Opening Times

[ZJhauler]

I have only been to BGW one weekend so far this season and noticed that all the times were later than what I was expecting based on last year.  They turned us away from the parking lot at 9 and said to come back at 9:25.  That morning they let us in at 9:45 and we went to Loch Ness of course while we waited for the rest of the park to open.  The next morning we came at 9:30 and overheard someone asking one of the TM about the opening times and it sounded like she was telling them they got rid of the early opening times for England and basically that it would be opening just before the park's 10:00 opening time.  It was hard to hear her so I'm not sure if that's what she said or not.  Either way on Sunday when they let us in it was 9:45 so we went to Loch Ness again and he looked very surprised to see us as he checked the time on his phone.  He told is it would be open at 10, so we decided to walk to Griffin since Ireland was already open as well and figured it would be 10 by the time we got there.  We made it all the way to Wolf Haven, past countless employees still having morning meetings, getting to their positions, etc.  before some stopped us and asked us if we worked there?  Then she told us we weren't supposed to be there and sent us back to Ireland to wait until 10.  I thought maybe they were just trying to do away with the whole rope drop thing but it kinda seems like maybe they just let us in the park too early that day.  
Does any one know what the deal is with the opening times for this season?  Has something changed, or is it just this way because it is still early in the season? I was confused to say the least, but we still got to ride Griffin by ourselves...

 

[Nicole]

Interesting. They had the staggered open on Pass Member Preview day. But they could easily have decided discontinue the practice.

 

[Party Rocker]

Staggered openings are still used. They change every day and sometimes like yesterday they decided to open the turnstiles late but a lot of hamlets were already open. It mostly depends on expected attendance.

 

[ZJhauler]

Thanks for the response, I was assuming it had something to do with the attendance because Sunday was cold and rainy and Saturday seemed to be the opening that I expected. I'm just used to having to wait at the ropes near Highland Stables but did not either of the days. Clearly I must have misheard what she said to the guests. It also just sort of seemed like the front section was a little unorganized still and hasn't quite gotten the hang of everything. The nice thing was that we got through before the photographers were set up so we didn't have to turn down a picture yet again.

 

[Party Rocker]

Yeah, the park opening times for today (Saturday April 5th) with an expected attendance of 15K was:

England - 9:30AM
Scotland - 9:30AM
Ireland - 10AM
France - 10AM
New France - 10AM
Germany - 10:30AM
Oktoberfest - 10:30AM
Italy - 10:15AM
Festa - 10:15AM

Honestly, the schedule has not been very on point and regular this year. For Platinum Pass Holders, the earliest you are supposed to park is 9AM with England opening 9:30 or 9:45, Scotland 30 minutes later, Ireland, Wild Reserve, France, New France 30 minutes later, Pompeii, Festa, Italy, Germany 30 minutes later, and the Oktoberfest 30 minutes later. For whatever the reason is, Ireland and France typically opens sooner than Italy.

It's not something that will ever go away really. It is common practice in many parks from my understanding. It helps to dilute the crowd and kind of force people to hang out and try everything in the hamlet before going on to the next hamlet.

With that said, some hamlets may open at odd times an there may seem to be no real rhyme or reason but they haven't left and I doubt they ever will.

 

[ZJhauler]

Yeah, I prefer the staggered opening times and realize generally an area with a roller coaster will open later, especially a more advanced one. I don't know the parks ride opening procedures but the order seems to make sense, it just sucks when you're in France and want to get to Italy and have to backtrack all the way through Ireland and Scotland or wait for Germany/Oktoberfest to open... I don't have the patience to wait for that.