Worst Theme Park Experience

[Guest]

My visit to Cedar Point in 2007 was pretty sad. We were leaving Geauga Lake and the Boomerang opened up as we were leaving, so we took the time to ride it (which was awful). Then when we got to CP and waited in line for Dragster it started raining right when we were about to get on. So waited that out, when they restarted the ride and it broke and didnt re-open.

 

The next morning we went to Maverick first and it wasnt open on time, so we waited in front of the entrance while they cycled trains. Trains were cycling about 45 minutes before the ride opened. We then went to MF and it wasnt open yet either (1 hour after park opening) but the line outside the entrance was huge and they had started cycling trains so we figured the line would be bigger later. After a bit it opened, and then broke down again right as we were about to get on .

After MF we went to Wicked Twister and it broke down while we were in line. We were 4/4 with Intamins breaking down while we were in line. TTD broke down while we were in line for it again later in the day. Wanted to finish the night with Maverick but it was broken down when we got there, it re-opened a bit later so we got in line for it and it broke down about four times while we were in line.

 

I personally thought it was hilarious because of how cliche it is that CP keeps buying Intamins that break down so excessively but I had all the CP coasters, my friend who needed all the credits didnt find it so funny.

[hobbit]

^ Cedarpoint wins lots of prices.. "Best Themepark"

 

But what say the crew when the ride is closed?

and how do they do that over there?

[Guest]

/\ Well obviously my last visit to CP was not so pleasant, Maverick is a great coaster but I have no interest in returning anytime soon.

Downtimes are handled just like every other park. They make an announcement and wait for it to get fixed.

[Chris Benvenuto]

^^ It's generally an annoucement over the ride's PA system, and they go to explain what happened and so on.

 

One of them I remember personally is:

 

"Top Thrill Dragster is currently down due electrical reasons, we do not know how long this will be. You're able to ride any other of the rides here at Cedar Point. Top Thrill is currently down to electrial reasons, we do know how long this will be, etc."

 

Just switch out the ride for other rides when it breaks down, due to Mech, Tech or Electrial reasons.

 

My worst experience is going to Cedar Point on any 90+ degree day in the summer, it's horrible. I'm leaving it directly at that.

[doom1001]

One day we drove up from Miami to Busch Gardens Tampa and as we're getting close to Tampa we hear on the radio that there's a tornado watch and while the weather was cloudy we still head to the park,usually these tornado warnings are for an hour or two and then you might get a nice day.Well a little later we hear that a tornado has been seen 6 miles south of downtown Tampa.Well we get to a cloudy park on a weekday during school so we were maybe the 10th car in the lot.We rode Montu twice and then headed back in the park to ride Kumba,this was the pre-Sheikra days.As we get near the back of the park it was like they dumped a continuous bucket of water all over us,we try to find some cover and see the bumper cars are still operating,we get in the cars and see that there's water almost coming up and over into the floor where the cars are at,and I start thinking these probably run on electricity and water coming in here is probably not a good thing,well before they started the cars they told us to get out of the cars as they were shutting it down.We hid out until the water slowed down somewhat.There couldn't have been more than 20 people in the park at this point.We made it back to the car and drove off to Universal which had nicer weather for a while but about two hours later it turned wet and ugly,thus making us leave again.Not a good day.

[robbalvey]

Fuji-Q

[ginzo]

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.

 

I remember that day. We kind of had bad luck that week with school trips. I remember getting it the worst at Efteling in queue for Flying Dutchman.

[alilstronger]

Anytime I visit Six Flags America.

[Ed]

Thorpe Park Fright Nights 2008. A THREE hour queue for Nemesis Inferno. I managed to get on about 4 rides in 12 hours. Joy.

 

 

Thorpe Park Opening Day 2009. £24 to get in, got on 3 rides all day. None of their major rides were working. Saw broke down after people had been queuing for about 2 hours for it and never reopened. Stealth was down, Nemesis Inferno & Collosus kept breaking down all day.

 

They didn't open rides like the Rapids until 2pm, then accidentally overfilled the water channel so it was "too dangerous to open".

 

So many people went to Guest Services to complain that Thorpe Park decided to issue free tickets to everyone in the park who had paid to get in that were valid until September.

 

I also managed to blag a free Alton Towers ticket by saying that I would never be going back to Thorpe Park this year (and I haven't!) which I used the other week. Very useful.

 

Sold my two free Thorpe Park tickets for £20.

[Guest]

/\ Is Thorpe Park mobbed with few rides open everyday or something? I swear every time I read a TR from Thorpe it involves huge groups of people going to guest relations .

[SharkTums]

^I've had some really good experiences at Thorpe Park, and never gone to Guest Relations. I can tell you though, that they are kind of setup for disaster a number of times throughout the year though.

[Electerik]

I was working at GhostRider on the day of KBF's ill-fated 1999 "5-cent admission on Cinco de Mayo" promotion.

 

When a park reaches capacity at 10:30am and then closes 3 hours early, you know you've been part of a disaster.

 

/But at least I had a good view of the arrests/near riot at the front gate.

[Josh Linn]

I've been fortunate and have yet to have a truly terrible experience at a park, but I'd say the worst for me was IOA in '06 because I didn't get to ride Dueling Dragons, but I still enjoyed myself.

[monsterfan99]

While not a bad day, the last day of Kiddieland left a bad taste in my mouth from the parents of kids. The day ended up being parents encouraging their kids to cut lines, push people out of the way and steal seats on rides. It got to the point that I was stunned when a parent actually told their kids to wait for the people in front of them. It was not the parks fault, just put a damper on the day.

[DBru]

Last weekend, my dad, a friend, and I made the 6 hour drive down to Atlanta to visit SFOG on Sunday...

 

At 2:30pm, I started getting one of my terrible migraines (doctors have told me the ones that come over me are much worse than the average migraine, yet they can't find what causes them or how to prevent them from happening). I tried to wave it off and have a good time, regardless, but about an hour later, it got to the point where I absolutely had to leave the park and go back to the dark, silent hotel room to vomit and sleep. We woke up the next morning and went back home.

 

So, to rap it up, we traveled 6 hours south, went to SFOG for less than 5 hours, I got really sick, we spent an extra $70 on another hotel room, and traveled 6 hours back home.

 

Even though things didn't turn out as planned, we still enjoyed (most of) the time we spent in the park. Therefore, I guess I'm glad to say that this was my worst park experience.

 

 

(You can read my TR here: http://www.themeparkreview.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=52716)