Amusement Park Pet Peeves

In this thread, list any of the small things that you find annoying when you visit an amusement park.

-Line jumpers - I'll usually just let them pass me because it's not worth the trouble of stopping them, but I'm definitely not happy about it.
-One-train operations - If it's a slow day, one-train operations are perfectly fine, but where there is a very long line, I shouldn't see a train leaving the station every five minutes.
-Entitled guests - Just because you drove x miles to get here and paid y dollars to get in doesn't mean you deserve royalty treatment.
-GP that make up false crap - "20 people died on this ride yesterday." Yeah... no.
-Rides closed due to weather - I understand that this isn't the park's fault, but it's still very disappointing when it happens.
-People that try to use cameras/phones on rides - I see coasters getting stopped on the lift hill all the time because of this. If only people would learn to follow the rules...
-Ludicrous food prices - Seriously? Eight dollars for french fries?
-Basketballs - No explanation needed.

When Six Flags has every other queue cutback closed for Raging Bull so that the line of humans sticks 500 feet from the entrance and makes it look like the line is very long and makes you want to buy a flash pass even though you only ended up waiting 20 minutes

-One-train operations, even on short rides
-Two train operation where the second train is stuck behind the station for a good few minutes. Is there any point in using 2 trains if you're that unoptimized?
-Removing/relocating attractions without ever fully understanding why, particularly if it's a marquee attraction that was working fine and had no incidents
-Going for 7+ years without a new coaster
-Upgrading the water park excessively without doing much to the dry side. There should be a balance.
-This is outside of control but when the opening of a new ride or relaunch of a current ride is a schedule slip. Particularly if it's a relaunch of a ride that's been sitting idle for a year longer than the park, and still isn't open yet, and said ride was heavily advertised.
-Slightly related to the above, advertising 8 new rides when only 4 (possibly 5) of them are actually 'new' and the other 3 are just refurbishments.
-People who don't count kiddie coasters, so they say or imply that the park has a total of (insert total number of coasters minus the amount of kiddie coasters).
-I know this one can't be helped (and I've been guilty of this one too) but the GP believing that a relocated coaster is actually 'new.'
-Seemingly arbitrary weight limits, particularly for dry park rides. Not because of being too heavy (which I'm not) but because they often don't have a way to check that if someone appears to be at least approaching the upper bound. Why post a weight limit if the ride op has no way to check except maybe visually? Would it be any different from not using height sticks to check height? I don't really see those numbers too much at other parks or carnivals, so there's an element of inconsistency. Or maybe the conspiracy theorist in me is telling me that those rides look fun and they made the seats for slimmer people on purpose to curb obesity.

Another thing I find slightly annoying is that sometimes the ride ops refuse to dispatch the train until everyone has their hands up. I'm glad that they're trying to have fun while doing their job, but I wish they wouldn't do it at the expense of ride capacity.

[Paradox]

Fastpass holders. Seriously gtfo.

On WC's opening day people were using flash passes to go more than once and take more than one of the free gifts they provided to the first 1000 riders.

^wow, that is some BS.


What I consider even worse than flashpass holders is people who fake an injury and get an "Equal Access"/Handicap pass. Unfortunately, the law states that there's nothing that the park can do to actually confirm the injury, so people abuse this a lot lately. (By the way, I learned this from a former SF ride op, and people actually abuse this all the time at many parks, even Disney). It can easily double a line even if the ride is running at good capacity. Definitely my biggest irk lately at Gadv.

Fast Pass holders taking your choice of seat, making you sit somewhere else.

Yeah... Waited in line for WC for 2 hours. The position I was in would have me in the very back. As I was about to board into the station they stopped me only to fill in the last few seats with Fastpass holders... Cool I guess, atleast I get the front. Nope, more Fastpass riders took the front seat, leaving me in the middle of the train aka the least intense seat on the ride... GG Six flags..

But seriously though, Fast Pass holders shouldn't be getting a choice of seating when the ride (At SFNE They do). It's annoying to people who wait in line for several hours to have to take a less recommended seat over someone who can literally ride over and over.

Ugh, I just missed a Dragster rollback by two trains.

[mkingy]

I much prefer the Alton Towers / Thorpe Park general method of fast passes - you get into the line where there is ~ 10-15 minute wait. That was it remains luck of the draw for back seat and you can queue for the front if you wait longer!

mrcrolly wrote:

Fast Pass holders taking your choice of seat, making you sit somewhere else.[...]

->In my opinion they have a good solution for this problem at Heidepark, Soltau. The station buildings are seperated from the lines using 3-pole-gates which are programmed to let in only the amount of people to fill the next 3 or 4 trains. Fast pass holders have a seperate gate that leads into the station building too right next to the normal queue entrance and they are alowed to "fill up" rows that would be empty but they only let enter a half train load before they need to wait for app. 5 minutes before the gates unlocks again.


@topic: The by far most annoying people in amusement parks are line-jumpers, especially in s-lines where they skip a 15+ minutes wait by crossing one "s".

^That's actually a really great solution. Seems like the system would actually work because there is no people involved haha

[Paradox]

I only line jump when I'm the one forced to put all the stuff into the locker. It usually takes about a minutes so it's nothing major.

[SauronHimself]

I detest line jumpers to the point where I simply block the way so they can't pass. During the summer of 2008, I was waiting in line for Nitro at SF Great Adventure when this guy tried to get past me. He was carrying a soda in one hand (for whom I later found out was his stepson) and one of those tall glasses of Dos Equis (which is no longer sold in the park presumably because of too many alcohol-related incidents) in the other hand. I kept my back turned to him and tried to ignore him, but he started nudging me to move me out of the way. Eventually, he got so angry he dropped his kid's soda and used that arm to put me in a choke hold. I elbowed him off me and kicked him to the ground, consequently causing him to spill his own beer all over himself. His wife and stepson were about 35-40 feet ahead watching in horror. They tried to make me look like the bad guy for not letting this d-bag through, but I had at minimum 20 eyewitnesses telling the security guards that the other guy tried to cut in line and then assaulted me. To no one's surprise that guy and his family were escorted out of the park by security.

[Coasterkidmwm]

VF15 wrote:

Another thing I find slightly annoying is that sometimes the ride ops refuse to dispatch the train until everyone has their hands up. I'm glad that they're trying to have fun while doing their job, but I wish they wouldn't do it at the expense of ride capacity.

What in hell park does that? If anything you want everyone's hands down.

^
It happened a few times at Six Flags Great America. Not that often, but still annoying.

mkingy wrote:

I much prefer the Alton Towers / Thorpe Park general method of fast passes - you get into the line where there is ~ 10-15 minute wait. That was it remains luck of the draw for back seat and you can queue for the front if you wait longer!

Disney does the same thing. It doesn't eliminate the wait, but allows the pass less of a wait. Six flags sucks at their queue beater system, when i was in line for Tatsu a few years ago, i was 20 guests from the stairs leading to the ride building and they stopped the regular queue for almost an hour to let about 20 or so flashpasa holders in. I was so annoyed.

^^ That's a bit nasty. I know some people really like to wave at ride ops!

-Teenage girls that scream bloody murder right in my ear. It's especially annoying when they scream while the train is still in the station.
-The employees that take your picture as soon as you enter the park. I feel like these aren't necessary anymore since you can easily take a selfie on your phone.

There's a few that really annoy me....

-not allowing re-rides.... if there's no one in line, are you really gonna make me walk to the entrance every time?
-no choice of seating.... I don't understand this at all... people will fill every row anyways, so why tell them where to sit?
-no waiting for special seats... really annoying when you want to wait for the front but can't
-closing the line before closing.... it's near impossible to know when your last ride will be

^I completely agree with every one of those points, especially assigned seating; I honestly despise the concept, you should be able to choose where you sit.

Waiting in line behind someone that stinks of B.O.
Thrashed bathrooms
Gangs causing problems

-Bad pathing or flow at parks, i.e. getting from Kingda Ka to El Toro at Great Adventure.

-Lack of shade in queues

-Not using switchbacks and letting the line overflow the queue area

-Not making an effort to fill every seat on rides

-False advertising, i.e. calling a flat a coaster or a relocated ride new.

-Single train operation. Period.

-Unnecessary 3 train operation, i.e. Bizarro at GADV

-VISUAL SCAN. Seriously. It does NOTHING but waste time.

-Assigned seating, particularly when it makes a difference (which it does on any coaster). SFNE, I'm looking at you!

-Stapling. If you need to do it to make someone fit, fine, but otherwise just push down GENTLY then pull up to make sure it's locked.

^haha, on Bizarro the stacking is ridiculous nowadays
I noticed all of those problems apply to Gadv

[TTD03]

^ Yes. Those are all GADV issues.
Cedar Point's visual scan, while it takes a few extra seconds, is more effective and built in to their checking, and they still don't delay any extra time in dispatching.

Ride ops that have to spend 2 minutes hyping every single train on a new coaster with a line that's already 11 hours long.