coasternut79

I don't get a lot of time off to go to parks at off peak times. I want to take my son to ride Gwazi and I'm considering the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. Will the crowds be awful? I'm willing to go if they are moderate but I don't want to spend the money and travel just to get into a crowded mess.

My son and I will be visiting the park on the second Tuesday in June on our way home from Busch Gardens. Is it advisable to go ahead and get a fast lane for a Tuesday or just wait and see what the crowds are like once we get there?

Ridiculous. And you only get 1 ride on Pantheon even on the highest package.

Thanks CFC!

Does anyone know if Pantheon is opening with the park each morning or is it a delayed opening?

I have been to two parks in the past two weeks and did not buy Fast Lane / Quick pass / Timesaver etc at either and we barely waited in line for anything. This was at Carowinds on Memorial Day and Busch Gardens Williamsburg on Sunday and Monday of this week. With that being said we will be visiting SFOG at the end of August and I have already bought them for that trip because we will only be at the park for one day and I want to be certain we get to ride everything multiple times.

I wondered the same thing. Every time we walked by it was just deserted and we didn't see anyone working on it or anything. They were obviously still having staffing issues but I wouldn't think that would be the issue since it only takes a couple people to operate the ride.

Just got back from our trip to Williamsburg. Visited the park on Sunday and Monday. The crowds were very light and we were able to ride all of the coasters pretty much at will. On Sunday and Monday Finnegan's Flyer and Mach Tower were closed but pretty much everything else was running. On Monday in addition to those two Le Scoot and Escape from Pompeii were down which sucked since it was 93 degrees. Overall we had a great trip since the main reason we go is to ride the coasters and we rode the crap out of them lol It did kind of suck to walk around the park and see Pantheon sitting over there quiet. Oh well we will be back. It looks absolutely incredible in person. It's going to be an awesome coaster if it's half as good as it looks.

After the train was loaded and they made it through their initial check to make sure everyone was locked in, inevitably the guy in the booth would call out check 53, check 42 or some other number corresponding to the car and seat number and they would have to go and recheck it. A lot of the time they would have to unlock the restraint and have the ride op secure them again. I don't know if it was just a bad sensor(s) or what but they were running all 3 trains and it seemed to be happening on every one. In addition to all of this the crew were moving at a snails pace. They were just going through the motions and like I said the trains were sitting in the station 4 and 5 minutes almost every time. When we finally got to ride we sat out on the brakes for an eternity before finally getting back into the station.

Quick trip report from yesterday, 5/31/21, Memorial Day. Took a chance on the crowds since they are still doing reservations and it was great. Crowds were moderate at most and we got plenty of rides on the big 4 except Intimidator as it was down in the middle part of the day. For the most part the crews were moving the lines along pretty well. We got back to back rides on Copperhead around 3:00 and only waited 5 minutes each time. The one exception to this was the crew on Intimidator as they were really slow and couldn't have cared less. Part of the problem was the crew and part was they would have to check and recheck seats on every single train multiple times. I started timing dispatch times at one point and they were averaging between 4 and 5 minutes between trains. Other than that it was a great day and felt so good to finally get back to the park and ride some coasters. Fury was great as always and by the afternoon it was hauling as the temps warmed up. Copperhead continues to grow on me and that's saying something because I've loved it from the beginning. Got 2 back row rides yesterday and the airtime back there is just fantastic! Such a fun coaster! Headed to BGW this coming weekend and I guess we will miss Pantheon. Major bummer. I actually dreamed last night they were doing a soft opening and we got to get on ha! Maybe that will come true but I'm not holding my breath.

So Alpengeist is only open on weekends? What kind of crap is that? I am going the first weekend in June and will be in the park on Sunday and Monday so I guess I better get my Alpie rides in on Sunday.

So this will be a trip report sort of post about my visit to Sea World Orlando today. Before I start let me say that I have spent the week in Disney prior to this visit and had a great time and was impressed with how they are handling the Covid situation. Before the visit even started I had tried to reach out to Sea World to help me with an issue where I mistakenly purchased the wrong type of ticket (my fault) but just needed to get it corrected. After multiple 30 minute stints on the phone and an email later no one ever contacted me. We got to the park about 30 minutes before opening and made it in no problem and headed for Manta. We got in line and realized pretty quickly the mask enforcement would be much different. There were people all around us either not wearing them or wearing them incorrectly. This would be a recurring them throughout the day. We then rode Journey to Atlantis and Kraken. On no ride could you choose where to sit and all the ride operations were absolutely terrible. the park was packed by 10:00am and the staff was woefully short. I felt sorry for the folks working food stands by themselves with hordes of people standing in line waiting on them. The management seemed to have understaffed everything and the ride ops acted like they couldn't care less about trying to load in a timely fashion. At the shows we attended the did try to spread you out by skipping rows but by the time the show started they had let so many people in they were sitting everywhere and squeezing in anywhere there was an open spot. All the while almost half of them were not wearing masks or wearing them incorrectly. All in all it was a disappointing experience to say the least. We only got 1 ride on the big 3 coasters each and saw a couple shows and did a couple exhibits and decided to leave. The ownership seems to be trying to run these parks into the ground. The difference between our experience at Disney and Sea World was like staying at the Ritz Carlton vs a Motel 6. I know this isn't a fair comparison but it just shows how far this park continues to fall in my opinion. At this point I"m worried about my trip to Busch Gardens in VA in June. We'll see I guess.

Agreed it appears to be hauling at the bottom of the drop. I love the extended stall too. I was excited before but after seeing it testing it looks amazing! What is everyone's best guess as to when it will open? In a normal year I would say it is close enough to say within a month but who knows what they are thinking now. I would think they are looking at Memorial Day'ish to be ready for summer. I hope I'm right because our family trip is the first weekend in June.

When you call the number it gives you the "due to staffing issues during Covid we are experiencing extremely long hold times" mumbo jumbo. In other words they've laid everyone off and there is no one to answer the phone. It's frustrating because this is something I will have to speak to an actual person to resolve.

So I screwed up back in November and purchased a one day ticket for the family to do a day at SeaWorld while we are at Disney for spring break. The screw up was me scheduling our day to visit on a Saturday when it turns out the ticket I purchased is only good on weekdays. I have called the customer service number for SeaWorld numerous times and held and held and held and left messages for them to return my call with no success. I have also done an online submission to customer service with no luck either. I was hoping to see if they could change my tickets for an added fee of course without me having to purchase completely new tickets without any refund on the old ones. It is absolutely ridiculous that you cannot even speak to a customer service rep about a problem. I miss the days of AB ownership. If I ever do get to talk to someone do you think they will help me?

What is the likelihood of this? I was hoping to be there the first weekend of June and really hoping Pantheon would be open by then but with absolutely no news I'm worried it won't happen. It seems to me that with vaccines rolling out at a much higher rate now and with the summer months coming we would begin hearing some news about capacity going up but so far it's been crickets. Ugh

Thinking about a day trip to Dollywood on a Friday in the next few weeks. What are the crowds like and would I need a Timesaver? Are people obeying the rules and wearing masks? I'm apprehensive about visiting as I haven't been to a park since the pandemic began.

I'm right there with you. My wife and I were trying to come up with a plan B from flying and had decided to just drive to avoid planes but like you I fully expect them to announce an extension to the closures. I have no idea when we would be able to reschedule. My kid has so many activities through the summer and then with school we probably wouldn't be able to do a weeklong trip until next spring break. I wonder what their policies will be as to how long you have to re-book and whether or not they will offer refunds? Has anyone here been affected by the current closure that could shed some light on their policies?

There's a video on YouTube showing people riding. Man I want to go so bad when this thing opens!

Dear lord I think I had a seizure trying to watch that. Can't wait for some good footage. Unbelievable it's running already.

I agree but will say it seems that wooden and hybrid coasters are not just finished when the last piece of track goes in like with most steel coasters. I've seen a lot of pics lately of workers up in the different structures of the ride adding support bracing, tightening bolts, etc. that takes some extra time. Hopefully testing gets going in a week or so. Can't wait to see what this thing looks like in action!

Great post because it shows actual information. I posted the other day in the Disney World thread about this before the new thread was created because I'm worried the hysteria will cause the parks to close and ruin my trip when in reality if the news outlets would do something novel and report the actual news people would calm the heck down. Fear and shock draw viewers and more viewers help them sell ads. That's the bottom line.

Really? You're not worried about it? Then why do you talk about in every single post you make? First of all thank you for your extremely substantive post and second of all I have posted all off twice in this thread. Thank you Coasterbill for expressing what I was trying to say, yes I’m worried about the hysteria and the possibility of parks closing, not catching the virus myself. I hope Disney and all parks for that matter are not affected by this but as we have seen in Asia it’s a very real possibility unfortunately. Fingers crossed it doesn’t explode and rampantly spread but only time will tell I guess.

I agree with you about the hysteria. I’m not worried about it myself other than it affecting my trip. Hopefully they stay open and the crowds stay away!

So at what point should I be worried my trip in April is in jeopardy due to the coronavirus? With each passing day it's looking more and more likely we will have a larger scale outbreak which worries me that it will peak in a month or so about the time we are scheduled to go.