Six Flags St Louis was the next park on my trip. The road from Springfield to St Louis essentially runs along the old route 66 (When i checked into my hotel the night before they asked if I was a tourist doing that road)
http://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/park-137-Six_Flags_St_Louis
Anyway, the park is on the western outskirts of the city.
First impressions is that it is a bit of a 2nd tier Six Flags park. Everyone says Six Flags America is the worst but I reckon this one is. At least SFA had better coasters, and notional efforts to maintain distinct themed areas.
The whole place just felt a bit run down and weedy, and wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.
That all said, there are a few worthwhile attractions at the park, which I’ll get to.
I headed straight for Ninja, which has had VR added. Signage said the VR is offered from 2pm, and they had two different queues depending on if you wanted to ride with or without.
No objections from me for it being offered from 2pm, the experience on offer was the alien fighter jet one I’d already done at SFMM / (and could have done at SFOG) and it meant I could get my ride in without encumbrance.
It’s an arrow looper with a loop and sidewinder, and a couple of corkscrews. Felt a bit RCT with the fixed size of the elements and the first couple of loops being high in the air. Transitions were a bit too sudden for comfort. But overall, like most arrow loopers it wasn’t that bad.
The most interesting moment is coming out of the sidewinder when there is a very close headchopper under the lift chain return.
Nearby was Batman the ride, which was filling up fast, probably due to being one of the best ride there. No intention of buying a flashpass, so I waited 30 mins or so. It’s much the same as other installations (so quick, forceful, exciting) except more weeds growing underneath.
I crossed over the park to a surprisingly short queue on Mr Freeze Reverse Blast. This ride follows that short trend we had where rides had their trains reversed, so like TOT2 you end up looking down towards the ground at the apex of the ride. Basically you launch out of a tunnel, around an inverted top hat, then an overbanked turn and up into a vertical bit of track. LIMs at the top actually grab the train as it starts to lose energy and pull it the rest of the way to the top, but then release and you go back the way you came.
A good ride, I wonder why more parks haven’t expanded on this sort of shuttle, with airtime hills etc…it would be amazing.
Justice League is a 4D dark ride like our justice league, but with a different storyline, and “spiderman” style vehicles that can tilt and spin. It was a really good attraction. The queue was very similar to ours, except they didn’t have that impressive hall ours does with the marble statues.
There’s a few street scenes where you are shooting little lex bots and a near head on with a truck, and eventually you make it into lexcorp where the justice league is being held captive, more shooting and you are released, and from there it turns into an all out street chase with big curved screen. This bit I felt was too fast paced so it didn’t feel realistic. There was also a random black room between two scenes that didn’t make sense…Basically green lantern makes a car jump and you smash into the 2nd floor of an office building, drive through the office then land back on the street…they could have done office interior theming to bridge the gap between screens.
I did a lap on the ferris wheel and the train. The train in particular didn’t show off the parks best side :/
Nearby was American Thunder, a GCI. Ran pretty well compared to most, good pacing and a decent length.
Boomerang was shut, but I had already ridden it a few years ago at SFOT.
River King Mine train is a typical arrow mine train with small drops and awkward transitions.
Screamin Eagle is a big out and back wooden coaster. Much like the racing woodies out there, its mostly straight, so it wasn’t too bad, and had good air.
The Boss was the final Woodie and coaster for me to ride. The thing is enormous, reminded me a bit of Ghostrider, so a bit rough, but a lot of fun. The first drop was a double down and I didn’t know that beforehand, so a bit of a surprise. Basically the drop dives through a structure, flattens out then goes downhill again. The last part of the ride is an out and back section through some trees along the side of the hill, with a helix for good measure.
Fireball is a super loop ride. I’ve never actually been on one of these. It feels a bit cramped, but in terms of ride experience, we’ve all ridden doomsday/ranger/kamikaze right?
With everything done I did another go on Mr Freeze, Justice League an American Thunder before heading to my hotel.
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In St Louis, there’s also the City Museum which is big architectural museum/art gallery/playground in an old shoe factory. The place is immense, and makes you realise how unfit you get as an adult trying to go on play equipment. The place is obviously popular with families, but they have night sessions where they are open till midnight with DJs etc, so a different crowd then. Well worth a look, but don’t wear jeans or else you get stuck on the slides. Heaps of crawl spaces, including really narrow spaces between floor slabs. Other random places are throughout too, such as caves, an aquarium, a giant hamster wheel and so on.