To ask what you think about ‘fast track’ passes for kids/adults with no special needs

[hopingforabrighterfuture2021]

Interested in views on this. Talking about the ones you pay for as a extra to the admission price.

YANBU = it’s people’s money, if theme parks want to sell them to make extra cash, let them. If you have the money and want to spend it on getting on rides faster, why wouldn’t you.

YABU = It’s another way of allowing people with more money a better service, and isn’t fair on people who can’t afford to do this.

Or, discuss.

DP and I went to LA a few years ago for our anniversary (once in a lifetime dream holiday before having children) and visited Universal Studios Hollywood. We did a visit in the daytime and the Horror Nights event in the evening on another day, we had fast track passes for both. You got one go on each ride with the pass then if you wanted to go again would have to join the regular queue. We could not have done all the rides on the Horror Nights without a fast track pass due to the long queues, and we wanted to make the most of our holiday. I would 100% do the same again.

Kids / adults with disabled passes were prioritised over fast track, I think they had different coloured passes.

Effectively, these parks are saying regular ticket holders can expect a second class service. Fast track needs to stop. Everyone is paying the entrance fee; everyone should get the same service.

I am in two minds, but not because of the disparity amongst theme park goers. I think the existence of revenue-generating fast track passes provides a disincentive for theme parks to optimise the wait times in the main queue, almost like getting people to pay for the fact that they can then deliberately keep the main queues longer.

If people have the money to buy extra fast passes why shouldn’t they be available?

I think it's a good idea because different people treat their day differently. If this day is the one day of the year that you go to theme parks then maybe you want to do as much as possible and make the day special so are prepared to pay extra for that. If you go to theme parks every month then maybe you prefer to keep the cost down and do less. They are simply catering for both those types of visitor.

At Disneyland Paris a few years ago free FastPasses were limited to first come first served at ticket machines in the park. Needed to leg it to the ride to get the pass. Suites had some sort of hotel fastpass but we're ££££.

Legoland poor operator on barrel ride had to manage 3 queues and as Queue busters kept coming the general entrants hardly got a look in. Would be better if didn't see it happening in front of you.

@YetGo

At Disneyland Paris a few years ago free FastPasses were limited to first come first served at ticket machines in the park. Needed to leg it to the ride to get the pass. Suites had some sort of hotel fastpass but we're ££££.

Legoland poor operator on barrel ride had to manage 3 queues and as Queue busters kept coming the general entrants hardly got a look in. Would be better if didn't see it happening in front of you.

Lego land was so crap,with organisation in comparison to Disneyland

It's a good lesson for kids to learn early - life is unfair, capitalism prioritises the few over the many, and most people don't care that it creates massive resentment. When we're all up against the wall, maybe then it will sink in, but I doubt it looking at the responses here.

It would be OK if it was a pleasant additional extra or if the general admission price low but with places like legoland they are essential if you want to avoid having a totally shit day.

Even though they were supposedly at capacity when we went in October, most queues took at least 90 minutes, it was bloody awful. The admission is expensive as it is so we wont bother again.

Most places have various options available for different price ranges. For example, I take DD to Thorpe park regularly, I can’t afford the top tier fast passes but I can buy one or two which are usually £5-10 each. It means that when we are there, if one of her favourite rides has a crazy long queue then we can go and buy a fast track just for that ride. I think that is fairer than having an all or nothing approach - it’s a good compromise.

We (well, me and an ex) used to go to Alton Towers every year for Scarefest, and there is no way we would not have used the fast track tickets. We used to stay in the hotel, so got time limited fast track anyway (as in they expire after 2 hours from the park opening). We had to march from the hotel to the park as the queue for the monorail was huge and would have eaten up a lot of time. Fast track tickets were also limited and would often sell out.

If you are driving there and back in the one day though, your time is precious and I don't blame people for spending more money so they get more ride time.

Like with most things... if you want better/faster, you pay more.

We've done both Chessington and Legoland recently and because it was out of school term, we barely had to queue and in some cases, stayed on the ride for another go. I estimate we did 15+ rides on each trip, so it was well worth the standard ticket. If we had to queue for an hour each ride, we'd probably only get to go on 5-6 rides, which I don't think is worth the ticket cost.

When we go again, we'll probably look at buying fast track tickets, but it will mean going once rather than multiple times.

I do think that theme parks could do better at managing their attractions better:

1. giving everyone the opportunity to Prebook slots on rides with a maximum 1/2 hour wait.

2. making rides bigger so they can hold more people on them.

3. making the queues part of the experience, but not in the half attempted way it's currently done.

4. having more free things to look at and do around the parks so that people don't spend their time queuing for rides.

5. limiting the numbers of people allowed in the park for a better customer experience.

It’s a bit annoying as it’s yet another cost involved I getting a good experience.

I’ve never paid for them so far, but thinking I might because queuing is so rubbish!

@MangoM

A few people have said that people with disabilities are getting stuck behind priority queuers. Maybe I've got it wrong, but I thought (at least at Alton Towers last time I went) that anyone with a disability normally went through the exit? Therefore bypassing both the normal queue and the fast track one.

Nowadays, people with disabilities are given a Ride Access Pass, which enables them to join a virtual queue. That is Alton Towers anyway.

I wouldn’t go to a theme park without using fast pass/quebots. If I take my children to a theme park, it’s a treat and I don’t want to spend half of our day queuing. Just like with everything in life, save and get the best you can afford

Plenty of hatred for fast pass, priority etc

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3645890-Priority-queues-at-theme-parks

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1816308-to-think-that-Fast-track-is-just-paying-to-push-in

I always buy them. Otherwise you spend pretty much the entire day in a queue.

As long as they pay I've no issue.
It isn't really different to most experiences, basic or deluxe package.

BadLad hatred? Why does every form of mild irritation/ eye rolling get reframed as "hatred" recently? Everything is reduced to hyperbolic extremes, removing most of the meaning from language. There's no "hatred" - just irritation, annoyance, eye rolling, perhaps frustration.

The fast passes aren't actually that.

They allow you to book a time in a queue - but you have to wait the actual queue time.

Yes it's a service that allows those with money to pay for better service and that doesn't sit comfortably with me.

However I have a disabled son and so get one for free so I'm grateful for that.

What I have noticed is that by doing this it can make the queues for those with disabilities longer which disadvantages them but most places are now having separate disability and fast track queues so I think they're addressing it.

Some places are better than others though with their systems.

YANBU

We buy them on our last day at Dp as a big treat. Worth every penny.

We don't bother if just a UK park.

Itsgettingweird. We do similar for Merlin. However thsre are actual fast passes you can buy. Qbots at legoland either work like the ride access pass OR cut the time in half OR allow dorect access depending what you pay for.

I've definitely noticed this make it difficult for those of us with disability ride access passes as some physical queueus are now too long to wait in (on top of virtual queue).

There are also the various fastbpasses you can buy at AT/Xhessington for certain rides which don't involve queuing.

Thought experiment on this topic:

If I build a theme park with 20 rides and each ride takes 4 minutes to go on it, then having one go on each ride takes a total of 80 minutes. If the rides are spaced out with 4 minutes walk between each but no queues then having one go on each ride takes about 160 minutes. If each ride has a capacity of 50 people at a time then to ensure no queues I would have a total capacity for my park of 400 people at a time. At any time 50% of people are on a ride and 50% are walking between rides. Each person's ticket would need to be 1/400th of my running costs, plus a margin for me to make a profit.

If instead I decide that an average queue time of 48 minutes is acceptable and that most people don't feel the need to go on every single ride but are happy to just go on 8 rides of their choice (and assuming for keeping the maths simple that all rides are equally popular) then at any given time (excluding time spent going to the loo, having lunch etc) we have 12.5% of people actively on a ride, 12.5% of people are walking between rides and 75% of people are standing in a queue waiting for a ride. The same park now has a capacity of 1600 and the price I need to charge is 1/1600th of the cost of the ticket.

The actual maths for a real park would be more complex but the suggestion of "just charging more and don't make anyone queue" would actually quadruple the cost of a ticket using these simplified figures. It would make theme parks unsustainable to run.

It all sounds rather complicated to me having 3 or more different systems. The priority queue for those who need it is obviously a reasonable adjustment but these systems seem to make it pointless for people who don't buy the extras.

Puts me right off anyway if you only get a handful of rides and hours of queues for a basic ticket.

I think parks should have quotas of how many people they let in on different days - priced accordingly.

E.g. some days are VIP days. Everyone pays a high price. Park guarantees you won't have to wait more than x amount of time for a ride, or money back. Numbers limited accordingly.
Those who can provide evidence of disabilities get in free.

Next day is a bit cheaper, more people allowed in, guarantee ride wait is of a longer amount of time.
Those with disabilities still get in free, and go to the front of the line.

Other days free for all. No guarantee of wait times, tickets are v cheap, everyone waits in line.

@MangoM

A few people have said that people with disabilities are getting stuck behind priority queuers. Maybe I've got it wrong, but I thought (at least at Alton Towers last time I went) that anyone with a disability normally went through the exit? Therefore bypassing both the normal queue and the fast track one.

That is the case in all theme parks I have been to.