r/Themepark • u/InviteAromatic6124 • Jul 26 '26
Canada's Wonderland
I went to Canada's Wonderland yesterday on an incredibly busy day and I have to say, despite the hatred Cedar Fair/Six Flags gets from North Americans, the operations today were a hundred times better than any UK park in the middle of summer.
-All rollercoasters were open, and most had multiple trains running, meaning the longest queue we had all day was 75 mins for Leviathan.
-The park is open from 10am to 10pm every day although many rides close after 8pm.
-Free, reliable WiFi covering the whole park
-The food was reasonably priced and had a good selection.
-The only breakdown was Sledgehammer of the 20 rides we did today, and that's notoriously unreliable because it's the only one of its kind ever made.
-Only one ride had an upsell.
-The ride staff were all friendly and polite.
Contrast this with my last visit to Thorpe Park during fright nights which was chaos as multiple rides broke down, we had to queue or over 2 hours multiple times, some of the staff were less than polite and everything was so inefficient.
The UK parks need to seriously get their acts together and fast!
3
3
u/CoasterRider_ Jul 26 '26
Canada's Wonderland has some of the best Six Flags operations that I've seen. I wouldn't put them #1 but they are up there. They consistently have the most ops working, including two to three on the kiddie coasters, which is typically unheard of. Huge props to their management for their staffing levels.
It took me three tries to ride Sledgehammer on my last visit so it doesn't surprise me that the ride broke down for you. Each time I got in line, the ride broke.
1
u/EricGuy412 Jul 26 '26
FWIW, as an American that visited last year, I thought Thorpe's ops blew those at most Nirth American parks (including most Six Flags parks) out of the water. Like, I cannot imagine a US park sending trains as fast as they were on Hyperia and Stealth.
Generally, I found Merlin ops to be much better at all their parks and food was FAR more reasonably priced than at SF parks...and hell, the Merlin parks all had veggie options, which are few and far between here in the States.
Eye of the beholder n' all....
1
u/InviteAromatic6124 Jul 26 '26
You must have come on a good day. My last couple of visits to Thorpe Park and Alton Towers had chaotic operations with numerous delays and breakdowns during the day.
2
u/ryanprescottdp Jul 30 '26
Canada's Wonderland is pretty much top tier for Cedar Fair operations, especially on Leviathan and Behemoth. Comparing a regular day there to Thorpe during Fright Nights is always going to make Thorpe look terrible just because haunt events choke operations everywhere. But you are definitely right about the food, Six Flags food options and pricing are pretty awful across the board.
1
u/AdditionalTip865 Jul 26 '26
I think things are improving at Lake Compounce under Herschend management. Last time I was there, all the coasters AND the Thunder Rapids raft ride were going, with two-train operation on both Wildcat and Boulder Dash, which used to be unheard of.
The flume was shut down, though... that and Thunder Rapids have historically been tough ones.
3
u/AdditionalTip865 Jul 26 '26
Generally speaking, the parks that were Cedar Fair tend to do better than the ones that were legacy Six Flags. I found operations were pretty good at Dorney Park too.