Fri/Sat 15 & 16

Friday was pretty good, but damn Saturday was SICK. I don't mean that in a california surfer positive way or anything either. The screamer to guest ratio was ridiculous.

We did everything Friday night thankfully because all the haunts and rides were 2 hour waits minimum it seemed. Lines were overflowing all the queues and around 9pm when we hit the frontier trail the guests were so thick that we could have crowd surfed all the way through the park and out the exit. The 20 foot opening under the big sarcastic talking glowing skull at Fright Zone was actually a bottleneck for the uncontrolled mass of human meat. We didn't get scared once because we were lost in a sea of flashy swords and so wedged in with everybody else that I swear there was some unintentional impregnation going on in there.

I'm not joking, I never thought the park could hold that many people. Lines were off into the horizon and everything.

Can anybody that went this saturday with some experience tell me if this is a normal Halloweekends Saturday or if even this was insane in comparison?

By the way Blue Streak wait was 2 hours so we said screw it. Raptor was 2 hours too, Disaster Transport was 1 1/2. Everything else looked so ridiculous we didn't even bother. I'm so glad we did everything Friday.

during the opening bottle neck at the skull we actually pulled all the monsters out and were on the sidelines while the police got the traffic pattern fixed. It just wasn't safe for one to get stuck in the middle. in 5 years I've never seen that happen that bad.

You most definitely experienced what has become the norm for HalloWeekend Saturday in October if the weather is nice. This has been the case for at least the past 6-7 years and this year has been no exception. These Saturdays are by far the busiest days of the season now by a considerable margin.

It's hard to say if people will remember this from year to year and keep visiting on Saturdays despite how reliably packed the park can be. One would think folks might think twice after a while.

By the way, does anyone know if Fright Zone has gone to one-way at all this year on the busy Saturdays?

I feel completely ripped off from my experience yesterday. I showed up at 12:15pm, parking lot half full already. I stayed until midnight. I got on 4 rides (Magnum twice, Maverick, and Gemini), and made it through corn stalkers. First of all there needs to be a limit to number of guests that can come in to the park. In all honestly I think there was 100,000 + people there yesterday. Every single ride had a minimum 2 hour wait, millenium at one point was up to a 3.5 hour wait. The line for millenium made it all the way down to the panda express or whatever restaurant is down there. It was ridiculous! Iron dragon 2 hours! Magnum 2 hours! Maverick 3 hours! Cornstalkers 2 hours! We tried walking through the fright zone and I thought I was at a concert--there was no where to walk, we shuffled our feet through the mob of people, where there was basically no screamers or whatever you call them. It was HORRIBLE. The lines for the bathrooms, food sources, everything was just unbearable, especially when you bring a family of 7 and pay over 300 dollars for tickets, 20 dollars to park (2 cars) and over 200 in other purchases inside the park. At one point someone collapsed and the emergency vehicle COULD NOT MAKE IT TO THEM! THEY WERE STUCK IN THE CROWD. Tell me how that is safe? For that alone I will personally be writing to CP expressing my displeasure at the fact that someone who needed emergency assistance could not be helped because the vehicles could not move. It was just awful never again. Cant say it was enjoyable, went there for halloweekends and didnt get scared because the ratio of customers to workers was most likely 10000:1.

I love when people go on HW Saturdays when the weather is nice, then act surprised about the crowds. It's been this way as long as I can remember.

We go most HW, and stay in our RV at camper village. We go into the park for early entry Saturday morning, and are usually out by 12:30 or so, not to return. We get our riding fix on Friday/Sunday.

I will be interested to watch the webcam today and see if it's anywhere near as busy as last Sunday. We are going for both of the last two HW, and I'm getting concerned that the Sunday won't be as great as it's been, historically...

not surprised it was "busy", but when you have 3 inches to walk through fright zone, come on. thats ridiculous. last night was a joke. also 3 hour waits for rides? ridiculous

It looked like hell on the webcams yesterday. I am almost 100% sure that park capacity is around 55'000-65'000. Did Shoot the Rapids have a line at all?

MagnumFan said:
I love when people go on HW Saturdays when the weather is nice, then act surprised about the crowds. It's been this way as long as I can remember.

This is two weekends in a row. We know it gets insanely busy at least one Saturday during the fall.

Busy has varying degrees. I expect at least an hour on Saturdays for the big rides, but hitting an hour at Iron Dragon, parking on the grass at the causeway and waiting more than a couple of minutes for a bathroom is far from normal.

Good for the park, bad for the people who frequent the park more than once for Halloweekends.

In my experience, both as a guest and an employee, the Saturdays in October (with the possible exception of the Saturday immediately before Halloween) have been extremely busy for quite a while now. It's all about how the weather turns out and in this case we've had two nice weather weekends in a row. If the weather is nice for this Saturday we'll very likely see a similarly large crowd at the park.

Shoot The Rapids was closed sat,it was to cold.

MagnumFan, why wouldn't someone act surprised if they had never experienced it before?

I knew it would be busy, but the definition of busy can be broad.

This is my first and last Saturday on Halloweekends. Friday was my first Halloweekends experience and it was awesome. I think the other guy has the right idea. Go friday, do the early entry Saturday and enjoy some of the park, get the heck out of there and recuperate and come back Sunday.

That is what I'll be doing next year and see how that works out.

Fright zone didn't go one way last night or the other weekend, don't think it will, seems folks have changed their mind since the time when they used to do that. also the toe to toe problem there didn't last for more than 30 minutes after that traffic had slowed down and it was a slightly busier than normal saturday.

I just meant people who frequent the forum should not be surprised by these Sat crowd levels. Naturally, people who are not as familiar with the park are justifiably shocked by the crowd levels.

I don't go to cheap movie nights on Tuesdays because I know its going to be busy. I don't go for a haircut on the Saturday before Labour Day because every kid is going to be getting a back to school haircut. I don't go to my local grocery store the Saturday before Thanksgiving because everyone will be getting their turkey. I don't go Christmas shopping at the mall on December 20-24 because every last minute shopper will be there. Everything has trends of busy times but usually you can work your schedule around them. Unfortunately Cedar Point's great success with Halloweekends is only a limited time offering so it's hard to work a schedule around that.