• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

2021: General Discussion

Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Kraken27 said:
Probably because of issuing hassle. The exit passes used to be handed out by a Team Leader. To have all the Team Leaders walk round with a wad of printed & dated one-shot fastrack tickets in their pocket is not environmentally friendly as they would just go in the - hopefully recycling - bin if no rides broke down that day.

If you go to one-shot fastracks that have to be manually dated by hand, you can't date them fast enough when faced with a queue of p155ed off guests who just want to move onto their next ride.
Click to expand...

They just need a ticket printer in each area, when they get extended downtime and need to issue them it can print them off. Or even some of those battery powered printers on a shoulder strap so can be brought over.

imanautie said:
It's literally just a barcode, just a photo would do.
What THORPE do is they have a massive stack of priority passes valid for a few years they can just get the manager to grab some and hand out.
Click to expand...
The post by AstroDan that started this discussion is about Alton Towers stopping using those passes that are valid all year as it causes huge Fasttrack issues on busy days because people save up the priority passes they got from breakdowns (or purchased on eBay, or a friend who works there acquired for them).

For them to work they need to be valid day of issue only so they guest who just wasted an hour can get that hour back by getting onto another ride. But if they last years they can be used later in the season (or another season) and the guest gets 2/3 hours back and the main queue grinds to a standstill.

I think they do need to offer something to those who waited more than about 45 minutes so they get that time back, but it should only be valid same day.

I got one at Disneyworld in 2016 still on paper but I think there was an expiry, maybe same month? It was useful as we had spent over an hour waiting for Frozen Ever After at the end of the night so wasn't able to ride anything else same day, but we went back later that week and used the pass on Frozen to get straight on via the Fastpass entrance.
 
Just on the note of ride breakdowns and lack of passes, when i visited last week Spinball emergency stopped whilst we were on the ride. Myself and my friends were just coming onto the last break run however there were two other cars out including one right at the top of the lift hill. Sat there for half an hour on one of the hottest days of the year and the only thing we were given was a small bottle of water once we finally got into the station.
 
pluk said:
God I wish the single shot fastracks were a lot more expensive.
Click to expand...
I do genuinely agree with that. I certainly think it should cost more as the less sold the better. But at the same time, as a matter of convenience, I wish I could just skip the queues for cheap. But obviously luxury like that doesn't come cheap
 
Rosie said:
Just on the note of ride breakdowns and lack of passes, when i visited last week Spinball emergency stopped whilst we were on the ride. Myself and my friends were just coming onto the last break run however there were two other cars out including one right at the top of the lift hill. Sat there for half an hour on one of the hottest days of the year and the only thing we were given was a small bottle of water once we finally got into the station.
Click to expand...
Bit of a joke really isn't it. The cheek to take a chunk out of guests day through no fault of their own... to then just give them some water
 
Rosie said:
Just on the note of ride breakdowns and lack of passes, when i visited last week Spinball emergency stopped whilst we were on the ride. Myself and my friends were just coming onto the last break run however there were two other cars out including one right at the top of the lift hill. Sat there for half an hour on one of the hottest days of the year and the only thing we were given was a small bottle of water once we finally got into the station.
Click to expand...
Don't know what day that was but I was there on the 5th June and it e-stopped mid-afternoon with a car on the final break run, one on the block brakes before that and one on the first block brakes (the highest ones) after the lift hill. I was in the queue and could see all of them. Within 5 minutes ride staff were offering and handing out bottles of water to the 2 cars at ground level and to everyone in the queue. Took a little longer to get to the top car before staff got to them (but I presume they were in touch via speakers on the top block brakes?) as they had to get geared up with harnesses etc. We were in the queue for about 20-30 minutes before they evac'd the queue and in that time I'd say 3 members of staff asked us if we were ok and if we wanted more water, plus announcements over the tannoy about engineers on the way, when they arrived etc.
 
jon81uk said:
For them to work they need to be valid day of issue only so they guest who just wasted an hour can get that hour back by getting onto another ride. But if they last years they can be used later in the season (or another season) and the guest gets 2/3 hours back and the main queue grinds to a standstill.
Click to expand...
This all falls into absolute irrelevance when you have RAP guests whizzing around the park waiting 15 minutes for a 100 minute queue.

Furthermore, if you're giving 100 tickets away, for example, you could argue it's less disruptive people redeeming them across the season than all on one day. But again, if you have hundreds of RAP users with free fast track, who cares, the game is lost.

* hating on the RAP system, not the RAP users.
 
Last edited:
Rick said:
This all falls into absolute irrelevance when you have RAP guests whizzing around the park waiting 15 minutes for a 100 minute queue.
Click to expand...
That is unrelated to the priority passes for ride breakdowns though.
RAP guests should be waiting 100 minutes, just not within a queue line, all it takes is for the correct return time to be written on the pass.

The RAP user still can't reuse a pass later in the season, which is the issue with the breakdown passes at the moment.
 
jon81uk said:
That is unrelated to the priority passes for ride breakdowns though.
RAP guests should be waiting 100 minutes, just not within a queue line, all it takes is for the correct return time to be written on the pass.
Click to expand...
They should, but they're not, as you know. If you're Jonny visits once a year and you're in the standby queue, your wait increases irrespective of whether it's due to RAP, someone who has experienced a breakdown and has a front of line pass or someone who has bought FT.

It's a perfect storm, but from a volume perspective, the one that is being demonised here is the least intrusive by a country mile.

jon81uk said:
The RAP user still can't reuse a pass later in the season, which is the issue with the breakdown passes at the moment.
Click to expand...
Indeed, it's worse than that - the RAP user can come every day and get instant access to rides.
 
Have they even been trained properly then if they like it when guests mix between RAP and the main queue?
 
Danscott22 said:
Have they even been trained properly then if they like it when guests mix between RAP and the main queue?
Click to expand...
No idea! It's a thing I've noticed across merlin, I assume it's just they don't want to have to deal with checking rap when it's quiet, but with me being autistic I'm going to follow my routine of rap entrances where possible.
 
Ethan said:
The people who use the main queue when it's short but RAP when it's long are just the worst
Click to expand...

Ethan said:
If you can physically go in the main queue then you shouldn't have RAP in the first place. Its supposed to be for those with disabilities
Click to expand...

I'm not autistic, but I expect for many they can wait short times just about okay, it happens often at the supermarket or elsewhere. But longer waits are a problem for some people who cannot wait in an enclosed queueline.
So if the wait for a ride is under 10/15 minutes it probably doesn't need RAP that day.

Yes some people might get a return time for a big ride and go an ride something with a short wait while the time comes round for the bigger ride. But I expect for those parents of children who genuinely would have a meltdown if they were not distracted while waiting for the ride they probably wouldn't cope.

The main problem is the ride wait times not being stuck to for RAP by the staff
The second issue is people whose don't have that major medical reason not to wait in the queueline still getting issued the pass. It's impossible to say how "bad" someone's neurodivergent condition is, but I would expect some people aren't as bad as them/their family make out to get a pass.
 
Ethan said:
If you can physically go in the main queue then you shouldn't have RAP in the first place. Its supposed to be for those with disabilities
Click to expand...
Please define what you mean by "physically go in the main queue"? If someone is disabled, Nemesis is walk on and that disabled person goes down the main queue, what is wrong with that?

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
jon81uk said:
I'm not autistic, but I expect for many they can wait short times just about okay, it happens often at the supermarket or elsewhere. But longer waits are a problem for some people who cannot wait in an enclosed queueline.
So if the wait for a ride is under 10/15 minutes it probably doesn't need RAP that day.

Yes some people might get a return time for a big ride and go an ride something with a short wait while the time comes round for the bigger ride. But I expect for those parents of children who genuinely would have a meltdown if they were not distracted while waiting for the ride they probably wouldn't cope.

The main problem is the ride wait times not being stuck to for RAP by the staff
The second issue is people whose don't have that major medical reason not to wait in the queueline still getting issued the pass. It's impossible to say how "bad" someone's neurodivergent condition is, but I would expect some people aren't as bad as them/their family make out to get a pass.
Click to expand...
Bad isn't quite the right word (but that appears you understand that), it's a tough one as conveying the contents of someones brain and how it functions isn't really viable.
 
Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Top