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Park Queue TimesPQT

Californias Great America cheat sheet

worked out from 16 days of our own wait data13 rides

Arrive for 10:00 and ride RailBlazer, Tiki Twirl and The Grizzly first. Leave Patriot until after 5pm, when its queue drops to about 7 minutes. The park's queues peak around 15:00 at 40 minutes and are lowest around 10:00.

Before you go

When to go

The days and months this park's rides run quietest

Quietest month
June
Busiest month
March

Each ride's own quietest and busiest day, tallied and weighted by how long its queue runs. For a dated answer use the crowd calendar, which scores every day of the year.

The shape of the day

Average queue across the park, hour by hour

  1. 10:0016mquietest
  2. 11:0024m
  3. 12:0032m
  4. 13:0034m
  5. 14:0037m
  6. 15:0040mpeak
  7. 16:0040m
  8. 17:0040m

Arrive for 10:00. Queues climb to their peak around 15:00 and fall back through the afternoon; the last hour or two is the quietest the headliners get all day.

Ride these first

The headliners: longest queues, worst by late morning

  1. 1RailBlazer ~64 min typical · up to 87 at peak · worst around 12pm64m
  2. 2Tiki Twirl ~58 min typical · up to 64 at peak · worst around 1pm58m
  3. 3The Grizzly ~47 min typical · up to 58 at peak · worst around 4pm47m

Straight to these from the gate, in this order. Every minute before the park fills is worth three later.

Leave these until later

Rides whose queues collapse late in the day

  1. 1Patriot~21 min typical · about 7 min after 5pm7m
  2. 2Drop Tower~15 min typical · about 3 min after 5pm3m

Save them for the last two hours, when the coach parties have gone and the queue is a fraction of the afternoon's.

Fill the gaps with

Walk-ons at any hour, and the single-rider lines

Usually under 10 minutesWhitewater Falls5m

Watch-outs

Rides that spend the most of the day not running

  1. 1Tiki Twirlrunning 41% of the park's open hours41%
  2. 2Gold Strikerrunning 66% of the park's open hours66%
  3. 3The Grizzlyrunning 68% of the park's open hours68%
  4. 4RailBlazerrunning 75% of the park's open hours75%
  5. 5Flight Deckrunning 82% of the park's open hours82%

If one of these is the reason you came, ride it the first time you see it running rather than saving it. The full picture is on the reliability page.

On the day

Your day-of sheet

The same park, for one date: the forecast, the hours, and your ride order

Plus members get this sheet for a date: the crowd forecast for the day, its published hours, a ride order worked out against that day's wait curve, and a printable version to take in.

PlusThe day-of sheet is part of Plus

Here, that is a ride order for your date, the forecast and the hours, printable.

  • Your rides, in order

    Sequenced against the wait curve, so the headliners land in their quiet windows.

  • quiet till 111pm · 66m

    Your date, hour by hour

    How the wait climbs on the day you picked, and the window it stays low.

£4.99for a park dayor £24.99 a year for every park day, cancel any time.

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Everything above is each ride's own recorded queue over recent weeks, sampled every few minutes through the park's opening hours - not an opinion. A ride with too little history is left out.