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Late-night opening

Smithy

Smithy

Strata Poster
Whilst pricing up a Port Aventura visit I noticed at some point during May they're doing a special offer where they're opening until 4am and it got me to thinking if that would work, or be appealing, at any of the parks over here.

I know some of you on here enjoy night-rides on certain rides or at certain parks, immediately the likes of Stealth and Swarm come to mind for Thorpe, and the obvious choice of PMBO for Blackpool.

Do you think it would be as appealing at a park like Flamingo Land or Drayton Manor? Or does there have to be something more to it for it to be appealing, be it location (BPB) or the ride type's on offer?

My own view is that the best ride I can recall ever having was front row at night on Dragon Khan, and I'd love to try PMBO at night some time purely for the view, would enhance the boring hills that follow the drop too if you can't actually see them. I reckon Alton would be good but awfully eerie.
 
I'm not sure about the smaller parks, but it would be pretty surreal riding Nemesis and Oblivion at 3.00 am. A midnight walk through Haunted Hollow would be an experience in itself.
 
I love night rides so it would be awesome if parks did it more often. Colossus, Nemesis and The Swarm are awesome at night!
 
TilySlo said:
^ Sorry, I've probably missed something.
Since when is Beast an English coaster??
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I was just answering this bit:

I know some of you on here enjoy night-rides on certain rides or at certain parks
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Alton in the dark during Scarefest is in my opinion the best for night time riding and just the overall atmosphere of the park can't be beaten one of the things which does tend to add to said atmosphere is the halloween theming and mazes but the setting with the towers and heavily wooded landscape make just wandering round in the dark exciting.
 
If there's anything I've learnt over the years attending Scarefest and Fright Nights its that the morons come out at night, more so at Thorpe. You know the ones - chavvy, prickish people who think because it's dark they can get away with being a dick to everybody else in the park, be it guests or staff. That'd put me off doing most parks at night for too long.

Having said that, Stealth at night used to be quite a fun experience, Swarm last year in the dark (and rain) was great fun and Nemesis at night is always a delight. Vampire at Chessington at night is a personal highlight of any Ghosterforce. The Ultimate I imagine would be insane, verging on suicidal, at night... so that I'd love to try at 3am!

Realistically, night time experiences I feel would work better outside of the UK, mainly because of the **** we have to put up with here in the UK.
 
Haha excuse my ignorance, didn't even think of the US parks. I'd imagine a night-time ride of TTD might be a bit special given the view you would get. Maybe not 120mph of gnats in your face though.

My only night/dark time experience of a park was halloween celebrations at Port Aventura, and the entire charm and buzz around the park was just surreal, can imagine scarefest at Alton is similar but enhanced moreso if the park was quieter and open until the wee hours.
 
^ It wasn't real late but one trip to Cedar Point by myself did give me front row seats on Millennium Force and
Top Thrill Dragster in the dark !!
 
^ I like that idea, because we will have more time to get there and are able to have thrills in the dark or look at incredible lights. However, in some cases there are a lot of small parks in an area so I try to do two or three in one day. The first needs to open early and the last has to stay open late.
 
theRock-steel said:
^ It wasn't real late but one trip to Cedar Point by myself did give me front row seats on Millennium Force and
Top Thrill Dragster in the dark !!
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I hope you had goggles if you rode the front row. After feeling the bugs hitting me, I remember I still had several stuck to my face after getting off the ride.

I've also heard MK at WDW is going to be open for 24 hours on 5/24. I've already planned on being in Orlando at that time, so this could be a good way to be more efficient with the parks. However, I know I won't be able to take 24 consecutive hours at a park. However, it seems like late night would be a great time to marathon Space Mountain.
 
Joey said:
I personally do not understand why the majority of parks don't open later in the day and close later in the evening.
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Because people!

Most "adults" do early mornings and early nights. Look at Alton, the place empties about 3:30 - 4:00 on busy days as everyone with more than a two hour journey heads back home. They want to be back at home and settled down ready for Eastenders and a beer.

It's a really odd thing that we've found with friends over the years. If you ask people to spend a day at a theme park for your birthday, or to do something interesting or fun (ice skating, the zoo, cinema, whatever) - nobody has the time or money.

Yet say "let's go for a meal and the pub", suddenly everyone has six hours on a Saturday night and £50 to spare.

On top of that, look at your social networking feeds and how many people are glued to the Saturday night regular shows like X-Factor, BGT and now The Voice?

I think it's a very British thing. The 9-5 slot is reserved for "work" and anything after that is "party time" or "TV time". Theme Park trips come under "work" for most people rather than either of those - so people are always in a rush to get away from them to be home for the regular evening slot of whatever.

Obviously, that's a sweeping generalisation, but I've done Alton enough times staying right until the end, or late night on late night opening days to know how dead the park becomes late afternoon/early evening (fireworks being the exceptions, but the crowds pile out of the park after they've finished).

So yeah, I think that's certainly why they don't open later in the this country, it's simply because no bugger would stay :lol:
 
I think people would stay if there was something to do.

If there was a show or fire works or something at night people would say for it. But lets face it there is nothing extra to stay for apart from rides you have done in the day.

Adventure Island is open until 11pm in the summer and that remains busy. People can leave the park and go shopping etc then go back later. Plus to go after 6pm it's cheaper so you get different people just coming for the night.
 
I think the seaside resort parks can do that as they have a captive audience - the people are there anyway. Likewise, I suspect that Chessington and Thorpe may also have a market as they're close to huge areas - so there's no three hour trip home for most people, just an hour or whatever and you're back to somewhere in the London(ish) catchment they cover. Though obviously not is Merlin don't have them open :lol:

I'll have to look, but Alton had at least one restaurant open late as a "beat the traffic" thing. The idea was that you could eat there after the park closed, so get your dinner and then head off and not worry about the queues of traffic leaving the park.

I don't know if they still do it, or how successful it was? If they don't still do it, it answers the second question :lol: It does show that the thought is there and they're dipping their toes in the water - but there's not really enough potential to really go for it?
 
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