Whelp, went to Canada’s Wonderland with a friend on Saturday, what a bloody adventure… -.- First off, getting to Wonderland via TTC is pretty damn annoying. It took around 2 hours to get there by two subway lines and a bus; standing room only. We got the first hint of what was to come as people pushed and shoved their way onto the bus. Wonderland itself was awesome: There’s nothing quite like riding a roller coaster in pitch black, or taking a huge drop from a great view of the lights of the GTA. The place was busy as hell, we got on 4 rides before we decided to leave at around 23:30.
From there, everything went downhill. The TTC service ended at 22:45, so the only real option was the GO Transit bus to Yorkville station. Things started out okay, the line for the bus was relatively orderly and the two GO Transit officers present were able to keep things calm, but the loading of buses was slow and the line continued to grow. It was then that we learned how stupid a crowd of tired, cold people can get. Caught in a herd of cattle, even the arrival of several York Region police officers didn’t help much. There was no real problem; buses arrived steadily and they promised to continue doing so until everyone was away, but that didn’t prevent the stampede at the arrival of a new bus, morons jumping into the street banging on the side of a bus, or one of the aforementioned police officers being shoved into the side of a bus. For some reason, someone even complained that the police officer swore after being shoved, as though it weren’t justified and complaining more would accomplish something. The security, GO, and police officers have nothing but respect from me for doing their best in a difficult and idiotic situation.
Anyways, a couple hours later, we were finally on our way back to the subway station but on arrival found that subway service southbound had halted. We rode it North to Downsview station and waited to catch the last bus East to the Shepperd-Yonge station where 24 hour bus service would be able to get us home. The bus never came. TTC personnel were locking up the station and the bus had yet to arrive, but they were nice enough to be able to arrange another bus for us and the handful of others in the same situation.
Two blue line buses later, we were finally home at around 3:40 and I hope everyone else was able to do the same. 3.5 hours at Wonderland, ~6 hours in transit, 1 painful adventure I won’t soon forget.
