Guest Thoughts

Guest Thoughts are thoughts that guests have during their time in the park. This could be related to the park, what they want, or even relating to an object they are carrying. It is important to understand what guests are feeling, since the Guest Mood is affecting the Park Value and Park Rating of your park. Clicking the Guests button and changing the mode to thoughts allows you to see the guests most recent thoughts, as well as summarizing all of them to the ones which are most popular.

Here's a list of all the guest thought you may encounter, they'll be placed in one of four catergories.

Positive Thoughts

"This park is really clean and tidy" If your pathways are generally free from litter and vomit, your guests will have this thought.

"The Scenery here is wonderful" Filling your park with loads of scenery will have guests complimenting them.

"The jumping fountains are great" Place jumping fountains throughout your pathways and the guests will compliment them.

"<Ride Name> was great!" Your guest has just gotten off a ride at a high happiness level with a low amount of nausea. Guests often jump for joy and laugh when they think this thought, and will most probably want to return to ride the ride again.

"<Ride Name> is really good value!" "This/These <Item Name> from <Stall Name> is/are really good value!" Your rides/stall items have been reasonably priced, which may give you the "Best Value Park" award.

Informative Thoughts

"I've already got a (item)." Guests think this thought when they walk past a stall selling that item that they already own.E.g I've already got a park map.

"I'm not hungry/thirsty." Guests think this thought when they walk past a food/drink stall and they are not hungry or thirsty.

"I want to go home" These guests are unhappy and have had enough of your park and want to go home through the park exit. They will not ride any rides and you cannot do anything about this to prevent them from leaving. In RollerCoaster Tycoon 2, their status will be "Leaving the Park". See the "I can't find the park exit!" solution below for more information on how to deal with these guests.

"I'm Hungry/Thirsty" If you get many guests thinking this, chances are you either don't have any food/drink stalls or not enough of them in the park. Place some around the park to solve this problem, but be aware of the price of the food/drinks as well, since guests will not buy anything from the stalls due to the prices being too high.

"I need to go to the toilet/bathroom" If you are getting guests thinking this, chances are you don't have enough toilets, or you have charged too high of a price for one. You'll know when guests are thinking this because they will be running around the park, holding it in. Fix this quickly because it affects the guests' mood in terms of happiness.

"I feel sick/very sick!" Your guests are sick and will most likely vomit on your footpaths. Adding some benches can help them recover faster, though some may choose to walk around anyway. Over time they will recover in all games, but if you are playing RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 or 3, then add some First Aid Rooms near rides that have a high Nausea rating in the ride results. The guests will also look sick if you click on them. The more their nausea bar is filled, the greener their complexion! This isn't necessarily bad, since your guests usually overrate their own nausea tolerance.

"I'm running out of cash!" If guests are thinking this, then they're almost out of cash to spend in the park. This will most likely occur if you set the park entrance fee too high, or make the rides expensive. No matter what though, guests will run out of cash in RollerCoaster Tycoon 1, unless the park is set to Infinite Money or everything is free inside. It's probably best to either only charge for the rides/shops or the park entrance fee, but making more money is easier by charging both, but the catch is you'll cause this thought to happen much faster. In RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and 3, an ATM Machine can help guests get money out, so build them when you have the opportunity. Either way, if guests can't spend any cash, they'll want to go home, but they may come out of the park happy enough to return in the future again.

"I can't afford (Ride or Item Name)." The guest doesnt have enough money to purchase the item or ride the ride even if they want to. Guests thinking this thought have run out of money. When thinking this thought, guests will feel for money in their pockets at the ride/stall entrance. Guests who cannot purchase/ride anything usually go down in happiness, hunger and thirst very quickly, so have them leave the park as soon as possible.

"I'm not going on <Ride name> while its raining!" Your guest will not ride this ride while it is raining. This is most likely because the ride is outdoors. On the plus side though, this makes indoor rides more popular for guests. To balance things out, make sure you have some indoor rides so that guests thinking this will ride them instead so that you can still make money or popularise those rides. Once the weather gets better again, they'll reride those rides that were outdoors again.

"I'm tired/very tired" Your guest is (running) out of energy and is walking slowly around the park. This is often caused when a guest walks around the park for a long time without riding any rides. Try to build as many rides as you can around the footpaths to solve this problem. Sometimes though, guests may already arrive in the park tired anyway, but riding enough rides usually wakes them up.

"<Ride name> looks too intense for me!" The ride's intensity rating is too high for the guest to ride. There's a strong chance you've opened a ride which has an "Extreme" or "Ultra-Extreme" intensity rating. Guests will not ride any rides that have an intensity in the "Ultra-Extreme" rating, and very few will ride them in the "Extreme" range. You'll most likely discover this when you notice your queues are empty, and guests shoot up at the beginning of the queue. Lower the intensity of the ride using banked curves, and making roller coaster trains go through inversions at reasonable speeds. The other thing it could be is that you are in a park which guests only ride rides that have an intensity less than 4.00 (See the scenario "Gentle Glen" for example), so check your average guests preferred intensity to ensure you make the right rides in your park. The intensity preference of guests will go up if they ride an intense ride without getting sick, so don't place your most intense rides next to the entry.

"I want to go on something more thrilling than <Ride name>" The guests want to ride a more intense ride. The polar opposite of "<Ride name> looks too intense for me!". These are again affected by the ride's Intensity rating. If you are doing a scenario where guests only ride intense rides (E.g "Adrenaline Heights") then just make Roller Coasters and Thrill Rides. On the other hand, in a regular park, just make a mixed amount of intense and gentle rides to please all the guests. Remember, the guests preferred intensity increases the more rides they ride over time. Chances are, these guests have a preferred intensity rating less than 4.

"Help! I'm drowning!" The guest is in water and will soon drown (die). You can use the pinchers to save the guest. If the guest is low on energy, they will drown slower ( though it would seem the opposite).

Negative Thoughts

"I can't find <Ride/Stall name>!" Your guest can't find a ride or a stall they are looking for. See the "I'm Lost!" solution below for more information on how to deal with these guests.

"I can't find the park exit!" If your guest is thinking this, then they could be many reasons why this is happening. If your park is very big with plenty of paths, chances are the guest is walking down the wrong path, since the AI of the game is simplified to only directing the guests towards the direction of the park exit. Other reasons could be because of accidently deleting a path leading to the park exit, and you'll most likely be notified by this due to the Recent Messages at the bottom of saying "Guest XXX is lost and can't find the park exit". If guests are going down the wrong paths, try adding some No Entry banners to prevent them from going the wrong way. If all else fails, you may have to pick them up individually and place them with the Pickup button on the Guest window screen. It is important to solve this problem as soon as you can, as your Park Rating plummets when more guests get lost.

"I'm not paying that much to go on/for <Ride Name/Stall>!" If you notice a ride with no queue lines, or a shop with no sales, chances are its because of the guests thinking this. You've either set your ride/shop price too high, or the ride/shop is old enough in which the price is too high for guests to consider good value. For rides, looking at the Excitement rating is a good way of determing what the price should be. Low rated rides will usually be cheap, whilst RollerCoasters are usually higher priced. No matter what though, every ride is going to need to be lowered in price as they age, so be aware of this.

"The Vandalism here is really bad" Your park has broken objects scattered on the paths due to unhappy/angry guests wandering around the park. To fix broken objects, rebuild them over the broken ones with the Scenery tool. Also, hire some security guards around areas with loads of benches, lamps, and bins. Food courts are also a good place to patrol them since it usually gets crowded in those spots. If your park has enough satisfied guests and clean paths though, natually this usually doesn't happen that often, though its impossible to keep every single guest happy.

"The Litter here is really bad" Similar to Vandalism, your park has too much litter on the footpaths. Either repair the broken bins or add more into the park. Chances are it could be because the Handyman staff have not cleaned the floors or emptied the litter bins. Patrol the Handymen around footpaths near Food Courts and litter bins.

"It's too crowded here" Your park doesn't have enough footpaths for the amount of guests that are currently in your park. Either add more footpaths around or balance out the number of guests with queuing paths and rides. This is important because guests slowly get unhappy if they walk into crowded areas too much. This can also occur when you advertise too much, or when many guests leave a ride at the same time.

"I'm Lost!" Your park has either too many paths or is very big. This doesn't necessary mean that the guests want to go home, but they might be struggling to navigate around your park. This thought is triggered after a guest has been trying to reach a goal for a certain time, so it can happen guests complain about being lost, even though they are close to their goal. Adding Information Kiosks around the park can help to prevent this, but you may still have to make more direct paths to rides and stalls.

Try to avoid having too many bridges and underground paths intersecting with each other too since your guests don't have a z axis. Also make sure your paths are not too wide! One scenario with this problem in RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 is "Evergreen Gardens", due to its size and many paths scattered around the gardens, but "Amity Airfield" from RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is also another one, due to its very thick footpath layouts. Do not make paths thicker than 1 square on RollerCoaster Tycoon 1, and 2 squares on RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and 3!

Guests also think this thought in a while if they are placed on the ground off the foootpath. They will usually scratch their head after thinking this thought.

"I want to get off <Ride name>!" Either your ride is too long, or something has gone wrong with the ride. Making a ride longer than 5 minutes will cause guests to think this, but if they have been queuing for a while, their patience is lowered, so try to balance out the queue length with the ride length too. This thought could also be occuring due to a ride mechanical failure, such as cars getting stuck on lift hills for too long, or are just stuck due to cars bashing into one and another (Common in Water Slides and 1 Car RollerCoasters) . If the rides are permanantly stuck, pause the game, double click the red light button, and reopen by the green button. This way, you don't lose the guests queuing for your ride. Also, make sure there is always a mechanic nearby, so that the rides can function normally without guests waiting too long on board.

"I'm not going on <Ride name> - It isn't safe!" Your ride has crashed and guests have witnessed this. Even after you fix the ride and get a successful test run, guests will still think this and are not prepared to risk their life to ride it. Despite this, some guests still take their chances and ride it, but it usually takes a couple of months before guests stop thinking this. You could try closing a ride for a few months and reopen it to see if it prevents this, but either way, only the time past the crash will stop this from occuring. On another note too, make sure your mechanics are there to prevent those "Station Brakes Failure" breakdowns, because if the ride crashes, this thought will occur! Though if you have saved your game a while before the ride has crashed, you could just go back to your last saved game and continue playing from there. If you want to make sure you're ride won't crash again you could just pause the game, double click the red light button, and reopen by the green button.

"I've been queuing for <Ride Name> for ages" These guests have been queuing for a long time for one of your rides. Chances are, you've either made the queue length too long, or the ride is taking too long to dispatch new guests in and out. To try and stop guests from walking out of your queue lines, add an Entertainer and make them patrol queue lines that are very long (Usually ones with over 15 minutes queue time). This way, guests won't get too unhappy for waiting, and their happiness meter will rise again once they are on the ride.

"This path is disgusting!" Guests think this thought when they step on too many tiles of vomit. This thought can drastically lower guests happiness, so clean then up with handymen as soon as possible. Some guests will perform a "lift their foot in disgust animation" if they step on a tile filled with multiple vomits.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

"I've not finished my (food or drink) yet." Guests think this thought if they patronise another food/drink stall but is already carrying a food or drink. The guest won't buy that item until he finishes his current food/drink.

"I have the strangest feeling someone is watching me!" If you leave a guest's window on for a long period of time, they will eventually have this in their thoughts.

"What is that little white thing?" "He he, that tickles!" "Stop bothering me!" In RCT3, if you click on a guest while their window is open, they will have this first thought while their gaze follows your mouse pointer. If clicked on again, they will laugh and think the second thought. If clicked on enough times, they will try to shoo away the pointer while thinking the third thought.

"Wow!" If you name a guest John Wardley, they'll have this in their thoughts whenever they go on a ride.

"Wow, a new ride's being built!" In RCT 2, if you build a ride near a pathway, the guests may decide to watch the construction.