Welcome to our latest blog post dedicated 100% to Six Flags Fiesta Texas! 

Yesterday all of the Six Flags parks in the country made their official announcements for 2020 upgrades and additions via a silly, but cute video featuring Six Flags CEO Jim Reid-Anderson.
Click here if you'd like to watch the full video.
And Six Flags Fiesta Texas announced their 2020 ride addition: Dare Devil Dive!

In addition to finding out the biggest announcement via the morning video, SFFT also hosted a Diamond and Diamond-Elite member preview last night with a presentation and QA hosted by Park President Jeffrey Siebert. 

At the presentation we learned more about Dare Devil Dive, but also more about all of the changes coming to the park in 2020. Here's a list of the biggest news:

1. Front Entrance Plaza Refurbishments! Los Festivales is the front area of the park dedicated to the Hispanic culture that is so prevalent in San Antonio. Refurbs, updated paint jobs, an added refill station, a new store, plus more to this area is a great idea as it is the first thing guests see when entering Fiesta Texas. 

2. Boomerang Refurbishments! Boomerang is kind of the focal point of the entrance of Six Flags Fiesta Texas. I like to think of it as our version of Main Street's Castle, or EPCOT's Spaceship Earth. So the fact that it's getting a spruce up is very exciting. :) We did confirm that no new trains are coming to the ride, but we are excited to see the updates!

3. Mobile Ordering! We are so excited about mobile ordering rolling out in the parks soon! As many of us probably know, sometimes we spend more time in line for food or drinks than we do for actual rides. The idea of being able to cut those wait times down significantly and be able to have the convenience of pulling out your phone while waiting for Iron Rattler to order your Chop Six is awesome ;)

4. Kidzopolis Refurbishments! The kid area of the park is getting a full refurb! Although it's been confirmed that the area will not be themed to Looney Tunes or DC, we are sure that the area will be looking great after its updates!

5. Fright Fest Updates! It was announced, with some disappointment, that Fright Fest will go back to charging for haunted houses. There will be much incentive to upgrade your membership to Diamond Elite status if you're a Fright Fest fan, though. Diamond Elite members enjoy free haunts every trip throughout all of Fright Fest. Diamond members will enjoy one free haunt per visit, and then have to pay for additional ones. Some exciting news about Fright Fest, though: We're getting 4 new shows and we will see the return of The Arrival! If you read our Fright Fest review from 2 years ago you'll know how much we (and the rest of the community) LOVED this!

7. New Dare Devil Dive Flying Machines Ride! Fitting in with the Steampunk theming of Crackaxle Canyon will be the world's tallest-of-its-kind ride: Dare Devil Dive. This ride looks absolutely insane and 100% something that I will NOT be partaking in. But Parker, you have fun, boo! This ride will be replacing the existing Gun Slinger sling shot ride in Crackaxle Canyon (but fear not Gunslinger fans, you can still ride it in its new home at the Boardwalk). This nearly 5-story ride will send riders upside down through loops, dives, and aerial banks to give them the experience of weightlessness and ultimate thrill! Check out the promo video below!

What do you guys think? Are you looking forward to riding? Let us know what you think in the comments or on social media! We're excited to hear everyone's thoughts!

As a little bonus, we wanted to highlight the Summer Beer and Food festival currently happening at Fiesta Texas right now! Every weekend from August 24th- September 8th guests can enjoy the Last Call Summer Festival at the park which features a selection of over 100 different beers and a variety of German-themed food stands!

The festival requires you to purchase a passport with 15 credits (plus 3 for dining pass members) that can be used for food and/or drinks at each stand. There are 6 stands total all featuring different foods and drinks! Not a bad selection, and you know we LOVE a food fest!

We tried the Hot and Spicy Steak Kabobettes and the Korean BBQ Meatballs.

Definitely our favorite booth of the festival! I mean...come on..mac and cheese!

At the Brew Battered booth we tried the Cheese Bites. We ran into the same problem we did with the beer battered fried mac and cheese bites. 

The Gouda Mozzarella combo was really tasty, we just wish the batter was hotter and crispier. 

This booth combined the Bavarian Delights options with a bunch of different Brews

And that's it! We absolutely love that Fiesta Texas is embracing the food festival culture, because honestly it's one of our favorite things about theme parks, and we 100% plan our theme park trips around their food fest schedules. 

Until next time, foodies!

Happy Sunday, everyone! We hope you're having a great summer so far and visiting as many theme parks as possible! (I know we're trying to, lol)
We did just get back from an awesome trip to Six Flags Great America just outside of Chicago, however, today we wanted to bring you a very special update about one of our home parks: Six Flags Fiesta Texas!

As you may already know, SFFT announced last year that they planned to add a new Joker themed pendulum swing ride in Summer 2019! And today, that ride opened for technical ride previews! We were amongst the first guests to experience this record-breaking ride and we're very excited to share some details with you!

The Joker Carnival of Chaos is tied for the tallest and fastest ride of its kind. Created by Zamperla, this swinging thrill ride sends riders to heights of 172-ft and speeds of 75 mph! 

The ride itself was awesome! It gave several different kinds of intense g-forces the entire way through! When swinging forward and back from the air, the ride pushes you to its fastest speed of 75 mph!  This experience gives you stronger g-forces since it's pulling you through the pendulum motion. And at the peak? AWESOME AIR TIME! Not to mention, throughout all of this, you're continuously spinning. 

As we mentioned above, The Joker shares those record-breaking stats with 2 other rides of its kind at sister parks in Six Flags Great Adventure and Six Flags Magic Mountain. However, what we have in Six Flags Fiesta Texas that those parks don't is THE SHED!

The Joker Carnival of Chaos has an AWESOME fun house in the middle of its queue that park-goers and employees have nicknamed the shed. We were excited about what would be in the shed leading up to its opening today, and I have to say, we were not disappointed. We videoed the entire thing if you want to walk through with us below, but if you're like us and want to wait to be surprised on your own walk-through then skip the next video! 

In addition to the new Joker ride, Fiesta Texas also renovated their existing swing ride, Whirligig, into the new appropriately themed Super Villains Swing!

While there isn't an elaborate fun house queue for this ride, you can still see villain boards and facts along the way and even banners throughout the entire area that really help tie this new section together. 

In conclusion, this another huge win for Six Flags Fiesta Texas! It's been so exciting as theme junkies to watch this park do such awesome things over the last couple of years. We had first of its kind- Wonder Woman Golden Lasso Coaster, newly renovated and awesomely-themed queue and ride- Pirates of the Deep Sea, and now Joker Carnival of Chaos and Super Villains Swings! We're loving the direction this park is going in, and as always, we can't wait to see what they do next! 

Six Flags Fiesta Texas will be running technical ride previews until Carnival of Chaos' official opening in mid-August so make sure you stop by to see The Joker and his villainous friends! ;)

As I'm sure many of you have heard by now, it was announced last week that the Cedar Fair company purchased Schlitterbahn Waterparks. This announcement comes with many questions and uncertainty for the future of this unique brand of waterparks. We wanted to take some time to share a bit of info on the sale and weigh in with our thoughts on the possible pros and cons of this new acquisition. 

Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels, TX began with the purchase of a campground by the Henry family in 1966. By 1979 the park opened with 4 waterslides and the iconic 60-ft tower that still stands there today. 

Over the next 35 years, the park slowly added slide by slide, opened additional parks around Texas and Kansas, and rightfully won the title of Best Waterpark in the World. Schlitterbahn won numerous awards, had Travel Channel highlights and TV specials, and continued to delight families for years, until tragedy struck.

In 2016, tragedy struck at the Schlitterbahn Kansas park when a young boy was killed on one of the park's slides. The idea for Verrückt, the world's tallest waterslide, came from Jeff Henry, co-owner of the Schlitterbahn Waterparks. Much backlash, as well as a multi-million dollar lawsuit fell upon Jeff and the Schlitterbahn brand when it was revealed that he had no formal engineering training while designing this record-breaking ride. After some digging, it would also be revealed in the months to come that Jeff Henry had a dark past and multiple charges were filed against him for various crimes. This was ultimately the beginning of the end for Schlitterbahn. 

3 years after the Kansas park incident, as well as the announcement that that park would not be re-opening, it was announced that Cedar Fair, one of America's largest amusement park chains, purchased the New Braunfels and Galveston waterparks for $261 million. The company also secured the rights to the now closed Kansas park for an additional $6 million. Cedar Fair currently operates twelve amusement parks, eleven water parks, and five hotels in the US and Canada.

Cedar Fair is a large corporation which could mean more rules and less personality. Park guests loved the "family business" vibe of Schlitterbahn waterparks which included perks like free parking, the ability to bring in ice chests with food and drinks, free open-air shuttles, and free tubes! There is, of course, concern with a large company like Cedar Fair coming in and making changes to some of these things that guests have been used to doing their entire lives. If some of these changes were implemented, we wouldn't be surprised if many park-goers rethink a visit to the park. 

Cedar Fair doesn't have the greatest track record for keeping things original when it comes to their waterparks. Innovative and record-breaking roller coasters? Sure. Amazing and unique water rides? Not so much. They tend to build the same slide complexes made by the same manufacturers again and again. And while they're not bad slides, they are common. And a park with the title of "World's Best" should be anything but common.

One of the biggest fears here would be that Cedar Fair, despite having the money to do so, would not plan to invest much into these parks. While Schlitterbahn has great rides already, building has been at a stand-still for the last few years. It's time for something new! If Cedar Fair plans to take the money made from this park and funnel it to some of their more successful parks (cough Cedar Point cough) that could be an issue. We could be faced with Dorney Park syndrome here and not see any real new additions for quite some time. 

While Schlitterbahn-goers are long overdue for some new thrills, we also aren't ready to give up some of our iconic retro slides. The New Braunfels park is absolutely oozing with charm and personality, and these rides are completely original. One of our greatest fears with this new sale is that Cedar Fair will opt to remove most of these slides to be replaced with something by ProSlide or WhiteWaterWest. While both of these companies make AWESOME rides, they also make up 90% of the waterpark world which means you can get that just about anywhere. 

In a perfect world, Cedar Fair would be able to blend the charm that the parks already have, with some newer, more modern slides. The park as it stands can be a bit confusing and hard to navigate, since so many of the slides are very long (up to 45 minutes) and can intertwine. Cedar Fair may be able to come in and alleviate this issue without jeoporadizing any of the originality. 

It should be no surprise to anyone that Cedar Fair has money. Much more money than Schlitterbahn Parks did. This, obviously, can be a great thing for the parks. The company will be able to make changes quickly as well as get started on some new developments. Unlike with the previous owners, we hope to see some progress made to the parks pretty soon. 

As mentioned above, Cedar Fair currently owns eleven water parks. There is always a possibility that rather than those parks rubbing off on Schlitterbahn, we will see Schlitterbahn rub off on them. Having a park full of original and unique rides could mean great things for the other waterparks in Cedar Fair's lineup. Will the exposure of these original river attractions spark something amazing in other parts of the country?

In a press release following the announcement of the sale, Cedar Fair made a statement about the "attractiveness of the demographics in the growing Central Texas region." Traditionally, Cedar Fair is known less for their waterparks and more for their amusement parks. With the attractive growing market here in Texas, does Cedar Fair have plans for a new park sometime in the future? That would be the dream. 

Ultimately, we will have to wait and see what the future holds for our beloved Schlitterbahn.
​For us, this a yearly tradition with friends and family and we would hate to see this sale affect what we love most about these parks. We are staying positive and hoping for the best!
​Only time will tell. 

We've got lots of updates from SeaWorld San Antonio in today's post! So much has been going on at the park recently that we figured instead of writing 4 blog posts about each thing, we'd combine it into one EPIC blog post about all of the new events and attractions that have been added recently. We'll break it down into our review of this year's Seven Seas Food Festival, the new Turtle Reef expansion, Aquatica's new water slides, and Sea World's newest quick service restaurant- Pretzel Kitchen. In that order, so if you have a particular section that calls to you, you'll know where to scroll!

This is SeaWorld Texas' FIFTH annual Seven Seas Festival, and it's still one of our favorite food festivals of any theme park. Every year, the park has tried to step it up with new booths, more food and beverage options, and new seating/lounging areas. This year, we definitely appreciate the additions made to the menus. While there was not a new booth added to this year's lineup, the park made an effort to update each of the existing booth's menus. 

SeaWorld still offers tasting lanyards which we HIGHLY recommend purchasing. You can go with a 10-item lanyard for $45, or a 15-item lanyard for $60. The good news is pass member discounts DO apply to lanyards, so depending on what kind of pass you have you could be saving up to $18 on a single lanyard. 

Lanyards also include a free souvenir cup for any beverages you choose to sample with your pass. 

Also be sure to grab an event guide with detailed menus, booth, and entertainment information. Each booth has a dedicated page in the guide that you can get stamped when you've purchased an item from there. If you get a stamp from each booth, you can turn your booklet in for a FREE dessert of your choosing! Worth it! 

There are 9 booths at SeaWorld San Antonio's Seven Seas Festival. We tried *almost* everything at each booth (with help- I promise), and these are our highlights from each:

Cocktails: Mexico Sunset and Caribbean Punch.     Food: Mojo Pork with Black Beans and Rice.
The cocktails are both good and pretty similar in our minds, I can't even tell you which is which or what their flavor is. They both taste like sweet, fruity cocktails. The Mojo Pork was surprisingly good! It is pulled roasted pork shoulder marinated in sour orange, garlic and oregano served with rice, beans, and bread. The flavor was really nice on the pork, and it was such a HUGE serving. You definitely get your money's worth here. 

Pictured left to right: Braised Beef Street Tacos, Deep Fired Elote con queso, Shredded Chicken Verde Tacos, and the Elote again lol.
The beef tacos which featured braised beef, queso fresco, pickled red onion, radish, serrano pepper and micro cilantro were awesome!! The Deep fried elote AKA deep fried corn on the cob with mayo queso cotija, chili powder and lime was also really good!! The chicken verde tacos with diced green chilies, ancho-pepper cheese and pickled red onion weren't our favorite, but they weren't bad by any means.

So much promise and potential here at the Italy booth. This is the one we were probably the most excited for, and I think it may have ended up being our least favorite one.
The booth offers a variety of different flatbreads, a meatball slider, and a cannoli.

The only new addition here is the Greek Zucchini Fritters or Kolokithokeftedes ​(no idea how to even begin pronouncing that, but it looks fun).

And although not new, we have to shout the lamb burger with spicy feta and gyro with Tzatziki sauce. 
The lamb burger is always a solid choice, and the gyro is pretty good as well. 

Also not a lot of new options at this booth, but some of it was new to us. 

This is one of our favorite booths because it has a lot of options and they're all good!

Seriously, ALL of these options are good! We loved the sauce on the chicken wings, and I may even venture to say I enjoyed this rib more than the ones in Japan. 
In our opinion, you can skip on the Kalula Pork Sliders. 
​And we, unfortunately, did not get to try any of the Poke Bowls...YET!

And as stated above- IT'S A PINA COLADA...IN A PINEAPPLE!! Love it. 

Brazil is admittedly not our favorite booth. That's not to say it's bad by any means, there's just so much at the other booths that we love, that we always end up ranking this one last. 

There you go! All 9 booths covered. The Seven Seas Food Festival runs for one more weekend, so if you haven't been yet, get there SOON! It's truly worth it!

Still with us?? That last section was a lot to digest (pun ALWAYS intended). 
This section is all about the newest SeaWorld San Antonio expansion- Turtle Reef!

SeaWorld Texas hosted a Pass member exclusive event for the grand opening of Turtle Reef a couple of weekends ago. It was really neat that the park took the time to put something together to raise excitement for the new area. 
The new area of the park includes Turtle Reef Sea Turtle viewing area, Sea Swinger ride, and Riptide Rescue ride. 

The pass member grand opening event featured meet and greets with Shamu, free Krispy Kreme turtle donuts and tumblers, a few words from the park president, a ribbon-cutting ceremony, and exclusive ride times.

Riptide Rescue (Sea Turtle Rescue Mission themed ride)

Sea Swinger (Swinging ride)
Does not go upside down, but does get almost parallel with the ground.

Around the ride area you can find several of these cool fact boards with information about conversation and SeaWorld's rescue initiatives. 

You made it through the lengthiest sections of this blog post! Congratulations!
​You're prize awaits: water slides!

SeaWorld isn't the only one with a new addition this year. Aquatica, SeaWorld's waterpark, also got some love for the 2019 season. Ihu's Breakaway falls is a new slide complex developed by Proslide that features the tallest drop-style slides in Texas! 

There are 2 of the "drop-style" slides in the complex that require you to step into a pod where you anxiously await the dropping of the floor beneath you, and there is 1 regular body slide. It's still a thrilling body slide, because I mean come on have you SEEN how tall it is, but not having the floor-drop element definitely eases the anxiety of it a bit.

Are you excited to take this almost 80° plunge?! 

Pretzel Kitchen replaced the previous spot, Sea Star Market Cafe, which featured sandwiches, salads, and wraps. And I think it's safe to say this is a delicious upgrade.

This is new restaurant option features a variety of different savory and sweet pretzels.

You also have the option to add on side dipping sauces which we are all about! So we ordered the cream cheese frosting, spicy mustard, and beer cheese. 
The Texas Favorite is a giant pretzel topped with beer cheese and Hot Cheetos. Okay, first of all, OMG. Second of all, it is definitely a Texas favorite. As an avid Hot Cheetos fan since practically birth, I am LOVING the utilization of this spicy treat in so many things recently. Now, we do want to point out that the menu says this pretzel comes topped with beer cheese, but the employee working the day we ordered topped ours with nacho cheese. When we asked about it, he told us that it should actually be nacho cheese. So, not sure if the sign or the employee was mistaken, but honestly, it's good either way and you can always order an additional side of any of the sauces. 
​The Cinnamon and Sugar nuggets were a perfect dessert snack. I can honestly see us ordering these pretty often whenever in the park because they're easy to eat and share. And the side of cream cheese was completely worth it!
​The Sausage on a Stick Pretzel was messy! It tasted awesome, but definitely make sure not to ditch the paper boat it comes in because the sausage will definitely drip. This paired well with both cheese dips and the mustard!

Overall we're happy that the park decided to bring a pretzel shop to San Antonio! We love Mama's Pretzel Kitchen in SeaWorld Orlando so we were excited as soon as we heard pretzels were coming here! Plus any new additions in the food and beverage department are always exciting!

Congratulations on making it all the way through. Although, this should have been something you actually enjoyed rather than a feat. We want to thank everyone for your continued support of Ride or Dine! We love taking crazy cool trips across the country to different theme parks and blogging about it along the way! If you haven't already taken the time to follow us on social media make sure to do that below! And don't forget to comment and let us know your thoughts on what we've posted! Have any of you seen these new SeaWorld San Antonio expansions yet, or plan to soon? We want to know!! Until next time, have a whale of a day!