Post Pandemic Riding

We have a huge trip scheduled for TX, OK & MO starting Memorial Day weekend. The plane tickets have been purchased, car reserved, but just one hotel booked (which can all be canceled). I decided to wait till we got back from AZ to plan out the rest and I'm glad I did now. Going to wait as long as possible to cancel the whole thing, but if parks aren't re-opened by then, no sense in going and we'll figure out some place else to go at another time. Thankfully I haven't bought the passes and tickets needed for park admission. Procrastination paid off and I don't usually do that.

Normally the 1st trip would be to my home park, Great Adventure, on Easter Sunday. I met a guy who used to post a lot here and was an exceptionally fine person, on Easter of 2014. He tragically passed away in October of 2016 and since then I've been going to SFGADV every Easter to honor his memory. That won't be happening this year. The 1st park may be Hershey, as I'm supposed to cover the openings of Candymonium and Jersey Devil, and judging by Six Flags' track record, Hershey will get it together faster than SF - although I really don't want to be caught in a crowd any time in the foreseeable future. In the meantime I'm cancelling my April trip to the UK, where I planned to visit Alton Towers for the 4th time and Blackpool Pleasure Beach for the 1st. (Blackpool would be a lot of credits.) I'm awfully glad I didn't book a stay at Alton Towers Resort or hotels in London & Blackpool, as that's less money I will have to have refunded. Whereas here your credit card doesn't get charged until you actually check into a hotel, if you book a hotel in the UK with a US-based credit card your card gets charged immediately. Last year 2 hotels in London, Alton Towers Hotel and tickets from London to Stoke-on-Trent had been paid for well in advance of my visit. Coincidentally, today is the 26th birthday of Nemesis, which remains one of the greatest inverts ever built.

My wife and I were planning a spring trip to Busch Gardens but that's looking unlikely. Maybe Kings Island to checkout Orion and Mystic Timbers. I also have a pre-purchased ticket to Kennywood so I can ride Steel Curtain so hopefully that works out.

Coasterhound36 said:
Schwarzkopf76 must be a huuuuge oak tree because I could have sworn he just threw shade at Magic Mountain <G>

Hey I miss that tree at Magic Mountain! Simply no charm left at the Mountain! Unless you like the worn look, garbage all over the hills and the aggressive smell of AXE products. Damn, such potential at MM. I wish Cedar Fair got their hands on it.

So they could close it.

I'll be pretty happy if I can get to Kennywood any time soon.

Heck, I'd be willing to drive down I4 in rush hour traffic to stand in line to then have to marathon Rip Ride Rockit at Universal if it meant things could get better here in the world.

Probably King's Island/Media Day once they reschedule it. Orion will hopefully be my first coaster of the year. Then it's Carowinds and eventually Cedar Point. Knoebels will be in October as usual.

-Tina

BrettV said:

Heck, I'd be willing to drive down I4 in rush hour traffic to stand in line to then have to marathon Rip Ride Rockit at Universal if it meant things could get better here in the world.

Wow, things must be getting rough. I don't know that I would trade the current situation for a RRR marathon. Once a year is enough for me on that thing.

I have an Annual Pass, live 20-30 minutes from UO, drive by the place at least 1-2 times as week and can’t even tell you the last time I rode the thing. But I’d marathon it as long as it takes if that’s all it took to kill the virus and revive the economy. Of course I probably wouldn’t have enough brain cells after that to even remember we had a pandemic.

In all seriousness, my hope is that by mid summer businesses are opening, people are healthy(healthier?), seasonal parks and sports are able to recoup on partial seasons, and we are able to resume some sense of new normalcy. A lot of that depends on the trajectory of the next 6-8 weeks, but I’m still cautiously optimistic the entire 2020 amusement park/baseball season isn’t a total loss.

I think mass gatherings like sports and amusement park will be the last things to come back, sadly. Even if we flatten the curve, if there's no vaccine then there's a chance for a second spike. I imagine we'll be going back to "no gatherings more than 100" basically until a vaccine is discovered or herd immunity sets in (or, God willing, the summer temps in the Northern Hemisphere change the transmission rate).

^Pretty much.

Parks are going to continue to put off their openings until next week, no, next week, no the week after that, no next month....Until (and if) everything gets back to normal. I wish certain businesses could just hibernate until they get through the winter (in this case the covid-19). But I'm not sure that's possible. And these parks are going to take a hit. In the meantime, it's a great time to invest!

Had a trip to Universal scheduled for April 24 Doubt I will make it Next trip is HHN @ Universal in Sept . Do you think crowds will be up because of cancellations or do you think people will still be afraid to gather after this ?

It's too early to tell what tomorrow will bring, so predicting theme park crowds once this is all over is impossible. That said, Orlando locals will flock to HHN in any circumstance, so my guess is it'll still be busy.

I don't think I've seen an email from Universal. Are they extending pass expirations as well?

On the Universal Pass Holders group on Facebook the park posted that extensions will be added to passes for the length of the closure.

As usual, they aren't very good at communication.

And I would guess they only posted after someone commented that they were not going to be getting their monies worth out of their pass with the parks being closed **eye roll**

We're thinking about rescheduling our April Disneyland trip at some point. Part of me thinks all parks will be mobbed when they reopen because I bet every parents is promising their kids "Let's get through this and then we'll all go to Disney." But I also know that you need jobs and money to go to Disney and not everyone will have those things.

So, let's say hypothetically all the parks open in May. The virus would be on the "decline", but certainly not "gone". Then we can all go and touch all those doors, handrails, restraints, and seat belts with everyone else? How do you all plan to handle that? Wear gloves? Carry a giant bottle of hand sanitizer? (No liquids allowed at many parks?)

Amusement parks might be one of the last things to get back to normal. There aren't many other places where large crowds are in a contained area for as much as 8 or 10 hours.