Park Pet Peeves

[StealthFan]

My biggest pet peeve at any park is that since pooping in Tangled Toilets now no other theme park toilet anywhere comes close to that experience. This makes me very sad

[DarienLaker]

Speaking of bathrooms, one of my pet peeves are dirty theme park bathrooms that haven't been cleaned in forever!

[boldikus]

line jumpers

long waits

long queues when they are never needed

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway and stop for no reason

stinky bathrooms

bad pop music on repeat

expensive food and beer

bad beer selections

teenage girls high pitched screaming in complete terror at the sound of the word "dispatch"

teens & preteens sucking face in queues

teens & preteens sucking face on rides

Dorneys no re-rides policy

crowds

puke

[coasterkid124]

People afraid to enter the station and block the entrance. I waited 40 minutes for a coaster that would have been a one train wait because people didn't know where to sit/didn't know when to enter.

 

As for the basketballs, does Cedar Point give them away, because it seems like every other person has one.

[Password121]

line jumpers

long waits

long queues when they are never needed

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway and stop for no reason

stinky bathrooms

bad pop music on repeat

expensive food and beer

bad beer selections

teenage girls high pitched screaming in complete terror at the sound of the word "dispatch"

teens & preteens sucking face in queues

teens & preteens sucking face on rides

Dorneys no re-rides policy

crowds

puke

THIS

[marth555]

My biggest pet peeve involving amusement parks is when the company that owns them will use a commercial featuring others parks coasters. When I see an add for Kings Island and I305 is in it to me that's false advertising and it drives me crazy.

My other big pet peeve is when you stay at a hotel near an amusement park (especially the ones owned by the park) and the damn pool closes at ten when the park closes. Leave it open a couple of hours after the park closes so people can actually use it as most of your clientele is coming for the park and from the park.

Both of these but seeing I 305 on a KI commercial is just wrong

[BeansproutMidget]

Bringing up those Cedar Fair commercials...KD has one for their 40th anniversary. It's filmed at Knotts. It was probably easier to film there, and it would be partialy believable if there wasn't Xcelerator in the back...

[DarienLaker]

I got more!

 

* Replacing a good ride with a lame kiddie ride

* Removing a roller coaster from a building and leaving the building empty until the cows come home

* The no outside food and drinks rule making people buy expensive theme park food

* One train operations on coaster that are capable of operating more that one train

[Awesomefaceninja7]

"Does this go upside down?"

[grsupercity]

When a family owned park adds rides every year, gets bought out by a big name chain and then goes years without new additions lol

[Awesomefaceninja7]

I was queuing for Colossus at Thorpe Park one day and these teenagers (around 17-21) were standing right behind me, putting leaves to their mouthes and making a squeaky noise for ten minutes... GRRR.

 

-People who constantly brag about how they went on the coaster/ride with the fastest, tallest and most inversions and they just don't shut up about it.

-People who exaggerate fake ride accidents (OMG dis costar fall of trak wen abov teh laik n 3128 ppl dronwed!!!!)

-People who think they're going to die on the ride (Why did you queue for it in the first place?)

-Top Spin ride with a full queue, everyone goes on it and they don't all move to the end so you have to squish past them

-When an entire train/ride's restraints have to unlock because one or two people did something wrong

-People who walk down the park on their iPhones and Samsung Galaxy SIII... not paying any attention of what's happening and bumping into everything

-Exaggerating stats (OMG dis goaes leik 329 mph and gends 8129281 fete n teh ari! iti duz leik 2912 upseid donwines aswlee!)

-Some people who think the ride is made by Satan when the ride stalls on the lift hill

-Downright INSANE reactions when a flat ride starts moving

 

Personally, I don't think slow operations are a bad thing. When you're in that seat and waiting ten minutes for the ride to actually start, it adds to the tension and I somehow get a really nice feeling with those seats...

[urzishra]

- People who work (or have worked) at a theme park and everything is just "old hat" to them.

- Parks that do not have original food offerings. It's one thing to have a chain in the park that isn't available everywhere. It's another to just have 5 Subways in your park and call it good.

- Poor utilization of park resources by park ops. If you have a SRL let people use it. Or at least make them aware of it.

[LuminousAphid]

line jumpers

long waits

long queues when they are never needed

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway and stop for no reason

stinky bathrooms

bad pop music on repeat

expensive food and beer

bad beer selections

teenage girls high pitched screaming in complete terror at the sound of the word "dispatch"

teens & preteens sucking face in queues

teens & preteens sucking face on rides

Dorneys no re-rides policy

crowds

puke

 

It seems like these are all things that come with the theme park experience at one point or another... it sounds like you just don't like theme parks Although I'm sure you know the parks and times to go to avoid these things. I hope I can also find the parks where these are non-issues!

 

Personally, my pet peeve is that parks I have been to only offer one low "tier" of food- pizza, hot dog, burger, fried, soda. I'm not a foodie, but I would gladly pay a couple of dollars more for something edible- for example I was eating a polska kielbasa the other day and thought, "this would be great park food" vs. your standard hot dog. I probably just need to get to some classier parks (or outside the U.S.) to experience good park food.

[average.coaster.fan]

For me, these are the most annoying things at theme parks:

-Going to a park when the ride you want to go on is closed for the day

-Dirty bathrooms, I even managed to find one that's worse than the ones in my high school

-Assigning seats on coasters

-Those moments during Disney parades and fireworks when they force you into a packed crowd more dense than any country on Earth.

-Rude guests

-In some cases, Fast Pass systems:

One fast pass system I despise is Hersheypark's. It's 60 dollars, only allows you one ride for 10 coasters, and it runs out within the first couple hours of the day.

Another one is Disney. In some cases it's fine, but sometimes the fast pass line overfills, and they end up letting one group (between 2-6 people) go in the standby line while they let a couple hundred fast pass users go on while ignoring the unhappy standby line.

[SLCHeadache]

My biggest pet peeve involving amusement parks is when the company that owns them will use a commercial featuring others parks coasters. When i see an add for Kings Island and I305 is in it to me that's false advertising and it drives me crazy. I have had this pet peeve since i was young. I would see and advertisement then could not find the ride anywhere at the park leaving me confused and frustrated ( this was when i was like ten years old). A company like Cedar Fair makes enough money they can make individual commercials for each park.

Like a lot of things concerning big corporate park, we're really the only ones who will notice. Cedar Fair likes to use generic roller coaster imagery alongside cloned rides in the beginning of the commercial, followed by an abstract representation of the specific park's rides when they show the logo. I personally think that that's a pretty good way to save time when creating and editing the commercials, especially when they likely want to debut them all at once across the chain.

 

But, yes, as a theme park person, that drives me nuts as well.

I was similarly disappointed with this advertising practice. I remember being bothered that Kings Dominion's Soak City did not have a certain slide tower that I liked in the ad. Looks like they have something similar now, so it's all good.

 

Cedar Fair needs to update the cartoon renderings. Cedar Point does not have a big wooden coaster (guessing it's supposed to represent Mean Streak) any more. Kings Dominion does not have a bright green looping coaster (guessing it's supposed to represent Shockwave) any more.

[mschisano]

This pet peeve is not limited to parks but rather any public location:

 

People who stop in the middle of a walkway / path to figure something out or look something up on their phone. Its like, just move off to the side, figure your sh*t out then continue on. Don't block a path because you do know what the heck you are doing.

[alilstronger]

line jumpers

long waits

long queues when they are never needed

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway and stop for no reason

stinky bathrooms

bad pop music on repeat

expensive food and beer

bad beer selections

teenage girls high pitched screaming in complete terror at the sound of the word "dispatch"

teens & preteens sucking face in queues

teens & preteens sucking face on rides

Dorneys no re-rides policy

crowds

puke

 

It seems like these are all things that come with the theme park experience at one point or another... it sounds like you just don't like theme parks Although I'm sure you know the parks and times to go to avoid these things. I hope I can also find the parks where these are non-issues!

 

Personally, my pet peeve is that parks I have been to only offer one low "tier" of food- pizza, hot dog, burger, fried, soda. I'm not a foodie, but I would gladly pay a couple of dollars more for something edible- for example I was eating a polska kielbasa the other day and thought, "this would be great park food" vs. your standard hot dog. I probably just need to get to some classier parks (or outside the U.S.) to experience good park food.

 

 

You nailed it!!!

 

My biggest thing is such a simple fix.... Most parks do not have real brewed unsweet iced tea. I do not want that nasty brisk stuff that comes from powder. I know lots of Coke branded parks have Gold Peak but I do not like that. I want to see more parks buy tea bags and make iced tea. This is one reason I LOVE Knoebels. They offer real brewed iced tea.

 

My next thing would be food in general - why does it always have to be burgers, pizza, hot dogs and fries! I know this stuff is cheap but its terrible for you. Disney has real food but I know they can afford it. Seaworld SA has real food as well as Hersheypark. I would totally pay more for real food. Love that Six Flags added the Go Fresh Cafes in their parks.

[alilstronger]

line jumpers

long waits

long queues when they are never needed

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway

large groups that walk side by side taking up the entire midway and stop for no reason

stinky bathrooms

bad pop music on repeat

expensive food and beer

bad beer selections

teenage girls high pitched screaming in complete terror at the sound of the word "dispatch"

teens & preteens sucking face in queues

teens & preteens sucking face on rides

Dorneys no re-rides policy

crowds

puke

 

It seems like these are all things that come with the theme park experience at one point or another... it sounds like you just don't like theme parks Although I'm sure you know the parks and times to go to avoid these things. I hope I can also find the parks where these are non-issues!

 

Personally, my pet peeve is that parks I have been to only offer one low "tier" of food- pizza, hot dog, burger, fried, soda. I'm not a foodie, but I would gladly pay a couple of dollars more for something edible- for example I was eating a polska kielbasa the other day and thought, "this would be great park food" vs. your standard hot dog. I probably just need to get to some classier parks (or outside the U.S.) to experience good park food.

 

 

You nailed it!!!

 

My biggest thing is such a simple fix.... Most parks do not have real brewed unsweet iced tea. I do not want that nasty brisk stuff that comes from powder. I know lots of Coke branded parks have Gold Peak but I do not like that. I want to see more parks buy tea bags and make iced tea. This is one reason I LOVE Knoebels. They offer real brewed iced tea. I do not like drinking lots of soda especially when its hot. The sugar makes you crave it more and makes you more thirsty. Water gets old. Iced tea is great and calorie free!

 

My next thing would be food in general - why does it always have to be burgers, pizza, hot dogs and fries! I know this stuff is cheap but its terrible for you. Disney has real food but I know they can afford it. Seaworld SA has real food as well as Hersheypark. I would totally pay more for real food. Love that Six Flags added the Go Fresh Cafes in their parks

 

I just thought of another... people who insist on telling everyone how many times they road a coaster when they visited a park in the forum. I do not get or understand why anyone cares how many times someone rides a ride.

[WillMontu]

Here is one that was really annoying me last year. I went to Busch Gardens Tampa's Howl-O-Scream event, and in one of the mazes, the person behind me was physically pushing me throughout the entire maze. No "excuse me, can I pass?", just pushing. I can understand being scared, but isn't that the point of the mazes?

I was trying to enjoy the maze, but by the end I was getting aggravated.

[Edgar Allan Pooh]

Hmm, well…

 

- I don’t like it when you’re forced to pay for a locker before getting on a ride. At that point, I’d rather just take my chances leaving my bag at the side of the station. Of course, free lockers or limited-time lockers are great!

- Like somebody else said, when people make out in the queue line. Go make out on a bench or something; I don’t care, just don’t do it right in front of me. I don’t need to be continually reminded of my forever alone status. :V

- I know that this is a ridiculous thing to get annoyed by, especially for a self-professed enthusiast. But I cannot stand long (hour or more) waits for rides. Growing up, my family only went to theme parks in October and March, pretty much, and that was before season passes were really popular. So I got spoiled, and was used to waiting 15-20 minutes or less to get on my favorite coasters. Now I get really frustrated with long lines, and it seems like parks have them now no matter what time of year it is. I remember one time we rode on Silver Bullet at Knott’s 3 times in a row because there was only ~2 people in line behind us. It was awesome.

- Restraints that try to cut off your circulation. I’m looking at you, Skyrush. That ride would’ve been a lot more fun if my legs didn’t feel like they were about to fall off the whole time. Of course, I get that safety is the priority.

- Bees or yellow jackets that like hanging around the queue line, or where you’re eating, or around lazy rivers at water parks. This happened at my last solo trip to the Lagoon, while I was in line for The Rocket as well as Colossus the Fire Dragon.

- Unreasonably bumpy or rough roller coasters. Ghostrider at Knott’s is fun. But there is a threshold for me where it just becomes too much. Like Kong at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. That ride knocked me around so much that I had a headache afterwards. Or the old Psyclone at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which did the same thing.

- When your friends don’t like theme parks, and your family lives too far away to come with you, so if you want to go anywhere you are forced to go solo. This is my situation as a college student. Doesn't help that we're all poor.

- Or people that go with you, but want to leave the park after riding like 4 rides. Come on, we paid for a day pass, so we should stay for a whole day…

- Rides that break down right when you’re in front of the queue, especially on crowded days. Of course, things like that will happen and we have no control over that. But it's still a pet peeve!

 

(Also, whoever replaced "locker" with "fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo", that was awesome. )

Edited July 31, 2017 by Edgar Allan Pooh

[thrillrider]

Besides smoking and cutting in line, my pet peeve would be riding a coaster behind someone with long hair and having it slap you in the face nonstop durring the ride.

[Living_Dead]

I understand that it's just a bunch of kids having fun, but I absolutely get annoyed whenever the Brazilian tour groups start chanting in the queues of every ride that resides in Florida. i get it that you're excited, but it's really annoying when you're trying to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the ride, and yet all you can hear is cheering and chanting from a bunch of kids.

[thrillrider]

I understand that it's just a bunch of kids having fun, but I absolutely get annoyed whenever the Brazilian tour groups start chanting in the queues of every ride that resides in Florida. i get it that you're excited, but it's really annoying when you're trying to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the ride, and yet all you can hear is cheering and chanting from a bunch of kids.