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Longest Queue and Most Excessive Switchbacks

Talk about anything that has to do with the amusement park industry here.
Postby tribar on September 24th, 2011, 2:13 pm
1.This is not the longest time you have waited in a queue. This is the longest walk from entrance to station.

2. What is the Most excessive Switchbacks you have seen.

For Me

1. American Eagle (Viper at SFGAm, Mean Streak and Magnum* come to mind)

2. Millennium Force. (Raptor, Mean Streak, S:UF, and Magnum also come to mind)

What about you

*Magnum isn't really long but i found that the entrance and exit were really far apart from each other.
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Postby ragingbull1331 on September 24th, 2011, 2:17 pm
1. Dragon Challenge at Universal is the LONGEST QUEUE EVER!

2. Most switchbacks is Forceless or any other Cedar Point roller coaster.
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Postby tribar on September 24th, 2011, 2:23 pm
^I wouldn't say everything. Blue Streak Iron Dragon Disaster Transport.
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Postby ttd rox on September 24th, 2011, 2:25 pm
I have to agree, American Eagle is super long but Dragon Challenge is long because I have gotten lost in it before since it's so dark. I went through an exit before in Dragon Challenge's line my first time riding it and when I went to go back through, a guy standing there made me keep walking and go back through the entrance again.
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Postby BP317 on September 24th, 2011, 4:32 pm
Dragon's has a very long queue however what is silly about it is that when it actually has a line, the long maze near the end of the line that goes through the caves is really the only part that ever fills up, which is the least themed part of the queue (and most claustrophobic/hot). So nobody ever waits in the themed part of the queue.

The queues at Cedar Point, especially Raptor and Mean Streak, all have gigantic blocks of endless queue mazes, though I have seen them fill up with some sort of frequency at CP (at least on MF, Raptor, and Maverick), other parks I doubt rarely ever fill them (Silver Bullet at Knotts comes to mind).

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To answer the longest walk to station, American Eagle and Boss at SFSTL come to mind. To get back to the park when you exit boss there is a train crossing in the middle of the exit path, at least Eagle goes up and over the train tracks :lol:.

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As far as worst designed queue, that award has to go to Terminator Salvation at SFMM. The preshows and path after the preshow that leads to the station does not hold enough people to fill the rides capacity, leading to once out of every three trains or so going out more than half empty. Nothing like waiting in an hour line and seeing the entire back half of a train empty go whizzing by. And of course since SFMM is ran by geniuses so they didn't even do anything about it.
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Postby tribar on September 24th, 2011, 4:52 pm
The last one's Maverick right?? Never got around to that...
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Postby BP317 on September 24th, 2011, 5:07 pm
Silver Bullet, Magnum is the one right above it.
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Postby tribar on September 24th, 2011, 5:20 pm
Oops i knew the last one was Silver Bullet i meant to say the one above it. Thought it looked a little like Magnum's
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Postby monsterfan99 on September 24th, 2011, 5:27 pm
The Boss - Not only does it never end, if there is a line your in the sun and it's ultra narrow.

Agreed with American Eagle and Dragon's Challenge mentioned above. Dragon's Challenge is one of my favorite rides down here, but with that hike I never ride it.
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Postby KissyLou on September 25th, 2011, 9:09 pm
Forbidden Journey at IOA. Hell, last I read they were adding more to it too. Oh, and don't forget about Flight Deck at Kings Island. The walk back there just sucks.
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Postby monsterfan99 on September 25th, 2011, 11:09 pm
^Good call of Forbidden Journey when they use the full queue. Thankfully on slow days, you can skip the entire queue and use the future quick que line.
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Postby Chitown on September 26th, 2011, 1:50 am
Batman The Ride at Six Flags St. Louis.

What a ridiculous ass long que line. They created no shortcuts so unless you start hopping rails, you are walking through a long dragged out line.
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Postby BP317 on September 26th, 2011, 6:05 am
No way Scott, Batman THE LINE is the best attraction at SFSTL!!! It's the main thing I look forward to when going. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqH_z-QgvzU
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Postby FParker185 on September 26th, 2011, 4:40 pm
Been there, done that. The punishment for jumping even a single queue rail in that Batman queue results in a chewing out by security, and being made to leave the queue and start over. Or if you're like me, figure it's not worth it and move on to the next ride :D
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Postby Coastermonkey61 on September 26th, 2011, 6:52 pm
Hell, you could name most of the rides at IOA for this one. Harry Potter's queue is really, really long (yet entertaining). Dragon Challenge long and less entertaining.
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Postby CoasterNick3157 on September 26th, 2011, 6:58 pm
Chitown wrote:Batman The Ride at Six Flags St. Louis.

What a ridiculous ass long que line. They created no shortcuts so unless you start hopping rails, you are walking through a long dragged out line.


Went there yesterday and absolutely long and no shortcuts.
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Postby Mr. SFGAm on September 26th, 2011, 8:28 pm
As far as the distance goes, American Eagle, Flight Deck, and Dragons Challenge definitely qualify. Kings Islands rapids ride, as well as some of the slides tucked away in the water park can be quite the hike too.

I think the Dark Knight qualifies for excessive switchbacks. I have never, and will never wait through all of those for that ride. Flight of Fear at Kings Island has quite the hefty switchback set-up as well.
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Postby tp41190 on September 27th, 2011, 8:39 pm
-Boss at SFStl
-Batman at SFOG and SFStl
-Chang (old SFKK) I remember that HUGE long switch back block that looked like hell if it was ever full
-Phantoms Revenge
-Ghostrider and Xcelerator After being there, I cannot imagine ever waiting in those lines when full
-GASM at SFGAdv? I thought there was some ridiculous amount of que but I could be wrong

Not long but just weird ques.
-Ride of Steel at Darien Lake
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-Goliath at LaRonde

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Postby Necropolis on September 29th, 2011, 2:10 pm
That first picture = :shock: :shock:
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Postby tribar on September 29th, 2011, 4:16 pm
^Yeah but it is Raptor which has high capacity. So does Magnum which is the third one. Silver Bullet well not so much espically because from what i've heard KBF is the one train operation capital of the world
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Postby Ilovthevu' on October 3rd, 2011, 11:23 pm
For Raptor, your right about that, but it fills up. You have to remember though that they run 3 trains on that, and they get them out quick usually with the other loading technique on that ride. As soon as I read this topic, I was going to say American Eagle. Another one is Indiana Jones at Disneyland. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is pretty bad at the Magic Kingdom, but it does have a lot of trains, so it moves. Top Thrill Dragster is pretty long too.

Others ones I would say are:

-The Mummy (Universal)
-Splash Mountain is pretty bad, but it probably fills up too
-the "Roaring Rapids ride" at Animal Kingdom
-Other Batman the Rides are bad too like Six Flags Over Texas, and Over Georgia. Over Georgia in particular has a huge room of lines. Though, in reality it could be as big as SFGAm's Batman the Ride line because for the ride over here you have all the lines that are right near the East River Crawler. That line at one point started right around Jester's Wild Ride. It was Cajun Cliffhanger at the time. That's a long line, but I have waited those lines during a Fright Fest recently. It wasn't all the way till Jester's, but it was in the lines outside the "park".
-Right now, Flight Deck at Kings Island takes forever to get to the station. It's just a walkback, but it's a long walk.

I know you aren't talking about the shortest lines (That will probably be next), but Diamondback at Kings Island just seems so awfully short for that major of a ride. Maybe, it just seems that way.

--^As with your comment about Knott's being one train operation a lot of the time, well I don't know if it's that true, but Magic Mountain used to be like that too. My problem with that is that if a park is operational most if not all of the year, they should purposely buy more trains for a roller coaster. Deja Vu is closed every year because of maintenance that they have to do with the train. Before on X, when I was there, they were only using 1 train, and it took forever for that ride, and of course they close that ride down early because of how slow it was. To me, it's just the fact that they don't buy enough extra trains for the ride in according with maintenance on them. I always will believe that the more you let people ride stuff, they will enjoy the park more, and come more. And they will bring more people to park. With my X experience of something like maybe 45 minutes for it, if they ran 2 trains, that would have helped my experience with that ride for the better. On top of it, it was the most popular / longest line ride at that park. I know Batman the Ride can only run 2 trains at a time, but to me that park should buy a spare train. I don't even know why they took away Riddler's train, and gave it Great Adventure.

Sure, I understand that Riddler's with 3 trains is probably not a great idea, but than keep it as a spare. That just bugs me like anything. To me, Magic Mountain, and Knott's should get more mainteance money and budget money because they are open all year. Who knows, that could be why Disneyland keeps on racking up the attendance, but yet Magic Mountain is below a park that isn't open all year. I don't know a lot about Knott's because I have never went, but I have reason to believe that they get a huge attendance for their Halloween event. Many people say it's one of the best out there. On par with Universal.

So, in my opinion if you are park that is open a ton more than a seasonal park, or even a little more, parks should buy more trains just for spares to work on.
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Postby w00dland on October 4th, 2011, 2:22 pm
^That might be ideal, but those parks don't have budgets to buy more trains than they need for these coasters. Keep in mind that one train costs a ton. The park can do a lot (painting, new flat ride, etc) with that amount of money for a train that will never be used.

And I'm sure SFMM has a bigger maintenance budget compared to other parks, but when you've got 17 coasters to keep maintained and you don't have 5-6 months of the off season to work on them things are just going to take longer. Things come up during day to day operations at any park which can take priority over seasonal maintenance.
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Postby BP317 on October 4th, 2011, 3:09 pm
I don't think it's any secret that SFMM's maintenance budget is underfunded, if anyone can think of another reason Terminator was running 1 train all spring break and first part of the summer i'd love to hear it. It may not be as bad as 2002-2003 when most of the coasters were running 1 train but missed deadlines like 1 train on a new coaster during one of the busiest times of a year is a major fail. It takes a lot of work and man hours to inspect and refurbish those trains and unless SFMM hires more people it's an impossible task. More people = more salaries. I think that plays a large role in why they decided to move DejaVu since it has to close whenever the train is being refurbished (which is annually).

Plus with the park being in California we also have to factor in all the extra money they have to spend to keep DOSH happy since, like everything else in California, the cost of doing business in amusement parks is greatly inflated due to the government.
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Postby popball on October 4th, 2011, 4:40 pm
1.American Eagle

2. American Eagle's old line had so many switchbacks. It was the tallest in the world, though in 1981. It is now occupied by kidzopolis.
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Postby ilrider on October 10th, 2011, 8:01 am
Chitown wrote:Batman The Ride at Six Flags St. Louis.

What a ridiculous ass long que line. They created no shortcuts so unless you start hopping rails, you are walking through a long dragged out line.


^This. I thought it was ridiculous how you have to walk through the switchbacks on the Gotham Park walkway for a full 3 minutes just to get to the back of the line, then you meander all over the place in line, moving right next to the station building, then heading away from it again, only to eventually turn around and come back toward it. SFGAm got their B:TR queue right, with the shortcut options.
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