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Farce-track

They have two choices;

1). Stop this ridiculous over-selling of Fastrack and bring queuelines back down to a short duration on a more-than-frequent basis.

2). Enhance the queueline experience dramatically so that it doesn't feel like you're wasting 3 hours of your day in a cesspit of crammed in, overheating and frustrated fellow visitors.
 
3 hours stuck in a queue is still 3 hours, nomatter what the queue looks like. The only decent thing they can do is stop selling Fastrack alltogether.
 
They should install a conveyor system like in airports, where you stand on a moving platform that snakes its way around the queue line - you just stand (or sit) there! How awesome would that be lol!!!
 
Was also on park today, operations in general were ridiculous. Goodness knows how many Rita fast tracks were sold, but we seemed to go minutes at a time this afternoon without moving at all! Add to the dispatching farce of a speed, which I wont venture into here, and it left me absolutely fuming whilst soaking wet.

Days like today, you LIMIT it sensibly, still make some money, let people choose rides they want to do a bit quicker (there are valid reasons for this at times, no question), so it is a managed consideration, right now it is a very expensive free-for-all that is seriously hindering the enjoyment of a day out.

NOT ON.
 
Complain if I were you.

I understand the park was horribly busy today.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
 
The ideal queue target will have been calculated at 45 to 60 minutes. The days of quiet, term-time days are over as they are actively seeking to increase queue times by reducing capacity and increasing the sale of Fasttracks.


-Sent from a mobile phone-
 
I agree, the more people that complain the more they may do something about it, though it seems they are very keen to get back their £18m investment by any means. Surprised car parking hasnt gone up to £14 yet to reflect each loop on the Smiler.
 
AstroDan said:
Complain if I were you.

I understand the park was horribly busy today.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
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I have every intention of doing so Dan, and indeed it was horrendously busy today, for a term time day it was just ludicrous - to be fair park close was 6pm, which means they were expecting it obviously, however the way this was dealt with was totally unacceptable.

You almost feel the park has a half and half feel, a great side, and an awful side, constantly doing battle with each other like Star Wars 15, where the dark penny pinching bean counters take on the force of great service and spirit of the Towers ;D.

It does feel like that right now though, that there are two sides, and whoever is pushing this already ridiculous fast track system into the realms of utter disgrace, which it is now, is really making the guest satisfaction suffer! They have major rides they can spread a fast track allocation across and still coin it in, without the need for what is now, pure greed. I am quick to send in letters of praise, but today was an absolute farce.
 
Why would anyone buy fastracks when they've already queued for a reasonably large period of time? What a waste of money.
 
Remember the good old days when we went to parks and just accepted other people would be there, and that we'd all have to wait for our turn?
 
The main issue with Fastrack is the complete lack of co-ordination between departments. Fastrack is sold by Sales and Info, yet the rides are managed by Park Operations. It's a pretty useless system which infuriates the ride staff who have no control over the length of their Fastrack queue. I'd imagine if the Nemesis operator or the Park Ops management knew that Sales and Info were selling Fastrack in the queueline they'd be pretty cross.

Also, to quash any conspiracy theories, ride capacity is never deliberately limited to sell more Fastrack.
 
Giving this more thought, the idea of selling fast track in the queue like that is very, very poor.

There are people who will have waited a long time to get to the front of that queue, only for a minion to appear encouraging people to skip the queue and push in front legitimately. That is a very different idea to someone considering say, a member of the party who doesn't like a certain ride or two, having to leave early, a rare trip and so Fast track is an extra treat. I am absolutely fine with that, I used one on The Smiler yesterday for this exact reason and queued for the others, another friend used one for air as they hadn't ridden it and needed to leave the park early. Again, this is where it works as an idea promoting a little bit more freedom of choice. Timed tickets worked well anyway though on busy days, they just decided to make it something they charged extortionate (and it is) prices for.

However, what we are dealing with now, is that it is almost REQUIRED to get anything near to a decent (I'd say even FAIR) ride count.

That really isn't on.
 
Alastair said:
Why would anyone buy fastracks when they've already queued for a reasonably large period of time? What a waste of money.
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The staff probably exaggerate and triple the time they've already waited to say the rest of the queue is that long. So if someone has been waiting for 30 minutes the staff member will say "the rest of the queue is an hour and a half long from here, why not skip the queue and get on the ride right now for £5 with our Fastrack ticket".

It's like the Monorail staff exaggerating the queue so they can get home earlier. Tell the guest and very OTT waiting time to get rid of them, or in this case sell them a product.

Sadly I can see a lot of people falling for it.
 
Customer Service is clearly a thing of the past. Lies, underhand tactics and greed. This wont end well, and someone at the park isnt seeing the damage its doing.
 
Ben said:
Customer Service is clearly a thing of the past. Lies, underhand tactics and greed. This wont end well, and someone at the park isnt seeing the damage its doing.
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Totally agree, seems regardless of our personal opinions on the idea of Fast Track itself, everyone (on here at least) is totally united in the utter stupidity of the present system, that just when you think it wont get worse, does.

There is an errant influence somewhere, and as you rightly say Ben, they seem totally oblivious to the impact this is having on their reputation - and the vast majority of amazing staff simply don't deserve to have their hard work negated in this fashion.

Oh the things I would do in that park!!! (er, I didn't post that in the Tavern did I?)
 
Out of interest, are there no limits anymore on the number of fast track tickets sold for each ride during the day?
 
GaryH said:
Out of interest, are there no limits anymore on the number of fast track tickets sold for each ride during the day?
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From what I can gather, the only ride that is limited fastrack wise at the moment is The Smiler. However, because that's been added to gold and platinum fastrack now, you could argue that that is no longer limited. :/
 
GaryH said:
Out of interest, are there no limits anymore on the number of fast track tickets sold for each ride during the day?
Click to expand...
No, there are limits on fastrack, and they're hugely less than they were last year (by over a thousand per ride per day in some cases).

The fastrack situation seemingly is better this year (though I completely disagree with this actual in-queue upsell initiative). Got to remember that Oblivion was down for two weeks and other rides were supplemented on their current allocations (that should be looked into really), and now we're in schools weeks which are always ridiculously busy and you're bound to have hour queues, fastrack or not.
 
In general fastrack is better than it was last year (as thefatone says), but there are still many flaws with the system!

For example when Oblivion was down, people who had fastrack for Oblivion were given it for another ride (which they should be) but if its just being written on their fastrack, the computer system knows nothing about it, meaning more fastrack is being sold/given for that ride.

Another big problem, which happened today, Smiler closed down and they gave everyone a pink pass (which lets you on another ride through fastrack entrance), this means on top of the normal fastrack sales, the park have then given fastrack to a 2-3 hour queue! This is similar to what was happening at Scarefest last season, when all hotel guests got fastrack on TH13TEEN and Oblivion, which meant these had massive fastrack and massive main queues!

Idealy all fastrack needs to be properly controlled including fastrack sold in all outlets, online, on person, giving away in guest services, or when rides break down!
 
When rides break down they should give guests other things instead of Fastrack. Such as a free tea or coffee coupon. Or a free drink coupon. Or a £1.00 off food and drink coupon.

Other parks out of the UK do this and it seems to work well. Fastrack just seems to be thrown at people at every angle (even though the Fastracks for sale have been more controlled this year).
 
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