AIBU to hate the concept of fast passes?

[IloveConkers]

Hi, we went to a theme park recently and purchased fast passes. I will never do it again. It felt so wrong for my kids to walk past people in the other queue and take priority because we had paid extra. My husband thinks I am being ridiculous. AIBU?

the queues must be a feature of the theme park

They are included in the price... a bit like car parking!

I absolutely hate them - I have just booked somewhere where they use fast passes. I know it will drive me mad on the day when people just stroll by when we’ve been standing for an hour in a queue. I get why people buy them, but in reality it’s just another way to make money! It takes away the spirit of the place. This is not bitterness, I could afford them, but would feel sick at the the looks I got whilst strolling through like Lord Muck.
If you are disabled and need extra help then that is different, but this should still be an automatic upgrade not one that you pay for.

And there’s the nub of it

I'm not overly keen on fast passes because it encourages the venues to oversell tickets and then if you don't pay for fast passes, your experience is sub standard with queueing for most of the day, and the standard prices for these places isn't cheap.

We pay for DS to have a fast pass when we go to Siam Park waterpark in Tenerife as otherwise he'd be waiting for most of the day, but at least that's a semi reasonable 15 euros. I looked at Alton Towers and there were all sorts of different levels but basically an extra £50 to do the big rides.

It takes away the spirit of the place.

😂

I was in Europa Park (Germany) on Monday. They don't sell any fast passes there, but they do have a virtual queue system, which is free. You select virtual queue for the ride you want on the Parks app on your phone, and it tells you the next available time slot to book.
You can only be in one virtual queue at a time, and there's a 10 minute time window to show up. The virtual queue people get slotted in with the regular queue, but there are not so many available so there's no big hold-up to the regular queue.
The downside was that its availability is limited, so we were only able to queue virtually twice - but it's a good idea and everyone has the same chances. It probably gave us an extra hour as the queues for the big rides were 25/30 mins, which meant we could spend that time on some of the smaller, shorter queue rides.

Surely it’s because those who buy the fast passes wouldn’t go otherwise. So the park gets money from those people 1) for entry and 2) for the passes. Money innit!

We fast tracked the Empire State Building. Well worth it

They are an absolute lifesaver for children with additional needs though it means they can access something they otherwise wouldn’t be able to

I pay extra wherever I can to skip queue/board first/more legroom etc. It’s the same reason I pay a cleaner and housekeeper.

I started my own business because I wanted to have more money to pay for convenience and time saving. It’s worth all the hard work.

Maybe, but less if your phone simply flagged up "barcode expired" once the slot had closed. There's no arguing with that (and no-one to argue with!)

YABU for going to a theme park! Those places are hell on earth.

But people don't have to pay an extortionate amount of money, to queue for hours, and only go on 3 rides do they? People choose to go and do this. People must be passionate about theme park rides to want to do this.

All businesses are about making money, some have done a good job or trying to prove they are family businesses or that they care deeply about their customers but they don't really- just the £££s. I obviously agree with them for those who cannot wait in queues for long periods such as those with disabilities, but yes people being able to pay for time essentially is just greed on both sides.

This is one of my favourite Mumsnet regular threads. Better than shoes on or off. Not quite as good as paying for seats together on a plane, but usually a good read.

That's not acceptable in my view. There should be three queues in that case:

Accessible
Fast track
Poor people

its a shame as i remember going to Alton Towers when 15 (so a good 30 years ago) and you could get on the main rides in a day.

Disney is mostly the same when i go, you can do most big rides if you hussle (and its not 4th july!)

But uk theme parks now seem to be - queue hours and go and 2-3 rides. the queues aren;t even interesting like say Disney, where the queue is part of the attraction. Also rides are say 2 mins, compared to longer storu based ones elsewhere.

So sadly, no more UK Theme parks for me (and i like a story based attraction over a pure rollercoaster these days)

I don't want to queue all day so wouldn't go without fast pass. I did the queues at Alton towers last year with a friend who didn't want to pay. It is not an experience I wish to repeat.

Just got back from Orlando where we had express line at universal from staying in the resort hotel. Expensive but worth it. You make the most of your day. I paid extra at Disney for 2 rides, one was worth it (the avatar ride) to make sure we got on it. The other wasn't worth it and we still queued 20 mins. In fact most of the genie plus fast pass at disney involves a 20 min queue and express line at universal is similar. I would hate to queue for 1-2 hours!!

I don't agree with having to pay to have seats together on a plane, if you've booked together as a group. It stands to reason you want to be together. It's a particularly nasty way of making money.

But probably only because of the queues. Surely if you've paid to get in you should be able to get onto all the rides without unreasonably long queues.

They're obviously letting far too many people in at a time. I've not been to one in the UK since ds was small and we went to Legoland and it wasn't too bad as it was term-time.

My grown up son and his gf had tickets booked for Alton towers and it ended up that it was a couple of days after knee surgery.
They gave him a wheelchair and he felt a bit bad at being allowed to the front of the queue , (but didn't refuse it!). But was pretty horrified at the way staff talked to him like he was a child, or only talked to his gf who was pushing the chair.

Owning a car is not the same, because there isn't usually a fixed supply of cars that car-owners are competing for. One person buying a car does not reduce the ability of anyone else to buy a car, or even make them wait longer, generally speaking. (Manufacturing capacity changes to match demand.)

Ride queue places are literally and visibly a "positional good", one person getting a better deal means everyone they queue-jump gets a worse deal. (Not saying it's wrong, I think it's OK.)

(Elite university places are another example of a positional good. If you give one person a leg up to get in, you must understand you're knocking someone else out of the place they would have had.)

I can't stand how those with purchased fast track passes are mixed in with the disability ones. Without his access pass my son wouldn't be able to go to a theme park at all.

At Legoland a couple of years ago I was in the access queue with 3 kids when the women in front told me that I must be rich to have paid for fast passes for all of us. I was biting my tongue when my then 9 year old explained beautifully calmly that we hadn't paid as her brother has a hidden disability. Other woman then told her she was "lucky". DD said she'd rather her brother was able to queue and that if she took his disability she could have his free pass. The other woman didn't know where to look!

It's greed from the theme park owners. They allow far too many people in which leads to longer queues. They then get to charge more cash for the queue jumping system. It's loose loose for the customer and just about the money for the theme park owner.

Yes, I've used them, and they make me feel uncomfortable, but as pp have said, it's just because they're an incredibly direct and obvious manifestation of the kind of privileges that I normally take for granted.