Umm... Six Flags St. Louis?
One of the worst park experiences of my life happened here back in 2005, as well as one of the, if not THE biggest coaster disappointment I've had to date...there was a long while where I just wanted nothing to do with this park at all. 8 years later, it was almost an entirely new park for me. Since my last visit the park has added three new coasters, a drop tower, and a Star Flyer as well as turned Mr.Freeze around backwards, I ended up missing this ride back in 05 due to thunder storms, bad planning, and traffic in the St. Louis metro. They've also reopened their Falling Star and expanded their water park. I was slightly nervous pulling up to the park based on my previous visit.... but did my best to be optimistic while watching the rain clouds rolling in, Déjà Vu? At least this time it wasn't gonna be 100*s out
Well.....here goes nothing.
Yup.... Six Flags Road...Eureka, Missouri
Home to Six Flags St. Louis... uh, the third and final park built by Six Flags.
And one of my most hated parks
Apparently the park was now Missouri's Coaster Capital
Too bad only two (maybe 3?) of their coasters are worth riding.
Thanks to my Gold Pass, I was able to enter the park 15 minutes before non-passholders and ran to be first in line for Mr. Freeze : Reverse Blast, the only adult coaster I was unable to ride my first trip here....and the only one I really wanted to ride today.
Ah, first to make it to the queue entrance! But wait...
ZzZzz
At least it could be heard testing... so they were actively trying to get the ride open.
After hanging around around maybe 30 minutes the ride opened... and I raced to get my front (back?) seat ride.
Ah, that moment when you're the only one in the station for a ride and its open!
Quickly taking my front seat ride... I was locked and loaded.. and slid over to the launch tunnel.
This ride is super fun, absolutely loved it!
Being launched out of the station backwards.... climbing the 200+ foot spike.. facing downward the whole time, and the fantastic free fall on the return run! Over the day I rode it some six times and would have ridden it more had it not closed during the heavier rain...
After a couple rides on Freeze, I made my way up the hill to Pandemonium, ugh
Taking advantage of my single-riderness I jumped in the first seat I saw, got my one ride in, CREDIT! +1 and walked away not caring to ever ride it again. Why couldn't Six Flags have invested in some good spinning coasters?
I'm not really sure what happened next... But I ended up bringing myself to get in line "line" for Boss.
Boss..... its so terrible no one wants to ride it.
Back in 2005 this was one of the biggest, if not the biggest roller coaster disappointments of my life. The ride is just so massive and one of the few rides I'd go as far to call beautiful.. sadly its 100% CRAP. Its mega slow and ultra rough and it runs G-Trains to boot! I absolutely hated this ride the one and only time I rode it before.... Part of me wanted to make sure it was as bad as I remembered, I guess that's why I got in the nonexistent line. Anyways, it was still terrible but I was able to see the ride has potential to me amazing. If it only got some (good) retracking and maybe new rolling-stock... But for now, I'll be just fine never going back on it.
While exciting Boss, I saw the parks enterprise running.
"Highland Fling", it was closed my last time here.. So I took the opportunity to ride it this time.
I also rode Xcalibur, although this was the only non-coaster I got to ride in 2005. Its not run the way it should be, but its still fun for what it is.... although the loading process takes forever... and I was the *only* rider on it!
I made my way over to Superman: Tower Of Power, the parks Intamin Giant Drop.. but things weren't looking to good.
The employee at the ride entrance kept telling everyone to check back later in the day and that it would be opening at some point....
It never did.
But the parks new (used) Boomerang had opened for the day, 2 hours after park opening!
Good for them not being able to open a 24 year old ride on time
Even worse, the ride seems extremely popular
(guess that's a good thing for the park)
Not only did it turn out being the longest line all day for me, it might have even been the second longest line I've ever waited in... for a Boomerang. :/
While working my way up to the top of the park... I found they've moved the entrance for Screamin' Eagle. Now you're forced to walk past a bunch of crappy midway games I wasn't gonna play anyways.. and it made it slightly awkward to find the coasters entrance... ZzZzz
While the line was only a two train wait for the back car, it started pouring... not being known to me, until the train exited the station. I'm not sure how I feel about this ride... Its not bad... but I don't find it that great either. I guess its kinda like Scream Machine at SFOG, where it looks like an airtime machine... but it just turns out... not to be.
While still at the parks top (hill top) I made my way over to SkyScreamer.
This was the first Funtime Star Flyer to be built in a Six Flags park
(their up to 8 now)
I guess its OK, it runs an extremely short cycle. This was my fifth true Star Flyer (up to 6 now) and for sure had the quickest cycle.
Heading back down the hill I walked over to the parks giant Ferris wheel, Colossus.
And much like my 2005 trip, it was closed.
(all day, no signs of work being done)
But oddly enough while exiting other rides in the park the employees will "suggest" that you "go check out _____" and more than once Colossus came up.
Uh, the Six Flags Railroad was one of those rides telling you to ride the closed Colossus. I rode the train a full lap for photo ops...but due to poor weather and lighting.... it didn't turn out to well for me. Oh well.
Heading back down the hill to make my way over to the final new-for-me coaster in the park I stopped over at the parks duel log flume... I think just called... Log Flume?
I only planned to ride one side but due to lack of any sort of line for the ride ended up riding both sides. Both were rather fun but I think the "left" station was the better of the two and I'm kinda surprised the park still has them.
(seeing how SF has been removing flumes chain wide)
I also grabbed myself a quick lunch...
$14 later.....
I walked over to American Thunder
I wasn't sure what to think walking up to the ride. When it first opened, people who made their way out to the park for it seemed to love it but then nothing was ever heard of it ever again.
It was rather good! But Six Flags' lack of maintenance for it is slowly showing. The trains pretty much shuffle the whole ride... but its not rough, yet.
I was making my way back up the hill to see if River King had any sort of line... but at this point the sky opened worse than before and most rides closed. I ended up leaving the park myself and just kind... chilled in my car, seeing if the weather would let up or not. After maybe an hour the rain was slowly letting up (although not stopping) I made my way back into the park... I was about ready to just leave... but I hadn't ridden Batman yet and I kinda wanted to before leaving.
Not really sure what I was thinking here.. but....
I made my way over to Ninja, with a lovely sign stating it would only have one train running (ahahahahah, if this was SFNE, every coaster would need this!)
One train ops, or not, there was no line.. even for row one.
After quickly regretting getting in line for it at all, I was off... and making my way over to Batman.
Pretty surprised to find it a walk-on as well. But I guess at this point there were only like 1000 people in the park.... I also rode the parks swinging ship, located next to Batman before heading back uphill.
Uh.... River King Mine Train
Back in 2005 I rode this ride, I only knew I had ridden it because I had taken an on-ride photo. If not for that photo I wouldn't have even known I had ridden it at all! (shows how...good.. the ride is)
So I hopped on, just to see if it would jog my memory... nope! Magic Springs definitely got the better of the two sides (if you can call theirs... better)
After a few more rides on Freeze, and an attempted second ride on a now closed SkyScreamer, I headed over to Thunder River.
I mean at this point... I was already completely soaked and it was raining.... so there wasn't much more damage to be had... The ride turned out to be pretty good, although on the shorter side for a raft ride. After exiting, I rode the parks Scooby-Doo dark ride shooter and a final two more rides on Mr. Freeze before heading out to my new luxurious hotel and a num-nums stop at a Denny's on the way.
uugghhhhh...... at least it didn't say YOLO.
So um, that's it. Six Flags St. Louis was better this time around than my last time... although still pretty craptastic. Maybe the third time will be the charm... Once they get their long awaited hyper (aaahhhhahahaha) and maybe if the sun could stay out when I'm here for once.. that would be nice too (maybe I could even try the water park..) I don't know.. Freeze is great, so is America Thunder. Batman and Eagle are good and so are SkyScreamer and Xcalibur (although both not run as they could be) I guess I *would* visit the park again... I just don't see myself going out of my way for it. And if I do come back... that damn Ferris Wheel better be open!
Uh, yeah.
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/363349872356769792
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/363374771498528769
Bonus random tweets -
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/363304629196427265
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/363333277236465664
https://twitter.com/CanobieFan/status/363342395800170496
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