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Your most and least pleasurable theme park days

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. I don’t know about any of you, but as a theme park enthusiast, I find that every theme park day is pleasurable in its own way. However, the pleasurability of these days does vary, so with that in mind; I’d be intrigued to know; what have been some of your most and least pleasurable theme park days?

These don’t necessarily have to equate with your most and least favourite parks; you might have had a terrible day at a park you love, and equally, you might have had a great day at a park you don’t rate that highly!

I’ll get the ball rolling with some of mine…
Most Pleasurable
  • Europa Park (29th April 2022) - I loved all 3 days at Europa, and all are easily in contention for the title of “most pleasurable theme park day” (but for the sake of not repeating Europa loads of times, I won’t mention all of them), but for some reason, the last day sticks out in my mind as being particularly pleasurable. It just felt like such a wonderful day! It could be the fact that I broke my own personal ride count record by some distance (21 rides ridden; the previous record holder was 16!) without even trying overly hard (we maintained a fairly relaxed tempo throughout the day), it could be the fact that I had an amazing 6 rides on my #2 coaster Silver Star (again, that broke the record for the most times I’ve ridden one attraction in a day, and I broke it on a coaster I absolutely loved), it could be the fact that we experienced a very varied range of attractions, with plenty of supporting attractions thrown in alongside the big hitters; I don’t know. But for whatever reason, this day left me with some phenomenally fond memories I’ll treasure forever. I was genuinely sad to be leaving the park at the end of it, which is a sure sign of a truly brilliant day, in my opinion!
  • Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios Florida (28th August 2016) - Even though this day was 6 years ago now, and it was across 2 parks rather than one, my most recent day at the Universal Orlando Resort does stick out to me! We did both parks by using the Hogwarts Express, I got 2 rides in on Hulk, we did loads of dark rides, did some water rides; it just sticks out to me as a brilliant day, for some reason! A revisit to UOR is definitely needed… it’s such a cool place!
  • Paultons Park (30th July 2021) - Paultons might not be as grand or as spectacular as the parks above, but my first and only day there was wonderful! We got on loads of rides (14, to be exact), and that was with an incredibly relaxed tempo; we didn’t rush around by any stretch, and we spent at least 2 hours of our 6 hour day not riding anything at all! And in general, the place was so relaxing, and so nice to be in, that I just had to mention it!
  • Thorpe Park (7th September 2021) - My nomination from Thorpe Park was a toss up between 7th September 2021 and 2nd August 2019 (when we stayed at the park until 6:30pm) but I have to say, I think 7th September narrowly wins out! It was my first time visiting a theme park alone, and also a relatively quiet midweek day, and it was awesome! I got 16 rides in, the tempo wasn’t too rushed, and I got incredible personal satisfaction from having done a theme park on my own!
  • Alton Towers (12th July 2020) - I could have picked quite a few days here, as I’ve had so many great days at Alton Towers over the years, but I think that this one stands out. In retrospect, it wasn’t one of my higher ride count days (although we still got 6 rides in, which I’d say is decent!), but I had some absolutely mesmerising rides on Wicker Man that well and truly blew me away, and it was just nice to be back at a theme park after the COVID lockdowns!
  • Blackpool Pleasure Beach (24th August 2019) - I’ve got to say, I had a really nice time when I visited BPB for Late Night Riding. I loved getting in some of my first ever night rides, we stayed until 9pm, and on the whole, it was just a great day!
Least Pleasurable
If I’m being honest, there aren’t any theme park days that stick out in my mind as being wholly unpleasant, but there are some that fall lower on the pleasurability scale, for sure.
  • Thorpe Park (16th July 2018) - This was an end of year school trip I took to Thorpe Park, and in retrospect, it wasn’t one of my more pleasurable theme park days. It was still fun to be at Thorpe Park, and I did get on Rush & Samurai for the first time, but it was very busy. We got on 2 rides during our 6 hours on park (it took close to an hour to get in, so we weren’t in until 11:30am), and no coasters were ridden; only Rush & Samurai were ridden. We also waited over 2 hours for Saw only for it to break down at the very end of the queue. That’s not to say it was a bad day by any means (2 rides is better than nothing, and I did get to experience Rush & Samurai for the first time), but it was perhaps my lowest ride count ever at a ride-focused park like Thorpe (relative to the amount of hours spent in the park, at least), and not one of my fonder theme park memories in the grand scheme of things.
  • Legoland Windsor (31st August 2017) - Granted, this day may have been more due to circumstance than the park itself, but my first ever visit to Legoland was not one of my more pleasurable park experiences, I must admit. Our mum was in a wheelchair due to having fractured her ankle, which added an element of stress, and the park was extremely busy. The pathways were very crowded, and I found it hard to move about, which made me pretty anxious. I did get on Dragon, though, so at least I got the park’s singular non-kiddie credit in! And I did later get a revisit in July 2021, which was much more enjoyable and gave me the opportunity to properly take in the park!
  • Alton Towers (25th March 2018) - Wicker Man’s opening weekend was exciting, don’t get me wrong, but in retrospect, the day where I first rode it was not one of my fonder experiences at Alton Towers. We started our day by attempting to ride Wicker Man during ERT, which we initially thought would be a brilliant idea… but it turned out that everyone else had the same idea, and a fair queue had already amassed by the time we reached the ride. That wasn’t the main problem, however; the main issue was that due to reliability issues, the ride didn’t open until 11:30am despite ERT starting at 9:30am, meaning that we waited outside the ride for 2 hours, and then it took us at least another hour to get on once it did open, due to a combination of a long queue and the ride’s reliability issues meaning that it went up and down like a yo-yo. We did get on, thankfully, but we broke down at the end of the ride, and were then stuck on the brake run for the best part of 30 minutes before being evacuated, which took the total length of our Wicker Man experience to around 4 hours. Even away from Wicker Man, the park was having a tough day; it was busy, and things were breaking down left, right and centre. After getting off Wicker Man, we had lunch, rode Thirteen with the priority passes we’d been given from the Wicker Man evac, and then left at 2:30pm because my family had had enough by that point. I am very thankful to have been a part of Wicker Man’s opening weekend and to have ridden it that day, and it was cool to be evacuated (the only time I’ve ever been evacuated from a coaster, from memory), but it wasn’t one of my more pleasurable days at Alton Towers, all things considered.
But what have been some of your most and least pleasurable theme park days?
 

Rob Coasters

Hyper Poster
Most pleasurable:
-Wicksteed Park, July 2021 - genuinely the most chilled out day I've ever had at any park
-Thorpe Park, May 2021 - the day I fell back in love with Saw
-Chessington World of Adventures, September 2019 - dedicating the day to marathoning Rameses Revenge to say goodbye

Least pleasurable:
-Alton Towers, June 2018 - don't cred run Towers in the summer in one day, lesson learnt
-Thorpe Park, July 2020 - without exaggeration, every single ride at the park was running awfully
-Clarence & South Parade Pier, August (?) 2021 - the consequences of overdressing are quite bad
 

EDjanaika

Mega Poster
Most Pleasurable
. Drayton Manor September 2021 - Nearly every ride open, Adventure Cove was brilliant to experience last year and i got 6 rides on Maelstrom, 4 rides on Shockwave, 2 on Apocalypse and even one final ride on Pandemonium!!! Also i spent it with a friend i hadn't seen all Summer so that made it as well.
. Alton Towers July 2020 - Just finally getting back to theme parks was a relief for everyone i think and it made us appreciate them even more. Managed to do all the main rides which considering how busy it was i was pleased with. I had a brilliant ride on Nemesis that day as well!

Least Pleasurable
Only one day comes to mind which is lucky considering how many times i've been to Drayton with it being my home park. My days at theme parks have mostly all been great but
. Drayton Manor April 2019 - Went and i'm pretty sure it was on the news, Shockwave broke down on it's lift hill and didn't reopen, Apocalypse was shut, Maelstrom and Air Race were shut and had busy queues when they reopened, and to top it all, i forgot my change of clothes for Stormforce so i ended up skipping out on it. Disappointing but i've had a few redemption trips since.

Hope to get out to more parks in the future but for now my trips to other parks like Chessington and Flamingo Land were good but not Most Pleasurable!1
 

Serena

Miss CoasterForce 2016
Staff member
Social Media Team
Most pleasurable:

This year I've been regularly popping into Thorpe Park on my own when I have a weekday off work and it's been amazing. It's great being able to walk to the park from where I live. I think I've made a total of 5 impromptu visits and never queued longer than 10 mins for anything.

One day I had quite a lot of emails to do, but I wanted to get some outdoors time. So I strolled down to Thorpe, sat on the bench in front of Stealth alternating between sending emails and nipping onto Stealth for a break! Going on your own is great cos you can do whatever you feel like without others wanting to ride Collosus 😂

Least pleasurable:


Phantasialand with my bandmates when they made us leave early

Tokyo DisneySea with my bandmates when they made us leave early

Alton Towers with my bandmates when they made us leave early

...there's definitely a theme there 😅
 

Y. Kim

Mega Poster
Most Pleasurable

Lotte World Busan new opening weekend (Apr.3.2022)

As I had tons of expectations of new home park, I got to go there on the 5th day of park opening. As the reservation is required and limited capacity due to it, EVERY ride was a walk-on. So, new park plus walk on means the memorable experience. I got to ride whatever I want without any wait, and experienced the magic of the new park. Though I've visited there 4 times in 2 months after opening, I really miss this experience. Though there was one unpleasant moment in total 4 visits, my home park gives me happiness.

Universal Studios Singapore (2015)
My first international park. I was pretty worried about the horrible wait time of Universal, but most of the rides were walk-on. Only except for Jurassic Park was 60 min wait, and the suspended coaster there was 40 min wait. So, I completed this park with my family in just 4 hours, and got the memorable Universal experience.

LEAST Pleasurable

Failed to go to Everland (May, 5, 2016)

I wanted to go Everland that day, but after I arrived there, tons of cars flooded into the parking lot. So, my family gave up going there. Huh.... That time I was only 13, and I cried.

E World on winter school trip (Dec, 3, 2021)
This time it was with my school classmates. But as we arrived at 10AM, all the rides were closed, and we wasted 2 hours. Huh. Camel Back was spiting, and the one-fifth of their lineup was closed. E World. After some rides were open, the operations were horrible, (4 min dispatch for Vekoma Boomerang) and so I didn't ride as much as I want. Moreover, the classmate (the group my class assigned) was not with my close friends, so I was pretty uncomfortable.
Moreover, I went to Gyeongju World the day before E World, and that experience was much, much better (Draken 5 times, and Phaethon and more in just 3 hrs) With this experience, I dislike E World, and I am not likely to re-visit there.
Phantasialand with my bandmates when they made us leave early

Tokyo DisneySea with my bandmates when they made us leave early

Alton Towers with my bandmates when they made us leave early
"E World with my school when they made us leave early"
 

coasteraddict10

Roller Poster
The worst experience I've ever had at a theme park is at Gulliver's World Warrington when I was a kid, we were in the log flume and there wasn't enough water in the trough so we kept getting bottoming out having to drag ourselves.
 

Indy

Hyper Poster
My day at Energylandia last fall was one of the best park days I've ever had. It was a solo trip that included near perfect weather and incredibly short lines. I easily checked off every cred and had plenty of time to get about as many re-rides as I desired in an incredibly enjoyable park. It's a day that will be hard to beat.

As for the worst, I went to Six Flags St. Louis on a Saturday early in the season, meaning the crowds were extremely heavy. The situation was made worse when the entire park inexplicably lost power for several hours. Certainly nothing of the park's doing, but miserable nevertheless.
 

Furiustobaco

Mega Poster
My best certainly lays in every day I’ve spent at Europa (about 9 days overall)

The park has rides with great throughputs, queues move fast, the hours get extended when it’s busy, the staff are efficient and nice, the food is good, and overall the park makes you feel so relaxed. A lot of parks there is a “I need to do this now!” Vibe, at Europa I honestly just chill and take the park at my own pace.

WORST: Portaventura
I used to come a lot before 2017, but my 2017 visit has sworn me off. It’s just such a stressful park; I didn’t buy their fast pass and you kinda have to buy one to have any inch of fun here. The staff are rude, have weird policies that chop and change, the food is bad, and they decided to make all their queues sun reflecting cattle pens as a means of torture to their customers.

The park is beautiful, and has Shambhala and Furius Baco with some okay coasters for support (Red Force is eh, Stampida can be either terrible or fun depending on the time of day and retracks)

Busy days at Alton Towers:
I love this park, but god on a busy day with a 4pm close, this park can stress you out. The parks layout is so huge and awkward that it takes like 40 minutes or so to walk from smiler to nemesis (it’s a long walk!)
It is a windy day then say goodbye to sky ride which always seems to find a way to close when I go. Yeah for someone who lives 4 hours away I find it stressful to get much done in a day when it’s busy.

If I had to give a honourable mention for pleasure I’d say cedar point gave me a few really good days. The ride ops are so passionate and knowledgable about the rides they operate; and it was cool for them to give running commentary while we queues (5 minute queues anyway)

For bad I’d also say cedar point when the weather turns against me and left the whole park closed for the day due to torrential downpour. This is just due to its location tho so no points against the park itself.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
Most pleasurable was probably a 2017 trip to Cedar Point where we used "the List" to get around the entire park in a very managable day. There's nothing like going at a park with a plan of attack, and actually have it pay off to ride everything:


Another top favorite was a Silver Dollar City visit with @Hixee, @Snoo, @Youngster Joey, @kimahri, and Error. We had to start out super early from @tomahawk's then residence in Kansas City to make it to Branson for opening - I fondly remember cranking the newly released Daft Punk Random Access Memories to stay awake as we drove. But rolling upon the park as the sun began to break was truly magical - not to mention getting onto our very first RMC within 30 minutes there after!

Worst park visits? Probably those that get rained out, especially Cedar Point Opening Days of late. I've grown to be adaptive and find the nearest bar, so coping mechanisms help. :p
 

James F

Hyper Poster
Most Pleasurable:

All Visits to Magic Kingdom:
Although recently I have given a fair amount of criticism towards Disney I can say that I have never had a bad day at Magic Kingdom. Childhood nostalgia must be a powerful drug, because the atmosphere really does feel 'magical' even as an adult. Granted I haven't been there for a while now, but I have very found memories of me and my dad lapping Splash Mountain,

First Visit to Europa Park:
I went in with high expectations and this park somehow blew them all away. Reading @Matt N's trip report reminded me just how special it felt exploring that park for the first time.

Port Aventura July 2013:
I don't think that Port Aventura is a perfect park, but it captures that "Holiday" feeling well. We stayed at the on-site for 4 days so despite mediocre operations we could relax and do whatever, want a ride on Shambhala? sure, Want to see a show? no problem. Want to go back to take a dip in the pool? why not. It was the first theme park holiday I have had where I didn't feel the need to rush around and stress over getting on rides.

Busch Gardens Tampa September 2014:
We went on a week day and everything was a walk on, even Falcon's Fury which had only been opened for two weeks at the time. Cheetah Hunt was also new to me so being able to lap that as well as getting re-rides on my then number 1 coaster Sheikra felt like I was in roller coaster nirvana.

Alton Towers Scarefest 2007:
Back in 2007 me and the family went to Alton Towers without even knowing there was a Halloween event, turns out that many other people didn't either as the park was almost dead with a 9pm closing! Can you imagine that now? getting to go on all the classics in the dark and seeing a fireworks show without feeling like the whole country being there with you? Best day I've ever had at a UK theme park.

Thorpe Park October 2021:
I had not been to Thorpe Park since 2016 and I really started to miss the place. I think because I am from up north I have warmer feelings about it as I only go once every few years so each visit is exciting. Every ride was not only a walk on, but also re-ridable without getting out of the seat. I think I did about 5 laps back to back on Stealth, which really made me appreciate how great that coaster is despite it's short length.

Least Pleasurable:

Alton Towers June 2010:

*this might be a bit upsetting to read*

There are a few reasons why this goes down as my all time worst day at a theme park, but most of all it was the people I was with. I hated school. Hated it. The only thing I liked about school was spending time with my friends, but only one of them got to go with me on this trip. I got to be honest here I disliked at least half of the people in my school year, some of that might of been due to anger issues I had at that time, but there was a couple of lads who were the most vile people I have ever come across. During this period my friend was going through a really rough time as his mum was suffering from breast cancer. In some ways this trip felt like it was timed as a pleasant distraction, although I think he was trying to put on a brave face. The day went on and while I just complied about how bad the queues were and how rubbish it was that we only had 4 hours in the park, he seemed genuinely happy. This wouldn't last though as when we got back on the coach we could hear these lads laughing at our expense, and it wasn't long until they started joking about his mother dying. I remember him just staring out of the window holding back tears. I was livid, how could someone be so cruel? but I didn't do anything and to be honest I am still mad at myself for not doing so. I know this has got almost nothing to do with the "Park Experience", but honestly from this experience I learnt that it doesn't matter if operations are poor or that the park closes early if you are with the right people, but take a person who you despise and they can turn any day into a miserable one. Sorry for the rant.
 

Kw6sTheater

Hyper Poster
Most Pleasurable Visits:
Six Flags Over Georgia, Late December 2018 - The park was empty, so everything was a walk-on: only Batman and Great American Scream Machine were closed. I got zen rides on Dare Devil Dive (during any other visit, it's been at least a 30 minute wait...) and Mind Bender (before the retracking). Maybe it was the Christmas theming, but this visit just felt magical and like a winter's dream.

Knoebels, June 2021 (CoasterCon 43) - Both of my visits to Knoebels have been excellent, but this one was even more enjoyable. Rode Phoenix 21 times in 1 day plus some of Knoebels' other oddities (Looper, Rock-O-Plane, Haunted Mansion, Black Diamond, Pioneer Train, Panther Cars...), attended a walking tour of Impulse's infield and maintenance areas, and loved every minute of it.

Least Pleasurable Visits:
Calaway Park, July 2019 - The park was busy, so everything had a substantial line (Vortex, the last Arrow Corkscrew still in its original location, had a 30-40 minute wait all day). While Calaway Park is nicely landscaped and well taken care of, it's just lacking in any special or highly thrilling rides (unlike Galaxyland up in Edmonton) for my personal tastes.

Six Flags Over Texas, August 2018 - This was a last-minute, unplanned visit, so I only had 4 hours in the park. On top of that, Mr. Freeze and Joker were closed for maintenance, while everything else closed for 1 hour due to rain - much to my chagrin, ShockWave didn't reopen. At the end of the visit, I returned to New Texas Giant to wait for a second ride, but it broke down while I was in the station, so I had to leave. All in all, I was only able to ride 5 of the 13 coasters (New Texas Giant, Titan, Mini Mine Train, Batman and Runaway Mountain) and 2 other rides (Harley Quinn Spinsanity - my favorite flat ride to date - and Yosemite Sam's Gold River Adventure, an underrated gem). I'd really like to return here someday so I can properly enjoy Six Flags Over Texas.
 

Lori Marie Loud

Giga Poster
I was actually going to make a thread like "Worst theme park visits" until I saw Matt N made this thread. Damn you Matt N!!!!! (/S)

Anyways, most pleasurable would likely be my Dollywood double day. Rode everything at the park in those two days except Whistle Punk Chaser (didn't care for it). Got Blazin' Fury, Tennessee Tornado, Firechaser Express and Wild Eagle on the first day, got a new #1 (Wild Eagle) but was sad Lightning Rod was spiting. It decided to unspite the following day (@Jarrett's "Season Pass for Clunkers" TR took place on the same weekend we went, actually, fun fact) and after getting the rest of the creds (except Whistle Punk) I casually saw Lightning Rod running. Ran for it. New #1 unlocked.

Now for the least pleasurable.

1. Six Flags Great America 2019.

This trip was basically summed up on this little bit in the car.

Me:Uh.....Mom......I...think I left my shoes back at the house in Oak Lawn.

Mom: WHAT?!

This trip was part of a multi day visit to our late Grunkle (that's what I'm calling him as I forgot if he was uncle or grandpa) Tom's house for...reasons I forget. Me, my mom, my dad and my baby sister came along, but that left my big brother Justin behind. So, when we decided to go to SFGAm, we were specifically told we wouldn't be able to do any thrill rides (Justin was basically the guy able to get us onto thrill rides in previous theme park visits). The opportunity to ride one thrill ride was brought up but got spited after the shoe incident above (we had to buy shoes at the nearby Kohl's). I had been spited by damn near everything at the park in the previous visit (see below) and was determined to at least make some headway to completing it.
That wasn't to be. We did Condor and Dark Knight, but then when we went to try Roarin' Rapids it was closed. So we went to Logger's Run. And found a 2 hour wait. By the time that was over it was basically closing time and after a reride we had to leave, promising to return the next day...then we decided to go to SFSTL instead on the way home.

Fun fact: This was the final week of SFGAm operating all week of that year.

SFSTL had already gone weekends only.

We left on a Wednesday.




****.

2. Six Flags Great America 2018

I had been waiting a while for this day. SFGAm! Finally! We arrived and did Sky Trek, gazing over some Maxx Force construction. The plan was to spend a bit of time at the theme park, then go to the water park, then more time at the theme park. So after Sky Trek we ended up at Raging Bull, giving me a #1 that wouldn't be beaten until later that year in Dollywood. Then, X-Flight. After that, we decided to hit up V2.

Then everything went wrong. I got a huge headache from V2, and was also burning up and constantly took swigs from my cup of pink lemonade. We sat down at an impromptu "smoking area" (Mom couldn't find the real one) near Roarin' Rapids.

Suddenly I began to feel...off.

Wait, no, I'm fine! I might have drank too much back there, might need a bit to cool off but I'm fibluueeeeegggghhhhh.....

I drank way too much way too fast. I barfed all over the bushes and the cup.

So we did Big Easy Balloons and then, because I was dying of misery, we simply decided to end the day there and go back to the hotel so I could take a nap and cool down. I left the park with a mere 3 creds, and 5 rides in total.

Ugh.

3. Galveston Pier July 2020

This was the first of two visits to Galveston Pier that year. I recounted the experience in my trip thread, so let's just quote it.
On the 15th, we finally went to the Pleasure Pier. Which I had wanted to go to because of Iron Shark. We get there and I see the closed rides sign.

And my heart sinks.

The Following Attractions will be Closed Today:
Rock and Roll
Iron Shark
Texas Star Flyer


Iron Shark, which I had spent the whole month of June and most of the trip waiting for, was closed.


Spite.
We had a fun time at the pier, but never being able to ride Iron Shark kinda put a dampen on it. Regardless, I got my first inversion period since 2018 on Cyclone, the local Super Loop. And also did the Galaxy Wheel, Revolution, and Pirate's Plunge.
Yeah, sort of a far cry from the absolutely miserable SFGAm trips, but it's still somewhat of a downer given I was so pumped for Iron Shark and it was closed.

Got it the next month tho so 😄

TL,DR: SFGAm 2018, did 5 rides in total, drank too much too fast, had headache and was burning up, puked in bushes, had to leave because I was absolutely miserable. SFGAm 2019, no thrill rides because no big brother, only got on 3 rides whole day, Logger's Run ate up entire rest of day, second day forgone to go to SFSTL, SFSTL closed because it was a weekday and they had already gone weekends only. Galveston 2020, got spited by the Star Flyer and Iron Shark.
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
Most pleasant:

Walibi belgium 2019 - Loved the lakeside setting, good selection of rides, low queue times, nice weather and the half chicken and chips were yummy!

Potts park (2017 ish) - a unique coaster, great humor in their scenic rides, had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon!

Europa Park - 2012 ish - enjoyed an hours people watching with a nice dish of prawns in garlic butter!

Thorpe park opening sunday (cf live) - just a nicely chilled day!

most of these seem to be at german/danish / swedish parks - just such a nice chilled atmosphere!


Least pleasant:
Alton towers may 2022 - several afternoon ride closures, including both oblivion and smiler, big queues elsewhere, and still closed at 4!

and whilst I love halloween, it's getting just too busy, and too many haunts to get done in one night!
 
My best was May 2021 at Islands of Adventure. We arrived at the park not knowing whether or not Velocicoaster was going to be "soft opened" or not. Needless to say having it been our first trip to Florida we ran directly to the back of the park once it opened. When we passed through the back of Hogsmeade we saw the ride was running and I got 2 rides on it within the first 30 minutes of being in the park. We enjoyed everything IOA had to offer over the next 2 days and got 7 more rides on VC! IOA was beautiful, clean and operations were flawless... easily my best theme park day ever.

My worst was on the same trip at BGT
my list of grievances are:

One train ops for all coasters (on a friday)
Rampant line cutting in ride lines and the "cafeteria".
When we notified security we were told there was nothing they could do about it.
Trash cans overflowing with trash flying around in the wind.
Literally all of the staff I encountered that day provided terrible service.. including at the front entrance.
We paid for quick queue / flash pass only to find out no one was checking at the rides and people from the regular queue would just enter it anyway.
I found Kumba to be overrated. I understand its historical significance but it was not a fun experience with it being rough and full of headbanging.
Iron Gwazi looks great but its farther to travel to florida from hawaii then Japan so i will stick with Hakugei!
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
and whilst I love halloween, it's getting just too busy, and too many haunts to get done in one night!
Oh you know what, you remind me of a retched visit to Cedar Point during Halloweekends ~2013. Park was completely overrun, with bumper-to-bumper traffic the entire causeway to the gates; we actually ended up being directed to park behind Mean Streak as random auxiliary parking.

Suffice it to say, we didn’t really ride anything, and ended up taking even longer to escape outgoing traffic at the end of the day.
 

JoshC.

Strata Poster
I'll play a little loose with the phrasing, and just list some of my favourite park days.

Most Pleasurable
Linnanmaki
It was September 2019, start of the park's Halloween event. Open 1pm-midnight. Did the SeaLife in the morning. The park was very quiet, barely had to queue for anything. Got several rides on the incredible Taiga and several on the wonderful Vuoristorata. The park is an absolute pleasure to be in; great rides, great atmosphere, great staff, great food. Just everything is great. Yes, it rained heavily for a good couple of hours, and it was on the cold side. But damn, I look back at that day as one of my favourite theme park trips in recent memory.

Walibi Holland
October 2019, for Halloween Fright Nights (there's a slight theme going on here...). Their Halloween event is AMAZING. The Clinic was incredible. The park was on top form. And even with 20k+ people crammed into the park in the evening, it was a brilliant day.

Phantasialand
I've never had a bad day at Phantasialand and honestly any of my days here could go on the list. My visit in 2016 a couple of days after Taron opened was fantastic. The first time going to Winteraum was magical. But I think it's a toss up between my 2018 summer season visits - one in July when the sun was shining and the park was quiet but lively, and one in October when the park was dead quiet and was able to re-ride all the key rides many, many times (including a great ERT session on Taron)

Thorpe Park
I've been here so much that there's probably been some really pleasurable days I've had here that I've simply forgotten about. Especially from when I was a kid. But the one that jumps out to me the most - and this is a bit of a cheat - is the press event for The Swarm. A fresh March evening, ~100 'VIPs' on park, and probably more actors there instead. Being guided round in groups of 20 to ride each of park's coasters at night, plus multiple re-rides on Swarm itself to end the evening. Damn that was good.

Least Pleasurable
Honestly, I'm struggling to think of much here. There's one that jumps out, but really, I've never had "unpleasurable" days at parks, even if I haven't always enjoyed the parks / the creds themselves.

Thorpe Park
I guess on the other side of the coin I mentioned above, by visiting Thorpe so much, I'm bound to have had some duds of a day. The one that jumps out to me is my Fright Nights 2012 visit.
For context, at the time I'd just moved to uni. Before then, I used to live a 5 minute car journey to the park. I came down from uni to see family and go to Thorpe, so it felt like I'd actually travelled a bit more the park, and it was my only FN visit of the year. It was utterly shambolic.
One of those days where rides were closing left, right and centre. I queued almost 3 hours for one maze, Experiment 10, which had been brilliant the year prior, and was dog-turd for my run. They had an upcharge maze, The Passing, and one of the justifications for the upcharge was that you wouldn't queue since it had timeslots. Queued an hour after joining at my timeslot.
It was just an absolute nightmare, and dented my enthusiasm a bit. Obviously not for long, but yeah, that day really sucked.


(I'm sure it says something that me talking about my least pleasurable visit is much longer than me talking about my most pleasurable visits. What though, I'm not sure...)
 
The worst experience I've ever had at a theme park is at Gulliver's World Warrington when I was a kid, we were in the log flume and there wasn't enough water in the trough so we kept getting bottoming out having to drag ourselves.
That's happened to me too!

edit: Just realised this didn't happen when I was a kid, I was fully grown adult which may well exaplin it!
 
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