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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: Icon - 2018 Mack Double Launch Coaster

Icon probably would not have been built if it wasn't for the additional revenue stream from the queue jumpers though.
Wish they didn't exist, but all the parks are there to make money, not keep us geeks happy.
Hate the things, use them occasionally as I am a tortured hypocritically weakened soul with dodgy knees, but I can see me using them a lot this season with Icon opening this year.
Stick yourself in the Icon queue, then queue normally for the other rides while on the Icon virtual queue.
 
Let's see if they can achieve dispatches like that with the faffy general public! :p

Great to see it testing on 3 trains like that though, and the speeds look better than some of the other more recent videos.

:)
 
I’m not generally a fan of the Speedy Pass concept of buying your way to the front of a ride queue. In a theme park I’m not sure why one guest should be deemed more or less important than another, so phrases such as ‘VIP Pass’ really get my goat. Throwing a big pile of cash at the park doesn’t make you a VIP. You have an arse and a mouth just like everyone else. Stand in the queue and wait for your ride like everyone else has to.

Anyway, whilst I’m not a fan, I acknowledge that there are parks that do it better after visiting Portaventura, where fastrack queues merge properly and you don’t have the ridiculous BPB method of queueing up the exit ramp of a ride and stealing seats from under somebody’s nose not to mention the H&S implications. Take Avalanche for example: How can having a line of SP users queuing up the same narrow stairs that people exit the ride down possibly be a good idea? It’s only a matter of time before someone on their way down trips up, gets injured and puts a claim in.

Sure, Icon and other new rides going forward can have SP queues built into the station design, but for 80-100 year old rides such as many at BPB, it simply does not work.
And you also have EVE (entry via exit) guests as well.
 
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Look what I found on iTunes!

It sounds amazing! Go listen to it yourself!
 
Just seen Icon testing, WOW! Videos really do not do it justice, if this is not the best ride in the UK I will be very surprised indeed.

It looks like a contender for sure but it doesn't look as thrilling as Nemmy or as Intimating or as well themed.

Basing it on other Mack megas and what we've seen in testing I think it might be top 5 only for me. Although you can only really judge it after riding it a few times and that's not long away now. Next month. Wooo.
 
Nemesis just doesn't do it for me, I don't get the hype for it at all. Maybe it's because I'm an airtime and straight drop kinda guy. I'm more than confident that Icon will be my favourite ride in the country based on what I've seen.
 
Great footage. It seems to be picking up some more speed in the first half, and now that we've seen what the ride is capable of in terms of dispatch times there's no excuse for slack operations on BPB's part!

Just hoping they do a bit more with the station now.
 
There is a Speedy Pass queue. It may just be available on selected versions of Speedy Pass, like Grand National and Sky Force are.

Those 2 rides plus avalanche are only on the VIP Speedy Pass which is a whopping £50 so i'd put my house on Icon being added to that list

I'm sure avalanche was on the standard last year as i used it once in the school holidays
 
Avalanche was on the standard speedy pass however, we tried to use it this year and it wouldn't let us. When we enquired about it, they said that it had been removed from the standard speedy pass due to it being a safety issue and it would cause people to block the exit queue.
 
I think it is on basic passes on quieter days, but not on busy or crazy busy days...likewise with PMBO... It is often fully booked by late afternoon for the day.
It got very chaotic at Vampire Beach last year, the speedypass ended up with very long basic queues, when the real queueline didn't look too bad, but were actually bang on accurate due to all the speedypassers.
You can't just look at the queueline and work out how long the queue will be anymore!
 
I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I believe that whilst speedypass (regular) makes you wait the normal queue time it also only allows a limited number of people to reserve each ride in a given time window, otherwise you could end up with more than the hourly capacity of the ride trying to get on via speedypass. As a result on busy days the speedypass return time may exceed the length of the queue on certain rides.

What I do know for certain is that once the return time for any ride reaches closing time you can no longer select that ride.
 
Wow, latest ride testing footage looks great.
I can still see possessions falling out during that barrel roll. Surprised we haven't seen any netting yet.
 
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