We Visited Six Flags St. Louis on Opening Day 2026. Here’s What We Saw.
I think it’s safe to say that 2026 is the most interesting year, to date, in the history of St. Louis’s only amusement park. Once known as Six Flags Over Mid-America and then Six Flags St. Louis, the park was sold in 2026 to a new company. In 2027, the park will be called Mid-America by Enchanted Parks, but for 2026 it’s still Six Flags St. Louis (SFSL), with all the licensing that goes with it.
2026, then, is a transition year for the park. It’s under new management but still operating mostly as before.
Like most people, we’re curious about what things are shaping up to look like under the new owners. For that reason, we knew we had to be there for opening day in 2026.
Armed with season passes purchased during the MVP sale in August of 2025, we headed down to Eureka for the park’s first day of operation on April 25, 2026.
Here’s how it went.
Arrival:
We rolled off the interstate and into the street leading to the parking lot around 10:10 a.m., and we were greeted by a line of cars waiting on the street. The line was not moving. When one of our party walked up to the front of the car line, we saw the gate was closed, blocking entrance to the gate houses where you either pay for parking or show your pass. The line grew behind us as the minutes ticked by, until the gate was opened at 10:30 and cars were allowed in.
We weren’t sure how long it would take us at that point, but by 10:40 we were through the parking entrance, and by 10:45 we were walking into the park.
To our good fortune, it was a crystal-clear day, with temperatures in the 70s and calm winds. On the pavement, it felt warm enough for shorts, although we were perfectly comfortable in short sleeves and pants. It was, in our view, perfect spring theme park weather, especially given that Hurricane Harbor won’t open until after Memorial Day.
Entry:
Entry procedures were identical to years past. We first passed through the security checkpoint, which was relatively painless. One of our party was directed over to have a bag searched, but the rest of us were allowed straight through.
Because it was forecast to be a fairly warm day, most of us packed water. We went with disposable plastic water bottles to prevent any issues at security — I didn’t want to run into any hiccups being there for the start of the park day. I did later see people carrying stainless steel water bottles, so those seem to be acceptable within reason.
There was a decent crowd entering with us, and not just because it’s opening day. For years Six Flags has run a Music in the Parks event in the first weekends of opening where band, choir, and orchestra groups from schools can come and spend the day hanging out in the park. In fact, Six Flags St. Louis had done a soft opening the day before opening day with some school groups.
On opening day, we filtered into the entrance with a number of middle school and high school music kids and their chaperones, and we’d see them throughout the park during our stay. They did add some to lines, but to their credit they were otherwise well-behaved.
We were able to scan our Six Flags season passes at the entry gate and enter the park without trouble.
Rope Drop:
For the uninitiated, rope drop is a figure of speech referring to being at a theme park or location right at opening. It has its origins in Disney theme parks where workers literally drop a rope to let people into the larger parts of the park, but its use has since expanded to other places. When you rope drop something, you’re out to be one of the first to do something, usually to minimize wait times or get something that is in short supply. As you’ll see, both of those applied to us today.
Six Flags St. Louis does its own rope drop that is not that dissimilar to what you would see in, say, Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. At SFSL, park-goers can get into the park entrance a half hour before the park opens, and you are free to roam the Main Street plaza just inside the entry gates. We had a few minutes to spend before rope drop, so we milled around Main Street Market (more on merchandise later) until just before 11 a.m.
As expected, there was a decent crowd of people just behind the rope, waiting for the park to open. I’ve been to Six Flags St. Louis rope drops before, but this one felt especially festive on account of it being opening day. It didn’t hurt that there were kids from the music groups also in the mix.
Promptly at 11 a.m., a worker announced that the park was open, the crowd cheered, and we forged under the bridge and into the main park.
Rides:
Most of the crowd in front of us headed for Batman, and on a normal day that would be us. Batman is a popular ride, and for good reason, as we think it is the best coaster in the park. Many other people agree, which is why it tends to garner long lines as the day goes on. That’s why like hitting it up first thing.
Today, though, was not a normal day. Six Flags St. Louis is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Screamin’ Eagle, and for opening weekend it was giving out free commemorative buttons to the first 1,000 riders. That’s why we made our way straight to the Eagle, and given the small crowd who converged on the wooden coaster with us, we weren’t the only ones with that idea.
There was a decent line at the Screamin’ Eagle, but as someone who sometimes waited for over an hour to ride the Eagle as a kid, the ten minutes we waited on Saturday was nothing. With two trains running, the line moved smoothly.
To our surprise, the ride itself was smoother than we expected, too. We’re not aware of any significant work done on the coaster in the off-season, but it seemed to rattle and rumble a little less than we remembered from last season.
The same could not be said for The Boss. It’s common knowledge that the mammoth wooden coaster is in need of TLC. Six Flags retracked part of the coaster between the 2024 and 2025 seasons, and as a rider those parts are easy enough to spot. It’s the rest of the coaster that will rattle your bones. We hope Enchanted Parks will give it some attention down the road.
The ride situation across rest of the park was mostly good. All of the rides were operational opening day except for two — Joker: Carnival of Chaos and Tsunami Soaker. Joker, the park’s newest ride, was up and down all last year, while Tsumami Soaker has seemingly been dormant for years, so neither of those is a surprise.
Batman and Mr. Freeze were also operating with just a single train, which pushed wait times up on those two rides. They were running, though.
Food Service:
Most of the food places in the park were open. Exceptions included Chop Six, the Asian-themed restaurant near the Ninja, and a few of the smaller food stands. From the outside, Chop Six didn’t look like it was going to open anytime soon.
Around noon, one member of our party suggested that it might be a good idea to grab some food before the lunch rush settled in. We were at that moment in JB’s Smokehouse looking at the menu, and we decided to eat there.
Now, a little context: Enchanted Parks only completed the purchase of Six Flags St. Louis on April 8th. That meant a very tight turnaround time taking over park operations, which included adding a new computer system for purchases.
The new computer system was a headache in a few parts of the park, but none moreso than food. Food lines throughout the park were long and slow as workers appeared to struggled with managing the new system.
We saw that on full display in JB’s. The line was slow and workers had trouble with many aspects of the process. The worker taking orders was clearly trying to figure out the point of sale system, and they didn’t know what we were talking about when we asked about the season pass food discount. We had to navigate the fact that one of the items on the menu, the pulled chicken sandwich, was not available. We also discovered we were accidentally charged for a soft drink we didn’t order (we had asked for a cup for water), but because of the situation we decided not to make a fuss about it.
Food distribution was messier still, with workers struggling to figure out who was supposed to get what food. Food would pile up on the shelf in front of the kitchen with no clear idea where it was supposed to go. We were third in line at the time we queued up, and it was about 30 minutes from that point to the time we got our food … and that was after politely advocating for several minutes for our food. People behind us had a lot longer wait.
The food, I should note, tasted fine. It wasn’t terrific, but it was decent concession-level fare.
We’re confident things will improve as workers get familiar with the new system and deal with the transition. It is a reminder to bring your patience if you plan to eat in the park early on, though.
Food Prices:
When Enchanted Parks completed the purchase, the company revealed that it was unable to continue the Six Flags dining plan and would not be offering its own dining plan. For those that had already bought a dining plan, Enchanted Parks offered people three options: 1) continuing the dining plan in Six Flags parks not sold to Enchanted Parks, 2) getting an Enchanted Parks e-gift card with a 20% bonus over the purchase price of the dining plan, and 3) getting a full refund.
However, in interviews, the CEO of Enchanted Parks said he also wanted to bring food prices down in the parks. What we discovered is that most things are cheaper than last year. From our observations, most items in 2026 are $1-2 less than they were in 2025. A footlong hot dog from A 1904 Classic, for instance, has been discounted from $16.99 to $14.99, while a Rocket Single from Johnny Rockets has gone from $17.99 to $16.99. Sides vary, but most are also $1-2 cheaper.
Fountain sodas that we saw cost $3.99 for a regular drink and $4.99 for a large one. All-season dining cups were $19.99 for one day (and repeat for $6.99 per day) or $36.99 for the season. The all-season dining cups were one of a handful of places in the park where we saw Enchanted Parks logos.
Merchandise:
We dropped into a few of the merchandise outlets during the day, including Main Street Market and Flags, both near the entrance. The stores offered all the usual types of things you would have see last year, including a healthy dose of DC comics gear and all things Six Flags. New this year is a round of Screamin’ Eagle 50th anniversary items.
We picked up a couple of things in Main Street Market, and we found that process to be a lot smoother than getting lunch. The worker totaled our order without trouble, and they did know about the 10% season pass discount, which they applied to our order.
Shows and Signage:
There were no shows operating on opening day. However, we did see signs advertising upcoming shows for the season.
We also saw signs confirming that Fright Fest will be back in the fall.
Departure:
Our group left the park around 3 p.m. We took note that the park looked pretty clean given the long day. The general parking lot wasn’t too full, while the oversized parking had a lot of buses on account of the school groups. There was also steady traffic of newcomers headed in as we were headed out.
We also spotted a line at guest services during our departure. We can only guess as to what people were there about.
Closing Thoughts:
Given that Enchanted Parks just took over in early April, we’re impressed at how relatively smooth operations went on opening day. Despite headaches with the new software system along with everything else, we spent our morning in a park where nearly all the rides were open, staffing was ample, and the park was clean.
Our one headache was the food process, which was riddled with problems that mainly stemmed from the new purchasing software. We did get our food, though, and we’re hopeful that part will get better with time.
One other note: we are aware that there were reports of disturbances involving teenagers in the evening hours. We can’t speak directly to that, as we were there only during the morning and early afternoon. We didn’t see any problems while we were in the park. The crowds during our time were well behaved, including the music students in for Music in the Park.
Overall, for us it was a good day, and it was a promising start to the 2026 season under Enchanted Parks. We’ll be back.
