Anyone at the park today?

So glad I managed to go Thursday especially after looking at the webcam today. Most of October has been a bust for us being able to go anywhere so part of me is actually hoping for the weather to not be awesome closing weekend to keep crowds manageable. Not awful weather, just not awesome.

Yikes, I’m reading lots of parking lot horror stories tonight. And they seem legit given that it’s 1:50am, and Webcam 1 shows a steady stream of cars still inchig along perimeter road from the back parking lot.

Went today Thursday for a brief trip, did early entry and stayed till about 7. Strong cold lake wind at entry and seemed to have subsided a bit by 7. Did a quick ride on MF, that was a cold ride. Went to the back of the park and sat and watched Maverick. When they opened the entrance gate to let to let people in, I jumped on it. Line was to the bottom of the stairs and moving quickly. It was a very good ride. I haven't been able to accomplish a Maverick ride all this season because of the long line created by people leaving SV and filling the Maverick line.

Weather permitting I might go Sunday.

Looking at the forecast for today, it looks like one of those days that *could* be a great day for riding, or could be a day of enormous frustration - depending on how they decide to play the rain policy game.

^^ - I went yesterday and started with early entry as well. Got 4 SV rides in about 45 minutes, including the first train of the day. I’ve never seen that line so short, there was just a continuous flow of people moving through the tunnel/detectors each time. There were some empty rows here and there on the trains I was on but that was likely from low overall crowd level until my 4th ride, when I arrived to a full station and seemed like a line had started to form. (Noted that SV line hit an hour+ later that night so the park evidently got progressively busier until thinning maybe about an hour or two before close)

Headed to millennium after noticing Maverick looked to be down for weather based on the entrance sign & no trains moving. Got one ride in on MF before 6 (just missed magic gate opportunity!), and one ride shortly after 6 with another quick wait. Millennium was running 3 trains at that time. Noticed maverick was moving after my 2nd MF ride so headed back and waited all of 30 minutes for a ride, sounds like a little bit after Dennis got on quickly as the WWL building was close to full when I got there.
Line moved fast though. Hit several more rides all with quick waits the rest of the evening, stayed til after midnight. It was one of my favorite trips I’ve had to the park recently and I may write up a more thorough report with thoughts. Overall I had an awesome time and was glad to have made the trip for the evening.

^ Despite being fairly cold , windy (I don’t think magnum operated once the entire day), and rainy with varying levels of intensity, other than some rides down here and there I think the park did a good job with keeping things open. I saw a few instances of one or two train operation on certain rides later in the evening as it rained a little harder at times.

I was wondering how today panned out as well, given the forecast I’d expect similar to Thursday and I noticed some short waits checking in during the day today. I’m very impressed with the expanded Thursday offering and was glad to be back to halloweekends for the first time in a long time, used to be a regular fall visitor in the ‘02-roughly ‘09 times. :)

Heard reports the causeway is packed with cars trying to get in.

That's not very promising. I'm planning to go for a bit after I'm done with lunch. Figures they've had a camera on the parking lot all weekend but not now.

Dennis Urban said:

Heard reports the causeway is packed with cars trying to get in.

LOL.

DaveDzRochNY- Why LOL?

Because it never was today

We arrived about 2:30. There was no traffic on the causeway and all tollbooths were open. About 4-5 cars in the cash lane and only 3 or 4 cars in all the others. We noticed there were only a couple rows of cars behind the row 33 sign.

Food lines were not very long at all. Waited about 10-minutes at the Smokehouse. Longest lines we saw were for the pretzel place by the Scrambler.

150th Anniversary apparel was 75% off at the Pagoda. Got 2 t-shirts and 2-sweatshirts for $28 total.

Bluestreaker said:

150th Anniversary apparel was 75% off at the Pagoda. Got 2 t-shirts and 2-sweatshirts for $28 total.

Really? Nice. One thing I saw was that line waits weren't too long at all. Though I arrived at 7:30 ish. Blue Streak and Raptor didn't take too long, and Maverick at most was a 15 minute wait. And I was thinking today would be horrendous for crowds because of the miserable weather we've had. Sundays are usually the least crowded days, not to mention if there's a rainy/miserable day, then the next dry day will see a bump in attendance.

I enjoyed closing day 2021! After a horrible closing day 2020 (which, as some may recall, was very windy and cold, with few major rides ever opening), yesterday was much better.

I got to the park at 2:30pm and stayed until closing. Although the parking lot wasn’t very full, the park felt more crowded than I was expecting for Halloween with a big Browns game. Luckily, though, FLP lines weren’t very long.

I did wait almost an hour each for SV and MF because of downtime. (MF, in particular, seemed to be up and down all day, with trains repeatedly stopping on the lift hill.) But I ultimately got to ride everything I wanted to.

The wind felt intense throughout the evening, even though the average wind speed was apparently only 17mph. I kept worrying rides would close, but Sky Cars and Windseeker were the only wind closures I ever saw. (On my way out of the park, I noticed that Gatekeeper was cycling only every five minutes or so. I’m not sure if it was running only one train to ensure full loads.)

I’ll note that the park seemed fully staffed. Bravo to whoeved pulled that off.

This was my first year attending opening and closing days. I can hardly wait for 2022!

They must have changed the sale later in the day, 150th merchandise was only 50% when I was in Pagoda or at least that's what the signs read. That was around dinner time though so I may have missed it not that I really needed any I'm still stocked up on shirts from the pre Pagoda remodel sale. I've gotten year specific shirts marked cheap last few years for the great nieces and nephews and didn't really see any this year. The 150th stuff wasn't quite cheap enough since I would have needed 7 shirts.

They changed the discount about 5:30. We were in line when the change took place.

That would have been very shortly after I had been in Pagoda. I walked back in later but I grabbed a $1 pop and went straight through the line and wasn't looking at anything so I didn't notice.