July 4th Weekend Updates

Texas’ early summer heatwave continues and if there’s one benefit of super hot weather, it’s the lighter crowds at Six Flags over Texas. Our visit to the park over the July 4th weekend celebration started with an pleasantly sparse parking lot, but there were other downsides…

Aquaman Power Wave

Construction on the new water ride has slowly continued, with the turntable looking more or less completed and station framing going up.

Of course the park has since announced Aquaman won’t open until 2023, which means despite the hellish weather, the park continues to only have 1 water ride open: El Aserradero (Rapids continues its extended downtime due to reported pump issues).

But don’t worry about the lack of water rides as we approach even hotter times—the park added some sprinklers cooling stations:

Pirates of Speelunker Cave

Less than 2 months after opening and our ride on Pirates of Speelunker Cave was surprisingly a disappointment.

For one, it seemed like all the scenes’ lighting had been noticeably turned up since opening weekend. Whether intentional or not, the result was being able to see way too much of the areas that you shouldn’t see. The ceiling, lighting, scene boundaries, and projection screens were all blaringly obvious and broke the ride’s immersion.

On top of the distracting lighting issues, it seemed like many of the Speelunker’s mechanisms were already non-operational. The door that opens to the storm scene was stuck open and many Speelunkers were completely stationary. Our POV from opening weekend was apparently taken before some of the Speelunker movements were finished based on comparing other POVs, but this ride had considerably less working than even in our POV.

It was bizarre to see the ride had mechanically declined this much in the 2 months since opening, but after seeing the rate that Justice League’s effects deteriorated, it’s unfortunately not surprising.

Pirates of Speelunker Cave Gift Shop

The ride may have been in worse condition, but the gift shop is certainly open.

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  Pirates-themed mugs and shot glasses

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  Pirate-themed magnets

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  Pirates of Speelunker Cave gift shop

Shows

Of course the park is offering various entertainment for summer, but with temperatures hitting 100°F every day, who wants to watch a show outside? (answer: nobody)

Can someone explain how multiple indoor, air-conditioned theaters remain unused as the park has continued to push all its shows to outdoor stages? If it’s simply a cost-saving measure, it’s one that very obviously negatively impacts the guest experience.

Ride Closures

Our visit on a Sunday afternoon was also noted by ride closures. Titan has indeed reopened after its refurbishment, but many other rides were closed. Harley Quinn was closed (no surprises there), but so was Joker.

 

 

Judge Roy Scream was closed as well.

Pandemonium was closed when we passed by.

Many food shops were closed by 7:00, severely limiting where you could get food. We’re not sure if all the ride and dining closures were due to staffing issues or what, but this would not have been a good time to visit the park as a first-timer with all the closures.

Pirates of Speelunker Cave closed for a bit, but we think this was due to the park spraying down wood structures prior to fireworks. Speaking of which…

Fireworks!

If there was one redeeming event from the visit, it had to be the Coca-Cola sponsored firework show launched from the Oil Derrick.

We did not pay for the $30 VIP package for a dedicated firework viewing area (which included Superman exclusive ride time and drinks/desserts), and ended up watching the show near the Bugs Bunny Boomtown entrance.

 

Unfortunately it wasn’t made clear that the firework show would be synchronized to music and our viewing area did not seem equipped to play the accompanying music. The result was fireworks sporadically launching and stretches of time without fireworks that made you question if the show was over or not.

Nevertheless there was an impressive finale that made it worth it (no we didn’t get photos of the finale because after an especially long pause, we thought it was over and began to leave).

Closing Thoughts

While we enjoyed the fireworks, there were many other aspects of our visit that were a disappointment. The latest Six Flags corporate guidance seems to be focused on switching to a ‘premium park experience‘ but the only thing that has actually changed thus far is the ticket and pass pricing. Raising park prices to shift to a more Disney/Universal-like experience would be an acceptable strategy if the park experience significantly improves with it, but that just hasn’t happened so far.

With Aquaman’s opening being delayed yet again, the park has even less justification for currently raising prices. Hopefully the park will actually start focusing on a more premium experience if they are going to adjust prices as they already have.