KBF 12/31/05...let there be rain!

Rain Check: Anybody ever heard of a major theme park handing out free passes for a return within 365 days due to weather? I’ve got four Knott’s passes that say they do…

Since when can a wooden coaster and B&M not run in the rain? Reasons anybody? If it is indeed a safety issue…then I’ve been placed in harms way on many a coaster ride in my lifetime! Methinks Knott’s management wanted to go home early or they needed time to prepare for their New Year’s Celebration! Either way…they had no interest in running rides for their guests that day! Lucky for me the park was dead and I got my fix early!

Closing Early: Anybody ever heard of a major theme park closing early due to weather? There was a lot of rain…but nary a peep of thunder or lightning! They just packed it up and closed at 4:00 pm when it was scheduled to close at 6:00 pm! The major coasters sans Boomerrang closed about 2 hours into the morning…but everything else stayed open! There was no logical reason to do this!

Ghostrider: What else is there to say? This is simply the best coaster West of the Mississippi…and could hold its own head-to-head against any coaster out there!

Silver Bullet: One train operation and lazy loading cycles! I might be tiring of the B&M thing! Never thought I would say that! There I did…

Montezuma’s Revenge: Oh yea! I’ll never tire from this!

Jaguar: Great family ride…

Xcelerator: Never ran…it did have 2 train operations for the plethora of trial runs (that never failed)! First time I’ve ever seen 2 trains on the track!

Knott’s Chicken Restaurant: Do you realize the Chicken and Dumplings are every bit as good as the fried chicken? Plenty of plump white meat served in a huge bowl! :-)

*** Edited 1/2/2006 5:20:48 PM UTC by Jeffrey R Smith***

Knott's always "shuts down" in the rain. It sucks. No rain rides on Ghostie. :( At least you got to ride most of the coasters.
*** Edited 1/2/2006 8:56:11 PM UTC by GoliathKills***

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Anybody ever heard of a major theme park closing early due to weather? There was a lot of rain…but nary a peep of thunder or lightning! They just packed it up and closed at 4:00 pm when it was scheduled to close at 6:00 pm!

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As a matter of fact, yes.

Carowinds. June 3, 2003. Steady drizzle most of the morning. Rides ran for the most part. Stopped for a hour or two right after noon. At about 2pm the skies opened and it poured...hard. Rides shut down. People huddled under cover where they could find it. At 3pm they announced the park would close for the day. I believe the scheduled close was 7 or 8pm.

I never realized they could do this. I've been to many a park many a time and this was a FIRST! I wonder what the legalities are of advertising hours of operation...taking the money...and then closing without fulfilling their bargained obligation? Certainly seems like fraud to me!

Even if they play the old...it is not safe game! They should keep the park games and food stands open!

P.S. On a side note...does anybody know what they are doing to the building that had the dinosaur ride/laser tag/arcade in it? ...and what is replacing the swing ride?

The swing ride is suppose to come back eventually, and I have no idea about what's going into the KoD building.

In August I was at PKD when all the coasters closed down because of T-storms in the area around 5 PM. It didn't start raining until after 6, but then around 8 the skies opened up. Nothing re-opened after the first rain.

Between being stuck under a patio umbrella and hitting just about every gift shop on International Street, it was almost 10 by the time we left the park. There were people at every exit handing out free passes good for the rest of the season. Not that I was going to make the 5 hour trip again this year, but it was a nice gesture regardless.

All these years I've been leaving parks on the rainy days...never realizing I should have been getting freebies! I assumed the part of the ticket that said "no rain checks" meant there were no rain checks! Silly me... :-)

La Ronde in Montreal will close if there's less than a certain amount of guests in the park (a very low number, don't worry). I've seen that happen only a few times and the times it happened were days with pounding rain and thunderstorms.

^^^^^ The bottom part (The arcade and laser tag) is going to be Johnny Rockets.

Well, I'm sure it's one of those "at the park's discretion" things, Jeffrey. I doubt any of them would do it just because it's drizzling or lightly raining. And they handed me the pass, I didn't ask for it.

In my case, there were several separate storms that came through the park that evening. They never re-opened the rides during the several hours between storms but a lot of people waited around for a long time hoping they would. Maybe they figured they needed to do something since they had thousands of P.O'd guests.

I was at Knott's for Haunt when it steadily drizzled for about 3 hours. The park had 6-8 inch puddles everywhere. I'd guess they didn't close that night because it was sold out, but the park was not easy to get around. SoCal doesn't react to rain very well.

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Anybody ever heard of a major theme park closing early due to weather?

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It happened at Alton Towers once back in 2003 I think, and I was there
It was a fireworks day, and it was forcast for high winds, and rain, not thinking a great deal about it, I made the long trip up there anyway.

Now there was a great deal of high winds,and rain on the way up, but nothing major that I thought would affect the opening, anyway the park still opened so thought it would remain that way. However the weather got worse and worse, and they didnt dare risk open outdoor rides, but decided to open the indoor rides(So I still managed a few rides) Anyway the park was only offically open about 2 and a half hrs when they annouced the park was closing due to the weather.
It was a disaster for the park because as said, it was a fireworks evening, and thousands of people had to be turned away, everyone who did go into the park got complete refunds, or free tickets for another day though which was nice

The day also made history in that it was the first time ever the park had to close due to poor weather too

*** Edited 1/7/2006 7:22:13 PM UTC by PaulD***