Menu
What's new
By:
Filters

Ever experienced an early theme park closure?

Kebab

Kebab

Giga Poster
I was at PortAventura last year and it was a pretty stormy day, me and my friend got to the park about 7-8pm and it was open until midnight, hoping to get a stormy night ride on Furius Baco. We were queuing up for Baco and it was running fine, the weather conditions however lit up the track and trees every 10 seconds, it was a really bad storm. The atmosphere was eerie, but I liked that. :)

We were just minutes from riding until it 'broke down' and everyone had to leave the coaster. The queue was going wild, I've never heard so many people chanting, but Baco remained down for the next 30 minutes. Eventually we were told to leave the queue and enter the the terrifying rain, it was pouring it down!

So we stupidly decided to trek towards Dragon Khan, as everyone was rushing past us. Lights in the park began to turn off, and we were alone, felt like a scene out of a horror movie, so we walked back to the entrance of the park. We were two of the last people in the park, the place was deserted, and it was only 10pm...

We exited the park, didn't even get any vouchers or free return tickets... It wasn't a disappointing experience, I found it pretty vivid with everybody running out of the park, lightning flashing the Polynesian tropical trees, and being deserted in near complete darkness.

Anybody had a similar experience to this? If so, how was it? And did you recieve anything to compensate?
 
Did they actually close the park (as in, staff actually 'forced' you out), or was it just that no-one wanted to stay during the bad weather?

They do clearly say on most (if not all) tickets things along the lines of "It's not our fault if it rains and we have to shut, so don't come looking for compensation".


And no, it's never happened to me. Odd rides shut yes, nearly everything shut at Kings Island during a thunderstorm (Diamondback actually got hit), but it was all soon reopen.
 
The park didn't close but everyone left Thorpe around midday on opening day 2009 as all but 3 rides in the park were broken down or shut.
That was a terrible day.
 
My only experience was Alton Towers closing all the rides at 5 when the closing time on the website said 6 but it didn't bother me that much since I was there for 3 days anyways.
 
Not an early finish, but no park makes you feel more unwelcome after the stated closing time than Flamingoland.

Rides are closed, so bugger off!!
 
^Ha quite true.

It's because most of the staff have to get in mini buses to be herded back to Malton and Scarborough.
 
Hixee said:
And no, it's never happened to me. Odd rides shut yes, nearly everything shut at Kings Island during a thunderstorm (Diamondback actually got hit), but it was all soon reopen.
Click to expand...

Same for me. I've never had a park close, but I've seen the majority of the rides in IoA shut last July when I was there. There was a massive thunderstorm and everything remained closed for an hour or so.
 
Back in 2009 was working at Chessie when it had the numerous powercuts...

The second one was arguably the worst as it happened in the middle of the day and killed off the entire park, so obviously park got evacuated and ice creams and drinks were sold at lower prices and a basic compensation of being able to return on the day ticket at any time for the rest of the year was given...

Not sure on anything else... I just stood around Sea Dragons and Market Square informing people of what was going on... Good times...
 
"Cedar Point never completely shuts down." So the employee handbook says.

Nope.
 
Yes, has happened to me a couple of times at Six Flags Great Adventure. Both times a huge storm hit the park & all the rides were forced to close for hours, but once the storms cleared the coasters opened again. However there were only a handful of guests that rode out the storm & each time the park announced that they were closing 2 hours earlier than scheduled (6pm instead on 8pm & 8pm instead of 10pm). We didn't mind because we had a couple of hours of walk-on rides before closing both times.
I'm actually surprised SFGAdv didn't do the same thing once when Snoo, UC, the kid & I were there. The rides were closed for nearly four hours due to the weather & TPR even left after about 2.5 hours, but the park stayed open until the scheduled closing time even though there weren't that many people that rode out the storm like the four of us did. We had a blast with all the walk-on rides & hanging out yakking it up while it poured wasn't that bad.
 
Happened to me yesterday, we went to Gadv when it was raining, we figured it would calm down and eventually it would be nice out and we could enjoy ourselves. We get to the park and find out it'll be closing at 4. This is the only time i've experiences an early closure.
 
Yes, Flamingo Land on a quiet Wednesday 2 years ago. Stated closing time 6pm, went out for packed lunch at 12, and all the signs had changed to 3pm! Thank goodness the rides were walk on!
 
At SF Great Adventure in 2008 when it was stormy weather, I heard that they would've closed the park if it weren't for some singer having a concert there that day.
Also, when I was at Parque de Atracciones Madrid last year, the weather was just overcast when I arrived, but this was apparently enough to have most rides closed. A few flat rides and the kids rides were open, and then a few more stuff opened when the weather hadn't changed at all. It then started drizzling so everything closed, yet the park oddly remained open. I left.

In other words, no.
 
Not in the sense of a park closing early and forcing guests out, but I've experienced storms at both Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens Williamsburg that closed all of the rides for several hours and cleared out a lot of the guests. In both instances, my party just waited it out indoors, playing games or watching shows. And in both cases, they reopened the rides after the storm passed and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. At BGW, I specifically remember riding Apollo's Chariot 4 times in a row without getting off, and at KD, we rode Drop Zone at somewhere between 10-15 consecutive times without getting off. It was sweet :)
 
Yes and No.

As a guest, the parks would stay open, no matter how bad the weather, so the park couldn't be "guilt-tripped" into issuing rain checks.

As an employee of 6FGAm for three years, we did close early a couple times. Typically, the weather wasn't a factor, but rather a RIDICULOUSLY low attendance number. Like under 100 total guests in-park after two hours on a bitter cold Mother's Day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top