Vote of the week: How many in your party?

June 4, 2010, 10:18 AM · I long ago lost count how many hours I've spent working the load position on various theme park attraction. Hour after hour, day after day, it's the same question:

"How many in your party?"

When you get the answer, it's time to do the math: How can you fill in the empty seats with these folks, keeping parties together as best you can, while minimizing the number of empty seats?

TetrisIt's a like playing a live-action version of human Tetris.

So forgive my vote of the week this week. Old habits die hard. :-)

(I understand that this answer often varies. So let's go with the number you tell load personnel most often while visiting theme parks.)

Whom do you roll with in theme parks? Let's talk about your theme park crew, in the comments. And, as always, thanks for reading Theme Park Insider! (Please, tell your friends about us, too!)

Replies (19)

June 4, 2010 at 10:55 AM · 8, baby. Nothing like a group that fills up entire carts.
June 4, 2010 at 11:07 AM · There is only 3 of us but when we do a theme park visit there is usually more. We have had as many as 15 in our party at Cedar Point and Kings Island. Even the last time we went to Walt Disney we had a party of 8. It's rare that we go alone. Even the older kids will come home to go. We seem to have more fun when with a bigger group.
June 4, 2010 at 11:08 AM · 4 is good since most rides require 4 people per car. I put 5 because thats my family.

Even numbers work the best though!

June 4, 2010 at 11:40 AM · Sometimes I have a few friends with me=about 5 of us but since me and my bf are "the big theme park enthusiasts",(it also helps that we love hanging together :>)most of the time its just us 2 making it oh so easy. When a cast member shouts "I need 2"! We're like "ohhh yea!" Lol
June 4, 2010 at 12:12 PM · I'm in a family of 7 (including parents), and we always go with our cousins which is another 7. In total that's 14 of us and we love the look on exhausted cast members faces when they ask how many and we reply 14.
June 4, 2010 at 12:16 PM · I've got to say I thought about many times and during my training at the Tower or Terror it made it a lot easier to think about Tetris to get people on the elevator! And I knew other CM's had to agree with me! Thanks Robert!

To tell you the truth the hardest group to put on the elevators are groups of 5. Because our rows only fit 4 guests or groups of 3. So I can take the easiest route and just place them in rows one and three (3 guests in row one and 2 guest in row three wich is right behind them). Or I can do it the hard way and put 4 on row six and 1 on the back of row five which I have to explain to them many many times and that they will be sitting to each other. Rows five and six are next to each other and theres no steps or aisle that seperates the rows.

So parties of 5 and 13 are the hardest and the rest are pretty much easy!

June 4, 2010 at 12:31 PM · I have to say single rider - I go to the theme parks with Muetti, but because she is prone to motion sickness I have to be the one to fill up a ride with three turismo members!
June 4, 2010 at 1:57 PM · There are three in my party. And the number of the counting shall be three. Two shall not be the number of the counting, unless you then shall proceed to three. Four is right out, being only three in my party. Count not to five; that would be silly, as there are three in my party.

Three.In.My.Party.

Not a good number for most rides if we want to stay together. So of late, we've been taking our chances in the single rider line since we can't sit as a group anyway.

June 4, 2010 at 3:19 PM · Twenty-six!

The capacity of a Jungle Cruise boat.

June 4, 2010 at 4:13 PM · usually we travel in three groups of 23

p.s do the math (he,he,he)

WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

June 4, 2010 at 5:29 PM · I mostly travel as a group of two. Or one, depending if work is slow. But sometimes, like Larry, we opt for the single rider line to help beat the crowd.
June 4, 2010 at 6:14 PM · Luis...family site. Let's not get the kids too excited, huh? :)
June 4, 2010 at 7:05 PM · You don't have an option for "Two! Oh, those other four are with us too!"
June 5, 2010 at 3:39 AM · There's always at least two of us who go to the parks together, me and one of my friends who's also a coaster nut. That number varies a lot though, sometimes there will be four and sometimes there will be 14.
June 5, 2010 at 8:07 AM · its generally me and my best friend. wasnt surprised to see 2 and 4 have the most. thats why coasters are mostly 2 or 4 across
June 5, 2010 at 11:09 PM · Typically my group consists of me & 3 of my guy friends, but on larger trips we can get up to 12 people [such as this trip we're just wrapping up at Holiday World].
June 6, 2010 at 2:40 PM · Last time I went to Disney World, there was 8 in our party. We bought the extra ticket exclusively for those that stay in the park and those people get the whole park for themselves. It happened to be a rainy Friday night. We all got to ride Splash Mountain 5 times in a row without getting off since no one else was in line. I will never forget what a wonderful time that was. Truly magical.
June 7, 2010 at 2:08 AM · there is usually 4 in my party but 2 of them (the men!!) are non riders on pretty much every ride apart from maybe spaceship earth and the other really slow stuff!
June 8, 2010 at 2:49 PM · Usually its 2, sometimes 4 or 6. But I like going in large groups 10 - 20 and watching these poor folks doing the math in their head; since I'm math challenged I can understand their dismay. My personnel favorite was at Soar'n when we said "18 and 9 of us have never been on this ride so can we wait for the front and center glider" It was a slow day but the poor CM had such a look of dismay that I leaned over and asked her if she was math challenged. She replied she wasn't but she thought our group was 8 and she was trying to figure out the 9 who haven't been on the ride part. I repeat the number 18 and pointed to the 9 who hadn't been on the ride. Then the Light bulb came on.

This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.

Vacation deals

Park tickets

Subscribe by email

Subscribe by RSS

New attraction reviews

News archive