Does crowd level affect one's opinion of a park?

As said earlier by others, I truely let the way that a park handles the crowds affect my opinion of the park as a whole. The park can not control how many people are in the park, so that does not affect my thoughts regarding the par. In my opinion, if a park has multiple trains running and enough employees to effectively operate every or almost every ride, I automatically like the park and will want to come back. I think the worst possible situation at an amusement park is when a huge crowd of people are standing stagnant in a queue line. That makes me want to leave ASAP and not come back. (although I always end up going again anyways :))

That is so true DWeaver Disney is about the only chain that handles crowds to an extent where the time one spends there is enjoyable

High attendance means the park is doing something right.I agree that my opinion is based more on how the parks deal with high attendance.We all like an empty park.Theres nothing better than continual walk ons. However as an enthusiast we need to be smart about trip planning. Dont plan a trip to Cedar Point or SFGA Or any park for that matter on a saturday in July. The best way to avoid the crowds is plan weekday in the pre or post season.If your traveling locally go on a dreary day.Even modereate rain,many people will leave and usually the rain will let up enough to ride. Its using common sense. Now out of state or long trips are obvisouly more difficult to accuratley predict when crowds will be at there peak because we cant comtrol the weather or in cases when we are alloted or can get the vacation time. *** Edited 6/9/2005 3:55:39 AM UTC by nickpa610***

Things that make me lose it.

When I'm in a park on a ride for the first time, and waiting in a line that seems to be moving. I start thinking "This isn't so bad, we'll be on the ride in 10-15 minutes." Only to turn the corner and see an additional 10-12 full queue lines that were sneakily hidden behind some evergreens. Arrrrrrrrrrgh!

This one happens more often on flat rides. It looks like I should be getting on in another ride or two, when suddenly these 34 Munchkins appear in the line-- and there's like 8 feet between me and the ride! Were they all there standing on each other's shoulders or something? Did some woman just give birth in line? Were they under that fat guy's tank top?
Were they flattened against the rail for the last 20 minutes?

Why is it at Knoebels, I have no problem waiting 15-20 minutes for Phoenix, Twister, or the Haunted House, but if I'm behind 6 people at Cesari's, that's just unacceptable? (maybe it's because I just KNOW that one of those people will order 10 slices of 7 different kinds of pizza, or get to the front of the line and ask what they have to drink.) And don't even make me wait outside at the Alamo.

I'll have to agree with some people's opinion that a dead park isn't much fun either, unless you want to power-ride some of the coasters or flats. It's been my experience that the ride ops can be more lakadaisical when there aren't many people to load or in line (or on line for you New Yorkers). On the other hand, when it's too crowded and there are way too many people jamming the midways, it's no fun.

And usually the worst is yet to come as you try to exit the park at the end of the night. All those people and their cars=long wait to get back onto the road. July 4th at SFA in 2003 was just absolute madness. Luckily we only came for the end of the night to catch the fireworks, but got caught waiting like an hour just to get off the parking lot. I seem to remember Sam Marks telling me at PKD that same night that it was about a two-hour wait to exit.

This is why I *usually* do most of my travelling in March/April or September/October. Better weather, lesser crowds.

I admit I am spoiled and do NOT like to wait in lines over 20 minutes. If it's a new-to-me ride I will wait, if it's a ride I love I will wait. If it's a "been there, done that" ride I will wait with a newbie. ;-) Otherwise I won't deal with the lines. ERT has that effect on you. ;-)

Last week Gator and I had GREAT luck with the crowds. I think the only exception was Waldameer, but that wasn't so bad. Cedar Point, Geauga, Kennywood, Conneaut Lake, Marineland, PCW, and Darien's crowds were minimal to average. Once I went on my own to Seabreeze there were also no crowds. Great Adventure was a different story but I fully expected that. At SFA, ALL the coasters were walk-on, even Supey once it got up and running. :-P

But on average, I do NOT tolerate crowds and heat very well, but I will manage if I have to.

I have noticed that on HOT days the waterparks are packed, which leaves LESS lines for the coasters. I found this at SFA among others. When I visited last Sunday the parking lot was PACKED but the lines for the coasters were a 15-minute wait at the most.

Still, on average I do NOT visit the larger parks in the summer due to the crowds and humidity/heat. PKI and CP are best visited in April and October, respectively.

-Tina

*** Edited 6/10/2005 10:18:38 AM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

Unfortunately Tina spring and fall aren't condusive to taking large trips because of weekend only operations. That's why I try to do those early in the summer. This year I have three major trips planned (allready took a 9-dayer, still have a 6-day and 5-day left) so the second two trips are going to get done in mid and late June. Will I run into crowds? Sure. Will I let it ruin my time at the parks? Not unless they don't run the rides to capacity.

Crowd levels affect my opinions when operations don't meet my expectations. I can have a good time on a crowded day, as long as that's what I'm expecting.

Paramount Canada's Wonderland, La Ronde, and Cedar Point are the only parks I know well enough to enjoy on crowded days. I do most of my park visits on extended long weekends or off-season travel to Florida.

I get more frustrated with myself when I get stuck in a 2-hour line at PCW's Top Gun or CP's MF. "If I arrived an hour earlier, I would have saved 90 minutes in line." But life goes on, and I still have a good time. Especially if I'm with a group of friends.

I tolerate crowds at La Ronde by leaving the park. Why? When La Ronde gets crowded, it is innundated by rude teenagers. (Not all teens are rude, but a lot of rude ones flock to La Ronde.) If I can't cope with that, I grab the subway downtown and stroll St-Catherines, St-Denis or St-Laurent. I love people-watching and I love food, and Montreal's a great city for both. After dark, it's a quick subway ride back to the park and everything's good again.

Magic Kingdom is a good park to study attitudes about crowds. In April 2001, I visited MK on three different days, and only when we attempted to ride all the Fantasyland attractions on a Saturday afternoon did we begin to see the impacts of crowds (lines of 20-30 minutes). But we still had a great time. A year later, one of my cousins went to MK on Christmas Eve. It was so busy that the gates were closed before 11:00 am. It was so busy that the only 'mountain' he experienced was Splash Mountain. However, the park was open many more hours than on my visit, and he experienced more shows and parades than I ever did in my three days of visiting. He had a great time. I doubt enthusiasts like ourselves could enjoy ourselves as much as he did on a peak capacity day. Our expectations were different, and Disney entertains guests no matter what the crowd levels.

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coasterqueenTRN said:

I have noticed that on HOT days the waterparks are packed, which leaves LESS lines for the coasters.

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My parents have now drilled this into my head--it's fewer lines. Even the local supermarket chain now says 15 items or fewer, instead of the old 15 items or less.

But I completely agree with you about waterparks. Just look at Dorney Park for example. When Wildwater Kingdom is open, it's open season in the themepark. I remember in 2001 when we tried to get a locker in WK, that we couldn't find one and had to use the lockers up near the entrance. And that was around 10-11a.m. in the morning. Talon, which was brand new that year, was a walk-on.

I have however seen exceptions to the waterpark rule like my trip to SFNE last year. Both areas were equally packed with people. I don't even want to think of what it would have been like without Hurricane Harbor open. The real test for SFA will be once they get all the new Hurricane Harbor stuff running and the kids are all out of school. Obviously if they get everything running that'll mean more stuff for them to do so as to not cross back over into the themepark prematurely.

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socalcoaster said:
That is so true DWeaver Disney is about the only chain that handles crowds to an extent where the time one spends there is enjoyable

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Amazing, isn't it? Disney's CA has a larger attendance record than CP or SFMM and yet manages to keep the lines under half an hour! CP and SFMM have 16 coasters apiece, CA has two.

Yet when I went there peak season, peak time (think: first saturday in July) the crown coaster, CS, had a 30 min line! With the dual station they were dispatching trains every thirty seconds or so, full. I counted seven trains on the track at once that day, as there are so many MCBs to allow for so many trains on the track at once. It is amazing how a 2:30 long ride can take such a huge capacity.

As a matter of fact, all the attractions that day had a maximum 40 minute line up, and even the wild mouse was moving fast. That's what I call great operation.

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RatherGoodBear said:
Things that make me lose it.

When I'm in a park on a ride for the first time, and waiting in a line that seems to be moving. I start thinking "This isn't so bad, we'll be on the ride in 10-15 minutes." Only to turn the corner and see an additional 10-12 full queue lines that were sneakily hidden behind some evergreens. Arrrrrrrrrrgh!

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Couldnt agree with you more.

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Or, like, when you get in line for Ghostrider, which has a decent size queue outside, then you get inside and realize that the bottom floor is full...not knowing that there is also another floor of queue as well.

Thank goodness for ERT, or I may not have gotten the credit (or Mooshed for that matter).

I can't stand crowds. The idea of waiting 2 hours for a 2 minute ride is tremendously unappealling. I live near SFMM, and only go once a year. I take a Friday off work in May or June (before schools have let out), and go then. I just went recently (Friday, June 3), and there were very small crowds. The longest I waited was 15-20 minutes, with many walk-ons. That's the only way I will go. If it's a crowded Saturday, I hate SFMM. If it's like it was last Friday, then I'm SFMM's biggest fan.

Like others have said, its not just crowd level, but how the park handles it. I went to Hershey park last year on a Wendsday before Memorial Day. It wasn't packed, but there were a lot of school trips there. Thanks to one train operations on Wildcat, I had to wait 45 minutes to an hour to ride it. I was so ticked off about that. You charge us full price for early season days, but run evertying at half capacity? At least Dorney Park does it right and charges a little bit less for early season, half capacity days.