Trip Report: Lagoon Amusement Park, Opening Day, 5/23/2020

The long-awaited day has finally come.

The Theme Park Gods have bestowed upon us their sacred grace.

We bow before them in humility and gratitude on this blessed day.

For Lagoon Amusement Park, the happiest place in Utah, has finally opened for the 2020 season.

I found out on Friday night, and immediately shifted all my plans to spend a 3/4 day at Lagoon. I had too much going on for a full day, but wanted to ride as much as I could before dinner. I snagged a reservation for 11:00 AM, and headed out after my run the next morning.

I redeemed my parking pass and told the employees about my reservation. They let me in, and I went to go pick up my season pass. After some confusion as to which window to go to (hint: it’s the one that says “Will Call”), I picked it up and headed on inside.

A quick recap of their current rules: They are only operating at 15% capacity so you have to get a reservation for one of the timeslots, currently between like 10 AM and 7 PM if I remember correctly. Look on their Instagram or Facebook (sorry, just got cancer from mentioning that website) page for the link. You have to wear a mask to get into the park, but they don’t enforce mask wearing after you get through the gates, so you can just drop it like it’s hot. They take around 20 minutes to sanitize each ride periodically; I haven’t yet figured out how often they do this, but it’s better just to wait in line because they sanitize a bunch of rides at the same time. In Kiddieland there are directional arrows that nobody follows. There are no issues with locker rentals, for the first time ever I think, because there simply aren’t enough people in the park to take them all up. Plus, the employees sanitize the lockers after each use, so they also end the rentals if you don’t do it yourself. There are no single rider lines currently in operation. There are cute little 6 feet signs in the queues, which people are pretty good about following actually, and they sit you far apart from other people on rides and coasters (hence the severely reduced park capacity). There are no maps, either, because we all know that amusement park maps carry THE CORONA.

But seriously, I was super happy to follow their rules because they were pretty easy and they allowed the park to open during yellow phase. So it is very, very good that Lagoon is doing this!

Let’s get on with the first day of the 2020 operating season! Ah yes, 2020, which is quickly proving to be the lamest year in all of existence to be alive, but I digress!

And thus, we kick off the theme park on-season as we always should: dangling 200 feet over the I-15, caught in the conglomeration of adrenaline and monotony, watching the cars go by. Maybe we crane our heads to the right to see if we can catch a good glimpse of the Primordial construction, ah…But alas, all too soon we are plummeting towards that sweet, sweet earth far below us.

It’s fun putting your hands up on that glorious, airtime-filled first drop that we here at A&A are so enamored with. But if you really want to freak people out, put your hands up when you start barrel rolling over the pool at the top of the falls. Some lady will probably start screaming about how she’s going to fall out. Meanwhile, you’re just chilling and counting the coins sitting in the water whilst upside down. Make a wish!

After that it was time for some Teriyaki Stix. Got the teriyaki chicken bowl with white rice as per usual, and ate it on the benches. Good, but salty.

Ultimately, ’twas an excellent opening day. I sort of wish I had stayed there until closing. But I have the whole season in front of me. I’m in no rush at all. I had a fun day, I’m the happiest I’ve been in months, and I can tell that this season is going to be awesome!