Visited SFSL for the first time in 20+ years this weekend....took the family to capitalized on my Six Flags passes I bought early this year in Dallas for that family trip. I've got family in St. Louis and have some fond memories of the park from my younger days when my Uncle would take me and my cousins when I visited the 'big city' in the summers. But even since I've had a family of my own most of my time in town was always just spent with them. This past weekend we snuck up there to do some attractions we never seem to have time for. Got in a Cardinals/Cubs game, city museum, ted drewes, pizza, and the park.
It was great to have cooler weather for this end of summer trip but that also included overcast, rain, and occasional storm was a major factor in all of our activities. We scheduled a Monday and Tuesday to hit the park....I had a goal to hit all the kid ride and family rides on Monday....hopefully most of the big rides and do a full water park day on Tuesday where I could sneak over and get the bigger rides in. It rained off and on both monday and tuesday with caused all sorts of havoc on the plans. With a high of 77 on Monday and rains HH closed around 2 that day with the workers saying they only had 37 people in the park all day....by the time the sun came out and we were thinking about going....they had closed. Ended up being 5 of about 50 people in the water park on Tuesday until it again closed around 2:30 (this time for storm moving in). Most of the coaster where closed Tuesday due to nearby lightening and/or heavy rains. Ended up talking off for home earlier than expected:(
Park Review: I wasn't expecting much from this park and it just kind of meant my expectations. I had a few pretty cool moments remembering my childhood while experiencing a few rides. The mine train is one of my earliest childhood coasters....that drop in the dark was extremely frightening to me and it was fun to relive with my son riding with me. It was the only coaster I could get him on and he was about my age from when I remembered it. I rode the ninja....which I never did as a kid....I was scared to death of that think. It wasn't until I was high school aged that I took on OE at WoF and discovered the fun of loopers. I liked the Ninja....not as rough as the internet claims it is....I thought it is still fun. Never got on Screaming Eagle:( It was barely ever open in the rain. Rode boomerang, fireball. My oldest loved Batman...we rode it 3x including a front row....she liked Stl better than the SFoT version. I thought American Thunder was great....very fun. Mr. Freeze was running faster than at SFoT! Then there is the Boss....I hated it. It beat me up....my daughter hated it too....I could only take one ride. I completely get the comments about it's roughness now and how it would be a great RMC project. Even my daughter said...."I thought it was going to be fun like the Texas Giant". Really hated that Colossus was down:(...another ride I remember riding as a kid.
I left thinking this park really needs a new steel coaster: A hyper?, a BM Dive? BM floorless? Winged? It just needs some type of headlining unique steal coaster. That plus an Iron Boss (
would really help put this park on the map as a coaster destination. Not sure I need to go back until an attraction like that is built. Hopefully that wouldn't be another 20 years for me. My wife and kids didn't like the park as much as SFoT....I think we might actually go back there instead of SFSL for a Christmas time visit this year.