My first trip report of SF St. Louis

Associated parks:
None

Well this will be my first trip report ever, so i hope everyone likes it. Keep in mind these are my opinions of the park.

July 3, 2002, high 90's warm and muggy

Well entering the park is really nice just looking at the park from I-44 is quite awe-inspiring. While entering the park it can be a hassle because of all the new security(metal detectors, and stuff like that). I decided since Scooby-Doo and the monster of scary swamp was brand new this year I decided to take a ride on this first with my family.

Scooby Doo- 1 ride - 15 min wait -A fun ride and a good addition to family rides which SFSL dont have much of. Good theming and nice air condition. The guns dont have a very good laser one them and can be difficult to shoot. I was really surprised not to see any of the characters during the ride. Overall: 8/10

After that I left the comforts of my family and took my younger brother to ride some roller coasters.

Mr Freeze- 1 ride - 5 min wait- I really wish I had ridden this coaster more since this is an awesome ride. And the lap bars are very comfortable but i needed more leg room. Good air, and the top spin is awesome. Overall: 9/10

Thunder River - 1 ride - 10 min wait- Nice raft ride and I love watching Mr Freeze while waiting in line. Got Soaked Overall: 7/10

The Boss - 3 rides - 10-15 min wait- This is a really rough roller coaster. It amazes me that a guy rode this for a 100 straight days. My first ride was in the front, not to bad. But in the back is where you can feel the roughness. In fact in kinda hurt my back a little. My third time was with my 6 year old sister who was barely able to ride it. She loved it. Overall: 8/10

Now it was around noon so i met up with my family and got some food then headed to the water park. Let me first tell you I hate water parks but being the good son I am I went. It was ok and its very nice but just sittin there with little kids running around I cant stand it. Then I got in the wave pool bad idea, I hate inner tubes i was just sittin there minding my own business and like 5 tubes cames over and they kept hitting my head. Eventually I left and went to ride Batman. Water park Overall: 5/10

Batman - 6 rides - 5 min wait. I love this ride!!! It is compact good inversion and is just flawless. It is smooth and just gives an awesome ride. Back row left is the best seat because it whips you around on the 2 corkscrews. Overall: 9/10

This is when things started going bad. It was around 4. And a storm started approaching, while going up the lift hill of Batman I noticed that they closed Hurrican Harbor. Then lightning started to come close to the park. We found ourselves in a lightning storm. No rain just lightning. And it lasted about 30 min. During this period the only rides open was scooby doo, the train, and toms twister.

Tom's Twister- 1 ride - 5 min wait. I hate this ride. Just something about going around and around on a very hard surface does not please me. Overall 3/10

The Train - 1 ride- 15 min wait This was a nice ride because it shows how beautiful the park really is. plus i might have spotted something that might be built next year.

2003- Well I didnt really ask anybody because i dont like bugging people but when I was riding the train I noticed a lot of markers in a field right next to the big red slide. I never seen construction markers so i dont know what they were for.

Ninja- 2 rides - 0 min wait - My first ride really sucked I was being headbanged from every direction. But my 2nd ride was pretty good. Good speed. Awesome headchopping effect with the chain. Overall: 7/10

The Mine ride- 1/2 ride- 2 min wait. You might wonder why I said a half. Well we were going up the first lift hill and the guy up there noticed something bad, and started pushing some buttons. I was like what the heck so we went through the first half and on the 2nd lift hill. It stopped so the guy must have pushed the e-stop button. Well here I was with a bunch of screaming kids and me being 18 was just sitting there. 15 min later about 6 ride ops came through the woods and said that they will have to release us manually. They gave each person a cut in line thing, but i didnt use it.

Fireworks: Well what can I say the fireworks were awesome. Great music and a great atmosphere truly made it a awesome night. Truly one of the best fireworks I have seen at a park.Overall: 10/10

Overall park: 9/10

Were the marks on a stick with a red tag on top. And also they might be for cableing because the park is in the middle of installing fiber optic for lo-qu.

Nice TR; :)

-----------------
Charles Nungester
Lesourdsville Lake, The great American amusement park opens the season June 6th Thurs-Sun every week. Park phone is (513)539-2193

What, no Screamin' Eagle? Was it closed after the storm came through? No time? This is my all time favorite wooden coaster (mostly for nostalgic reasons, not the actual ride per se), and you missed out on it. Next time be sure to get a ride on the Eagle.

I agree. The Screamin Eagle was a very excellent woodie in my book. It had loads of airtime and wasnt as rough as everyone says it is. I cannot believe you didnt like Boss. I had an absolute blast on this ride. You have to sit in the magic seat(1.2) to get the best airtime filled ride. This coaster also had a really high giggle factor which is important in making a good ride great!

-----------------
Bob Hansen

A proud CoasterBuzz Member

"So you think your'e really brave, gonna see the DEMONS cave.
You silly dude, your'e only food, for the DEMON"

I went to SFStL on the 4th, mostly because my brother was appalled we were passing by with no deadlines to meet and hadn't planned on stopping at least for a while. So we spent almost 5 hrs before continuing on to Santa Claus, IN.

The Screamin' Eagle really surprised me -- I didn't expect a lot from it, but I liked it more than the Boss. Smooth, and great air time. The Boss would be one of the best woodies around if they'd get rid of those Gerstlauer trains and put in PTC's like HW did this year. A little roughness is okay, but the Boss was just too painful to enjoy. In the back seat I was grabbing the bars and trying (without success) to avoid severe pain for almost the whole ride.

Mr. Freeze is also great, but not up there with the Eagle. Removing those killer restraints really did wonders for it.

-----------------
PLEASE READ: This post wasn't meant to offend or anger anyone; I apologize in advance if it does. So please don't post a reply just to rant about it. :)

Oh my gosh how can I forget the Screamin Eagle. I am so sorry to all my coaster enthusiasts. I completely forgot to write about it. Well here goes..........

Screamin Eagle - 1 ride - 0 min. After the freakish lightning this was my first coaster to ride in like a hour and a half so i was pumped because i heard quite a bit from this woodie. I sat in the second row and it was still a little rough, but it was flying through the woods its really incredible. The only bad thing about it is the brakes(i think they were breaks) on the top of some hills and the sudden stop to get into the station. Overall: 8/10

I visited SFStL for the first time on Sunday the 7th ... and I'm sorry to say I wasn't that impressed with the rides. I guess I'm jaded since I've been to some really great parks in my life and have ridden some really great coasters ... just not here.

I was disappointed in the Boss. For a two-year-old coaster it was rougher than it should have been (I found the front rougher than the back), although it's a tolerable kind of roughness. I'm a huge fan of wooden coasters, so I was really looking forward to the Boss. But I didn't think it was very fun and I didn't get that much airtime. Now I did ride it on a 90° day, so I'm sure that affected the speed and everything else. It may be a much better coaster when the temperatures go down.

I was also surprised by how rough the Screaming Eagle was. My father and I rode it in about row 4 and I could feel every valley in each of my vertebrae. In fact, I had a sore back all day yesterday, largely due to that ride I'm sure. It would take a lot to convince me to ride that coaster again in its current condition. It's a great looking coaster and its design has a LOT going for it .... I just think it's time for a little rehab work.

Coaster-freak, I totally agree with you about the lift chain head-chopper on Ninja!

The coaster I enjoyed the most was Mr. Freeze, it was a lot better than I expected. It also had the longest line of the day, since they were only running one train.

And somebody PLEASE tell me why the queues for Batman are a half mile long in every park with no cut throughs???? It's so annoying, and my father has trouble walking (we can't talk him into a wheelchair yet) .... it's just so unnecessary, especially when you want to re-ride.

So overall, while the park was clean and attractive (and had a lot of water sprayers, a BIG plus on such a hot day!), it's not even close to being one of my favorite parks. It gets low marks from me for ride variety (hardly any flat rides at all), and also low marks overall for its coasters. I was expecting so much more.

You must be logged in to post