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Your most disproportionately long wait for a ride?

Matt N

Matt N

TS Member
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Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Hi guys. I’m sure that at some point, most of us have gone to a park in the opening year of a major new ride and waited a huge amount of time for it. It’s almost a rite of passage for a theme park fan, and it’s hard to avoid if you want to ride the brand new major attraction at a park in its opening year. But have you ever waited a long time for a ride that probably didn’t warrant a queue that long? For instance, have you ever waited for a minor filler attraction and had the queue turn out to be longer than that of a major headliner? That’s what I’d call a disproportionately long wait, and it’s rarely talked about in the sphere of theme park queues. With that in mind, I today ask you; what has been your most disproportionately long wait for a ride? When have you waited a comparatively long time for something that probably didn’t warrant a queue of that length?

I’ll get the ball rolling with my answer.

Personally, I’d nominate Gangsta Granny: The Ride at Alton Towers for this, and I’d nominate both of the times I’ve ridden it. Don’t get me wrong, Gangsta Granny is far from a bad ride; it’s actually a very likeable little family dark ride, in my view! However, on both of the occasions I’ve ridden it, I have queued the best part of an hour for it. I don’t think I’ve ever waited less than 50 minutes for it, and if I’m remembering correctly, I may even have waited a full hour for it on one of the two occasions. On both days where I’ve ridden it, it has ended up being either one of the longest waits of the day or the longest wait of the day, and quite a significant percentage of the park’s major coaster queues have been shorter.

But what have been some of your most disproportionately long waits for a ride?
 
Matt N said:
Hi guys. I’m sure that at some point, most of us have gone to a park in the opening year of a major new ride and waited a huge amount of time for it. It’s almost a rite of passage for a theme park fan, and it’s hard to avoid if you want to ride the brand new major attraction at a park in its opening year. But have you ever waited a long time for a ride that probably didn’t warrant a queue that long? For instance, have you ever waited for a minor filler attraction and had the queue turn out to be longer than that of a major headliner? That’s what I’d call a disproportionately long wait, and it’s rarely talked about in the sphere of theme park queues. With that in mind, I today ask you; what has been your most disproportionately long wait for a ride? When have you waited a comparatively long time for something that probably didn’t warrant a queue of that length?

I’ll get the ball rolling with my answer.

Personally, I’d nominate Gangsta Granny: The Ride at Alton Towers for this, and I’d nominate both of the times I’ve ridden it. Don’t get me wrong, Gangsta Granny is far from a bad ride; it’s actually a very likeable little family dark ride, in my view! However, on both of the occasions I’ve ridden it, I have queued the best part of an hour for it. I don’t think I’ve ever waited less than 50 minutes for it, and if I’m remembering correctly, I may even have waited a full hour for it on one of the two occasions. On both days where I’ve ridden it, it has ended up being either one of the longest waits of the day or the longest wait of the day, and quite a significant percentage of the park’s major coaster queues have been shorter.

But what have been some of your most disproportionately long waits for a ride?
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85 minutes for Crush's Coaster at DLP.
 
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I can't say I have to be honest. The times I've been on the smaller attractions they've pretty much always been walk on, but I do only tend to visit during the quieter off peak days when the majority of people are at work/school.
 
pluk said:
I've been waiting three and a half years to ride Valhalla. This feels disproportionate.
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Imagine if it ends up being downgraded after all this waiting! Now that would be even worse!
 
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zeock said:
Imagine if it ends up being downgraded after all this waiting!
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I don’t doubt for a second that it will be. There's no way they'll be pumping that volume of gas through the building, keeping the freezer frozen, and we already know the backward section is a gonner. I'll be happy if that's all made up for in other ways, but I don't expect it to be.

#offtopic.

Anyway, a vaguely sensible answer would be the polyp at Asterix. It was only once we were too far committed that I realised that about a third of the seats were out of use and it was being operated by the slowest, most disinterested human I think I have ever seen employed to do something. I don't recall the actual time, probably about an hour, felt like an eternity.
 
The week after the smiler opened, went on it at the start of the day. Went again to ride it at the end of the day, queued over 2 hours back from were the Skin Snatchers queue line entrance is usually located. It broke down and didn't reopen when I was in the middle of the pit.

To make matters worse they were revalidating day tickets whilst merlin pass holders got nothing.
Have avoided the main queue line unless its under 30 minutes ever since.
 
90 minutes odd for Octonauts on its opening day. Not my proudest moment I have to say!

Also waited about 90 mins for Rise of the Resistance (Orlando) last summer just after it had reopened from a lengthy period of downtime. The physical length of the queue was about half what we’d waited in earlier in the trip, but due to the Lightning Lane merge phase in operation we waited quite a bit longer. Not sure I’ve ever moved through a queue line so slowly!
 
Flávio’s Flipping Fandango. The app said something like 10 minutes and that’s what the queue looked like it should have been. Ended up being more like a 45 minute wait due to the operations that would make you think the ride ops were on a deliberate go slow.

No matter how much my kids ask, never again. Rather just pay a few quid at a fair and be straight on.
 
Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Flávio’s Flipping Fandango. The app said something like 10 minutes and that’s what the queue looked like it should have been. Ended up being more like a 45 minute wait due to the operations that would make you think the ride ops were on a deliberate go slow.

No matter how much my kids ask, never again. Rather just pay a few quid at a fair and be straight on.
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I had that with Mixtape... Queue was listed as 0 so I joined it, but because of so many arms out of use it actually took 60. Was a fun ride, just not really worth an hour's wait.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Once misjudged the queue for Pinball X at Dreamland Margate, turned out to be 75 mins. Unfortunately for me it was a 3pm ride close so I didn't have much time.
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Oh dear. That's all I can say. Perhaps the worst coaster I've been on. It was terrible. Pretty sure it's in Hastings now.
 
Air’s opening weekend at Towers. Insane. Nearly 4 hours. Constant breakdowns, stuck trains on the station entrance, stuck trains on the lift hill etc. Vowed never to do a ride opening weekend since. Also went on a European Coaster Club event a few weeks later and we had the same issues - constant breakdowns and a myriad of problems. On a semi related note - Air is one of those coasters that drives me nuts. If they’d delivered on the original theming, it could have been such a great ride. Too many compromises and unfinished themeing and then the disaster (IMHO) that is Galatica made the fit of Air in to Forbidden Valley even worse. Towers at their absolute worst imho (despite all that, I actually really like the ride - and the original Air soundtrack was one of Tower’s best!)
 
We queued 3 and half hours for Air in its first season too.

What a let down it was after all that wait time. I have grown much fonder of it since but thats usually because I only ever ride it when there's barely any queue.

No rollercoaster is worth waiting half a day for in my eyes. I wouldn't do it again.
 
Poisson said:
Waited far too long for the Ferrari Land flying theatre. Only 1 out of 3 floors in use, utterly crap film etc. A regret.
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Same but for the god awful Racing Legends simulator. Genuinely one of the worst rides I've ever been on with some of the slowest operations and bizarrely huge number of pre-show rooms showing cringy overdramatisised "Ferrari heritage" films. Never again!
 
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