long queue lines at closing

I've read on this sight that if your in line at closing, you will get to ride. Great. But does that hold true for 2-3 hr lines? I am going to Cedar Point (finally!) this summer, and am just wondering if the park closes at ten, and a certain coaster has a really long line, do they close the queue off early, or keep the ops until midnight or so?

The general policy at Cedar Point is that if you are in line, you will get a ride, regardless of the queue length.

I know that at PKI, they close the line of The Beast up to an hour before the park closes. They do that by having two security guards or park employees wait in line. A good way to get the last ride is to watch those guys, then get right in front of them before they get in line.

CP does run rides until the line is gone, but if there are many people for the front or back seats and no one in the middle, they'll make you switch lines by saying, "There are only 3 trains to go," or something like that.

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A day is a drop of water in the ocean of eternity. A week is seven drops.

During MF's opening season, they kept running the ride long into the night to empty out the queue.

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Be polite and ignore the idiots. - rollergator
You must be this dumb to ride Viper. -SFGAdv.

Den says:

"I know that at PKI, they close the line of The Beast up to an hour before the park closes."

That rule does not hold true 100% of the time, only on heavily crowded days.

Moosh

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Sig under construction!

Hmm,

I've heard conflicting stories about PKI.

I know in the pre-Paramount era, the park would close queue lines early to ensure that all rides were cleared before fire-works could begin. (And if they had too many riders, they would suspend operation during the fireworks show, and resume afterwards)

Sometime in the mid-1990's they changed that so that it seems that they will allow anyone to ride so long as they are in the queue at closing tme. I can specifcally speak for the Beast as I have joined its queue 3-5 minutes before close numerous times, and have waited in queue for 30-45 minutes post park close. At the time they cited two reasons for the change, the ususal "Guest Satisfaction" line, as well as the relocation of the fireworks staging area to a safer place.

Heck, I have joined the Beast queue 5-15 seconds before park close, after making a mad dash from the Flyers. Though lately I would just a soon take another Flyer ride instead.

Although, lately I rarely stay at PKI long enough to see park close.

More to the point of the thread:

There seems to be two schools of thought on this.

1) Shut the queue entry down at close, allow those in queue to ride.

2) Shut the queue entry down such that all those in queue will have ridden the ride by close. (Takes a lot of guesstimation, does anyone recall the Beast second chance line, after the queue was cut they would form another line in case they ran out of riders early)

Not as popular:

3) Shut the ride down at close, regardless of the queue. Yes, I have seen this one done.

4) At parks that offer pay-per-ride and wristbands: At park close, restrict the queue to ride tickets only. This should allow for a more gradual close, and lets those riders with coupon books use up any remaining coupons. Almost assuredly the ride coupon kiosks close at park closing.

Deceitful... but I'm sure it has been done:

5) At park closing time, feign a mechanical failure of the ride, then either vastly overestimate the time for the 'repairs' to be made, or flat out close the ride for 'mechancial' reasons.

"Sorry, Y, is suffering technical difficulties, we should be able to reopen in 75 minutes" (Queue empties out, ride ops power down the ride and go home)

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David Bowers
Mayor, Coasterville

PKI rarely shuts the line down early. Like Moosh said, only on the most crowded days. And even then, it seems to be rare.

Eric

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A one that is not cold, is hardly a one at all.

I know that Dorney and Valleyfair lines are queue lines are open till close and as long as you get in line by then, you can ride.

I'm assuming this is probably true for Michigan's Adventure, Worlds of Fun, and Knott's as well.

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0-60mph+ in 2.5

Even on the "Bring-a-friend" days at PKI they kept the lines open till the closing time. i remember we had about an hour line when the fireworks went off, then had to clean the ride, then we were sent to help other rides that still had guest in line and to help them clean.

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So you believe that you are studying us, then kindly explain why you are the ones trapped in your seats.

Policies vary from park to park. CP lets eveyone who is in line at closing ride. Some parks do close lines early that are usually long.

I once had a park that shall remain nameless inform people that had been in line for hours for the park's new attraction that the ride, which had been down most of the day but was finally running, would be closed at closing time and tough luck to all of those people who traveled long distances, spent lots of money, and waited for hours. Talk about bad public relations!

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I've read on this sight that if your in line at closing, you will get to ride. Great. But does that hold true for 2-3 hr lines?

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I think it varies between parks, but in most circumstances, the answer is indeed YES, and I have seen evidence of this.
Basiclly on the ECC trip to California back in May/June 02, We visited SFMM for an evening trip(4-8PM) and then back the next day for a full day at the park. Now on the first day we were there, some of us thought it would be funny to see what the queue for X was like just before the park closed(The Park closed at 8PM, and we checked the Queue at 7.55PM) when we arrived the queue was still a solid 3hrs, and there WERE STILL letting people queue up at that time, so basiclly the last few people would have got their ride at approx 11PM.
I know that at nearly all uk parks, as long as you are in the queue by closing time, you will be allowed to ride reguardless of the queue, but like I said before, It does vary between parks

*** This post was edited by PaulD on 1/14/2003. ***

(A little off-topic but not too far)

This recent summer at Cedar Point the park had the rides closed for 4-5 hours because of storms. They re-opened the rides at 9:00 when the park closed at 10:00. We got on Raptor a few times after 10:00 because they left the rides open until 10:30 since the storm lasted so long. How many parks can you name that will do that?

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164 and counting...

Cedar Point is the only park I've ever been to that CONSISTENTLY (meaning, some parks allow it from time to time, others not at all, but CP always does) empties out the que line after closing.

For example, if the park closes at 10:00pm, and you get in 1 or 2 hour wait que line at 9:59, you're good to go. Been there, done that. Many times.

If you do it right, you can get in a lot of rides in a short period of time, because not everyone realizes CP's closing policy. One time, some friends and I got in 3 rides on Raptor in about 15 minutes at closing time. Actually, our last time entering the line was a few minutes after closing time. Gotta love it!

PGA certainly does not. In fact, they will close what would be about a ten minute line, twenty minutes early. Kind of a crappy policy if you ask me.
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We invite you, if you dare, to step aboard because in tonight's episode you are the star, and this elevator travels directly to...The Twighlight Zone.

Actually I think CP leaves there lines open a few minutes past closing. Last time I was there they did both days at least. As MarimbaGuy was talking about CP staying open later if something like a storm closes rides for a long time. Well I know of the time that there was a power outage there they stayed open later. I wasn't there but I heard about that. Also when I went to CP over the summer for 2 days. The second day had a lot of rides break down, I mean almost every major ride experianced some downtime. So at the end of the night me and my friends were heading over to MF about 10:55 and when we got there MF was down. They had no clue when or if it would reopen but they did open Raptor until about 11:45. Im not sure if this was because of MF or just the whole day but it was very nice of them. We got in about 9 rides in that little bit of time, no one was there anymore. Even though Raptor was having some major problems itself, The ride kept stopping on the lift or the on the mid course brakes for some reason. About every 5 minutes it would do this but they kept it up and running. I haven't been to all that many parks but I doubt many would ever do this. I also got to give it to those employees for working about an hour longer than expected.

One more thing, at IOA they even let u wait for thye front even if the rest of the train is empty. That was different and nice I thought

*** This post was edited by Beast_rocks on 1/14/2003. ***

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PT300 said:
"PGA certainly does not. In fact, they will close what would be about a ten minute line, twenty minutes early. Kind of a crappy policy if you ask me.
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Yeah, I've been there with that happening. Actually, it was a little strangers then that. I got into the queue for SM:ROS about 30 minutes before closing, and the line was still open (with no wait, BTW), but when I got to the station they had already started locking up the trains, you know, getting them ready for storage for the night. I'm like, "Yo, what's going on, the park is still open, right?" After about five minutes of them saying nothing to me, but talking amungst themselves, they opened up the first train and me and the few others there were able to ride. It kinda got me a little mad though, they were just unbelivable rude about the whole thing.

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"If you make it too smooth, it'll be like sitting in your living room."
-Bill Cobb - Designer, Texas Cyclone

I actually asked Knotts about this once, and they said local agreements with the city mandate the rides stop operating 1 hour past closing. Most of the time, because the lines are under 1 hour by 10pm, they don't close the queue until 10pm (or whenever the park closes). I've been able to watch half of electroblast and then hit supreme scream at 10:05. During halloween haunt, ghostrider's queue closes at like 11pm, cause the line goes all around the ride's plaza, and is usually 2.5 hours or more (up to 3.5 hours). They don't want to run the ride past 2am, the busy streets at that time are enough for those citizens. I know that if knotts closes a queue too early, they will open it back up if its before closing and the queue's empty. Like this halloween haunt, they closed the queue to army of the underworld (mine ride) at 1:30, underestimated the capacity and the queue emptied out in a few minutes (it was long BTW, a real walking queue), and so they opened it up a few minutes before 2 am for about 3 minutes. BTW, I've never seen a ride be such high tension. They were running every train, and this caused the ride ops to be really mean shall I say in the station (but then you have lude sex jokes in the shows), but they pumped the trains out one after another, and each had about 60 passengers cause they also stuffed people in. I've never seen a train at knotts while the guests are only 1 feet away from it, walking out of the unload station.

Before we criticize any parks for their closing time policies, I think everyone is forgetting that the people operating rides would probably like to go home, and some parks have curfews. I think it's also unfair to point out Cedar Point where they have dormitories neaby the park.
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Huss's Land of the Giants—coming somewhere, sometime soon.

Well, I guess I should have told the whole story, huh? Having been on Stealth twice, and wanting to ride once more, I decided to come back to make it my very last ride of the trip. Since there was about 30-45 minutes left, I decided to get a quick ride on Invertigo, and then come back. While in Stealth's little plaza I personally asked the security guards outside the entrance what time the ride would close, and they said they let people in right up until the (7:30 or 8:30) closing time.

Well, I got a ride on Invertigo and came back with plenty of time to spare, yet it was closed.

I know I sound like an enthusiAss, but it was kind of disappointing. I'm sure I'll get back to ride Stealth again sometime. :)

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Thank you and enjoy your stay at the Hollywood Tower Hotel.

*** This post was edited by PT300 on 1/14/2003. ***

At Cedar Point whatever coaster has had the longest wait of the day, which is usually MF, I wait to get into that line until the last minute possible, 10:59 and I have got the last train ride of the night numerous times and they begin to assign seats. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the front seat, so it looks like after a 2 hour wait, not in the sun but on a cool summer night, I got what any coaster enthusiast would exhaust themselves for.