How was your trip?

[kerrydale]

Took my 3-year-old daughter yesterday for our first daddy-daughter trip (and my sister came along to help with bathroom and other "female" situations; my wife couldn't go as she's about two weeks away from having our second child!)...thank goodness the severe weather came through early in the morning because most of the park was closed until just after 11 a.m. while crews cleaned up downed limbs and debris scattered by the storm...one of the employees even said that there was part of a tree on the Frisco tracks that had to be cleaned up before the train could run.

Once everything opened up though, it was some of the best fun I've ever had in the park.  The weather was cool and calm, and there was only about a 5-10 minute wait on all the rides.  There were several school groups in the park and I expected this to be a huge downer, but the kids were all great and so were their sponsors.  Rode the wave carousel at the GE with my daughter and I think I was more scared than she was!

Probably won't be back until July, but we'll be thinking about it every day until then!

[marolinesdad]

I am a single father and have 2 daughters one is 3 and the other 5.  We use the Family Restrooms in the park so I do not have to send them in the womens by themselves or take them in the mens room.  Their are several of them in the park.  One is by thunderation and the other is in the Red Gold hall.

[kerrydale]

Thanks for the info!  That's a great location by Red Gold Hall considering the GE is right nearby.

[saloongal]

I can't tell you how thankful we are for the Family Restrooms.  Taking both kids at the same time is a huge help.  And they are always very clean. 

[SteamFreak]

Saturday was an interesting day, got there before the park opened and got to say the pledge and sing the national anthem with the staff. Until about noon it seemed like I was the only person in the park, watched the homestead pickers twice (love those guys) and didn't hardly stand in any lines, except for FITH oddly enough, apperently people have found out about it. We took about a 2 hour break and went to the wheel of fourtune auditions...quite an experence, long story short, I won't be buying any vowels. Went back to the park and ate...and ate...then watched the GAC nights show which was OK...but then again I'm not a fan of country music. The guy who plays Bart and who played scrooge in the Carol has got an amazing voice, he really got to showcase it. Anyway, just another great day in the city!

[saloongal]

We were at the park on Saturday (16th).  The weather was beautiful, the smokers were rolling so the park smelled of Hickory.  It was a great day.  The lines all moved fast everyone was jovial as always. 
The kids got to see the character actors do their skit up on Main Street for the first time and DD thought that was hilarious. 

Only glitch in the day was that the Happy Frogs were feeling ill and broke down several times. 

Oh...and if anyone has not had one, get an eclair from Eva and Delilahs.  They are heavenly. 

[SteamFreak]

We had a great day yesterday. Got to see Rhonda Vincent and Next Best Thing, Rhonda was of course amazing and NBT were pretty good, just some timing issues. Didn't ride a whole lot of rides but did get to experence FITH with the water on...something Copper mentioned to me on my way out...I had forgotten how much fun that was. It was cool riding wildfire because all of the trees were bloomed out, usually one can the the train and it's entire route, not yesterday SDC has returned to the forest it should be, take that Ice storm! Also, just to let you know...no matter how many times you've ridden a ride with your phone in your pocket...TAKE IT OUT FIRST after I got off thunderation..yes TNT the baby of the coaster line up...my iphone came out of my pocket. But by some divine intervention it stayed on the train for not one but two rides. Sierra the RO was able to locate it for me...but talk about 15 minutes of fear...anyway, aside from that, pretty great day!

[tinmann620]

Last Saturday was a great day, and I thought it was even "cool" to see all the long lines on most rides.  I met up with 3 old classmates,  enjoyed some great BBQ, the Balsam Range, and took a friend on her first ride of Powder Keg, she loved it!  She thought the hour & 15 min. was worth the wait.  (By the time we rode, it was 30 min. past closing, only 1 car ran all day)  As for FITH, I can't remember when I got wet on the ride, before Sat.!    Any chance they'll ever get the leaning water tower moving again, Copper?  On a side note, some of you already know, but I had a heart attack the following morning, Sunday, at 7 a.m..  I have been released, with a month off of work, and will GREATLY miss my visits to the city!  Keep me posted on events-

[History Buff]

^Take care of yourself.  We would miss you more than you will miss the rides.

[Coaster]

We had a great time at the park on Saturday. All the rides were running smoothly and almost all employees were friendly. Some appeared like they wished they were somewhere else and i saw one on a cell phone. It disappointed me.

But, it was a beautiful day in the park. I loved sampling the sauces because they had some crazy things there. The lines were also longer than I've seen them in awhile and a ride op told us that there were 16,000 in the park while last year, there were 11,000 around this time. It's great to see that the park is doing well!

[SteamFreak]

Just got back from one of the best SDC days I've had. The Grascals gave the best concert I've ever seen. I rode the Waterboggin for the first time in years..holy crap...talk about an intense ride. I finally got Beth on the Swing...she never stopped screaming. Both Wildfire and The Giant Swing broke down and I think Powder Keg might have also...not totally sure. The train script has been punched up...to bad the actors haven't. The saloon show was fantastic as always mainly because of the actor who plays Fabian...just wonderful. Fire in The Hole has some new effects and the flooded mine has seen even more love. Also, the white trucks have been replaced with these awesome new trams that look like a big version of the old greens. Great trip!

[Coaster]

^I was meaning to go to the Waterboggan early but the line was already LONG at 10:30. The line is just too long to stand in for a short water slide. But it is really fun.

[dkparks]

Well everyone, I just had to post on our recent trip to SDC. We were in Branson for a motorcycle rally and 20 people of our group went to the park on Thursday, May 14. First impression: definitely much more crowded than same date last year, mainly due to large numbers of school groups. (Side note: when our group goes out, we have fun, lots of fun. We don't get vulgar, at least not in public. We are definitely memorable)

We check show times and headed for the saloon show. Basically same skit as last year, with one new saloon girl. She might have been there last year and the day we saw it they only had two. Don't know but there were three girls that day. Well, Fabian started it by interacting with one of the wives in our group. Next thing you know, he notices how large her husband is. We started playing off it and before you know it, him and the "producer" were laughing so hard on stage that they literally forgot what they were suppose to do. To make it better, when they recruited "volunteers", the "producer" selected the husband. When Fabian realized who she picked, he literally leapt over the bar. Funny as heck. Got some nice pictures of our "discussion" with Fabian outside after the show.

Enjoyed Wild Fire, FITH (looked better), Thunderation, pretty much everything.

Made out day when, while waiting at Frisco Station, T-Bone actually remembered us from last year. Told you we were memorable. Other poster was correct, they have one new conductor, definitely needs a lot of work. Anyway, we were having a blast with T-Bone. The new conductor was on our trip and the skit was REALLY, REALLY short. Later found out they had to evacuate the train earlier. I didn't ask. T-Bone asked us back for the 5:00 train (park closed at 6:00). When we got there, we were invited onto car 3, all by ourselves. T-Bone invited us to enjoy ourselves with the Bolins and spare no expense. We had to obey. Alfie (retained from last year) really enjoyed it. He came back to our car (T-Bone set him up) to search for "mom" and told Ralphie that no matter what he chose, it wasn't going to be good for them, no matter what. We didn't disappoint.

Oh, well, you all get the idea. We were truely impressed that they remembered us. We have a traveling mascot that got its picture taken with everyone. They all got business cards with the address on it and so many of them have viewed them and started chatting with us regarding out visit.

It is really nice to see that they enjoyed us as much as we enjoyed them. We also can be fairly certain that they will remember us next year.

This is why we keep returning each year. Where else can you get this type of friendly employees. I think the key part is that they don't hire cheap "kids". Keep up the good work SDC.

Sorry for the long post.

[History Buff]

The fruit tower at GE was absent, this Saturday - seems like it was still there in April - though I can't say I'll miss it.

Genesis was back at Wilson's Farm, but not working - again.  The frog race needs to be revamped in that area, as the frogs seem to get stuck midstream.

We had friends with us.  They hadn't been to SDC, and they hate rides.  The three kids took their cues from the parents, but we were able to have a great time.  The five-year-old was the daredevil of the family, and he rode everything we approached.  It's always fun to experience it through the eyes of a newcomer.

We even went into Marvel and I think we even took a route around the top of the falls that we hadn't taken before - even after all those years of tours.

The park was very clean, including the restrooms.

Concerning parking (Warning:  whiny complaints follow.):
I am convinced the parking has never been worse.  Coming in, we parked in D lot and had to cross traffic to get to shuttle stop 4.  The tram had to stop for every car and bus at every intersection and took forever to get to the front gate.

Coming out at 6pm, it takes about a dozen workers standing at the front gate just to tell people where to stand in line for the trams/busses/whateverrandomvehiclecomesalong.  I know the parking task is a difficult one to figure out, but some signs at the front gate would easily save them some money in wages.

I am glad to see the pickups replaced by tram vehicles - I wish the busses could be uniform in size, shape, and color.  I know in my heart that all of this could be fixed and would make the first and last experiences less stressful for guests.

[rubedugans]

My weekend was great! I was supposed to be in Breckenridge CO, but that fell through so I traded my Rocky Mtns. for Ozark Mtns. The wife and I went in on Fri afternoon and rode nearly every ride in the park (including her first time on TGS). No lines anywhere except for in FITH. That was nearly a 15 min. wait.

A commercial was being filmed in the Pottery Shop of a demonstarting Craftsmen, but that is the only location I am aware of. They had all the lights off in the shop, and had huge reflectors and set lights shining in through the windows to get the "perfect shot". We were told to keep moving and not to stop and gawk, so we looked for a min or two and moved along, no sense in making their job harder.

Sat we went in about 5pm and browsed the park, got a Brownie from Eva & Delilahs then had some fried pickles and went to the GAC nights show. It was a bit slow in spots due to a lack of audience participation, but overall was a very well rehearsed show. My favorites were the parodies of popular songs (I am not an avid country fan usually so this was a stretch, but I enjoyed it). There was a touching speech regarding the D-Day Anniversary and out of the whole crowd 1 WW2 vet was present to stand and be recognized for their service.