Six Flags Discovery Kingdom Update - June 3rd, 2023
Viva La Fiesta and New Animal Encounters!
We're finally back at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom for another update at the park! This month sees the new Viva La Fiesta event happening in the park as well as my first time seeing the new Shark Experience and Cheetah Creek. The park has been looking a lot nicer lately with a lot of the eyesores replaced or renovated. The park is headed in the right direction and I'm glad to see it! Let's start our update.
Table of Contents
Viva La Fiesta
The newest event at the park is Viva La Fiesta!
Let's take a look in the festival grounds and see what it has to offer!
First, let's start off with the news that the area at the foot of the former Toyota Stadium has become the festival grounds which will presumably only be open for special festivals
Like most of the festivals, it features plenty of special food!
And if you want to buy a tasting card you can do that too!
Let's walk around and see all the food stands! We'll start with Empanada Street
Then we have Gaucho Grill
Then we have Casa De Sabor
And finally, the former Meet Santa location had some of the walls removed (maybe temporarily?) and it has become Fiesta Margarita
But that's not all! There's also face painting, crafts and cookie decorating
And various groups from around the area came to dance traditional dances for us!
And finally, outside of the festival grounds, a food truck sold their tasty looking food in front of the still closed Macho Nacho
New Animal Encounters
Lots of new animal related news this month! Let's start with something that was open last time I visited but I visited after the area had closed for the day: Cheetah Creek!
This is a quick animal swap for the former tiger area
It looks just about the same but the water level is much lower
There were a handful of cheetahs in the area and they were all relaxing in the shade on a sunny day
Like usual, the giraffes were out and active today!
Over at the former Cougar Creek exhibit, there may be a new sign up but the area has been taken over by tortoises
Are they temporary until the cougar comes back? Who knows?! But they are cute!
Over in Tava, both new animal exhibits aren't open yet. Both the Hornbill...
...and the bobcats
Although the exhibit was much further along than it was in April!
Over at the former walrus exhibit, the sign was still up
And the exhibit looked just about the same as it did last time
Shark Experience
The new exhibit opening since my last visit is Shark Experience!
To start with, there's a brand new sign out front
The entrance to the exhibit looks so much better with this little rockwork and mural
The entrance is actually really cool! There's some more murals and a little themeing signs
And then you go into this cool themed tunnel instead of a boring dark hallway like you did before!
The tunnel is so cool looking!
The layout for the exhibit is the same. After the entrance tunnel you go into the shark tunnel and then are spit out at the hallway with the tanks to your left. The hallway has some cool murals with some new lighting
The signs are new
Expect all the interesting looking sharks as you saw before!
Love the atmosphere that the lighting creates
Some small themeing elements line the wall
The little exit room looks so much better than before
There's a little place to take pictures in
And the tank to the exit looks new too
This was a great update of the attraction. It wasn't some super overhaul with new animals but it was the kind of small repaints and refreshes that seem to have deprioritized in favor of rides previously. I'm very pleased with the direction the park is going with respect to additions lately. Certainly I hope that we continue to get thrill rides and roller coasters but I want to make sure that the rest of the facilities don't get neglected in order to get them!
Misc Updates
This was the first thing I saw when I walked in the entrance. Feels so good to see this again
It seemed to be up all day today. Props to the park for getting this very unique coaster up and running again!
Monsoon Falls was closed and drained today. Hopefully just something small before it runs all summer
Near the entrance plaza we see this new sign pointing guests in the right direction to DC Universe
The biggest surprise at the park this month is Penguin was removed!
It was replaced with this covered set of picnic tables
This was a surprise but not too much. I haven't seen Penguin running in a long time although a do hope that a more permanent, better looking shade structure can be built than this temporary tent
Remember that sign promising a new beer garden at the former site of Hammerhead from last month's update? At that site, the sign is down and we have this here instead
There were the same tables from last time but there was a DJ set up playing music and some other activities
My favorite of the activities was a pie eating contest. But hopefully this is just a temporary way to occupy this structure and instead we get the beer garden we were teased. I'll keep my eye out
The new structure that was unfilled last time had tables under it this month
The tent was totally down in the food court area. I love to see the view of the little lake behind the park but I hope more trees or other shade can be put in the area
Continuing around the park, in the walkway past Rainforest Trail, there's a nice new mural on one of the walls
I only have vague memories of this sign here. Not sure that it was there last month but not sure that it wasn't
In Tava, the treehouse was finally open for the first time I've seen it since Covid!
Sidewinder Safari had a full queue when I walked by it. Good to see guests enjoying SFDK's newest attraction!
Interestingly, even though Scatabout was open, there was this sign in front. Maybe just left over?
Whitewater Safari was finally open for the year!
And just in time, it was a warm one out there today!
Over at the former Daredevil Dive site, the fences are down and there was some seating set in the area
And finally, there was some new signage alongside the signage for Sidewinder Safari
And that'll end our update for the day! It was great to get back out to the park. It was very crowded today and it was good to see some more quality of life additions to the park. I know people have been very upset with the newest Six Flags regime for their focus on QoL additions over massive rides but for the time being I'm very much in favor. So many of the non-coaster/ride parts of this park were falling apart and in bad shape a year or two ago. The park today is much nicer than it was a year ago and I look forward to the day when all of the infrastructure for the park is in a place where we can get some new thrill rides again!