Theme parks are ruined if you don't pay for a fast pass?

Go to the beach instead

Careful planning is the key, not paying more for fast track ect.
Go on days like school inset days/half term in your area but not the theme parks area.
Single rider queues really cut down the wait.
Use the apps to find the rides with the least queue times.
The parks always go quieter late afternoon and the park doesn't close at close time but the queue line does, stay til the end and you'll get more in, if it's something like the runaway train and the staff are having a good day you'll whiz round several times, choo choo!
I've gone to the parks numerous times and have always managed to go on rides multiple times, if you go in the school holidays, long waits are to be expected.

Why didn’t you do any research?

If you go to Disney and you haven’t done any planning, you have no right to complain about queuing 🤣

I remember the one and only time I took DC to Disneyland Paris and it wasn’t even peak season, it was a March weekday in term time (DC were under school age) and the queues were awful even at that time. You literally spend half the day queuing. Just isn’t worth it imo so yes, agree with you.

Tumbleweed? What month can you go where it's hat slow? Be ideal for avoiding queues

Many previous years I think the average ride experience was 6, maybe, with lots of queuing!

I remember going with friends to Alton Towers in 1992, long before fast passes existed, in August on a lovely sunny day, and we did every single ride and even managed a second go on the Corkscrew. Yes, we had to queue but because everyone was in the same queue, the queues were constantly moving. I was a student at the time so would never have been able to afford fast passes had they existed, I think we used some tokens out of a newspaper to get money off the entrance tickets and all chipped in for petrol for my mate's old banger to get us there. Happy days!

Absolutely this. Theme park queues are part of the deal with going, and everyone should have to queue for the same amount of time. Queue barging just because you can seems mad. You couldn’t do it anywhere else, so why theme parks?

The parks are a business!

No, it is not absolutely rammed all the time. Read the thread

Sadly, the best time DS & DH had at Alton Towers was when we bought unlimited fastrack passes for them both.

We bought the tickets cheap on eBay so saved quite a bit there, this was when The Sun were doing the ticket giveaway offer. Couldn’t afford for me to go too though!

Many previous years I think the average ride experience was 6, maybe, with lots of queuing! Quite frustrating but to be expected. Our favourite pastime when it was REALLY busy and we’d had enough of queuing, was soaking people on the rapids ride. Sadly they’ve since removed the water cannons 😒 It was pure entertainment.

For us, it was a one off treat. DS had been going through a particularly rough time at school, it was lovely to see him smile again!

They still talk about it now, we also bought the photo pass, so they could download all of their pics.

Other than that, once your DC become older, single rider queues can speed up your ride experience but sadly other than buying fastrack passes, long queues are to be expected.

Its like it all the time. My friend took her DC to Legoland a few months back and they only went on about 6 things on a full day.

And uf you go just outside peak season or on a school day they close rides etc. They will basically only open if its heaving. They are charging people a fortune to stand in queues. Its because theyve been bought by private equity groups and riddled with debt.

I suppose theme parks presume that ticket purchasers would be able to understand that a fast pass is expensive and indeed exists because there were long queues for popular rides.

So glad this wasn’t a thing when our DC were young. We used to get Legoland annual passes through Clubcard so went a lot. I think they had the disability pass but fast passes must’ve come in just after.
We did DLP 9 years ago and even though they had a fast pass system you could see queue waiting times and book a slot for the popular rides.

i struggled with the obvious inefficiency when we went to Legoland last year. The ride ‘conductors’ seemed to have no interest in being there or helping in any way trying to load the rides quickly. I found it super frustrating to watch.
Even the very fact that there is one at every ride having to guide people to the right gates, carriages etc seems hugely inefficient.
The continental parks I’ve been to rely on a bit more common sense and independence of their visitors and seem much quicker at loading the busy rides.

We did that to Lego land, it was busier than a weekend. It was a popular inset date.

I think this must be the case. I had just applied for DS’ Nimbus pass when Merlin announced they were doing away with RAP’s for certain disabilities. Then there was a big outcry and they backed down. But Nimbus wanted additional evidence, I think to support all of the adjustment “symbols” I had requested on the card which were not typical with his primary diagnosis. They were satisfied, and the process is quite efficient, but it definitely felt “thorough” iykwim!

And ofc you can’t book the RAP until you have the card… 🤪

I'd only go on a rainy week day in low season, absolutely hate queueing and too tight to pay for a fast pass.

I love theme parks but I would never go to one on a weekend day In August in a million years!

I don’t think it’s worth it without fast track, no.

I wish they would do days were tickets are more expensive but with a very low cap on numbers. Then other days with cheaper tickets but higher cap. This way everybody could choose what suits them best.

You should have to acknowledge what can happen without them before you pay for any ticket. A kind of health warning to coin a phrase. The attraction should have to declare how many maximum number of fast track passes are sold on any given day.

Then you are making a decision based on information.

Depends on the park and the strategy ime.

In the last few years I've taken DC to Disney Paris, Drayton Manor, Gulliver's and Peppa Pig. The last three had hardly any queues (max 15mins), and with Disney we timed the most popular rides for times we suspected it would be quieter. The longest queue was 40 mins but most were under 20.

These were all in the summer holidays or sunny weekend days.

I never buy fast passes on principle.

Theme parks are expensive. You can be savvy though. Collect vouchers, depending on your children's age many have a toddler plus adult ticket or reduced family tickets, at some you can get a blue light discount.

Different theme parks have a different level of busy. Alton towers is always busy, mine spend a lot of time in cbeebies land so that is ok. As they get older we will need fast passes for the bigger rides so will need to factor that in. Legoland too is busy with tourists, we've been twice and got more out of the second visit as got there at opening, We have been to Paultons park twice outside of holidays over a weekend. We got there for opening, headed to peppa pig land first, took meal deals so kids could eat on the go. That way whilst other people were sat down having lunch we checked out other areas of the wider park. We made the best use of the time we had there. We have visited Drayton Manor several times, going in Scottish school holidays and heading to Thomas land first or splitting up as our oldest likes bigger rides.

We've been to Gullivers in Warrington and they often do cheaper tickets on some weekends. We often go to Flamingo land but before English summer holidays. It is often still busy due to school trips but not massively so.

My tips would be to have some sort of plan as to which rides you want to do, get there for opening, take lunch and snacks with you as theme park food is overpriced and not particularly good. Think about the time of year you are going and keep an eye out for vouchers and discounts.

but maybe some people like it, and their kids deserve to at least experience them once or twice.

why would they like it if it’s not a “decent experience”?

But obviously many many many DO have a “decent experience” because they keep on returning. Year after year after year.

oh come on, expecting for people to have a decent experience is not that outrageous, why the race to the bottom.

Of course you don't HAVE to go, but maybe some people like it, and their kids deserve to at least experience them once or twice.

Paying an expensive ticket and expect to have access to a reasonable number of rides is normal.

If you go to the cinema, you expect to see the screen,. In theatres, you are warned about limited view and it's your own choice.

Theme parks should sell tickets with warning: limited ride access. Then you choose.