Good Idea/Bad Idea?? You Decide...

I've been at Hurricane Harbor at Six Flags St. Louis when you had to wait in line to get in. I had to wait about 30 min just to get in!

Was that due to metal detectors? I've encountered waits at the gates of several parks. SFGAM comes to mind. As for that Halloweekend in 2003, 53,000 is the number I heard tossed around, but I really can't say for sure how accurate that is.

when i worked at cp in 86, the year thunder canyon was new, i worked the giant wheel, in its old location. it was a warm saturday and the park had 64,000 guests. we were told the night before to expect a really busy day because of a huge amount of company outings. this was before the current major coasters. the corkscrew line went to the scrambler, the gemini, with 6 trains past the witches wheel, thunder canyon and white water landing lines kind of merged in frontier town, all the employees were just laughing at how crowded it was. these were the days when we sometimes had a "signal 11", which meant the park would stay open till 11pm when it was really busy.

No metal detectors, Hurricane Harbor is free with admission. Hurricane Harbor was appariently (sp) filled to capacity because two people came out and two people went in. All the people at Huricane Harbor made it empty in the actual park (SFSL) though.

t canyon 87 said:
...before the current major coasters. The corkscrew line went to the Scrambler, the Gemini, with 6 trains past the Witches Wheel, Thunder Canyon and White Water Landing lines kind of merged in Frontier Town, all the employees were just laughing at how crowded it was. these were the days when we sometimes had a "signal 11", which meant the park would stay open till 11pm when it was really busy.

Even though it was before the major white-knuckle thrill rides today, I truely consider this era the "Golden Years." I'm not saying CP isn't great now, but the place was a great park when it just featured these rides as the major attractions you just mentioned. ;)
*** Edited 5/28/2005 12:11:07 PM UTC by kylepark***

I'm kinda confused by the Fright Zone thing, I was there last year at the... second to last Halloweekend I believe, and it seemed like all the "omg Fright Zone is liek one way" signs were pretty permanent, it never crossed my mind that it would be a dynamic decision.

I've been at Disney with lots of people though. Not fun.

Matt, that wouldn't surprise me about that day! It is really rare to see the extended queue being used on Magnum.
Does anyone remember the Sunday before opening day in 2000, when CP sold out to 3 companies. I went thinking it was strickly AAA day, then find out PEPSI and some bank company were there as well. Those are the days I hate! Literally fighting through people just walking down the massive midway!

I sure do remember AAA Day back in 2000. My first ride on MF. Three hours was well worth the wait, but I too could not believe the outstanding attendance that day.

Cedar Point had limited admission for its Millennium Mania days. The advertising suggested purchasing your tickets in advance. I don't think that they ever reached capacity for those days though.

Reached capacity on a MilMania day? I doubt if they sold even 30% of any day's quota. The park could have sold at least a thousand more tickets to the two days I went in 2000 and 2001 and still had minimal waits for any of the handful of rides that were open.

Millennium Mania....two of the best trips I'd ever taken to CP. Seeing literally nobody on the midways made it feel like the park was open just for you. Now that dispatch times on MF are for crap, who knows what an event like that would turn into, since it was only MF that had any line for it at all (and even then, it only stretched halfway down the final ramp, tops).

John

FASCINATION (1955-2000): It *was* the game--the ONLY game--I came to Cedar Point to play

I went to PKI on April 17, 2005. Little did I know, some local company had purchased 30,000+ tickets for its employees. OMFG was the place packed! I had to wait close to two hours for almost every major attraction. Racer was probably the only ride without a large line. The park was set to close at 8 PM that night, but due to the large crowds, they stayed open until 9 PM. That gave me the chance to ride Delirium twice, and Son of Beast once.

Benjamin, I was there that morning. After 30 minutes, I turned around and went home.

I went to CP on a day like this in 2000. It was a halloweekends Saturday. People were parked next to Mean Streak when we arrived at the Soak City lot that evening. The Gemini midway was shoulder to sholder and Gemini itself had a full queue. At that time Gemini still was running all 3 trains and the line was only 15 minutes. Luckily for us the only reason we were at the park that day was for one of our famous "MF runs" which we got in line for in the closing minutes and we ended up waiting only about an hour for it. We heard the park had around 60k people that day.

The largest attendance I am aware of in recent years was on a Saturday during Halloweekends 2 years ago. I'm pretty sure the count was well over 50K (it was definately the largest crowd of the year). It was one of those freakish 70+ degree days in October and the crowd was just incredible. I know that it was pandimonium in the Fright Zone that night, and they had to shut it down for about 30 mins until the Safety people could figure out how to handle the crowds. That was the first night I believe they instituted the 'one-way' policy on busy nights in the Fright Zone. A friend in Foods said they ran out of lots of stuff and was scrambling to try and get some Sunday deliveries... lol.

I would have to agree with the comment that the park capacity exceeds the parking capacity. On projected busy holiday weekends employees can't park on Point and have to ride the buses over to work, so they can maximize the parking capacity. The only reason they would turn people back would be if there was no more parking available, not because of the number of people in the park proper.

CPLurker

"Bring back the Penguins!"
*** Edited 5/31/2005 4:59:06 PM UTC by CPLurker***
*** Edited 5/31/2005 5:24:58 PM UTC by CPLurker***
*** Edited 5/31/2005 5:26:19 PM UTC by CPLurker***

That Halloweekends Saturday was so crowded that I was walking shoulder to shoulder on the midways, the trains were hauling full trains with extremely crowded stations, and it was hard to even find a bench to sit down on. I am not sure how many more people could have comfortably fit in the park; I was uncomfortable as it was.

I spent some time in the park before work the Saturday that they implimented the one way Fright Zone. I think maybe I rode Gemini and Mean Streak, everything else had an increadibly long wait. Employees were told to park in the Soak City lot that day. They did finally make the Fright Zone two directions around 11 PM that night when the crowds died down. From about 8-10, the one way crowds were so insane you couldn't even move around to scare people very much. There were a few times I just had to stand to the side and let the crowds flow past because there was no room to walk between people.

Luckily, ive never been to Cedar Point on one of these crouded days. I remember one day, i went to Cedar Point on a really cold crappy day, and the only ride that was open in the park was Raptor, and the end of the line was still in the station. It was really cold and drizzling. It was on a Halloweekend friday. They ended up opening MF. What a terrible ride that one was(not that its a bad ride)it was really painfull, with the rain hitting your face at 93 mph! OUCH!!!!