Magnum opening day

I was at the park a few hours ago and one of the magnum ride operators provided us with a quick fact that kind of took me by surprise. He said that Magnum had the longest wait of any ride on opening day at 12 hours.

I couldn't find anything about the crowds opening day in '89, so I decided to bring it here to see if anyone could back up or deny that little bit of info. To me, it seems kind of ridiculous but if there's anytime for a line to be that long I guess it'd be opening day.

Opinions/memories?

Depends if you count waiting for SV when it collided until it reopened.

I guess it makes sense Magnum would be the longest wait. The competition in the park was Gemini and Blue Streak. Now the park has several major attractions to draw crowds. Back then Magnum was not only unique in the park but in the world as well. However 12 hours seems super long. Maybe it was not at full capacity or something.

Edit: If it was 12 hours it is not hard to understand how the park became addicted to records.

I’m calling BS. A twelve hour wait would mean that you get into the line at 10:00am and ride at 10:00pm. Or, it would mean that the staff was required to stay at the ride throughout the entire night .

May 3rd 2003 we stood in line twice for TTD at roughly 5 hours each. Delightful at the end of the night when we were no longer permitted to leave the line to pee. Yes. Twice. Was it 4 trains, with only 4 cars (12 seats) each? Capacity and dispatch certainly suffered. MXL200 likely had at least 2 -36 passenger trains running its opening day, on a much less complex machine.. no way that line was 10 hours long.

i was at the park magnum opening day, rode it early, waited about 1 1/2 hrs if i remember correctly. also it rained most of that day after about 1pm, so the ride was not open during that time

I doubt even as a teenager I could go 12 hours without using the facilities.

I was there for Magnum’s debut. The wait time was nowhere near twelve hours. I don’t think we waited an hour. The temperature that day was cold and we were happy (but not surprised) to see that not very many guests had shown up to ride the world’s -est ride. You need to march right back to that ride op and tell him I said to quit making things up.

We attended opening day for Mean Streak and Millennium Force waited around three each time. We passed on TTD as reports had it at 4 or so. I’m not sure how accurate that was.

The longest wait I’ve ever heard of for anything was for the opening of Gringott’s at Universal and I think it was 5 or 6 hours.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry at this post.

When Magnum opened there was much more of an intimidation factor then there is today.

In fact, the first couple of seasons,I saw people leave the line as they got a good,up close look at the lift hill.

That may be why,especially when it first opened,the lines weren't as long.

The longest I've seen during the regular season was around 3 hours.

It was different when MF opened.

Everyone wanted to ride it.

I've seen videos from the summer it opened with waits over 6 hours.

Its hard to estimate the "actual" wait time for Dragster,when it first opened,since there always seemed to be mechanical issues.

Sometimes that shortened lines,when people left when it went down.

While there might have been a few people that waited 12 hours due to some unfortunate timing, breakdowns, etc, I don't think this is generally accurate.

I am not sure of the operations on Magnum's opening day as to whether it was full capacity or not, but for the majority of time from 1989 through say the late 2000s, a 12 hour line for Magnum would be over 19,000 people. The queue probably holds 2,000 at most. Maybe 3,000 in the old days if you filled up behind the bathroom. Call it 4,000 if the line went down past Corkscrew. All of that would be about three hours assuming three trains and a decent crew.

I recall a day during that first summer when we waited for Magnum and the line was past the auxiliary bathroom queue and down the street about to where the lawnmowers are. We were on in a surprisingly short amount of time, considering, and I’m thinking it was somewhere over an hour. Maybe 1.75 at the most.

Nobody ever, ever, waited 12 hours for that ride unless they pulled into the parking lot in the middle of the night. That ride op is a BIG FAT LIAR!!1!1!!

oh my. calming breaths, calm....calm....

Well it is definitely possible given the major record breaking status that there were people waiting in line outside the park from midnight, people wait for days for iPhones or movie premiers.

^And those are crazy people.

As I've turned into a cynical old fart the longest I'll wait for ANY ride is 1 hour. My thought is, "It'll be there the next time I'm here." When I went with my son at the end of May we waited 2:21 for Steel Vengeance. BUT, the posted wait time was 1 hour. They were still running one train at the time and it stopped running for several minutes on three separate occasions, one because some idiot had their phone out on the ride, lost the grip and it smacked someone in the face so they had to clean up the mess. At least that was the rumor while we were in line.

I can remember the line going behind and past the bathrooms out into the midway but I don't remember ever spending more than 3-4 hours I the line but I was also not there for the opening day that was an after prom trip. That was still an awfully long time for my "date" to entertain himself since he refused to ride with me.

Magnum’s capacity is too high for the wait to ever be 12 hours. Literally everyone in the park on a pretty busy day would need to be in line for just that ride for the wait to be 12 hours. Even with two trains running Magnum has a higher capacity than most other coasters in the park.

Paisley said:
That was still an awfully long time for my "date" to entertain himself since he refused to ride with me.

A proper and attentive date would’ve escorted you through the queue then just stepped through the train to eagerly await you at the exit. A gallant date would have surprised you with a burst of courage and climbed in with you. He would’ve held your arm throughout the ride.

I’m assuming you dumped him.

He was in the friend zone right from the beginning and that day didn't help him change things for the better on his end.

I remember waiting a few times in the starting in the queues behind the bathroom. Might have been 90 minutes.

Line never even felt that long though because it was constantly moving. Add a beach ball and a DJ and it barely felt like waiting!

^^^ as above,1995,queue line to behind the bathroom,1 1/2-2 hr wait,DJ helped. Mean Streak was also 1 1/2-2 hrs that day. It was a Saturday. Raptor 2+ hrs.