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Best/Worst parks in the world for operations

Dhev123

Dhev123

TS Member
Following on from the thread regarding the state of U.K. queue times, I was wondering based on everyone’s experiences of parks around the world, what parks typically have the best and worst operations?

For the best, it seems that parks such as Europa, Universal, & Disney are all renowned for their high capacity rides / constantly moving queues.

Whereas it seems that operations in parks such as Fuji Q & Portaventura can be pretty abysmal.

I’d also argue that while the rides at our U.K. parks tend to garner huge queues, we do have a few well operated rides (notably hyperia and stealth at thorpe, wickerman & Th13teen on 3 trains). However they fall short in not being super high capacity attractions.
 
I would say Universal Orlando is one of the best places I've been in recent years for operations and throughputs. Those queue lines move; there were queue lines in that resort that literally never stopped moving once! Revenge of the Mummy, Hagrid's, Skull Island: Reign of Kong, Spider-Man... and that's just a few off the top of my head! Hulk, VelociCoaster and Hagrid's all managed a solid 1,600pph or so by my timing, which is not to be sniffed at!

Of course, you can't have a thread about operations without mentioning Europa Park. They are of course phenomenal! While Silver Star is a thing to behold with its 1,700pph throughput, I was perhaps most impressed with Euro Mir. Despite its 16-rider trains, they were getting 1,300-1,400pph on there with ease even without any kind of aid like an offload station, a conveyor or a dual load; Europa does impressively well with smaller ride vehicles!

In terms of weaker operations, I actually didn't think that PortAventura's operations were that bad, contrary to popular belief. They were not particularly brilliant, but they weren't awful either. That said, there's definite room for improvement; for starters, I think they could cut out a good few seconds by getting some of those self-closing baggage holds from Mack for the ride platforms, as a fair few seconds seemed to be wasted on Shambhala in particular by the staff member having to lug that giant cupboard door shut on the baggage cages!

I'd actually go potentially slightly controversial and say that some of the weakest operations I've experienced at a major park would probably be at SeaWorld Orlando and Busch Gardens Tampa in Florida. Both of the SeaWorld parks in Central Florida were a bit ropey in terms of throughputs on my last visit. At SeaWorld, Pipeline was doing 4-5 minute dispatches and religiously stacking for multiple minutes on 2 trains, Manta was running 2 trains/1 station and religiously stacking for multiple minutes, and Kraken was parking in the station for 3+ minutes at a time on 2 trains. Mako and Ice Breaker were perfectly OK, though, with Mako running 2 trains and getting a throughput of 900-1,000pph or so and Ice Breaker managing intervals of 2 minutes or so in the brief snapshot I saw. At Busch, Kumba was on 1 train, and Iron Gwazi was often parking in the station for over 3 minutes.

UK Merlin-wise, I think it's a mixed bag, but I don't think our parks do half as badly on ride throughputs as many like to make out. At Alton Towers, Wicker Man regularly exceeds its theoretical throughput, and I'm led to believe that Thirteen often does as well. Nemesis, Galactica and Oblivion also get above 1,000pph regularly, which is no mean feat, and when the baggage hold is open and 4 trains are running, I actually think Smiler does very well, getting a solid 900pph or so! Thorpe Park also has pretty solid operations, with Inferno regularly getting over 1,000pph, Stealth doing at least a solid 800-900pph or so, and Hyperia also doing well despite some of its limitations. Legoland and Chessington are somewhat weaker, I feel; some of the dispatches there seem a little bit slower, but still not too terrible for the most part (although Vampire was taking nearly 4 minutes to dispatch on my 2023 visit, largely due to an absolutely crippling lack of platform staff).
 
Disney parks are great for operations overall, although it depends on the ride. Rides at Disney parks obviously need to be high-capacity and have a high throughput because of how busy they get.
Smaller parks, such as those resembling a funfair, seem worse for operations.
 
The worst operations I’ve seen at any theme park in the world were at Six Flags Magic Mountain. By quite a long way.

They actually made PortAventura and Parque Warner look pretty efficient in comparison.
 
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