I have to say, I’ve never felt overly compelled to attend an opening day either.
I technically attended the park-billed “opening weekend” of Wicker Man in 2018 (24th/25th March, after the originally planned opening on 17th March was delayed by snow; I know it actually opened on 20th March, but the park was bigging up 24th/25th March as the “opening weekend”), and I have to say that it did not give me strong inclination to attend an actual opening day. I’m glad I was able to ride Wicker Man around its opening period, but in terms of my actual visit, it was not one of the better visits I’ve had to Alton Towers.
On the 25th, the day we actually went into the park at 9am to ride Wicker Man during ERT, we ended up waiting 2.5 hours for the ride to even open and then got stuck on the brake run at the end for a long enough time that we didn’t get off until around 1:30pm after being evacuated.
When considering that I live far enough from any theme parks that I can’t just pop back and revisit on a whim, I don’t think I’d want what could well be my only visit, or at most one of only two or three visits, to a given park that year to be an experience like that for the sake of getting on the ride a little bit sooner and experiencing the “atmosphere” of an opening day.
I also think that consciously booking for an opening day is a risk in case the opening gets delayed and you get spited. Again, I wouldn’t want to consciously go to a park for potentially my only visit of the year, or possibly my only visit for at least a few years if it’s a far away park, and be spited by their new ride.
From now on, I’ve decided to try and plan my visits for a week to a month after opening. That leaves enough time for the initial hype to wear off and also leaves some wiggle room in case the opening is delayed, but is a short enough amount of time that I don’t feel as though I’m waiting ages to ride the new ride. With Hyperia, I’ve pencilled in a visit for 10th June. That’s 2-3 weeks after the opening on 24th May, which should be long enough for the opening period hype to subside and long enough to give me leeway in case the opening is delayed, but short enough that I don’t feel like I’m waiting ages and ages to ride it.