longest attraction queue ever witnessed?
 

just out of interest, where did you see the longest queue at an attraction? and were you in it?
the longest and slowest i have been in was probably that for the eiffel tower.+1hr.queue was longer than the base of the tower.

It wasn't in Europe, but we waited more than 3 hours to tour the U.S.S. Missouri when it was docked in Astoria, Oregon.

Colosseum on our first trip to rome.
The line must have had over 400 people in it. needless to say we passed on this til next visit.

Have you ever been to Disney World on a week end?

how about the lines for the NON-EU citizens to get residency permits in spain?
this is an all morning/day affair in some cities. 4-6 hours each time you go.

i'll take disney on a weekend anytime.

4-6 hours is an eternity , but going to apply for a residence permit is not something you choose to do for leisure.

Disneyland in July was the worst experience of my life for waiting in lines, that is if you don't count waiting in the traffic on the drive to get there. I will take any line in Europe of that any day.

Longest attraction queues I've experienced would be equally St. Marks Cathedral (Venice) and the Uffizi Gallery (Florence). St. Marks moved remarkably fast, the Uffizi, painfully slow. I think the Uffizi lineup took about 3 hours. We took turns in minding each other's places so we could wander about, go to the bookshop, have a coffee etc.

The longest (time wise) line up at an airport to get through customs was about 2-3 hours at Delhi International.

Atlanta's Hartsfield airport. The attraction, the security gate.
The line was about half a mile.

brookwood- :)

Not an attraction, but certainly a novelty - first McDonalds in Moscow, back in the late eighties. It was about 3 hours long, probably worse than a queue to US Embassy on the days they were accepting immigration applications :)

The 3 hours line to see Lenin's mummy in the Mausoleum, in the middle of a winter, with sub-zero temperatures.

But personally, the longest and the worst - a queue to the elevator to get down in Eiffel Tower - I think the worst part is that you no longer have any choice and can not walk away (once you go up you kind of have to come down, queue or not :) ) I blanked out the exact waiting time and the whole experience - it probably was my worst travel experience ever :(

Standing in line for approximately 8 hours
on October 16, 2004 in Los Angeles for
a flu shot!

No, I refuse to wait in a queue that is very long on a two week vacation, rather people watch. My last queue was a serendipity. We thought we were in traffic hangup but we ended up on a ferry. I loved it!!!

Statue of Liberty way back in the summer of 2000 - 3 hrs!!!

We foolishly followed suggestions and arrived at the Vatican about an hour before it opened. The line seemed a mile long. In addition to the hour we waited before it opened it was about another hour to get to the front -- 2 in all. We realized since that if you arrive any other time, the line will be just as long -- but you avoid that extra hour of waiting for it to open.
Now we know!

Without a doubt...3 hours in the hot sun this July in Tiennamen Square wating to see Mao.....needless to say we decided to go to the worlds largest KFC instead a block away.:)

We waited in line for over 90 minutes in our car to get past a big ball of string on the side of the road in Kansas once. It was such an annoyance. We didn't even know it was there. I can't imagine people drove there on purpose. What a waste.

I think the longest line I've seen was for the Vatican, however it moved relatively fast, and wasn't so bad.

On the other hand, the kiddie rides in Disneyland's Fantasyland are deceptively short, but are VERY slow! Dumbo, the FLying Elephants, and Mr. Toad's Wild Ride come to mind......

Back to europe: The Eiffel Tower line was pretty bad. When we got inside, before we got on the elevator, it was very crowded and hot.

The longest line, earliest in the day and out of peak season was at St. Mark's in Venice---the line was out to the canal and snaking around, and that was still 30 minutes before opening. And this was in May. MAY!!

So, to preserve our happy memories of Venice, we skipped it. Chastise us all you want--we're comfortable with the decision.

allovereurope, I had the same experience with trying to see the Basilica at St. Mark's last July. We tried three times and opted against it all three times because the line was so long.

Just gives us a reason to have to go back, right? :)

The Gouffre de Padirac in late July and the Musée d'Orsay in early June.

Not on a trip, but in 1978, my husband waited in line for 10-1/2 hours to buy tickets for a Neil Diamond concert! I had to work the day they went on sale and he offered to go get them. This was before the internet, and they also were not selling them over the phone. The ONLY way to get a ticket was to go and stand in line.

The vatican in early October.

Tower of London way back in the 70s. So bad that I always (lived in the area for a year & kept trying) said, no way. Tried again on a summer Sunday morning in 2001, and had no problems.

Here's another vote for the Vatican.

We were there in late April, and arrived there to see this line snaking around the corner.

So we walk along the line, trying to find the end. We turn the corner and see the line going all the way down the block and around another corner. We turn that corner and see the line going all the way down that block and around ANOTHER corner (that's 3 so far, if you're counting :) ).

As we turn the third corner, I can see the end of the line about halfway down this block, but for each step I take closer, another 3 people join the line. Afraid that I would be chasing the end of the line around the 4th corner, I speed up and finally jump in.

All things being said, though - that line moved relatively quickly - we were inside the Vatican in about an hour.

The "monsanto" exhibit at the world's fair in New York City...an amazing 360-degree around screen and sound...new technology back then.
(sheesh.. I've just dated myself!)

Well, it might seem a bit weird here, but when the very much loved Belgian king Baudoin died back in 1993, people could go and greet the corps in the royal palace and there was an 8 hour queue!

I remember being in awe of the queue for Wimbledon, Center Court, when I went in '93. People were out there with tents and sleeping bags.

now THAT'S a queue!

The strange thing is that the lines at a lot of tourist attractions can vary so much. We stayed a week in Florence and noted that one one day the line at the Uffizi was endless, yet on other days it would be very short. The Accademia was the same way; the first time we went I walked right by the entrance, not recognizing it as I was looking for a line, and there was absolutely none. We saw the same thing at St. Mark's in Venice.

Definitely, the Vatican Museum. We were with a tour and the guide decided that we needed a very indepth description of Castel san Michel. By the time we got into the line for the Vatican, it was taking up to 2 hours. We took turns going for gelatto, buying souveniers etc. When we finally got into the museums, she hurried us along so we wouldn't miss the Sistine Chapel which was closing at 2:30pm that day.

The one that stands out in my mind was waiting for about 2 hours to see the "Treasures of Tutankhamen" exhition at the British Museum in December 1972 not long before it closed. I've done a few other marathon waits since, but this one has a special place in my memory because I was outside in the London winter and because it was one of the first real blockbuster museum exhibitions, so this kind of wait was a novelty to me.

KT, we may have been "line mates!" At any rate, we also were in a long line at the British Museum for the Tut exhibit in the Nov/Dec '72 time frame. Well worth it. I several years later went to the Tut exhibit at the Art Institute in Chicago, and they had different items on view.

eliztrav, I thought you looked familiar. :-)

I was the one whose nose was turning blue from the chill.

I'm with you cigalec., I was sitting here trying to imagine waiting in the lines some of you describe and I can't.

I suppose the longest I have waiting in a line is at Disneyland on the opening night of a stupid ride, I was so mad at myself for waiting but at every turn in the dark building we thought it would end.

Notice how we describe waiting in different parts of the world?

In NY it is waiting ON line.
In LA it is waiting IN line.

Other parts of the world have queues and are queing when they wait.

In NC we wait IN line since we are part of the collective, not staning on a line painted on the floor.

Duke University students camp out for weeks to buy men's basketball tickets.

I think I waited about an hour or so to enter Biltmore House at Christmas one year. Also stood in a l-o-n-g line at the Charlotte Art Museum (I guess the Mint Museum) when they had a special traveling exhibit of Egyptian art -- Not King Tut but of the same area. Mom and Dad had been able to walk right in when they saw it in Denver and wanted the kids to see it. I think this was in 1988 or 89.

McDonald's opening lines in Moscow for 3-4 hours.

The opening day of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

In 1999, there was a Pompei exhibition at Los Angeles County Museum of Art. We even had specific time tickets. After waiting for almost two hours (and moving about 20 feet), we left. We felt it was easier to go visit the real Pompei, which we did in 2001 (although the wait there, too, was bad...we hit it at exactly tour bus time).

So basically, if anything has the name Pompei in it, count me out.
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LOL, this is a great topic. I'd have to say for me Disney during spring break (not my idea!) - not only were the lines impossibly long but there were so many people in the park that we couln't even choose the direction we wanted to go, we were just sort of swept along by the crowds. A close second is the line at LAX for the Southwest terminal, especially on a Friday night when everyone is heading for Vegas, it goes on for miles and once you get inside the flights are all overbooked!

"A close second is the line at LAX for the Southwest terminal'

audreyleigh... I flew to Detroit on Northwest about a couple of months ago in the morning. I could not believe the Southwest line. It stretched past terminal after terminal. That's why I take Southwest out of Burbank. No hassle there.
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