Shortest visit to a park? Curious.

MagnumsRevenge said:
I have done 3 parks in a day on many occasions, CP, GL, and Kennywood. SFKK, HW, and SFSTL. Lakemont, Knoebel's, Hershey. More too

Hoe exactly did you do SFKK, HW and SFSTL in the same day? Curiosity has gotten the best of me.

St Louis to Holiday World is only about a 4 hour drive. HW to Louisville is a long hour's drive

Chriscub said:

all of us headed back into car and we went to Shakeys Pizza. Too bad we didn't hit Ocean View instead as that park was still opened at the time.

Wow. Seaside must have really sucked if your folks opted for Shakey's instead.

On the subject of family visits. My dad took us to the wooden shoe factory in Holland, which at that time had a whole bunch of crazy walk through attractions that you could do for just $3.00. They had a really cool sideways house, and a dark maze that I was always too chicken to go into. We stayed there for a couple hours, and went to Dutch Village, which was right up the road. (Still There) They have an antique swing ride there, and a wooden shoe slide. It used to be one of our favorite family haunts.

We spent a couple hours at Dutch Village, and on our way home we passed a large carnival. I think it might have actually been the Hudsonville fair. So, we stopped there, and paid $3.00 to get in, and the rides were 50 cents a piece. They had a very unusual Paratrooper ride. The seats were actually on chains, and could spin as the ride revolved. They also had an Octopus, that had seats that spun around like crazy. And, my favorite, the Hymalaya.

They also had this very unusal ride, it had 3 horrizontal wheels on it, with about 8 cars on each wheel. It ran like a scrambler, but then the whole ride tilted on it's side like an enterprise. But, probably more of a 45 degree angle and not 90. Needles to say that ride was a blurr when it ran. We went on it, and my brothers both got sick.

They also had a zipper, and a toboggan, and a Sky Diver. It's very rare to see one of those at a carnival. But, back in the 70's the carnivals used to be really awesome. They also had one of those little roller coasters, so you know I had to ride that. But, we sure had fun there, and stayed until dark. But, that's only because a few rides on the Octopus, was a few too many.

So we went to 3 different places in one day, plus the holland beach earlier in the day for a swim. My dad made a nice chunk of money at the flea market that weekend. So, he was happy to show us a good time. But, did complain about having to pay to get into the fair...but, I think that was for parking.

Start at SFKK at opening, SFKK was Eastern time, spend an hour in a dead park and ride everything, go to HW where there was no daylight savings so you basically get there at the same time you left SFKK. All there was was raven and legend at the time, an hour was more then enough. Leave by noon, gets you to SFStL at around 4 and the park didn't close till 10.

More than enough time to do everything.

Honestly the roughest of the ones I listed was MiA and SFGAm, Chicago traffic made that very difficult. Plus it was Hudson, MI to Muskegon to Gurnee and then back to Hudson. That was about a 20 hour day. Crazy I used to do SFGAM and Kennywood as day trips.

CP, GL, well SFWoA at the time, Kennywood consisted of Coastermania ERT at CP, out of the park by 9, get to GL by 10:30, out of GL by 1, get to Kennywood around 4 and close the park. Is "When does Kennywood close?" still a great mystery?

Went to Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom, rode the coasters and got out, probably an hour and 15 minutes. It was the day after Holiwood Nights a few years ago and I wanted to see what the park was like , but get home.

I have only opened/closed parks a few times minus events. Since all parks are two hours plus away from me, if I spend four hours at the park, that is good enough for me.

I found this thread comforting. It looks like I'm not alone with some insanely short trips.

My shortest was a trip to Kings Island. I do plenty of driving, and I sometimes get relatively close to parks and get a coaster craving. This particular time I was craving a Beast night ride, and it was 9PM. It was 50 minutes in the opposite direction of home, and my navigation said I'd arrive at 9:50PM (with a 10PM close).

I was wide awake and driving solo with no agenda the next day, so I decided to go for it with a rush of excitement (Cedar Fair Platinum Pass). I hit construction, which was nerve-racking and set me back to a 9:55PM arrival. I parked and by the time I entered the gate, it was 9:57PM. I sprinted back to the Beast, and I saw the girl pushing the garbage can in front of the queue.

She said, "Sorry sir; the line is closed." I showed her my iPhone that it was still 10:00PM on the dot. She said it was 10:02 on her watch. I argued that my phone had universal time and tried for sympathy by telling her I had driven 3 hours from home for this one ride. She looked at me weird, and said "Sorry we're closed." Oh, if only she was an enthusiast! lol!

So, I left to go back home in a very disappointed and down mood. I was bitter that KI didn't leave the lines open several extra minutes like CP. And I kept thinking of the hundreds of little things in the day that would have changed the outcome, like choosing a faster lane at a store or not holding the door for someone.

Then, I decided I was being overly dramatic about a roller coaster ride and floored it back home. :) I did this again about a month ago, but I learned my lesson from my previous experience. I arrived a solid 2 minutes sooner this time and made the line for Beast. The end.

On our second visit to Legoland (with season passes) we had planned on going two days in a row. We stayed in Orlando so after the 45 minute ride on day 2 we found the crowd packed compared to the day before. We were in for an hour and a half, at best, when my son started complaining that he didn't feel good. So, we just left and drove back to Orlando to spend the rest of the day near the pool.

No sense being in a park if you are miserable, particularly if you didn't pay a daily admission.

Mine will be this coming Saturday. My girlfriend and I are going to Hershey to do Hersheypark and Troegs Brewery this weekend. Hersheypark will be on Sunday. I've never been to Knoebels, and because it's a glaring hole for me, and because it's (pretty much) on the way there from Ohio, I'm planning on stopping in briefly to ride Phoenix and Twister. With no parking or admission fees, this seems to make sense.

Of course, the girlfriend claims not to have been told of this plan, so I'm going to have to have this one clock in at under an hour to stay in her good graces...

And yes, I know, Knoebels deserves an entire day to soak in the charm, but that's how it's going to have to be this time.

^ You really should grab Kozmo's Kurves. I got as much airtime on that little baby as I did on Twister/Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. It ain't the former High Speed Thrill Coaster, but it's a fun ride.

The King's Island mentions bring up 2 separate "trips" to the park.

First was way back in 02 - we pulled into the lot, the place was WAY beyond packed, and Jill says "wanna do something else?" We didn't even go in to (P)KI - but I got some of the best stand-up coaster to ever run in Ohio....Screechin' Eagle.

The second was about 5 years ago, when we had a hella-fun day at Stricker's. Park was getting ready to close, and one of our friends said "hey, let's hit a night ride on Beast before they close." The only downside was getting the schneid on our back-seat ride because they were trying to empty out the queue to begin an ERT session for some coaster club that will remain nameless.

Mike Gallagher said:

^ You really should grab Kozmo's Kurves.

That's probably the quickest way to be unfriended by Kozmo.

I would have to say the shortest park trip was this past Sunday at Del Grosso's. I had been there before, but we had some friends with us that were credit whoring. We went in they rode the kiddie coaster and then we all rode the mouse, ordered a pizza and ate it in the car on the way to Lakemont. Total park time was under 20 minutes.

As to multi park days, we have done this a ton of times including the trip mentioned above. Knoebels, Del Grosso's & Lakemont. We have also done HW, BB & KI in a day as well as KD, SFA & Hershey and KI, Strickers, Coney Island and back to KI.

Vater said:

Mike Gallagher said:

^ You really should grab Kozmo's Kurves.

That's probably the quickest way to be unfriended by Kozmo.

Who knows? He might like it and get even friendlier.

Shortest time in a park, about 10 minutes at Cedar Point. My wife and I were staying at Sand Castles. I had a season pass, she did not. On our check-out day, we felt like getting some cheese-on-a-stick before leaving. So she waited by the beach, while I went in the gate by Wicked Twister, got our snack, exited and went back to the beach.

Mike Gallagher said:
^ You really should grab Kozmo's Kurves. I got as much airtime on that little baby as I did on Twister/Phoenix a couple of weeks ago. It ain't the former High Speed Thrill Coaster, but it's a fun ride.

Love me some Kosmos Kurves. I'm always trying to drag my nieces, nephews, friends' kids, etc. on that ride. Lol

I've done a few short days; did KI all day on a Saturday, slept in car overnight, then got to Cedar Point during the pass holder ERT. Rode all of the coasters (well, the ones we felt like at the time), and was out of the parking lot by 11:30am.

This year I've gone to Wonderland just for the passholder ERT on Leviathan, than gone home (just moved up to the Toronto area this past year). So, less than an hour?