Your worst trips

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Lets face it: us as a community go on dozens of trips every year. So there's a slight chance that there were a couple that seemed a bit...bad. It could be the rides, the staff, the group you went with, all sorts of factoring in that made it an unenjoyable event.

So let's hear it: what are some of your worst trips and what made them horrid.

 

[mouse]

My first time going to Thorpe.
My brother was ill, my mum chickened out of most of the rides, and we spent half the day queueing. We only managed to ride Saw, Nemesis Inferno, Tidal Wave and Loggers leap.

 

[tomahawk]

I've had quite a few actually but worst had to be years ago at sfmm for Halloween haunt. They had single train op for x viper goliath batman and riddlers.riddlers was a 5 hr wait, we waited 2 for batman, first train for x and then basically wandered the rest of the day. It was about 95 and wildfires were just behind the park. (i wanna say it was 04 or 06) it was just awful.

 

[Hixee]

It's funny actually, I can't remember any days that stand out as being disasters.

I've had 'not-as-good' days at parks, but nothing really disappointing to the point if being memorable or noteworthy. I guess the worst days have just been the busy ones...

Maybe I'm the lucky one so far...

 

[marc]

The one that stands out is the Saw opening day, every ride broke and we got on one coaster all day.

Heide Park 1st day of the Euro Live, I just wanted to go home. We did not get there until late and so much of the day just got wasted waiting in lines for drinks etc.

 

[FaceYourNemesis]

My worst trip was to Alton Towers a few weeks back. The park was unbelievably busy, it was far too hot (the temp was in the high twenties that day) most of the rides broke down and Rita wasn't working for ERT (Rita's the only reason I do ERT in the first place). I left just after 2.30 because it was so bad.

 

[jayjay]

Probably my worst was the first day out when my family went to Florida. We didn't really prepare for it, we didn't know how busy Magic Kingdom would be and the organisation of the day was terrible. We got there at about 10.30, but there was a queue for the car park, a queue for the boat across the lake and a queue for ticket collection. By the time we got into the park it was 12.00. There was the added complication that mum didn't want to do the large rides (medical issues rather than wimpyness) so we arranged to meet up at some point later. None of the rides allowed us to queue for that short amount of time (we started by going into Space Mountain, but that broke), so we had to wait for our fast-tracks to kick in for later. Ride count was BTMR, Space Mountain and The Enchanted Tiki Room.

Luckily the rest of the holiday went well.

 

[nadroJ]

The one that stands out is the Saw opening day, every ride broke and we got on one coaster all day.

Heide Park 1st day of the Euro Live, I just wanted to go home. We did not get there until late and so much of the day just got wasted waiting in lines for drinks etc.

Pretty much this. If it weren't for the company on Saw opening day I would've gone home/Chessington. It was actually embarrassing how bad the park was.

Heide was just annoying. At the best of times, when I get into a park I like to get there early and get straight on a ride as soon as I'm through the gates. The faff at Heide was infuriating and THAT drinks queue almost had me at the point of tears! Luckily the rest of the day was awesome, just not a good kick-off.

 

[real]

My annual trip to Cedar Point this year for opening day was pretty abysmal. Terrible operations, rides not opening at all on time and in general, overall feeling of being unprepared. Ive been to at least a decades worth of openings for CP, by far the worst experience.

Only thing that made up for it was the insane fog that rolled in and anything over 50ft you could not see.

 

[gavin]

Parque de Atracciones in Madrid

I'd already had a great day at Parque Warner (everything running, everything basically walk-on) and had planned Parque de Atracciones for late afternoon/evening of the same day. The park's website had it down as being open until 11pm for Halloween events, with rides closing at 10pm.

LIES!

I got there for around 6pm, and practically nothing was running. As I left Warner, it was starting to rain, but had completely stopped by the time I got to Atracciones. Apparently that was enough to close the whole park down though. At least that's what I'm assuming. There were so few staff around that I'm more inclined to think that the rides had been closed down much earlier in the day anyway, if they'd been open at all. The park was still open, but the only rides running were the drop tower (just one side) and some kiddy rides.

I was so pissed off because Warner seemed to have some pretty good Halloween stuff going on later in the evening that I had to miss to get to the other place.

Six Flags New England

There was nothing really wrong with the day we had there on the whole, but the situation at park opening is retarded. They let you in, but basically only through the main gate, and then there's a huge crush of people who are forced to watch some crappy "opening" show before you can actually get to anything. This is then followed by a stampede to Bizarro, where I came very, very close to punching a few people.

It's **** ing awful, and put me in a really **** ty mood for the rest of the park. For me it totally overshadowed any redeeming features the park may have and I would still label it as one of my least favourite parks. We went to Lake Compounce right after, and I was still in a crappy mood. In fact, I remember saying as we were walking to the entrance that I really, really couldn't be **** ed to ride any more coasters and that I'd had enough.

Thank **** that Boulderdash snapped me out of that one, but I would never, ever get myself involved in that ridiculous situation at SFNE again.

 

[caffeine_demon]

Heide Park 1st day of the Euro Live, I just wanted to go home. We did not get there until late and so much of the day just got wasted waiting in lines for drinks etc.

But that go on colossos made up for it all!

A bad one for me was monte igueldo - despite mailing the park and confirming open hours, being told it would all be open from about 11 - 8ish (or something similar) - we got there early afternoon and EVERYTHING was closed! we only got on the concrete coaster before having to go back!

 

[MouseAT]

All time worst was probably Easter weekend 2008 at Thorpe. Admittedly that was more down to weather conditions than anything else - it was freezing cold, and snowed at least once during the day.

Stealth was down for most of the day - it opened just before the end of the day, launched four trains (three of which rolled back) so I never got to ride before the hail storm hit. Colossus was broken all day. Nemesis Inferno couldn't operate for most of the morning and part of the afternoon due to the temperature being too low. All in all a pretty dismal experience.

Thorpe probably takes second place as well for Ghosterforce 2008. Too many breakdowns made already massive queues even more unbearable. That (plus the farce that was the Saw opening day - thankfully I wasn't there for that one) was the main reason why I didn't bother with Ghosterforce in 2009, as I just didn't think it was worth the cost of the travel and accommodation. At least Thorpe seem to be getting better.

Finally, Kings Dominion was pretty poor in 2008 when I visited. Closed rides, staff only loading one side of the drop tower, horribly slow operations (Grizzly on one train operation, only dispatching around every five minutes) and smug park execs boasting about how "we're not competing with Busch Gardens, we're competing with the Disney parks". Maybe I was just there on a bad day, but if that's business as usual then Kings Dominion has a long way to go.

 

[Snoo]

Six Flags America.

Terrible operations, rude operators, packed as hell (the only real wait of 7 days of a trip), and just overall meh day.

Really my only day of just general pissed off nice. Not a great way to start a trip. BUT! BGW was next.. made up for it.

 

[Error]

My personal worst was my last trip to disney with my then friend Lauren.

Why? Bulletpoints!
-Family was dysfunctional as all hell. I've never seen more pointless fighting in my life.
-Payed for pretty much both mine and her meals, which were suppose to be covered. (Costing me $200 in total)
-All she wanted me to do was buy her something in every store.
-I had to book everything. Keep in mind I was invited to do this, and ended up doing all the planning for it.
-I slept on the floor. 4 people, 2 beds. I. Slept. On. The. Floor.

Never had a worse trip. And hopefully, never again.

 

[FloridaTix]

Thankfully I have never had a bad trip to a theme park. I remember one time we went to Orlando and half the family got homesick for about a day and then it was back to normal.

I would truly be upset if I had a bad experience at a theme park. Seriously, these things are built for fun! It's good to get a heads up on other peoples posts though.

 

[bizarrofan10]

Re: RE: Your worst trips

I've had quite a few actually but worst had to be years ago at sfmm for Halloween haunt. They had single train op for x viper goliath batman and riddlers.riddlers was a 5 hr wait, we waited 2 for batman, first train for x and then basically wandered the rest of the day. It was about 95 and wildfires were just behind the park. (i wanna say it was 04 or 06) it was just awful.

flash pass for $100

 

[tomahawk]

Home park and pre flash pass.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Six flags fiesta Texas in February. Half an hour for them to faff with my ticket. A grand total of 3 rides open until lunch, then only 3 of their coasters actually opened at all. The place was also a complete dump.

 

[Nicky]

First day at Heide Park with Benin. We managed to hit German half term. It was ridiculously hot with barely any shade. Benin wasn't well and ended up with sun stroke in the evening. In the end we bought the Queue Bot system the next day just to avoid the horrible queues and keep in the shade as much as possible.

It's only when it's a one off park than I can have a really bad worst trip. Knowing that I will only go once makes it more stressful whereas the same situations say at Towers or Chessie isn't as bad.

 

[Tony]

I haven't really had a bad time at a park. Sure the operations at Parque de Atracciones de Madrid were absolutely awful and frustrating but I still had quite a good time there. Can't think of anything else really..