Worst Theme Park Experience

[deathbydinn]

Whats your worst theme park experience? Did they say all rides were open when half of them were closed? Was the whole park filled with school kids who think they know everything about the ride your waiting for? It doesn't have to be the whole day but something that happened that makes you wanna pull out your hair and scream. My worst time was at Little Amerricka when my friend ran to some ride, not waiting for other people to get off the ride, and then backed out at the last second. He left me on an airplane kiddy ride and went up to the parachute, sat down and then got off and ran to the bouncy house. He also took us 20 minutes to get throught the haunted house because every 10 seconds he ran out. If you've been in that haunted house you'll know why thats sad. That really annoyed me and I didn't let it ruin my day but it did piss me off. (It doesn't seem THAT bad but I haven't been to a lot of parks so I don't have a lot of stories to share) Now it's your turn. Whats your worst theme park experience?

[jjb297]

Magic Springs this year was disappointing because three coasters were closed (including the two premiere coasters, Twister and X), but the day could have been so much worse. I mean, I was at a theme park! And the water park made the day a lot of fun.

 

Coasterwise, it was disappointing however. Also, I have had so many trips to my home park, so one visit with high crowds just means I come back later.

[CreditCrazy]

When I visited Kings Island in June it was VERY hot and humid and Firehawk made me really sick (I have motion sickness) and later that day I rode Invertigo and threw up after...but a few hours later I was on Beast at night so the day wasn't that bad.

[kidcoaster 2]

Spring Fling back in March at SFOG. Our morning ERT was canceled due to rain we were ok with that but they opened the park to only 3 rides running. They serve us lunch than open 4 coasters. We head towards the front of the park and they tell us we arn't allowed to go there???? So we got stuck in the back of the park with only 4 coasters. With no one telling us anything. They would open Goliath for 15 mins clos it for 30 reopen for 10 close for 30 open for 15 close for 30 minutes.... Eventually they close the park cancel ERT and take my $60 I paid for regristration. Would of been a nice wvent had the weather been nice.

[Jim1013]

Would have to Six Flags Elitch Gardens '06. Altitude sickness + Flying Coaster + Boomerang + Half Pipe + SLC = tossing my cookies for the first time in a park. In front of a lot of people. Not fun. The ride op at the SLC asked me if I needed a medic as I staggered to the exit (I'm guessing he says that often.)

[Dailey Enterprizes]

^ I never heard of altitude sickness.

 

I never had a horrible park experience, but I did have a disappointing one at Hershey Park in 2005 when Storm Runner was put in. I got in line and I waited for an hour and the ride broke down. At this point I'm almost in the station and we were told that we could stay, but they could not tell us when or if they would reopen. To add insult to injury it was really muggy and I had to do #2 really bad. Anyway, 45 minutes later they reopen the ride and I got the second train, second car and had a great ride. Then the ride again was closed down and it remained that way for the rest of the day. Luckily, Hershey Park had all the other coasters and major rides running, but it was still disappointing that I couldn't get any more rides on Storm Runner.

[Jerrykoala2112]

SFGADV this year.

 

-Kingda Ka was closed

-Hot, Humid, Crowded!

-GASM broke after waiting 30 minutes

-Rolling Thunder broke after waiting

-Bizarro and El Toro broke before we got in line.

-Only rode 6 coasters

-Disaster

-Worst park ever

-We also waited 35 minutes for food

[DarkMeasures]

Wild Waves cause the best coaster was the kiddy powered coaster.

[HowieP]

2007, I went to Islands Of Adventure. I did manage to ride Hulk and Spider Man, but then a huge storm rolled through and it rained non-stop from there. So as soon as I get back to Florida, I'm hitting IOA and praying it's a good day.

[TTDluv123]

Kings Island in July when Diamondback, SOB, Firehawk, and Beast were closed for most to all of the day. I waited inline twice for 45 min for Beast then closed it when I got in the station. Not to mention there was a million kids cutting 30-40 people in line and no one stopping them. I got 4 coasters in 6 hours that day. A 12 oz Coke was $3.75!! How pathetic.

[kidcoaster 2]

Wild Waves cause the best coaster was the kiddy powered coaster.

 

How is that a horrible experience

[Thelegendarymatthew]

Yay, the thread is back. With 50% better spelling!

 

Anyways, as I said before, the worst incident is when I was 3. I slipped in the Water Park, and my head hit a metal pole. I had to get stitchs, and a permanent scar above my eye. At least I got to wear an eye patch for a while

 

Also when I went to Cedar Point, I rode Mantis (yes, this is a part of the experience ), and the people who I met up with dropped my phone.

 

I looked at them (JerryKola, and Darkmatter(idk if hes on here or not)) where looking at me, and then I was like DUDE!

 

Ask JerryKola bout this, he loves this story.

 

-Matthew

[Jerrykoala2112]

Ok^ I will tell you guys the story...

 

So I met up with Deathmatter56 and we were riding coasters and having fun. And then we both decided to ride Mantis with thelegendarymatthew. Cuz I knew him, so we wanted to do another little meet up.

 

He was carrying a lot of stuff and so my friend deathmatter56 took his stuff in his backpack and put it on the shelf. We rode Mantis, got off.

 

Mantis has this floor on the exit path where it has rectangle garded wholes in it, so if you drop something, it falls through, and there is water underneaths (alittle of a spoiler)

 

So my friend deathmatter is opening his backpack, and we all see a black phone drop. We all stare it for the longest 2 seconds of your life, what seemed to be hours. It his the white rectangle stuff, the battery from the phone pops out, and PLUMP! into the water....

 

We all just stare at it, until above, thelegendarymatthew, picks up the phone and goes like "DUDE!!!" I was freakin out because I thought it was my phone. So we got onto the midway, and deathmatter gave back our stuff.

 

Thats the whole story, have questions, private message me. I'd be glad to tell!

[Cixot]

Halloween Haunt at Kings Island in 07.

 

We were supposed to be there by 12:00pm to meet up with some friends. We didn't get down there until 4pm because of personal issues with my friends friend. Once we got there, we didn't realize that we had to spend $50 just to get in. I asked my friends if they wanted to wait an hour so we could spend less, but they didn't want to. It went all downhill after this.

 

- We only got to ride Backlot and Derilium. While these were cool because it was my first time at Kings Island since 02, I didn't get to ride FireHawk because it broke down so many times.

 

-Waited the longest time I ever waited to get on a haunt. I waited 4 hours to get on Club Blood, only or it to be really dumb. Then we waited an hour just to get on Trail of Terror, which was all right.

 

- I couldn't get anything to eat, because I spent all my money at the front gate.

 

And that was it. Such a shame too, because the atmosphere was really awesome. I loved all the theming and fog machines stationed in the park. Hopefully when I go this year, it won't be so bad. Diamondback looks amazing from the pictures I've seen with all the fog.

[The Doctor]

Was in new york for a few days. Got on a bus with a freind to Great Adventure. Was raining but they let us pay full price to get in. Rode skull mountain and dark knight a few times for the rain to stop. Headed over to El Toro as we saw it running. Waited in a small line as it was the only big coaster running. As we got to the front they gave a message the park would be closing for the day due to the weather. We were next in line, but they refused to let us ride, and kicked us out of park.

 

Over 3 hours on a bus and close to 100$ spent for 2 Dark Knights and 2 Skull mountains made it by far the worst experience for me.

[mike541x]

BGE Labor Day weekend 07. Our friend didn't get off work till later than expected. We arrived to the park at 1pm with big crowds, and my mom was getting sick before we got though the booths. Before we got to the gate, I lost my ticket somehow. We decided to call it a quits, so we just stayed at Williamsburg for the night. Not a fun memory.

[Emiroo]

(FYI - Here's original thread with 50% worse spelling!)

 

It's not really that bad but here's my story:

 

In the summer of 1998, the movie Titanic was still HUGELY popular. We're talking people were going all "beanie baby-crazy" & "hannah montana-crazy" over it. Well, seeing as how Paramount had the rights to the film, of course Kings Island was host to the Titanic Travelling Experience (or something like that). It pretty much amounted to a few rooms with costumes, props & photos from the movie. We happened to visit the park on the last day the show was going to be there. It was also Fourth of July weekend. To this day, my wife and I still agree that it was the most crowded place we have ever been...and not just amusement parks. The most crowded place period. There was actually a wait just to walk down international street. It took us over 5 minutes to make it from end to end of the international fountains. We were at the park for 9 hours and I only managed to ride 4 rides: Wave Swinger, Adventure Express, Lazy River at the Waterpark, and the Flow Rider at the Waterpark. My wife managed to add Flight of Fear to that list, but that's it.

 

We were having to try to have fun and that's when we knew it was a bad day. Funny thing, I distinctly remember that by some miracle, even with all of those people the bathrooms were always walk-ons! Imagine that. As we were leaving, a group of management was by the gates talking. Not being a KI regular, I asked them if it was always this bad. He said it was the most crowded day he had seen in over 10 years there. Of course that's the day we picked to go.

 

But a bad day at the park still beats a great day at work IMO.

[Bolliger&Mabillard]

As a guest...I'd have to say my visit to SFDK last year. The Medusa crew ubersucked. 10 minute dispatches on a B&M should warrant a termination party.

 

As an employee...Knott's Berry Farm isn't the most terrible job I've ever had, but it's second on the list. I loved what I did but the operations management make the rides department almost impossible to keep a high retention rate. I'll leave it at that

[Capitalize]

The worst day I had at a park was SFGAdv back in August of 07; we had a day in August picked out for weeks as being the day we would go, the day before I had to go back to school for the semester and couldn't make the long trip out there again. We made the 3-4 hour trip up there that morning where it was raining a bit, enjoyed a couple rides with no lines, then the park closed suddenly just after noon without any warning and we drove 3-4 hours home. It was a fine trip if only to get a couple rides on Nitro, but between the driving for hours, paying for the toll roads between DC and Jersey, and finally paying $15 to park we weren't happy to have only spent a couple hours in the park.

[Andy 24]

Just a quick story...I remembered a time when I went to SFMM in the summer of '06....120 degree temperature with 2 to 3 hour waits on nearly every ride. I ended up leaving the park with the worst case of sunburn I ever had. Nothing was going right that day...Never again did I go on a Saturday during the summer.

[PortugePunk]

Disneyland. New Year's Eve 2004. Awe-ful.

Park was hitting capacity when we got there around 6 or 7 pm. We watched Fantasmic at the later show and there were so many people there you couldn't even move. It was so crowded that I was literally scared. Cast member seemed unable to handle the crowds and they, themselves, seemed scared, too. When the park closed just after midnight or so, everybody left and the trams were NOT running, so hundreds of people were walking back to the parking structure yelling at each other. Oh yeah and it was the COLDEST I've ever seen Southern California. It was FREEZING even in the sweater I was wearing.

[JEAPUgrad]

Worst in the Park Experience- I was at Great Adventure on August 14th, 2003...the gay that started the blackout for the Northeast US/Eastern Canada grid.

 

No fault of the park's just not a good day to be there. Nothing operated after about 4pm. We didn't arrive at the park until close to 2pm. Needless to say there weren't any tolls driving home on the turnpike.

 

Worst Out of the Park Experience- this past March, I bought two two-year Platinum Passes from Busch Gardens Europe. We signed up for the easy payment plan where it only costs around $12.50 per month for the passes.

 

My partner and I went to BGE for the preview pass holder day. Two weeks later we were in Central Florida and visited BGA and Seaworld. We missed the soft opening for Manta by about three hours.

 

At some point in June, my bank, Bank of America sent me brand new debit/credit cards with new numbers. There had been a security breach somewhere internally for them that resulted in the new cards.

 

Without thinking about it, I never contacted the park to update my account. I take full responsibility to for it.

 

My partner and I decided that we were going to day trip down to Williamsburg in mid August to say our farewells to BBW. I decided to pull up my BoA account and check to make sure BGE was receiving their monthly payments that were set up to automatic bill pay.

 

I did this because as I went over my last statement, I don't remember seeing the charges on there.

 

Sure enough, I check the account and I hadn't paid BGE since May.

 

I called the park to update my account and pay them what I owed them so we could visit the following day.

 

When I called the park, I was transferred to Guest Relations. I explained the situation with BoA to the associate.

 

The associate told me that my passes had been cancelled due to no payment. He went on to ridicule me about not paying my bills and it was very insulting.

 

None the less, I asked for a Supervisor and after being cussed out by the employee for asking to speak with his Supervisor, I was placed on hold for 20 minutes I spoke to the Supervisor.

 

I explained to the Supervisor what happened, I admitted complete fault, I told them I was willing to pay them what I owed them ($72) and wanted my pass reactivated. I told the Supervisor that I didn't appreciate the language that his subordinate used towards me and I was very angry at that point.

 

No big deal, right?

 

Wrong.

 

The Supervisor went on to ridicule me about not paying my bills and he refused to take the $72 that I was willing to pay them for the missing months. He told the park has a policy that they don't allow people who don't pay them their monthly fees to reactivate their passes.

 

After going round and round with the Supervisor I asked to speak to his Supervisor. He told me "the bus stops here" and I told him I wanted to speak to the General Manager of the park. The Supervisor hung the phone up on me.

 

When I called the park back, I told the operator I wanted to speak to the General Manager of the park. She told me that she could not transfer me to the General Manager unless I knew his or her name. The operator transferred me to Guest Relations.

 

I hung up and called one of my "in the know" enthusiasts buddies and got the name of the GM.

 

I called the park back, gave the operator the name of the GM and was transferred.

 

To my surprise, the GM picked up the phone. After telling him the whole situation from start to finish, I was told there was nothing he could do. He gave me a number for corporate office in Orlando.

 

I called Corporate Office in Orlando spoke to several people as no one wanted to take my call and finally spoke with Jennifer.

 

Jennifer told me that after three months of not receiving payment, they automatically cancel the account. I asked Jennifer if they made any attempt to contact me and notify me of the problem.

 

Jennifer told me that it is their policy not to spend time to track people down who don't pay their bills. The corporate philosophy is that there is little chance that they will see the money therefore they don't spend the time or resources trying to collect it.

 

Fair enough.

 

Working in Hotel Management, I could relate. It's a shame no one below Corporate Office could communicate this practice to me.

 

I insisted that Jennifer charge me the back amount that I owed which was around $72 as I felt it was the right thing to do. Jennifer did dismiss the notion that I could not purchase season passes for the parks again. I could start a new two year plan but could not have my old passes reactivated.

 

Jennifer never offered any apologies for how I was spoken to, cussed at, etc. by the employees of the park.

 

I wrote a letter to Guest Services or the Park, the GM of the Park, and to the Corporate Offices in Orlando. I wrote the same letter to all three departments and CC'ed each department at the bottom of the letter.

 

A month and a half later, I have not received any kind of response from anyone. My only expectation is an apology for how I was spoken to by the first guy in Guest Relations.

 

I don't want free passes or a discount. I want to be acknowledged that as a guest of theirs, I was mistreated by their associate and all I want is an apology.

 

A month and a half later I have not heard back from anyone.

 

I will never set foot in one of their parks as long as InBev/AB or who ever owns the theme park division owns the theme park division.

 

When I'm not umpiring games on the ballfield, I'm a Guest Services Manager for a hotel chain.

 

I guess they have the attitude that they are so big that they don't need my money and they sure as hell will never see another dollar of it.

[Bolliger&Mabillard]

^That sucks. Sorry to hear. That whole ordeal seemed unnecessary but I'm glad that you won't be supporting a business that treats the consumer that way...which is why I have not stepped foot in Knott's as a guest and will continue not to.

[Moose]

^^Wow, thats awful that they ridiculed you on the phone.

 

I was actually at SFNE on the day of the Great Northeast Blackout. I was in the wave pool when it occurred and as such, didn't notice anything straight away. Everything shut down for about a half hour and then reopened. Springfield was apparently outside of the blacked out area.

 

The worst experience I've had in a park would have to be Walibi Belgium. The park was overcrowded with rude teenagers. Continuous French Crunch. If it weren't for the great people I was with it would have been completely unbearable.

[hobbit]

I wait 2 hours for stealth, I saw 2 rollbacks.

And Just one ride away, the train rollback. en they closed the ride....