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Quietest you've ever seen a theme park?

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Giga Poster
Liseberg was walk-on central when I visited on April 29th of this year. Longest wait had to be 10 or so minutes on Valkyria when it got mildly busier later in the day (but was a walk-on until like 4-5 PM)

A lot of parks nowadays I try to visit as soon as they open and at some places even if it gets busier later can be a ghost town during the first hour or so of opening. Touring Phantasialand just taking in the sites when most rides wouldn't open for another hour (the earliest was Black Mamba at 9:30) was actually pretty cool.

On the opposite end, Universal Singapore back in November 2011 was pretty busy for most of the day but around 6 PM you'd be hard pressed to see another soul besides the staff there.
 
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Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Liseberg was walk-on central when I visited on April 29th of this year. Longest wait had to be 10 or so minutes on Valkyria when it got mildly busier later in the day (but was a walk-on until like 4-5 PM)

I remember one
Was it you we were talking to on Helix on the 29th, when we were litterally running around in time for the same train returning to the station to jump back on it?
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Actually not sure it was you, sure the person we were talking to preffered Helix to Taron!

But yeh, we were there that Monday and Tuesday, both days were so quiet. Got 31 rides on Helix across both days, and high numbers on everything else too.

P.s sorry for double post, edit won’t work for me.
 

cookie

Giga Poster
Was it you we were talking to on Helix on the 29th, when we were litterally running around in time for the same train returning to the station to jump back on it?
I don't know about that. All I know was that the staff only ran two trains and ran the second one around the track empty. I was first in line when the park opened though.

I was on Lisebergbanan when the one train got stuck in the brake run in case you saw it.
 
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Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
I don't know about that. All I know was that the staff only ran two trains and ran the second one around the track empty.

I was on Lisebergbanan when the one train got stuck in the brake run in case you saw it.
Yes I did, we went to ride it and we were turned away. They had Helix on 3 trains on Tuesday at one point and some points in the day were sending 2 trains empty!

Made for some interesting pictures

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.Ac.

Mega Poster
Closest to a deserted park i come to is Thorpe, on a off peak week day.

I have spent a fair few hours on stealth with out having to leave the station platform at all.

Was the case of getting off the train, walking the 50 yards back to the air gates and climbing back onto the same train that i just got off seconds earlier.

Great fun.
 

GuyWithAStick

Captain Basic
Does working in the park before guests even arrive count? Or is that cheating? :p

For an actual day I went, it was probably the one SFGAm Buyout I was able to attend. I think there was maximum 2,000 people in the park. I got to marathon Goliath 20 times in a row without leaving my seat! Definitely one of the best days I had there.
 

Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Closest to a deserted park i come to is Thorpe, on a off peak week day.

I have spent a fair few hours on stealth with out having to leave the station platform at all.

Was the case of getting off the train, walking the 50 yards back to the air gates and climbing back onto the same train that i just got off seconds earlier.

Great fun.
Thorpe is always like that when I visit!!! Working weekends and having Mon and Tues off instead does have its advantages :)
 

rctneil

Roller Poster
For me it would have to be Warner Bros World Abu Dhabi. It was absolutely dead in there. Hardly anyone around. Everything was walk on which was brilliant for me as it's a stunning park! IMG was also very very quiet.

My visit to Janfusun Fancyworld was also very quiet, there were less than 200 people in the whole park!
 
Canada's Wonderland a few years back in mid-August. Usually the park is rammed no matter what day in the summer, but the day we went it was a ghost town likely due to the hail storm that was in the forecast, unbeknownst to us. The morning and afternoon until about 4pm were gorgeous, but once the storm hit we got stranded in Toronto because the roads were flooded and it was hailing down golfballs.

Oh yeah speaking of storm, Six Flags Over Texas during tropical storm Bill brought in about 7 people including our group of 4. The park ended up closing about an hour later.

Busch Gardens Tampa also closed due to low attendance when I went a few years back, which was also weather related. Beautiful morning and evening, but the midday storm cleared out the masses.

I remember Tobu Zoo being quite dead as well because it sucked but at least the Mega Lite was a walk on.
 

Will

Strata Poster
Probably Wickerman 'Opening' weekend, though I do have happy memories of having Canada's Wonderland largely to myself until 10pm back in 2015 after heavy rain earlier in the day. Will always remember the staff enthusiastically going 'Welcome back... err... RIDER!'
 

Littlebrotoby

Roller Poster
I went to Terra Mítica a few years ago, and I tell no lie we didn’t wait for a single ride except for an indoor shooter ride (I assume the capacity wasn’t great on it) and that was like a 10 minute wait!

Some rides, inferno in particular, we had to wait for people to come on the ride to even out the amount of people on each side.

We went on a boat ride whilst there, and the operator sent us around 3 times even though none of us wanted too. Literally we came back into the station soaking wet, she said: ‘again?!?’ And everyone groaned ‘NO!’ And she just said ‘Again!’ And sent us around, after the third lap I was drenched through, it was a very interesting experience!

From what I’ve heard Terra Mítica isn’t a very popular park (mainly because it has no good rides!) and it really showed on that day!
 
Thorpe Park Love Island Lates. The only ride with a queue was colossus which was still only 20 mins but this was earlier on in the event. By 7:00, the park was absolutely dead. I was able to stay on inferno for 2 consecutive goes in front and back row without queuing at all. I did 4 rides on depth charge in 15 minutes and likewise for swarm. The only reason I didn't do more swarm rides was because every time I changed sides of the station. Stealth front row queue was under 10 minutes while the rest of the train was walk on. Saw was incredibly creepy with me and my brother being the only ones in the queue and station, with the exception of one staff member. To basically sum the evening up, swarm island had more security guards than actual guests. It was truly an amazing night for ride count!
I also stormed the park on the Love Island Lates. With Thorpe only being about a 40 minute drive I could just pop over after work and walk on everything for about 3 hours. Really hope they do it again this year as the people there for the actual Love Island bit don't seem to care for the coasters at all. Too busy listening to EDM and drinking overpriced cocktails... perfect.
 
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Thekingin64

Strata Poster
Either today at Bottons in Skegness or Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach a few years back. Both times the weather was terrible which must have put people off, most rides i had to find an operator for and could have easily stayed on if i wanted. Both times the park even closed earlier than advertised due to the lack of guests and the weather as well.

Hopefully get a repeat of today for the CF live at Fantasy Island....
 

KommissarLT

Roller Poster
Probably Michigan's Adventure last year. It was so empty and quiet it was kind of sad, granted we were at the park pretty late. I was also literally the only person on Thunderhawk (my second ride on it) and it had a breakdown while I was sitting at the brake run.
 

Dan Nguyen

Roller Poster
Went to Plopsaland on a weekday last month. It was a ghost town. I was surprised to see none of the shops open at all.

Same with Thorpe Park on the same trip except that was a little bit busier. I couldn't imagine visiting during a high season like summer. It seems like that park gets quite the crowds.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Basically 80% of parks in China.

Last week there can’t have been 100 people in Sunac Land Nanchang, and we were the only people on Python in Bamboo Forest.
Wow; are they really that quiet? From the coaster lineups a lot of these Chinese parks have and the reported queue lengths, I was under the impression that Chinese theme parks were getting to be quite busy! Especially seeing names like OCT and Chimelong making the most visited operators in the world list!

On a different note, the parks in Dubai/the UAE always seem to be surprisingly deserted in trip reports I read from the area. Can anyone who's been vouch for this?
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
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Wow; are they really that quiet? From the coaster lineups a lot of these Chinese parks have and the reported queue lengths, I was under the impression that Chinese theme parks were getting to be quite busy! Especially seeing names like OCT and Chimelong making the most visited operators in the world list!
The long queues you hear of are not necesserily because the parks are busy, often just because the operations are so slow.

Dinoconda, for example, had a 90 minute queue when I went, but they were managing about 8-minute dispatches. Long queue, not a lot of people. Wanda Hefei was dead when I went, as were the Fantawild parks in Wuhu, Joyland, everywhere. Only place that was busy was Disney - but at least they manage decent dispatches!

On a different note, the parks in Dubai/the UAE always seem to be surprisingly deserted in trip reports I read from the area. Can anyone who's been vouch for this?
Yeah, done Ferrari World a couple of times when I was working out there and it was always dead. Could easily knock the park out in under two hours, then spend the rest of the day getting re-rides and having a walk round the mall. Much the same for IMG too...
 
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