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

Well yeah, that was my point wasn't it.

At the moment, Merlin are losing money hand over fist and have the very real problem of universal opening a park right on their doorstep.

So maybe they do need to rethink fast passes, given that the very best parks the world don't have them.

Yes.

Paultons park is the best one. It is more expensive and they don’t seem to ever do 2 for 1 tickets, but they don’t do fast passes. The queues are always reasonable. The park is always spotless too. We’ve not had a bad day there. On the other hand, we recently went to Legoland where the queue times were ridiculous due to sooo many people having fast passes. And they just keep on letting all of them straight through. I actually meant to email in after to see if they had a limit that they sell, And when we went to Thorpe park we managed 3 rides! Paultons is defo worth the extra money! I’d much rather pay a bit more for the park and not have the fast passes. As a large family, it’s just not a cost I can justify!

Lots of stuff that as a 7 year old was bloody magnificent that now as a
woman in my forties is bloody awful

but you know what… I sucked up the odd visit to a theme park for my child’s sake.

and then ensured I took them to the kind of cultural entertainment that doesn’t make @Vaguelyclassical burst in to tears about the following weekend

Well my inner and outer curmudgeon agrees with you.

I can’t even imagine what a dramatic post from you would look like then!

I’ll guess though… you don’t have children?

Nah, if I were going to be dramatic I could do so much better. Just getting in touch with my inner curmudgeon . . . .

Oh wipe your eyes @Vaguelyclassical

this made my smile. The drama! The black and white thinking. 😆

No they do close at certain times of the year

so they have to make the peak times count

it is a business after all

Theme parks are an out and out scam. I am honestly amazed that what they put their paying customers through isn't illegal. No one would accept the same level of contempt for the consumer in an hotel, in a restaurant, on a plane, in an Air BnB. They sell you something and they don't deliver. It's absolutely baffling that it carries on unregulated.

Will have to check out Hansa Park!

I hope that when Universal opens in the UK it will give Merlin a kick up the backside because they have become quite lazy with their parks, I think. Although Universal with have fast passes too, no doubt!

Another thing I thought that was interesting about Europa (compared to Thorpe Park) is that the employees and ride operators seem to span all ages, with people in their 60s and 70s happily working there … and some of more popular rides have the same crew year after year. There is a guy who works on Wodan, a wooden coaster that’s really popular, and we see him every year. And another that we always see at Blue Fire, another popular coaster, who is also in the video you watch before the ride that tells you how to sit safely in the seats etc. I just don’t think you see that sort of thing at Thorpe Park. Rust (where the park is) is quite a small town so I expect the park is the major employer there.

Dogs are allowed in Europa Park too, which was a really strange sight to see. I have never seen dog poo there - or litter.

It was a parallel reality, watching lots of people spending their day queuing. I didn’t appreciate the numerous people who stood way too close to me in the queue or the lady who stood with her mobile phone in my back. I hate rides too - I was only there for my family. So I’m probably not the most balanced person on this thread.

I recommend Hansa Park as well. The oath of Karnan is probably my favourite ever ride (people were clapping when it finshed). Again went peak season and just brilliant 👏.

Yes, perhaps part of the problem is Merlin owing lots of them. No competition. We’ve just been to chessington and it was awful, awful, awful. Spent most of the day queuing and several rides broke, literally wasting about 120 mins of our day. It was a 60 min wait to go down a paw patrol helter skelter - literally a slide. We had to queue to leave (we didn’t leave at the end of the day) and found out it was because everyone was querying the £15 car park cost that wasn’t advertised when most of us bought our tickets. It is way too full and badly maintained. Very few water fountains and lots of places to pay for fizzy drink refills - utterly awful. Obviously the fuller the better for Merlin but the problem is it makes for a terrible day out and Merlin is largely in competition with itself.

Yes, we’ve been to Europa Park 3 times during August and once at Halloween half term (also very busy, sold out etc). Never had a problem, always done everything we wanted to.

Strategic is a good word - I don’t feel like we need to be strategic at Europa at all … we’ve also learnt over the years that we don’t need the early access you get if you stay in one of their hotels, so we quite often have a lazy breakfast and wander in a bit later. I’ve enjoyed Orlando holidays but there’s always that little bit of pressure about making sure you get to X ride by X time. We went in 2023 and didn’t do the Genie + at Disney because it was expensive. You also had to get up at 7am to reserve the best rides on the app! But Magic Kingdom was so incredibly busy one day that we spent a day there and only managed one ride, so we caved and did Genie + for a different day. It was a bit stressful trying to stack the slots and book the ride times, and I don’t think we made the most of it. I think they may have changed their system slightly now but it was very complicated.

I like Phantasialand too. The Germans are just really, really good at this stuff. I think Thorpe Park (our closest park) pales in comparison. It’s tired, theming isn’t great, and because the ride line up is fairly limited all the big rides get massive queues. Hyperia is really, really good but the park overall is a bit meh.

What is truly sad is that people have so little imagination that they only go to the wildly commercialized & exploitative theme parks and don't explore all the other wonderful places that the UK can offer. (The other sad thing is the people on this thread saying "Well, we had a great experience at X and only had to queue for 40 minutes for the rides." WTF?)

Funny you say that about planning. We're really strategic when we go to Alton Towers or Disney land Paris. We got Paris down to a fine art (with the old fast pass paper tickets). But reading up on europa park saw a lot of comments that you don't need to plan because there are little rides here there and everywhere. And was so true. Even at peak in August was a dream. Phantasialand is also like this albeit on a smaller scale...and both gave such great food options. It gives me rage how good they are compared to UK.

You do, but they're not leaving any faster. Everyone will take off at the same time! I appreciate it might be different for some people but personally I'd rather be standing and able to move about while I can before having to be seated for the duration of the flight.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dbn84TloZWP/?igsh=MWNwN3djMGRjZTlidw==

This says it all....

I once took my son and friend to Legoland. It was a few years ago, a blisteringly hot day and no shade whilst queuing, some peoole felt faint, and we accomplished 3 rides in the time we were there because the queues were horrendous. Everyone was complaining and wanting refunds. The staff issued tickets to go again on another day, which we did. But Legoland was a farce.

I actually loved the queueing. Where else can you get your teenagers to talk to each other and to you for hours at a time and call it fun???

I have stopped going to theme parks during Summer months after we went to Disney Land Paris some years ago and spent most of the time in a bloody queue

I’m lucky we have platinum annual passes for Merlin so every visit we get one free fast pass each. However the rest of the day we are on the app checking the queue times. You’ll find some times get short at certain points of the day. No way I’m waiting any longer than 45 mins per ride.

Well you see them stroll on past as they board first

The Germans are so efficient at everything. Come snow or heatwaves , theme parks, airports, train stations, just about everything!

What happens? You change the business model or you go out of business.

Neither of which is happening with those theme parks that introduced fast passes years ago