Your longest queue

[Davezilla]

Seeing as though we can't monitor the queue times at Alton Towers at the minute with it being closed, a related question I have is, what is the longest you have ever waited for a ride?

For me, it was for the Big One during the £10 wristband days, around 2003. It was also the first big coaster I did, and we queued out of the main queue, under the lift and all the way back down the now non existent Tom Sawyer bridge all the way to the big dipper entrance. The scariest 3 or so hours ever. Plus side, that ride that day got me over my fear of coasters.

Ironically I went on Flight of Passage 3 weeks after it opened at Animal Kingdom and waited only an hour (at the time it was constantly 4 hours+). Got there an hour before rope drop and legged it all the way.

What's your longest wait and was it worth it?

 

[pluk]

Opening day of Air, just over 3 hours, not because it was really a 3 hour queue but because the damn thing failed to assume the position over and over and over on practically every dispatch. Painful, and not worth it.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

Nemesis in August 1994 joined it outside the extended queue line roughy where Sub terra is now and waited just over 3 hours and yes it was worth it and 28 years later it’s still the best uk coaster.

Think the smiler in its opening year we joined near the towers and that queue was roughly 2 hours

Then in 2020 cause of the social distancing in the queue lines and on the trains waited roughly 2 hours each for Thirteen and Wickerman.

 

[Benzin]

2.5 hours for X at Magic Mountain.

Would've been longer if they hadn't put a second train on. Worth it I guess for 100th coaster but also not.

 

[Zeock]

2 hours for TH13TEEN in 2017.

 

[John_P]

The two that stick out

Over 2 hours for the smiler at the end of the day the week it opened. It broke down and didn't reopen.

Over 2 hours for Maverick at Cedar Point in 2012.

 

[D4n]

4 hours 15 minutes for Red Force.

Worst day I've ever had at a park.I

 

[RicketyCricket]

I've been quite fortunate with queues tbh.

Longest I've waited was 3 hours for Flight Of Passage shortly after it opened and that was fine because there was plenty look at.

The worst ones for me are long queues that move really slowly. 2 hours for my first ride on Steel Vengeance, crawling through cattlepens... that was a tough one.

One of the worst I've seen was on a Saturday for The Smiler in its opening year. Whole queue was full and it was extended back up to the Towers, back up to where the exit for Sub Species is. Paid £8 for a one off Fastrack instead.

 

[Matt N]

Let’s see… I’ve certainly had a few long queues in my time.

• Wicker Man at Alton Towers (25th March 2018) - On its opening weekend, I waited about 3 hours for Wicker Man in total. Although in fairness, most of that wasn’t in the queue itself, instead being in the pre-queue that amassed outside it. It was supposed to open for ERT at 9:30, but didn’t actually open until about 11:30 due to technical problems. The queue itself took about an hour once the ride was open, but the wait for the ride to open felt long. To top it all off, we broke down in the tunnel at the end, and got stuck for a good 30 minutes, possibly even close to an hour, before we were ultimately evacuated… our total Wicker Man experience, from end to end, took about 4 hours!
• Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts at Universal Studios Florida (19th August 2014) - I rode Gringotts about a month after it opened, and we waited a solid 3 hours for it! Something you may not realise if you ride Gringotts nowadays is that that building has miles and miles of extension queue behind it, accessed through a door in the initial Gringotts lobby… I know this because I waited through every inch of it in 2014! I wonder if a similar wait is in store for me on Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure in June 2023…
• Flight of Passage at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (11th April 2019) - This was another long one! Even using our early entry to Disney, we still waited a good 2.5 hours for Flight of Passage… I think it took us a good 45 minutes to an hour to even enter Pandora and get into the ride’s actual queue line!
• Saw The Ride at Thorpe Park (16th July 2018) - On a school trip to Thorpe Park, I waited a solid 2.5 hours for Saw The Ride, and it broke down right at the end of the queue…
• Valhalla at Blackpool Pleasure Beach (24th August 2019) - On a near 30 degree Bank Holiday weekend in Blackpool, I waited over 2 hours for Valhalla. The queue didn’t look that long on the face of it, but the queue moved very slowly, and there appeared to be a relatively long gap between boats. When combined with the heat and lack of protection from the sunlight, that queue was tough going…

 

[IDB]

Probably Nemesis opening year. But can’t recall how long.

 

[rob666]

Three hours for PMBO and Nemesis in the opening year, never done that long since.

 

[JAperson]

What's

Three hours for PMBO and Nemesis in the opening year, never done that long since.

your longest queue to get a pint Rob? I dread to think in a busy Velvet coaster.

 

[rob666]

Never more than ten minutes...walk on at the bar this morning for my pint with my full english...but they were queueing to get in the door by ten o clock.
The real issue was arranging to meet at Crevettes, and it was closed!

 

[BigShadowtinytree]

Probably about 2 hours in Smiler stand by queue. It was awful.

 

[MattyH]

Wickerman opening Weekend, we spent ages in the queue for it to break down when we were at the bottom of the final stairs in the queue.

 

[Rick]

X, Nemesis, Oblivion & Spin Doctor have all been 3 hours or so.

 

[Danny]

Wicker Man on the first weekend, 3 hours prior to the queue evac. Thankfully much shorter the second time round and then roughly 2 hours for the night ride.

The Smiler - Around 3 hours on opening day.

Steel Curtain - 3 hours on its second day of operation.

 

[jon81uk]

Opening day of Air, just over 3 hours, not because it was really a 3 hour queue but because the damn thing failed to assume the position over and over and over on practically every dispatch. Painful, and not worth it.

This was probably mine too, waited for hours for Air to work properly. We went opening week and it wouldn't work in the rain, came back later in the season and it wouldn't get into the flying position without moving guests between rows to redistribute weight. Once it finally despatched those in the station cheered.

 

[rob666]

X, Nemesis, Oblivion & Spin Doctor have all been 3 hours or so.

The fun thing was, Spin Doctor could have a 3 hour queue on a wet weekday in October, when the park was nearly empty...the throughput was so poor.
Half the people in the park in that one queue, with many rides walk on.

 

[Ian]

I can’t remember the exact length (though perhaps others on here do), but certainly the most painful queue I’ve ever had was Taron in its opening summer as part of a TS trip.

I’d ridden it opening day/weekend and was saying how great the throughput was, having only waited about 30 minutes. On this day a few months later though it was continually delaminating wheels due to the heat. We saw it drop from 4 trains, to 3, then to 2 and eventually were stuck waiting in a 1 train line. It took forever. There was also barely any shade and the hot late-afternoon sun was constantly beating down on you. Credit to PL though for the determination to limp it through and get everyone on after the park has closed, I guess

For the vast majority of rides, I have a low balking point of about 45-60 mins. New headline stuff I can probably stretch to about 90-120, but it’s unlikely I’d ever join a line posted any longer than that.