Trip Report: Six Flags St. Louis

Eureka, Missouri - 08/03/2002

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please..."

I was still 200 miles from Saint Louis when I awoke this morning. I made the long drive across Illinois, and sat in a huge traffic jam trying to get across the river. Once across, I took a brief side trip to gawk at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, and to call my Mom. She asked me where I was; I told her I was across the street from a 60-story croquet wicket, and it took her a few moments to figure it out. I took some pictures, gawked a bit, then got back in the car and headed for Eureka.

All the way out I was listening to the radio, and the announcer kept talking about the EXTREME HEAT WARNING!!! and how the National Weather Service has declared that all outdoor activities should cease. "Good," I thought. "That might cut the crowd a little, and send most people crazy enough to go to Six Flags on a day like this to go soak in the waterpark."

Well, I was half right. When I arrived at the park I forked over the moderately-outrageous sum of $8 for parking. The parking lot has an incomprehensible layout of little sections divided by tiny grass islands. It looks like at least part of the incomprehensibility comes from the waterpark having been built on a portion of the lot. I started trolling for a space. Certainly you've seen the film, "National Lampoon's Vacation", the one where the Griswolds go all the way to Magic Mounta--er--Walley World only to find the place closed. You may remember where Clark Griswold parked his car in that gigantic parking lot? Well, that's where I parked. Only in my case all the closer spots were already filled. The park was going to be busy. I guess that's what I get for going to Six Flags on a Saturday.

I approached the gate and the first thing I had to do was to get through the metal detectors. This is an interesting tactic, as the checkpoint is actually between the parking lot and the ticket windows. I imagine this saves them some headaches right at park opening because once people have their tickets they can just go straight into the park. Not to mention there is a lot less mechanical congestion because the metal detector is not also the park entrance. I still think the magnetometers are pointless window-dressing, but at least here they make an effort to keep them from interfering too much with park admissions.

To my moderate surprise, my Wyandot Lake pass scanned me right in through the front gate. As you approach this park, the dominating object over the skyline is the Ferris wheel. The entrance plaza is small and crowded full of people, and demonstrates the common Duell design tactic of severely limiting your ability to look into the park from the entrance. Given a choice between going left or right, I went left.

This took me past a row of shops, and then down what turned out to be a dead-end walkway into Looney Tunes Town. As the name suggests, this is the park's kiddie ride ghetto. It's very nicely done, with a collection of six or seven kiddie rides and a couple of climbing attractions. Of particular note here is the Acme Gravity Powered Roller Ride. Absolutely no adults could ride this thing (snifff...) but I noticed that the ride appears to be identical to the coaster at Tuscora Park in New Philadelphia, Ohio. The Fiberglas ride tub with the contoured seat, the lift mechanism that doesn't extend into the station, the dip between station and lift...I am reasonably certain that this is a Bradley & Kaye coaster. Across from the coaster is a kiddie train ride with one of the most inscruitable height-requirement signs I have ever seen: "Must be under 54" tall to ride; persons over 54" may ride if accompanied by an adult." Hmmmmm...

As I returned to the main loop, I noticed the commemorative sign indicating how on April 10, 1985 Gov. John Ashcroft (yes, THAT John Ashcroft) declared Loony Toons Town to be Missouri's newest town. I chuckled, and walked past the extremely busy flume and into a large plaza. To the one side, a snowman's head formed a queue entrance for Mr. Freeze. I opted to take a ride. It turned out to be one of my two longest waits of the day at about 45 minutes. I rode in the front of the last car.

Mr. Freeze is a launched shuttle coaster featuring two trains and an innovative dual platform loading system. Due to practical considerations related to the sliding boarding platforms, the train launch begins slightly less extreme than on the Flight of Fear coasters. The tracer lights down the launch tunnel are a nice touch, though. The train rockets through the top-hat inversion, circles the tower, then goes straight up. The ride has the same problem as the Boomerang in that to keep the forces under control in the inversion, the initial launch isn't fast enough for the train to coast through the whole course backwards. Mr. Freeze has an elegant solution, though, with a set of LIMs on the vertical spike. Those fire as the train approaches, and it feels exactly like the train is being pulled up a chain-lift, but without the sharp jerk at engagement. The train is powered to the top of the spike, the motors shut off, and the train falls backward down the tower, cruising through the whole course and coming to a quick near-stop on the launch track. It's a quick ride, but with two trains I clocked them at about 90 seconds per dispatch, or about 800 PPH, which is pretty darned good for a shuttle.

Around the corner from Mr. Freeze is the park's Enterprise, the Highland Fling. This Enterprise was unlike any I had seen before in that the roof hinges open from the inboard side, and the tubs are rather smaller than on the usual Enterprise. As I boarded, I saw on one of the tubs, painted over so as to be barely visible, the logo. The seating position is more upright than on the more common Huss ride, hence the shorter, higher tubs. I also noticed that the main boom appears to use a huge single-stage cylinder rather than the multi-stage cylinder used on the Huss ride; this should eliminate the need for a kicking cylinder to bring the ride back down at the end of the cycle. Interesting. I decided I prefer the more upright seating position as well.

Next to the Enterprise is the entrance to The Boss. Actually the entrance and the exit; they run side by side, except that the entrance includes a stile over the railroad track while the exit has a grade crossing. The ride entrance looks like something out of Roller Coaster Tycoon, with an enormous elevated wooden structure, a really long ramp, leading over the Go-Kart track and up to the ride station. From the queue I could learn several interesting facts about The Boss. First of all, it was clear that the ride ends with a helix which is not entirely unlike the helix on Knoebel's Twister. Second, it is clear that the coaster operates with three Gerstlauer trains, making it the first CCI coaster I have seen that is long enough and blocked out accurately enough to make three train operation worthwhile. Third, there is an unnerving amount of sway in the queue ramp induced just from people walking down the exit ramp. Well, after all, the entry/exit ramp consists of a series of bridges over the Go-Kart track, each bridge spanning quite a distance.

Nothing in the queue, however, could quite prepare me for the rest of the ride. I particularly love that first drop...all three of it. See, the coaster heads for the top of the lift, turns around, and drops. It flattens out and goes through the structure, but right about where it ought to start going up again, it goes DOWN some more! Then it does it again! It's a little bit like Raven's fifth drop translated into the first drop of a much larger coaster. So clever to do an extended triple-down on the first drop. In particular the ride just keeps going and going, much longer than most CCI coasters (Shivering Timbers excepted, of course). The Boss comes back around for another out-and-back section, then into the helix which is probably the weakest part of the ride. The Boss really is a great ride. Unfortunately it isn't as great as it ought to be. In the valleys, the train exhibits some jackhammer roughness. Part of that is the total lack of cushioning in the Gerstlauer train. And I suspect that the 100-degree temperature didn't help either.

I'd waited a long time for The Boss, so I continued around the loop. The pillars suggested I was in a Britain-themed area. I took advantage of a low-pressure, warm, foul-tasting water fountain. The park has a few water fountains, all of which are oddly placed, warm, and foul tasting. I wonder if some parks use sulphur filters on their water fountains in a deliberate attempt to make them unpleasant. Naah, that's just me being cynical. The park has a Rotor, but wearing sandals I was ineligible to ride. You can see by my broad smile that I was terribly disappointed by this. 8-)

I suspect that this portion of the park was an afterthought, not part of the original plan, but integrated in very nicely later on. I say that first because it is outside the loop of the railroad track, but also because the space is dominated by a large, noisy building that clearly serves as the park's chiller plant. Anyway, I continued across, past the park's Falling Star, which is cleverly decorated to look like a streetcar, and which is even more cleverly situated on the edge of a hill so that a relatively short ride gets unexpectedly high in the air.

I came upon an odd little ride called the Riverview Racer. The ride itself is nothing unusual; it's just a Chance Yo-Yo. What is odd about it is first the name, which doesn't seem to fit, and second, the queue house is equipped with an elaborate air handling system. It was nice to wait in what was effectively outdoor air conditioning, but it just seemed strange. Particularly for such a mundane ride. What made it seem even stranger was when I went on around to the River King Mine Ride. That ride has a queue which moves a lot faster, but it is contained within a dark, crowded, oppressively hot queue house at the back of the cavernous station. THAT place could have used an exhaust fan at the very least!

River King Mine Ride is a bit of an odd creature. One of the first things I noticed is that the station is very steep. I also noticed that while the train is an early Arrow mine train with the single-position lap bars, the brakes and controls are really strange. It's the first coaster where I can remember seeing the ride's PLC attached directly to the station wall. A front seat ride revealed that most of the brakes on the ride are the unusual cantilevered spring-applied bladder brakes I last saw on the Big Bad Wolf, a few are the traditional air-applied bladder brakes commonly found on Arrow coasters, and a few are the new canister type commonly found on wood coasters. The ride itself is a little odd as well, in that it features three short lift hills, one of which features an attendant at the top, monitoring the whole ride. The first two-thirds of the ride make for an interesting mine train, but I would love to go over that one itty bitty hill without a trim brake just once. After the third lift there is a rough-riding jog in the track that looks like it might have been put there to make room for the adjacent "Ninja" coaster, followed by a long, straight, steep dive in a tunnel that produces massive airtime in the back seat. River King is a fantastic mine train for that drop alone! I actually liked this ride quite a lot.

I wish I could say the same for the Ninja. The Vekoma-built multi-looper is a bit of a headbanger. It has some neat moments, such as a REALLY-close encounter with the chain return guide not once but TWICE. It isn't really a bad ride, and I didn't exactly hate it, but I didn't exactly fall in love with it either. It was there, I rode it. It actually reminds me a lot of the Ninja at Six Flags over Georgia, but I seem to recall liking Georgia's ride a bit more.

I don't remember how it happened, but I finally made it around to where I thought the Screamin' Eagle ought to be. Trouble is, the ride entrance turned out to be around the corner and down the hill; I had found the ride exit. It seems to be a rule of thumb with these 1970's theme parks: If you can see the ride, you've found the exit. The entrance will have a sign, but will be out of sight of the ride. Anyway, I tracked down the Screamin' Eagle entrance, climbed the stairs, and found at the top a rough-running wood coaster with hard foam seats. The PTC train was a little more accommodating than the Gerstlauer train on the Boss, but the coaster made up for it with a much rougher ride on a structure that looks like it could use some paint. It's basically an out-and-back coaster with the station located in the middle of one side, so the first turnaround is off the lift hill. The ride has an outward run from the lift with just a little airtime, and a good mix of action so that it's pretty much equally good in any seat. Then, right where the turnaround should be, there is a quick dogleg and the ride just keeps right on going, heading out behind the shed towards The Boss. Having gone out about twice as fas as you'd expect it to, it turns around and comes back, the return run made a little shorter because of the station and brake run. The ride looks and feels like it needs some attention, and its train is a mess of unfortunate retrofits, but it really is a decent ride. Well, I liked it, anyway.

I finally made my way into the "Studio Backlot" portion of the park where I rode "Batman: The Ride." The queue begins with a mandatory walk through the meandering paths of a city park complete with fake chirping birds. This leads to the junkyard squeezed in between the ride and the railroad track. I did notice a couple of odd things, though, for instance it's a small wonder that the police cruiser smashed into the fire hydrant as it appears the hydrant is in the middle of the street. I also think it interesting that there are such things as roller coaster chain cogs in among Gotham City's garbage.

Perhaps most mystifying is the use once again of an "escape" storyline. You ascend (?) through a sewer pipe into the Batcave, which is mysteriously located 30' above street level. Your presence indicates some kind of an emergency (Alfred said so), and so you are loaded into these strange looking vehicles for the purpose of evacuation. You are whisked out of the Batcave, hauled up a lift, flipped through a bunch of inversions...and then promptly returned to the Batcave to precisely the place you departed from a few minutes earlier. Then you escape from the batcave through the door on the other side of the platform opposite the one where you came in. The queue and the batcave are well done, but the whole "escape vehicle" theme seems to escape logic.

The ride itself is a fast-paced B&M inverted coaster with the predictable pattern of drop, loop, heartline, cobr...Hey, wait a minute! That's not a cobra roll, that's another vertical loop! It's a tight, quick layout that tests riders' loopityloopityloopityloopity tolerance level. Personally, I think I like the more deliberate pacing of Raptor or better yet Alpengeist or Ursa Major. I guess the more B&M rides I ride, the less I seem to like them.

I did notice that there is one ride in the park which sits right around the corner from Batman that appears to be some kind of teacup-type ride that has apparently been abandoned. I guess that's the advantage to the "hidden ride" construction technique; it's easy to make attractions simply disappear. I took a ride on the train, a narrated ride on a steam train that runs around the park. Across from the station in the "1904 Worlds Fair" section of the park is a merchandise shop with a piece of an old Screamin' Eagle train attached to the side...a single undivided seat with the old-style lap bar. A nice photo-op with a piece of hardware that would fit in nicely in any coaster enthusiast's living room. Pity the current Screamin' Eagle train doesn't look like this one...!

Anyway, back aboard the train, the narration is totally unintelligible. It's easy to see, though, that the bulk of the park's technical support seems to be located along the "left hand" perimeter, between The Boss and the rapids ride, while the waterpark occupies a similar space on the opposite side of the grounds. Although the park borders on a commercial area out near the parking lot, it appears there is a ton of space across the back of the park where the two wood coasters are now. The train really isn't terribly useful as in-park transportation as the stations are located at the center of the park, almost within sight of each other compared to the long ride between them. But it is a nice way to see the park.

I went back through the park and picked up some more rides, including rides on The Boss with little or no wait compared to the half-hour I had spent earlier. The park was busy, but it handled the crowd rather well, and the "built-in" waterpark certainly didn't hurt matters any. That became obvious when I happened to be near the waterpark exit when the waterpark closed, and a veritable sea of people flowed out and into the park's crowded entrance plaza.

Two other things I noticed. Six Flags St. Louis is the first park I have visited where there are paging announcements over the PA system on a continuous basis throughout the day. I can understand why most parks tell you, "We have no paging system...". I also noticed hourly Westminster chimes playing through the park. Most parks seem to want their patrons to forget about the passage of time, but not Six Flags. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not something I had ever heard before.

All in all, it was a good day. My first "real" visit to a "real" Six Flags park more or less met my expectations, and certainly exceeded the horror stories I've read this season. I had a good time there. The park has a couple of decent coasters, it seems well-run, it's an attractive park, and has a decent ride selection. I was a little concerned about starting my vacation at a Six Flags park on a Saturday, but it turned out to be a pretty good way to start the trip.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

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