Enjoyable 9/25 & Busy 9/26

FRIDAY:

We intended to make it to early entry Friday, but pesky Chicago traffic moved our arrival time back to ~6pm. We got a pretty good parking spot up front never the less. The wind was an immediate concern, but I noticed everything was running minus dragster and windseeker. Started at Millennium, hit Maverick and worked our way back up front. We caught Screamworks right as it opened, which was as good ever. The wind started to die down, so the fog was hanging around somewhat. The crowds were light to moderate, and we got to ride everything we wanted as well as going through every outdoor scare zone, minus Cornstalkers. Most everything was a walk on to 15 minute wait, minus a few coasters and haunted houses We even got back to back front seat rides on Rougarou, I still have sore ears to prove it (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ

11pm hits and I hear wwoooossshhh in the distance, look up from back by skyhawk, and we see that dragster is running! the group made a few stops on the way up and we got in line for dragster around 1150. After a decent wait and one short chunk of being broken down, we got on the 2nd to last train around 1240.

SATURDAY:

We knew it would be busy, so we got there around 11am. Splurged & did preferred parking. We ended up in front of the season pass center in that preferred parking area. Sweet! Once we got in the park and got a good look at the crowds, we decided to fast pass+ it. They were the most expensive I've ever seen, but my platinum pass knocked down the price. After biting that bullet we went straight for maverick. It was a pretty standard Saturday, VERY heavy crowds, not a ton of fast pass people either, until later in the day. Towards sunset, maverick had a 45min fast pass line and a solid 1.5 - 2 hour regular line. Millennium had close to a 2 hour wait and gatekeeper had a 1.5 hour wait at one point too. Skyhwak had a 45 minute wait and i think mean streak even had a short wait at one point. It was that busy.

Dragster went up sometime around noon and ran most of the day until we got in line. As soon as we hit the station, the blue train stopped the show. It had to be transferred off the track. Waited anyway and got in our only ride of the day on it, as it broke again later in the night and we didn't wait that one out.

My group, who decided Friday night to ride rides all night and not do the haunted houses, suddenly wanted to go through the haunted houses. Once they saw the lines however, we quickly went back to riding rides and enjoying the scare zones. We did decided to ride millennium, then try slaughterhouse after that to finish the night. So at 11, we got our last bite of food for the night from coasters and set off. We got off millennium & did a speed walk back to slaughterhouse. 11:40. The line was almost non-existent. After we got out of that gory mess, it was ~11:55. I convinced everyone to try Cornstalkers since we were right there. We all agreed it was the best haunt we did all weekend and we were the 2nd to last group to walk through it Saturday night. It was a great Halloweekend.

Some observations: Food places in the park were under staffed and/or some had volunteers. Some were helpful and could actually get in an order. Others were good for handing out water cups only and looked to be way more trouble than they were worth. The food was OK, but a few places we stopped at throughout the day had very very slow service times. I managed to use the restroom, ride Skyhawk, and get a custard waffle cone all in the time it took the rest of my group to get 1 walking taco and 1 regular taco; yes the waits were that long.The bathrooms were obviously used heavily by the large crowds. They needed more cleaning crews for those for sure.

Also, I know it was mentioned in a thread somewhere already this year, but man 'o man, I haven't ever seen so many people smoking everywhere in the park all willy-nilly not caring at all about those smokers areas. I noticed it earlier in the year, but Saturday, 9/26, took the cake. The one smoker in my group commented that she bets they'll ban smoking in the park completely next year due to the dis-respectfulness of of those people. It was so bad I can see why no park employees were saying anything.

I was there on Sunday and noticed that a periodic announcement was being made throughout the park that smoking was only allowed in designated areas. I don't remember hearing that before.

I was there Sunday as well. People weren't paying attention to the announcement being I witnessed plenty smoking in non-designated areas (as per usual).

The Cornstalkers spiel on Friday included "You absolutely cannot smoke at this attraction. There are dried corn stalks all around you that are very flammable."

That would only be said if somebody actually did it. People amaze me.

We did hear the no smoking spiel over the park speakers all day as well. Let's hope they can train some seagulls to aim at people & help them put out those cigarettes ;)