't seem to be very popular however, as it had an empty queue basically all day and when it did run it would be with less than 5 people on a cycle. Hmm.

I'd been dreading this moment all day, but I decided to grow a pair and take a beating on the black belt of roller coasters - Ninja. Pretty much everything was on the empty side but literally NOBODY was riding Ninja. It'd been open for a few hours at this point and everytime I'd see it run there'd usually 1 or 2 people riding, if that. The operators were snickering and making jokes about how nobody was riding in one of the trains. Anyways, we got into the station and went for back row. I asked the ride attendant if back row was the smoothest (I heard it was) and she told me she usually goes front row on Ninja but back is her favorite seat on most coasters so it probably was? Not much help but atleast the employees were friendly. Just as they were about to open the airgates for us and send us to karate practice, they announced they were having trouble with the restraints and the ride would be down for a bit. It was about 7:45 at this point (15 minutes from park closing) and I guess they decided it wasn't worth it because a minute later they announced that Ninja would not reopen. I'll feel kind of cheated out if it's removed before I can return to SFSTL but it was probably for the better, anyway.

What better way to finish off the night with some more rides on Batman? With 10 minutes to spare by the time we reached the station, we managed 3 more rides on it, bringing our total up to 8 rides on B:TR for the day. Weird that the park was closing at 8 PM, but it didn't even matter because of the amount of stuff we did.

The next day we were mainly going for Hurricane Harbor, and to see if we could ride Ninja and possibly Boomerang, Highland Fling (Both of which never opened on either day), and Grand Ole Carousel so we could claim we rode everything, though we ended up not getting on any of the 4.

STL Hurricane Harbor looks really nice, and a lot less "concrete-jungly" than SFGAm's. It must be pretty popular here because a price for a small locker was $14, a lot steeper than in Chicago, so we opted to not get one. We did make the mistake of spending $8 for a non-refundable tube that we ended up only being able to use for a minute, due to rain.

When the water park opened at 11, Hurricane Bay (Wavepool, which we wanted to do first) was closed for some reason.
We waited it out for about 10 minutes before deciding to do the speed slides instead. We did Geronimo Falls and Kontiki Falls. (Wahini Falls was closed.) I'm not that huge on water slides as I am on coasters, but I do enjoy them a bit. I prefer Geronimo Falls for being more thrilling, though I did swallow a bit of water at the bottom of the drop. :oops:

We got in line for Tornado when they announced it would shut down for inclement weather. Yep, everything was closed for about an hour, until the storm cleared up. We got in Hurricane Bay, and literally a minute later they asked everyone to get out because it started to rain again. We opted to just leave the water park at that point, but it began clearing out again while we were leaving :roll: Ninja was closed for the weather and we didn't care to wait it out so we went to the gift shop, got some turkey legs, and left.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to Six Flags St. Louis. It was my first time leaving Illinois in over 10 years, and was my first coaster trip. I do prefer Six Flags Great America, but it was still cool trying out another Six Flags. The park has quite a few mediocre coasters and could really use another stand-out, perhaps a relocated large looper (Scream! or Bizzaro maybe?) or a new hyper. (Though I can't see the latter happening with the current management of Six Flags)

Ride Totals:
6/13:
American Thunder x2 (x1 back)
Log Flume x2
Justice League: Battle for Metropolis x1
Mr. Freeze: Reverse Blast x2 (x1 front, x1 back)
Thunder River x1
Pandemonium x2
The Boss x2
Screamin' Eagle x2 (x1 back)
River King Mine Train x1 (x1 back)
Spinsanity x1
The Joker Inc. x1
Batman: The Ride x8 (x3 back, x3 front)
Moon Antique Cars x1 (Driver)
Tommy G. Robertson Railway x1
Tsunami Soaker x1
Skyscreamer x1
Tidal Wave x1 (x1 back)
Superman: Tower of Power x1
Fireball x1
Shazam! x1
Colossus x1
Xcalibur x1
---
6/14
Kontiki Falls x1
Geronimo Falls x1
Hurricane Bay x1

Trip Total: 38 Rides

Pictures:

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Somewhere in Illinois.. on the way to St. Louis

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Near Springfield, Illinois IIRC

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Almost in Missouri...

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... and we're here!

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GCI goodness

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Bad picture, but it's to show how empty the queue rooms were compared to SFGAm's version of the ride

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Cyborg decided to stay still for a few minutes

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Intensity at it's finest

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Mr. Freeze

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Thunder River's queue area provided some cool views of the ride

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This was a good family coaster.

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Spinning coasters in general are pretty enjoyable. Obviously nothing crazy good, but just plain fun.

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The Boss needs to resign... Joking, but it could benefit from some track work and new trains

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*sigh* Spite

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:/

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Empty queue lines are a beautiful sight

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Spin-sane-ity

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A lot of intense coasters at this park

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Apparently these are the old Hannibarrels cars, recycled into seating for the train station. Pretty neat homage

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Average Eagle

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#LastSplash2017? :P

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I don't understand the hate for these, it was a ton of fun

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What are these "lines" you speak of? ;)

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Pretty underrated coaster

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I enjoyed Colossus

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Best ride here

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Proof that I was actually going to ride Ninja, this picture was taken from the queue line/station.

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Batman from Hurricane Harbor

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Goodbye St. Louis!

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Ah, gas station merch. :D

Thanks for reading!
RollingCoasting

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Postby Coaster Justin on June 16th, 2017, 12:07 am
What food did you have?
926 Coasters around the World! Countdown to 1000!

http://sfgamworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15272

Runner Up of the 2017 SFGAmWorld Elimination Thread
Coaster Justin

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Postby RollingCoasting on June 16th, 2017, 12:11 am
Footlong hot dogs from 1904 Classic and Turkey Legs from Friar Tuck's
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Postby CoasterRiderSC on June 19th, 2017, 10:14 am
Sounds like a great time there! Great that you got to go 2 days and pretty much hit everything (except for Ninja). We might go there next year! I really want to ride Mr. Freeze.
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50 rides 8/17/2018 (Without Flash Pass - Coasters After Dark)

---- "Here we go, kids!! Here we go!!"
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