I went to two Enchanted Parks
Last week I went to WOF and SFSTL, my first visits to any parks under "Enchanted Parks" management. Now granted they literally just took control of these parks and are only in their third month of operation, so there probably isn't much difference from how they were ran under Six Flags yet (they did lower the parking price from $35 to $20). I'm going to start off with two random notes about both WOF and SFSTL:
-Our season passes didn't work at the gate at either park and we got sent to GR. I'm not sure what the deal is, or if this is a SF or Enchanted issue, because this also happened to us at SF Mexico in the spring (although it worked at Great America). A friend of mine told me that his SF pass never works at any park entrances so this its not like this is an us thing. Funny enough the comp ticket that the lady at SFSTL printed us said "Mid America by Enchanted Parks" and had no mention of Six Flags...but everything in the park itself was still all Six Flags branded.
-Also this may seem like a minor thing but the Enchanted Parks open at 11, which is annoying because there is so much time to kill in the morning before you can do anything at the park. Particularly since we had a small child with all that anticipation and buildup, by the time noon rolls around that's typically when they start getting cranky and need a nap. Also while both parks were relatively slow, it creates a big crowd at opening. I'm sure they do it for staffing purposes but I feel like 11AM during the summer is still excessively late for such a big/prominent a business like this. I suppose when you're running a seasonal business that requires lots of employees who are mostly teenagers these are the kind of decisions that have to be made (though I did work at a big seasonal park when I was a teenager and it opened at 10 every day), but hundreds of people there looking around going "11? Seriously?" is just not the best start to the day.
Anyway onto my thoughts about WOF:
The park is very pretty, the landscaping and general presentation of the park is top-tier. WOF has always been a very pretty park and they have preserved the charm of the park over the years much more than most Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks. I thought the Planet Snoopy area was really good with a large and diverse set of rides.
While the landscaping and park appearance are great, unfortunately the operations are not, as there were a lot of closed rides, and the ones that were open had 1 train and very slow dispatch times. Granted the park was slow so the 1 train and slow dispatch times weren't [i]that[/i] big of a deal, but NGL it is frustration watching the employees chit chat and take their time when they should be doing their job and operating the ride.
The bigger problem was definitely the volume of closed rides. There was a sign at the front of the park that had 3 rides listed as closed (1 water ride and 2 kiddie rides, if I remember correctly), but there were several more rides closed, including Mamba. The parks biggest coaster being closed all day with no activity was a huge bummer and I have no idea why they didn't feel obligated to put it on the closed rides sign out front, especially since it looked to be SBNO. Boomerang was also closed all day in addition to several flat rides.
Overall I think WOF is a really nice park but the volume of closed rides, including their biggest coaster, was a bummer. I really enjoyed the first few hours here but as time went on and we saw more and more closed rides, in addition to the slow-as-molasses operations, I did lose some of my liking for the park.
And now onto SFSTL where we had an absolutely stellar day. There appeared to only be one closed ride (the Supergirl spinning ride we wouldn't have gone on anyway), everything was open on time, and we didn't experience any downtimes all day. While many coasters were running one train (Batman and Boss were the only ones I remember running 2), the park was very slow and nothing had lines, most coasters were running half empty trains. Dispatch times were quick and it was easy to get on anything as many times as wanted. Also, unlike most seasonal parks, ALL of the food places were open and well staffed, even with sparse crowds and very few customers. It was very easy for us to get free cups of water on a very hot day.
Of course the park was not perfect, while I thought overall the park looked great, in normal SF fashion some of the railings in queues and stuff needed to be repainted (including Freeze and Batman that need full queue refurbs). But overall the park looked good. Great kids area, great Ferris wheel, nice train...this park does have a well rounded collection.
The park could definitely use a big new coaster since they haven't gotten one since Evel Knievel 20 years ago (I don't count the relocated Boomerang), I think that would renew interest in what is a great little park but seems to be struggling generating interest. I would love to see "Mid America by Enchanted Parks" drawing crowds and thriving again.
Replies (5)
Thanks for the TR, the_man. . .I was wondering how much Enchanted had changed the old parks. Hopefully we see some new rides. I'm also interested to see what's gonna happen to Mr. Freeze and Batman at SFStL
I was at SFStL last weekend, and I couldn't believe how deserted it was. Both Saturday and Sunday were dead. Good times to get plenty of rides in, but coaster wise it's just an average collection. The Boss was awful, just so rough, but I liked Screamin' Eagle and American Thunder. The others are just clones of clones of .... typical 6- Flags.
I stayed at the Holiday Inn, an easy walking distance from the park, although they did provide a shuttle service.
Holiday World next, then Kentucky Kingdom and eventually back towards Orlando.
Standout so far was undoubtedly Silver Dollar City. Awesome park.
I did not have any issues getting into SFStL with my Six Flags prestige pass. Scanned, and in I went.
It sounds like from that Six Flags (it’s too early to presume this is an enchanted parks problem) have a major inconsistency problem. You’ve got one park that’s clearly oversupplying capacity, and one that’s severely under.
I've been to both of these parks - WoF in 2023, just missed the opening of Zambezi Zinger, and SFStL in 2015 when Justice League debuted. I feel that these two are virtually interchangeable with similar size and types of attractions. I do like the landscaping and plentiful shade at WoF, and I'd also say that the overall attraction lineup is marginally better with Mamba, Patriot, and Prowler a touch better than Mr. Freeze, Batman, and American Thunder, though Mr. Freeze is the best of that bunch. However, I feel like even if you merged these parks together, you'd still end up with a mediocre park that would never come close to the best parks in the current SF chain.
I think Enchanted has inherited some decent bones with these parks, but if they're not going to make huge capital infusions that could take a decade or more to recoup, both parks will continue to languish. The lack of lines despite single train operations should be illustrative of the uphill battle Enchanted faces with these parks and the others that they've purchased from SF.