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

I think you're missing the point that theme park operators are monetising a poor experience - they are taking a normal, less than ideal experience (queuing) and making it into a bad experience by introducing fast-passes, so they can make more money.

I understand the whole 'they are a business, they need to make money' argument but making money shouldn't involve deliberately creating a poor experience for some of their customers.

I hope people will 'vote with their feet' and not go back - as I have.

Then presumably they won't want to go back. Or maybe say, I don't want to go back for a few years until we can save up to get the fast pass.

Educating kids and teaching them to think, rather than just trying to shield them from lifes realities.

Yes, it's awful. Try Efteling and Europa Park as PP have suggested. We were at Europa park recently on one of the busiest days of the year. Because there are no fast passes the queues moved fast ànd the longest wait was 40 minutes. Most of the popular rides you could get on in around 25 minutes. They are vastly more charming than any parks in the UK too.

I don't know whether kids would understand it or not as I don't have any - but I think at any age it's going to feel frustrating at the very least if you are standing in a non-moving queue watching other people walk straight onto the ride, no matter how well you understand the reason for it.

Europa park puts the UK parks to absolute shame.

Level of theme and operations/ maintenance etc is just not even in the same universe.

Same with efterling it's owned in a different way

Came on the thread to say go to Europa Park. A million times better than UK theme parks (family owned NOT private equity so entry fees get reinvested). We just went in July and it was amazing. 20 mins queues max and so many rides. No fast passes sold

They are comparable in the respect that many services you can buy offer different experiences based on price.

For example travel often comes in classes which costs more depending on the quality of experience.

The same comes with many things in life.

If someone feels the experience is not worth the cost then best not to pay for it.

I don't understand the whole "kids will not understand it argument". Surely if kids are old enough the concept of money and quality of experience should be something they can understand, as well as why they have to queue, and that their parents don't have access to limitless resources.

If they aren't capable of understanding these things, then you have to ask yourself the question whether a theme park at a certain cost/experience level is the best place for them.

I'm assuming you have never got to the front of the boarding queue, only to be told they have run out of overhead locker space and your bag has to go in the hold!

Not really comparable for any of these examples.

For airports - the plane is still going to leave at the same time however quickly you get on it. You don't lose out by queuing, as you do at a park where time in the queue is time you could be on another ride. You just have the dubious pleasure of sitting in your plane seat for longer.

With a museum, if the queue was very long, you could walk away having lost nothing. Once you have paid to get into a theme park you have spent that money and the longer time you spend in queues, the less you are getting for it.

With a passport, there is no queuing at all, you are just getting on with your life as normal waiting for it to drop through your letterbox. The only reason to pay for priority processing is if you are travelling at short notice or if you suddenly realise at the last minute that you need a new one.

YANBU.

Fast passes are absolute bullshit and the problem is, is if you are a family who love theme parks but have to travel a significant amount of distance to actually go to one, you basically have to become part of the problem and buy them otherwise you have a rubbish day.

On anything other than a quiet day at Alton Towers the only way you are getting on all the big rides in a single day is with a fast pass, and then you are part of the problem that results in the need for fast passes because then by jumping the main q, the main q becomes longer and so more people buy fast passes. And then if there is full q of fast passes being constantly filled up, the main q basically doesn't move at all,even if it's not that long.

Admittedly I didn't have any theme parks local to me growing up, however I only went to a theme park three times and that was when we were on holiday.

My kids are only young but it's not something I will encourage due to the cost and queues, and the fact I have epilepsy so can't do most of the rides, if they really want to go when they are older dh will take them.

You can pay to jump the queue in many many areas of life. Fast track security at airports, speedy boarding, private health care. Theme Parks aren't special in that respect.

I also dont get why people are moaning about "an already expensive day out". On the day tickets online for AT are £34. There are absolutely loads of buy one, get one free deals running, which, albeit at full price would work out as £20 per person. That's an absolute bargain for a full day out, particularly when you compare to £15 for an imax cinema ticket or something or £8 for 2 hours in a sticky softplay.

The dodgy local funfair near me charges at least £5-8 per ride minimum for ones that aren't half as exciting and dont look anywhere near as safe as a big theme park. Other places (like WW in Hyde park) charge even more for the big rides.

Therefore if you go on more than 2 rides you're quids in. If they got rid of fast passes they'd likely just increase the gate price hugely for everyone.

And before you moan "its not just ticket price its food there, gift shop" etc - none of those things are compulsory! Its 8 hours, have a big breakfast and just take some sandwiches! Same with "but we live far away so have to take into account petrol and hotel" - right but AT cant be expected to cover that for you! The same applies when people from other areas travel to where you live, its sort of the whole point of a holiday/day out!

When you think of the prohibitive insurance, staffing, maintenance, building, electricity, procurement etc costs it must take to run a theme park, £20 (or even £34) is nothing. I bet people moaning would think nothing of spending that on a takeaway/new mascara/2 cocktails or glasses of wine/or coffees and cake/insert your own small treat of choice)

14 years ago.

So 2012

So the World Wide Web was up and running

We always use our June Inset day to go. Someone on here recently told me every school has the same inset days within hours of Chessington/Thorpe Park so she couldn't possibly do that, but couldn't explain to me why it was empty when we went.

May Bank Holiday weekend is also dead at Merlin parks because only the most expensive annual passes are valid.

Well it is tumbleweed during the months they are closed isn’t it?

Half of France is off school in March. It's the end of their winter vacances.

Once a year I have always given my children a day off on a sunny day and taken them on a Friday when they were young. Friday was important, as they spoke about it at school everyone would naturally assume they were talking about the weekend. It was quite possibly up there with my best moments as.a parent seeing their faces, instead of going to school the children would wake up to a theme park day. Obv once older (and it mattered academically) we would go in the holidays with friends and no one noticed the queues as they would be chatting and playing.

I agree. They over fill these places then expect everyone to queue for an hour plus for an activity they have paid a substantial amount of money for.
but the answer is go on a teacher training day or a weekend in September/ march (if weather isn’t great) it will be far less busy.

Fourteen years ago isn’t that long. You can do some planning like narrowing down the busiest times of the park based on multiple factors, then looking at crowd calendars for those days; best routes around the park for those exact days; the restaurants that will be free at certain times; when to target rides so the queue will be shortest etc.

The fact that you didn’t even know there was planning needing to be done tells me you didn’t even do a simple google.

We alternate each year doing DLP then WDW, we go in peak British school holidays because of the kids. We have never waited for anything for more than 20 minutes, while walking past queues of 6+ hours, because I put in the time to research and plan.

We never fail to do everything we want to.

You can do it in many places though.
Pay for exhibition tickets and skip the queue to the museum.
Pay for priority boarding in airplanes.
Pay to have your passport ready in 48h and not wait weeks.
etc

Another thing i noticed last time i took my son is they have the minimum staff. So one poor young person probably being paid peanuts having to walk alomg and check all the seats then go and press start. Then come along and unlock seats... The queues would move much faster if they had more staff working them. Sadly its all about making money

What sort of research should I have undertaken? This was about 14 years ago so it isn’t something I care or think about now, the thread just made me remember the hell. I went in term time and on a week day so not in peak season, dread to think what it’s like right now.

Maybe I’m just used to theme parks but I don’t feel this way.

We did Disneyland Paris last summers Chessington 2 days this summer and Legoland back in March and again last Tuesday.

Disneyland Paris was busy but we researched before and knew what times parts of the park was quiet. I think we paid one fast track for one rollercoaster that always had a busy queue. The rest we just timed strategically and our then 3 year old was fine.

Chessington we did on a Thursday and Friday in school holidays. The Thursday was fine, the Friday was admittedly very busy but again, we knew what times the busy areas quietened down and timed rides accordingly.

Legoland in March wasn’t busy, last Tuesday it was but again, we knew when the areas we wanted to got busy, prioritise the busy stuff first and last thing when the park was quiet. We bought one fast track for Flight of the Sky Lion but everything else we never queued more than 20 minutes.

The key is research and strategic planning. Admittedly we haven’t been on weekends pther than back in March.