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Longest walkway to a station you have experienced?

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
What is the longest walkway you have experienced to get to a coaster station? I am talking about a path that exclusively leads to that one coaster -- it's part of the ride's complex -- typically with railings, fences, hedges or walls on either side. So, this is when you enter what you think is the pre-line to a ride but find yourself walking for ages through a labyrinth.

The two that come to my mind first are The Bat's at Kings Island or The Boss's at SFStL. I'm sure I'm forgetting a million of them.
 

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
I haven't been yet. Something for me to look forward to, then.

EDIT: Oi -- just noticed the hyperlink to the video. Brilliant and hard to argue with.

EDIT #2: My God. I just watched that whole video -- insane. Half-expected there to be a minotaur at the end.
 
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HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
There's a couple of SLCs at Happy Valleys that felt like they went on forever though unnecessarily elaborate theming, though I was probably just dragging my heels.

I never experienced the Zadra queue in all its glory, but Energylandia have clearly taken this to the next level. Hyperion is a workout.
 

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
There's a couple of SLCs at Happy Valleys that felt like they went on forever though unnecessarily elaborate theming, though I was probably just dragging my heels.
At least in that case you know it's going to be worth all the effort in the end.

I never experienced the Zadra queue in all its glory, but Energylandia have clearly taken this to the next level. Hyperion is a workout.
I can think of quite a few coasters that I marathoned and very seriously felt I'd gotten a cardio workout. Boardwalk Bullet and American Thunder especially come to mind because they have inclined walkways, iirc.
 

Benenen

Hyper Poster
Duelling Dragons back in the day. That cave section went on forever.

As already said Zadra is the obvious answer to the question. It's a shame as it's a real hype killer, I remember on my first ride I wasn't feeling that excited standing in the air gates as I'd peaked about five minutes ago on the hike.
 

FarleyFlavors

Mega Poster
Haven't been on Zadra, but that video makes it look like a clear front-runner!

The line for Helix involves an unnecessary amount of climbing up and down stairs. And I seem to recall the line for New Texas Giant involved walking through virtually the entire structure.
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Nemesis in year two or three, every queue extension open, three hour queue inside the ride gates.
Never again.
Yep... Even Zadra isn’t a patch on this!!!

Makes me laugh a little these days when people say things like ‘all of Nemesis’ extensions were open... And I just think, ‘well they’re not!’

Has anybody ever seen the extension past the station open since Air was built? I’m not 100% sure if it’s still there, or if Air’s lift and drop went straight through it. Looks like at least some of it might be there, though very overgrown.
 

Pokemaniac

Mountain monkey
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
From those I've experienced (which is to say, not many), a few stand out:

- Nemesis Inferno with its shortcut-less cattlepens. Having to walk back and forth through the S-shaped paths when a small gate in the right place could get you that much further forwards is so annoying, especially when the coaster has no queue. And if you want to ride again, you better have the park map ready, because the exit of the coaster is in a totally different area of the park than the entrance to the queue.
- Helix's queue takes you on a grand roundabout tour underneath its station. You better bring a bottle of water and good shoes.
- Thundercoaster also has a pretty long trek through the structure before you get to the station. Going from the exit to the entrance of the coaster is a bit of a journey too.
- Of course the big Orlando parks love this trope, as they need to have an enormous queue capacity. At Disney, I think Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and Expedition Everest really stand out. At Universal, I remember Dragon Challenge and Forbidden Journey having absolutely massively long queues, even when empty.

None of them seem to hold a candle to Zadra, though.
 

cookie

Giga Poster
Helix's queue goes all over the place with little to no shortcuts available. Not sure why didn't build a gate linking the first and third set of switchbacks since it would've cut down on walking significantly during quiet days.

Taron & F.L.Y's queues seem like a trek and a half since they seem to wind all over their respective areas.
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
The Bat at Kings Island deserves an honorably mention here; it is quite the downhill and uphill slog to go through the entire queue, all the way out to the station. Son of Beast also required quite the walk in turn back in it's day (old station in the bottom left), having to walk an equal length back... to then start the official queue. #ParamountParkPlanning
Image 10-11-20 at 12.19 PM.jpg
 

Smithy

Strata Poster
Taron and Helix are the two that come to mind, mainly because it's an absolute pain trying to re-ride them quickly by having to run back round.

Along that vain, I seem to recall either Wodan or Joris having similar length run-arounds.
 

MestnyiGeroi

Giga Poster
Taron and Helix are the two that come to mind, mainly because it's an absolute pain trying to re-ride them quickly by having to run back round.

Along that vain, I seem to recall either Wodan or Joris having similar length run-arounds.
On a crowded day I rode Taron twenty times in a couple of hours by using the single rider line, where the average queue was about a dozen people. Over my two-day stay, I couldn’t believe that more people — even groups who don’t mind sitting separately — weren’t cottoning on.
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
- Nemesis Inferno with its shortcut-less cattlepens. Having to walk back and forth through the S-shaped paths when a small gate in the right place could get you that much further forwards is so annoying, especially when the coaster has no queue.

One of the few good things to come from Covid is that Thorpe have now created a shortcut to avoid that cattlepen area! It feels rather temporary at the moment (a fence removed and replaced by a plastic chain), but hopefully they can replace it with a gate so they can use it appropriately in the future.

Longest I've probably experienced is Hyperion, by way of the fact that Zadra wasn't built when I went. I haven't had to walk through many entire queue lines. Queues like Nemesis, Nemesis Inferno and Taron for example are long with all their extensions open, but they're hardly ever open when the queue is just walk on, so you wouldn't realise it as much.

Makes me laugh a little these days when people say things like ‘all of Nemesis’ extensions were open... And I just think, ‘well they’re not!’

Has anybody ever seen the extension past the station open since Air was built? I’m not 100% sure if it’s still there, or if Air’s lift and drop went straight through it. Looks like at least some of it might be there, though very overgrown.

The thing with the rest of Nemesis' extensions is they're, for lack of a better term, SBNO or removed. There hasn't been a need for them for several years, so why bother keeping and maintaining them. When people say they did "all of Towers' coasters today", you're thought process isn't "well you didn't, because you didn't do Black Hole, Corkscrew...".
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
The thing with the rest of Nemesis' extensions is they're, for lack of a better term, SBNO or removed. There hasn't been a need for them for several years, so why bother keeping and maintaining them. When people say they did "all of Towers' coasters today", you're thought process isn't "well you didn't, because you didn't do Black Hole, Corkscrew...".
Actually if there is an SBNO coaster in a park, and I don’t get to ride it, I do feel like I haven’t done them all ? Maybe it’s just me ??‍♂️

The comment wasn’t aimed as a dig at anybody, although I can see how it can be read in a way that makes it look self important. It was more an expression of frustration at being able to see that section of the queue, and not having been able to walk down it in 18 years, or know of anybody who has... Nobody seems to know for sure if it still exists in it’s entirety or not, and it was such a great bit of the queue, with amazing photo opportunities.

Edit: For anybody who wants hasn’t seen it before and wants to see just how long Nemesis’ queue was, I found this on Photobucket / Google, it’s a pretty accurate image. The blue is the old line, no longer in use, the Purple is the current full queue line.

7F6BCA99-3011-4927-8078-F0EDFB567CF6.jpg
 
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