To think 2 hours queuing times is wrong at Merlin?

[ToBeOrNotToB]

We went to Chessington Howl’oween. The queues for most of the big ticket rides were 2 hours long all day. Some were 90mins. We went on 3 big rides in total. Shouldn’t theme parks limit number of visitors to guarantee better value for money? (It costs over £100 for a family of four to visit).

I understand your position, you’re keen to get your say across but I have to disagree with what you say. I expect value. And no, it’s not at all like complaining about Cornwall at peak times. I’m paying for an experience that was limited at best

Yeah, but that was mostly your own fault really, lol. Big events at theme parks are ALWAYS going to be poor value for money - common sense would have told you that. But you chose to go anyway - that's not Merlin's problem.

I went a few years ago in June (term time) did 3 days - 2 in legoland and 1 in Windsor we had a fantastic time. Last year in august was horrendous. We did barely anything. It's when you go really.

Seriously all the issues around theme parks and you are going with them being accessible for disabled people? Wow what a hateful person you are.

And to be clear even with passes , disabled people still typically have to queue and are often limited in the number of rides they can access per day. They don't come out of the day any better off than any other person accessing a theme park.

Yes hopefully we will try and go when it’s term time. Otherwise I don’t think it would be worth it.

during term time on weekdays, the waiting time for the rides is only 10-30 mins.
school trip is not the same story.

Not just UK theme parks - I went to PortAventura a few years ago and queued 3 hours for one of the rides. It was rubbish. Boiling hot too!

I really hate the car park system.
very stupid, they should have improved it.
we went to Legoland a few times this year.
took us 30-60 mins to get out of the car park.
they closed at 7 pm, and we are about to leave at 5 pm, but still have to wait 45mins!!!

people know it will be very busy and have queues.
but not expecting 2-hour queues.
IMO, 1 hour is already a long waiting.

op is talking about the park being overcrowded.

For the record OP I don't think you're being silly or unreasonable!

As a child I went to Paulton's Park a fair bit as we were local to there, did Legoland twice and Thorpe Park a couple of times too. So have some awareness of theme parks etc.

Our 5 year old son is absolutely obsessed with Lego, so he's been begging to go to Legoland ever since he found out that it exists. I booked tickets for us to to tomorrow as it's half term where we are but not in England and I figured this would mean it was quiet. Little did I know that there are lots of schools on inset tomorrow so I'm actually feeling quite stressed and anxious about it given the utter horror stories I've read about this week - people queuing 2 hours for every ride, then queueing for 1.5-2 hours to get out of the car park at the end of the day (I've subsequently begrudgingly paid £13 for "priority" parking as I'm really afraid of being stuck there with two young children and a 2.5 hour journey home ahead of us. We can't afford a hotel to stay down there, nor can we afford any form of their many fast passes (which I have real issues with like OP). I keep telling myself my son will really just be happy to look at Lego and go on the Ninjago ride... But I swear it's not looking like the fun family days out that I remember as a child! Wish us luck 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

@mummabubs Thanks for your kind words and good luck tomorrow. The model village is lovely at Legoland if it all gets too much.

Thank you @ToBeOrNotToB 😊 x

We went to Thorpe park a few years ago - it was a few days before main summer holidays and it was heaving. We spent an hour queuing for even a medium ride, so we decided to shell out on fast passes, but the queue for them was about 30 minutes. So I went to customer services and asked for my money back - they then gave me fast passes to 6 rides to get rid of me and not refund!

We went to Disney this week and most rides were 2 to 3 hours. We ended up buying 3 fast tracks which cost 500 euros for 1 ride each on 12 rides just to get on,

Just came back from Thorpe Park Fright Night. I must say it was not as bad as I had expected and we managed to get on about 10 rides plus some of the mazes and we didn't even arrive that early. We came around 12pm and stayed until closing. Fast passes on the big popular rides (except Saw) were definitely necessary though.

We used fast passes for Nemesis, Walking Dead and Swarm, but for Saw it was much quicker to join the single rider queue than the fast pass queue, so it was a waste of money buying a fast pass for Saw. Everything else we did without any fast passes and the queues moved fairly quickly (35mins maximum wait).

Legoland is lovely and not that bad for queuing. But if you can get the cheapest form of the fast pass (the one that tells you when to go to the ride to avoid the queue, you will have an amazing time. I'm really sad my daughter is too old for Legoland now. She used to LOVE it!

I'm 'lucky' with theme parks as I'm disabled and get to skip the queues, and honestly the only way to do it is to buy the queue jump passes.

We went to Blackpool at the end of august and, without my disabled pass, we were looking at 60-90 minute queues per ride. With the pass I waited maybe 10 minutes at most. Those who buy the fast passes follow the same queue as the disabled, so they wait about the same.

It's not right, but the theme parks won't limit numbers because they want as much money as possible.

Chessington is the worst for queuing and customer service in my opinion. We also stayed in the hotel a few years ago and the fast pass tickets did absolutely nothing to minimise queuing and most staff were so rude! It's such a shame, as I love Chessington (both zoo and theme park rides) but I really don't want to return.

@nothingcomestonothing gosh, is that how the disabled passes work in Chessington?!

When I was in Blackpool I waited no more than 10 minutes with my disabled pass, they wrote a time (20 minutes later) on the pass and that was when we could go to our next ride.
Sometimes they didn't even write the time so we could go from one ride to another.

No booking rides, no waiting for 45 minutes.. good job because waiting that long would have had me going home after one ride.

Honestly, I am struggling to think of anything I would be willing to queue for 2 hours for. I just don't think there is anything.

@XelaM Thanks for your reply 😊 I vaguely remember loving it as a child too, so fingers crossed it's not so busy that it ruins it. Unfortunately we can't afford even the cheapest priority ride access (this would cost us an additional £140), never mind the more expensive ones. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Same. Given how short they are it really doesn't feel worth it. Unfortunately when you've got young children it's hard to explain the queue vs ride duration dilemma 🤣

I won’t ever buy fast passes because I disagree with them in principle. I can queue up but I feel 60/75min queues should be the limit. 2 hours means for a 6 hour day, you get in 3 rides plus you need to eat. It’s not good value and I guess that’s why I started this conversation. Should Merlin have more of a care about the guest experience? I can’t think of many other businesses that could get away with it.

They “get away with it” because most people know that Halloween is one of the busiest time of year for the theme parks and have their expectations set accordingly (and buy fast passes if riding all the big rides is important to them). So most people’s experience is either good or in line with what they expected, so they keep returning. I’m not sure about Chessington, but Alton Towers we’re selling out of tickets this year, so why change what’s working for them? I’d love to go to Alton Towers Scarefest one year, but I’d be going for the atmosphere and to enjoy the event, not to ride all the rollercoasters, because that’s just not going to happen at peak time.

If I want to get ‘value for money’ then I’d do what I did earlier this year and visit on a midweek in spring outside the school holidays. I’d ridden all the major rides at least once, and most of the minor ones I wanted to within 2.5 hours and at one point the queues for everything were 0 minutes. I left before park close because I was done. I wouldn’t expect a similar experience at a peak time.

ObjectionSustained that's how the disabled passes work at all Merlin parks. At Legoland (my DC are too old really but still do like it) the time you're 'locked out' is much shorter, I've never been to Chessington before so expected it to be 30-40 minutes max, not 1 1/2-2 hours per ride. It's done on an app on your phone and you don't see the time you will be 'locked out' until after you've been on the ride, so no staff to fudge the time or anyone to negotiate with. It makes it hard to plan.

buy fast passes if riding all the big rides is important to them. As I said yesterday, we had a pass, and still had very long waits.

I wouldn’t expect a similar experience at a peak time. OP said she didn't expect that experience at peak time, but she also didn't expect 2 hour queues for every ride all day. She didn't ask if SWBU to expect no queues in peak time, she asked whether the duration of queues was reasonable.