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Busiest Day at an amusement park???

coaster addict

coaster addict

Mega Poster
We all hear about those typical days that are busiest at the parks (i.e. holidays, spring break, opening day, last day of the operating season, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Father's Day, July 4th, and Labor Day), but what day at a park was the busiest you've seen? I hear Disney for Christmas is crazy, so is that it? If so, what is the busiest outside of Disney/Universal?

On that day, what lines were crazy long? How long? And, did you think that day was worth your time and money? Some people love the energy of the larger crowds while others prefer the super short lines of non-peak days!
 
I know with some uk parks like Adventure Island and the merlin parks they get a load of people bank holiday saying that I'm never going Adventure Island when it's bank holiday. Fright nights are a big draw everywhere usually.
 
Opening day at Kings Island last month was insane as was the opening day for Cheetah Hunt at Busch Gardens Tampa. Both were by far the busiest I've seen followed by Halloween Horror Nights at Universal in Orlando. Halloween Haunts at Carowinds was also massively packed, even though the park was dead throughout the day.
I'm surprised you mentioned Mother's Day and Father's Day because, other than Easter Sunday, those are the quietest holidays to visit a park here in the USA. Most parks even have special offers on those days in order to draw more guests.
 
When I went to Thorpe during Easter weekend a few years back, we managed to ride 6 attractions between 10AM and 6PM. All of them only once. The shortest line was for Flying Fish, a mere 20 minutes. I think we waited for close to, or more than, one hour for all the others.

Not a very good day to visit as a tourist, to say the least.

As for the worst I've ever heard of, Lotte World in Seoul had a day of free attendance back in 2006.
h8yn42E.jpg

Basically, the park was clogged with people, and more than 30 were injured. I wonder if even half of the attendees ever got to ride anything.
 
DO NOT go to Great Adventure during their Electric Adventure concert event, the attendance for those two days beats out the numbers for even the most packed days of Fright Fest.
 
Every Halloween nocturne in Walibi Belgium is hell. I remember days when it was so crowded it took us about 15 minutes to walk from one ride to another, which you can actually do in two minutes. Queues were horrible, with almost 2 to 2,5 hours for all the major rides. In 2009, there was a 4 (!) hour queue for one of the haunted houses, other haunted houses always have 2 to 3 hours of queueing.

Also hot summer days are guarantee for a very busy day, with most of the queues at the waterrides FlashBack and Radja River.
 
Hey, ECG - I mentioned Mother's Day and Father's Day because, while you do not think of it much as a busy event day, Six Flags give all season passholders a virtual free pass to bring a friend for free that day. I guess it is their way of drawing people out for those unique days. I got to SFOG later in the day on Mother's Day, and it was pretty busy (not as busy as Kings Island's Opening Day this year... more on that in a minute). Thankfully, they had a minor power outage that day right before I got there!
 
Third weekend in Fright Fest historically for SFGAm. It was pretty packed the week after, when I went last year, but not bad at all.

Also corporate discount weekends and the middle of June when Read to Succeed tickets are in effect, especially the last weekend thereof.

Posted while reading your mind.
 
Opening Day at Kings Island this year was crazy busy. The line to the newly-opened Banshee was already 4 hours merely 20 minutes after the gold and platinum season pass holders were permitted in. Now, that makes me wonder how crazy it was for GateKeeper Opening Day at CP and especially Millennium Force on opening day!
 
Pokemaniac said:
When I went to Thorpe during Easter weekend a few years back, we managed to ride 6 attractions between 10AM and 6PM. All of them only once. The shortest line was for Flying Fish, a mere 20 minutes. I think we waited for close to, or more than, one hour for all the others.

Not a very good day to visit as a tourist, to say the least.

As for the worst I've ever heard of, Lotte World in Seoul had a day of free attendance back in 2006.
h8yn42E.jpg

Basically, the park was clogged with people, and more than 30 were injured. I wonder if even half of the attendees ever got to ride anything.
Click to expand...

I'd totally forgotten about that. They had the free attendance day to draw customers back in after it had been closed for a while due to safety issues with ceiling tiles falling on guests. Idiots.

The busiest I've ever seen was Ocean Park for Halloween; it was horrendous. It was the final weekend of the Halloween stuff though, so it was a stupid time to go. Lotte World over the Christmas Holiday last year was ridiculous, too.

Luckily, there was nothing at either park I hadn't ridden before, but I'd completely avoid them during those periods again.
 
I purposely go to parks in April and May and don't even go during summer months. So I usually don't see crowds. The worst I saw was Canobie Lake Park when I went on my school trip in June. Every single ride the queue was spilling out off the gates and I had to wait over an hour for each coaster, which I could walk to all and ride in 30min on an average day. It was mobbed and you couldn't even stretch your arms out to move.

The next busiest was the Sunday before thanksgiving at Magic Kingdom. Sundays are bad to start with, and Thanksgiving is one of the most busiest times. Luckily it was my last day and I was going home, but space mountains wait was in three digits and you couldn't move. I think I spent the whole morning going back and fourth from Carousel of Progress and the people mover.
 
Cedar Point Halloweekends have become some of the most attended days for the park throughout its entire season. Parking often has to go as far as to allow cars to park on the perimeter road, and create temporary parking on the green space surrounding the approach to the park. I was apart of this last year, having parked my car behind Mean Streak.

This is not the most packed Cedar Point has ever been however. Believe it or not, the park does have a capacity at which they will not allow guests into the park. In 1989, Cedar Point hit this capacity with the opening of Magnum.
 
Christmas Week in Orlando (Christmas - New Years), almost all of the Orlando Parks will reach capacity in some form or another. It's stupid busy that week. I know the article is from 4 years ago but here is an example:

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/201 ... ertainment

Easter Weekend in Orlando is usually very busy as well.

Like Hyde said Halloween events are becoming more and more crowded. Saturday night at a Halloween event usually = sardines.
 
By far, the busiest I have seen a park is Columbus Day weekend at Cedar Point.
The line for Millennium had full queues, extra portable queues set up underneath the last overbanked turn, and then the line went all the way back to shoot the rapids. I think the wait was something like 4 or 5 hours.
Also same weekend, people waited an hour in line just to figure out they were actually in line for corkscrew and not top thrill dragster, like they thought.
The lines for dragster, corkscrew, super, power tower both sides were packed and out so far onto the midway people didn't know which line was the beginning of which.
And then Gatekeeper opening day, when the longest our line was reported at was when it wrapped down past maxair to the entrance of the park, around the midway carousel and then ALL the way straight back to iron dragons entrance.
Ive never seen so many people in my life.
 
The busiest i've ever seen a park was at Canada's Wonderland for Halloween Haunt. It was October 30th and in the span of 5 hours we were only able to do Leviathan, Behemoth, and 3 mazes. It was insane and a huge waste of money.
 
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