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Your longest theme park hiatus?

When I went to Uni I had a big hiatus. It wasn't deliberate but I was just distracted by gigs/girlfriends/partying and those things took priority. So it was probably Summer 2013 till start of the season 2016 without visiting a park (hadn't even heard of RMC till 2016). Then the release of planet coaster and videos of Taron made me realise how much I missed this hobby and now I'm playing catch up for all the years I missed haha
 
This seems like an appropriate time to bump this topic!

I just broke my hiatus of 250 days with a visit to Clarence Pier. We got there early and it was pretty quiet, I was worried they might not run some rides due to the high winds but everything was running and I got both creds with no trouble.

My last coaster ride was a phenominal night ride on El Toro back in October, so it wasn't quite up to that standard but at this point I was happy for any coaster.

The last time I had a hiatus that long was the 2002/2003 off-season; back then I had a count of 9 and my favourite coaster was Corkscrew!
 
Before becoming an enthusiast was about a decade.

After becoming an enthusiast, 2020.
January 1st to June 14th - a Python Pit broke that spell
June 28th was the first actual park visit (Trimpers Rides & Jolly Roger Ocean City) and first real coaster (Tidal Wave Vekoma boomerang)
July 2nd was the first large theme park visit (Kentucky Kingdom)
 
Howie said:
I don't think I've had a totally park-less season since the mid 1980's.
Did they even have spreadsheets back then? ?
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Apparently yes - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreadsheet

Early command line versions existed on mainframes way back in the 60s, first interactive "personal computer" was visicalc in 1979, lotus 1-2-3 was the main competitor in the early-mid 80s, (which had an amusingly named shareware rival called "as easy as"), before excel took over.

Back on topic - I only had about a dozen park trips between starting uni nearly 30 years ago and the mid 2000s.
 
Like most people who have commented here thus far, my time studying in undergrad and working internships made it difficult to visit parks. I would only find the time to visit one or two parks in each summer of 2013 and 2014 and going nearly a full year between visits. Luckily, with a fantastic income and much more flexible income, I'm able to visit parks more frequently and regularly and also significantly extend my season - usually taking a trip or two late in October or November, and sometimes starting as early as March! Definitely better than college!

I'm hot off my longest recent hiatus though. I didn't manage to get to another park after my Texas trip last fall, and with the pandemic in full swing, I wasn't able to visit a park until Lagoon two weeks ago, resulting in a nine month gap.
 
Disneyland Paris July 2009 - Adventure Island - Southend On Sea in July 2014. So 5 years. And then another 4 years before visiting Blackpool Pleasure Beach in July 2018.
Getting back to Blackpool Pleasure Beach two years ago was also 24 years since visiting the park and riding the Big One in its opening year only once before.

During both of these hiatuses I went to dozens of concerts and west end shows instead, got married and divorced and then thankfully rekindled with one of my main interests in riding roller coasters over the last 2 years on a more consistent basis.

Looking to make up for some lost time with some trips abroad planned but of course this year things went on the window. Over the last two years I added about 40 new credits to my existing sub 40 count, so on 77 at the moment. Would have added another 100+ if it hadn't been for Covid-19. Still might get to about 100 total credits this year I guess.
 
Usually between seasons when my children were born as I'd do a trip middle of the year and then nothing until the next year. Willing to bet 2011 mid year until 2012. Baby born + job changes + housing changes = little time for movement outside of trying to establish my life.
 
cookie said:
In order to achieve a hiatus longer than that, I wouldn't have to go to any park until after July 27th, 2020.
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Getting down to the wire on this one, especially with the Swedish parks except Kolmården closed for the summer and Denmark being iffy on how open their borders are still. The hope is I can make a Tivoli visit sometime this summer at least.
 
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From when I moved from Orlando, FL, to Atlanta, GA on July 24th 2015 to when I activated my Six Flags membership on Sept 9th 2019. So 4+years.
 
My longest hiatus won’t actually have been during COVID; thinking about it, mine is pretty much dead on 11 months, and it was the 2016/17 off-season; the last theme park I went to in 2016 was SeaWorld Orlando on 30th August 2016, and my first theme park in 2017 was Alton Towers on 30th July 2017. So my longest hiatus from parks is dead on 11 months!

Remarkably, my COVID hiatus actually won’t have been one of my longest ones; I’m planning to visit Alton Towers on 12th July 2020, and my last park visit was to Hyde Park Winter Wonderland on 2nd January 2020. If I’m only allowed to count permanent theme parks, then my last visit to a permanent theme park was Blackpool Pleasure Beach on 24th August 2019, which would make my COVID hiatus not far off 11 months, but I did technically ride coasters at a major fair in January 2020, so I’m saying that my COVID hiatus is only set to be 6 months and 10 days! What’s even more remarkable is that even if I (presumably) gain no more new creds this year, 2020 will not be my lowest year for new creds since becoming an enthusiast; with the 5 I gained at Hyde Park in January, I still stand to gain at least a solid +5 from 2020, which is not that bad at all (well, for me, anyway); in 2017 I only gained +1 and in 2015 I actually had a completely empty year in terms of new coasters ridden, so 2020 will not end up being that bad of a year for my personal enthusiast journey!

You know what, I might actually go and calculate the approximate theme park hiatus I’ve had every closed season since becoming an enthusiast and see how my COVID hiatus compares!
 
I broke my hiatus today - 176 days between my last day at Phantasia in January and visiting Thorpe.

I'm struggling to think of a longer one. In the past my longest hiatus would have been a UK closed season, so some time from end of October to start of April, when closed season was that bit longer. But even then, that only would have clocked in at around 150 days on average. So yeah, I expect this has been my longest break
 
Fortunately I visited Europa Park and Phantasialand at the last day of their winter seasons. Didn't visit a park by now but will go to Toverland on saturday. My longest hiatus? I don't know. For the longest time I only visited about one or two parks each year so there was possibly a year without any park at all. I only started to visit a lot more parks in the last few years.
 
Today marks 259 days since I went to Alton for Scarefest - I'm fairly confident that's the longest since 1999. Even in my early teens I usually managed to drag the family to Alton once a year.
 
cookie said:
Getting down to the wire on this one, especially with the Swedish parks except Kolmården closed for the summer and Denmark being iffy on how open their borders are still. The hope is I can make a Tivoli visit sometime this summer at least.
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With the expectation that Denmark's going to loosen some restrictions this week I'm setting aside plans to go to Tivoli in two weeks (holding off a little bit to see if there's any potential spike plus waiting for masks to arrive in the mail), which would be a few days before the 27th, meaning my COVID-hiauts could end up shorter than my longest one.
 
Still no idea, but it's definitely not the current lockdown situation.
Was lucky enough to get trips to BPB and Alton Towers in this year before everything went tits up and honestly, I reckon those 2 days out in March have kept me sane.
If it wasn't for those, the last park visit would have been the Live at Port Aventura back at the beginning of December - getting on for 8 months ago now - and that definitely would have been my longest hiatus. I'd be going off my nut by now!
 
Just over 6 months since I was at Phantasialand, and it's starting to get a bit long in the tooth now.

I'm looking at going to Europe in the next couple of months, and hit up some domestic parks in the next few weeks.
 
Well, I haven't visited any parks since HK Disneyland last August and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon, considering I don't feel particularly comfortable going to crowded public places like buses or planes/airports right now.

Might drive to some odd +1s or Alpines that I haven't ridden yet, though probably not too many, considering I've pretty much done everything there is to do within a 3 hour drive from home (day trip stuff).
 
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