July 4th / Independence Day crowds

[larrygator]

Since a lot of enthusiasts use the long Independence Day weekend to visit parks and a lot of enthusiasts have questions about crowds on this particular day, let us know what you experienced today.

 

What park did you visit? What time did you arrive and leave? How were the crowds on the best coasters? Did the crowds let up or increase throughout the day?

 

Hopefully, we can use this thread to inform others regarding future trips.

[BigBomer]

I was at Fiesta Texas today from 9 to 11:30, the park was flooded when I left and there was a line of cars stretching on the highway.

[singemfrc]

I was considering going to SFDK this morning but decided against it figuring the crowds would be to heavy. I saw a photo of people waiting to get in to SFMM for the early entry and if its any indication I'm glad I decided not to deal with it. Way too hot out here in California today to be queuing in long lines. I'll probably drive down to CGA on Monday instead when it's both cooler and less busy.

[RideofSteel]

SF Great Adventure

11-6

 

Most of the major coasters had waits less than half an hour. Kingda Ka was closed part of the day, and both sides of Rolling Thunder were closed the whole time. I think the water park was packed... The high today hit 92°!

[ViperLover]

I went to Darien Lake from opening to around 7 PM. Crowds were surprisingly light with most people in the water park. All coasters are still running one train, while the other trains are nowhere in sight. The only major rides that were closed were the Boomerang and Cuda Falls, which is being refurbished. There is still no word on the fate of UFO.

[larrygator]

SF Great Adventure

11-6

 

Most of the major coasters had waits less than half an hour. Kingda Ka was closed part of the day, and both sides of Rolling Thunder were closed the whole time. I think the water park was packed... The high today hit 92°!

 

Good to know, this is one of the parks people ask frequently me about around the holidays and one of the more unpredictable ones. I've been there on July 4th in the past when it was like you describe and other times when it was more crowded, but never on July 4th has it been slammed. I was going to go this morning, but opted to meet a friend there on Sunday instead.

[coasterfreak101]

I also went to Great Adventure yesterday. Hardly any waits for any of the rides, the longest we waited all day was probably 20 minutes for Kingda Ka or 20 minutes for Batman (or maybe it just felt like that in those horrid hotbox stairs). Actually waited the shortest I think I ever have for Superman at some point in the late afternoon. The line for Green Lantern would've probably been around 30 minutes around that same time, but we used the single rider line (it was open, which it isn't always) and only waited around 10-15.

 

What was interesting was that the park got pretty packed, and the parking lot was almost full by the time we left around 7pm, but none of the lines got any longer - we went back for a last ride on El Toro before we left and waited ten minutes, and the line was even shorter when we got off. So the park got crowded, but the rides didn't really feel the impacts. All in all, a very good day!

 

Also, instead of staying at a park for fireworks, you can always start your road trip home around 8 or so - our three-hour drive back to Baltimore involved at least fifteen fireworks shows along the road, including a great finale right as we were coming over the Delaware bridge!

[Sir Clinksalot]

Went to Six Flags Hurricane Harbor (CA) yesterday. In the morning it wasn't bad. We were just going there for a few hours to enjoy the wave pool, lazy river. Took a ride on Tornado shortly after park opened and waited about 15-20 minutes.

Then about 12:00-12:30 the park just got CRAZY. They close the wave pool every hour for about 15 minutes and when they let people in it was a literal sea of people. Won't be going on the 4th again.

 

Also didn't help that only about 1/2 the food lines were open.

[Yamez]

Was at Cedar Point yesterday, didn't go in the park but hung out at the marina and grilled at my family's boat. Park seemed pretty busy, all the lines visible from the outside were packed. The rain and storms messed with the rides a lot so they were up and down all evening making the lines worse. Cleared up around 8pm and that lasted till midnight or so. Great fireworks show by the point this year, and a weird after-finale esque thing where a bunch of fireworks that didn't get shot off during the show went off about 15 minutes after the show had ended.

[Wags]

WDW Magic Kingdom was full, we went to the Hollywood Studios instead, it was packed. Standby wait time for Midway Mania was 110 minutes. The Great Movie ride was a 20 minute wait.

[alwaysairtime14]

I heard there was an hour wait just to leave the parking lot at SFNE, after you waited 2 hours to enter the waterpark.

[Eaglefan9727]

I heard there was an hour wait just to leave the parking lot at SFNE, after you waited 2 hours to enter the waterpark.

 

My wife and I left the park at 10:00 and we didn't get out of the parking lot till 11:15 at night. From the time we got to the car around 10:10. It took us an hour just to get out of the parking lot. As for the water park, We got there around 11:30 and we just walked in. From what I heard, There was about 9,000 people at the water park itself.

[ajfelice]

Waldameer Crowds are usually in the moderate range on July 4th. The day usually starts out very slow, but around 5:00pm the "seas part" and the "very best" of Erie takes over the park. I would never suggest visiting on July 4th because our clientele is usually very rude, misbehaved, and even violent. A few years ago we moved our fireworks from July 4th back to July 3rd because we would rather share them with crowds who are nicer and more civil. We even did the same with our Memorial Day fireworks in which we moved them back to Saturday and Sunday because the Memorial Day Monday crowds are usually extremely misbehaved.

[Jew]

USH wasn't too bad at all either...probably because they don't have fireworks, so everyone went elsewhere for the day.

[Garet]

Lotte World seemed really quiet in the morning and picked up later in the afternoon, same as most weekdays.