six flags st. louis got new owners and is going to be renamed mid-america next year. ironic since the new owners are making it less mid.
The Good
the coaster lineup is deep. mr. freeze, batman, american thunder, and the boss are all fun thrill rides while pandemonium and river king mine train are solid entry points.
the park is clean. there were signs begging people not to spill their drinks on the ground and it didn't entirely work but it did help. zero solid trash.
landscaping is also doing a good job. the bugs bunny area and entrance are standouts.
the ride ops were getting people through quickly and not tolerating guest crap. not counting the kiddie coaster, only batman had fewer than two trains and there was a sign apologizing for that.
maintenance was also working their butts off. i saw semitrucks driving around on the perimeter roads often and they did their absolute best to keep mr. freeze, a 30-year old ride with an impractical and outdated launch system plus a weird moving station system, open throughout the day.
i had a pretzel and it was the best theme park pretzel i've ever had. good job.
The Bad
lots and lots of faded paint. some signs had looney tunes characters looking like ghosts.
The Ugly
absolutely zero star-caliber coasters. american thunder is closest, lots of other coasters are good to fine, but none of them are truly great. genuinely crazy for a park with ten roller coasters to have no headliners.
i spotted a grand total of one in-queue tv working correctly in the entire park, outnumbered by two in the line for the mine train that displayed a comically broken picture. this is probably six flags' fault and not the new guys.
why does it take 20 minutes to buy food or a beverage almost anywhere. bad dining ops is a new one for the bingo card.
i'm definitely mixed on six flags st. louis as a whole, but there's clearly a lot of love being put into it. how much of that was happening before vs. after the purchase, i'm not sure, but given that the operations were apparently a major focus for the new management and that was one of the park's strongest suits for my visit, i'm cautiously optimistic about mid-america's future.
