Do UK parks have the worst queue times in Europe?

[Bowser]

Just a theory at this point but throughout the peak season it's not uncommon to see the Merlin parks with multiple rides showing queue times of 90-120 minutes or even higher, with Alton Towers and Thorpe Park being the worst culprits.

This seems far less common across Europe, with the likes of Europa and Efteling renowned for their excellent operations/low queues and even Disneyland Paris rarely reaching those heights beyond the odd ride.

I seem to recall PortAventura being quite bad, coincidentally (or not) a former Tussauds/Merlin associate but not sure how the other Spanish parks fare.

 

[shakey]

The problem with the merlin parks is they simply let too many people in for the amount of attractions they have.

 

[rob666]

Merlin isn't all uk parks.
I rarely queue for more than ten minutes on the Beach...a big part of this season's pass selection.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

I think this is just a Merlin thing. I don't think there are any other parks in the UK that suffer with queues in quite the same way. It's a combination of poorly operated rides, additional safety controls that slow down dispatch times and probably aren't necessary but that Merlin feels hamstrung by, the number of fast pass sales and the number of people using RAP. Compounded by the cheap cost of a Merlin pass guaranteeing high gate numbers on all but the most off-peak days.

 

[Bowser]

Then would it be more accurate to say "Merlin parks have the worst queue times in Europe"?

How do their non-UK parks fare?

 

[Bert2theSpark]

Not saying that this has been maliciously but whilst most UK parks have skip-the-line passes, it’s much more prevalent in the Merlin parks, relatively speaking. Fastrack actively has a lot more marketing and promotion compared to Blackpool’s Speedy Pass.

Also I suspect partially due to Merlin’s push for inclusion in their theme park operations (which is a great thing), you have more people with additional needs visiting Merlin’s portfolio, as they have consistent accessibility needs. Something which isn’t always prioritised at Blackpool or Drayton, historically speaking. I can’t speak for non-UK parks but from what I can gather Merlin is actually somewhat ahead of the curve for regional theme park operators on this one.

This means that the queues are often split between three queue lines. Which, despite efforts to manage the ratio of guests going through, will result in the main queue line moving at a slower pace. Add the fact that Thorpe and Towers are generally more reliant on their anchor attractions as a draw for capacity, and Chessington just being a mess with low capacity attractions.

We’re seeing Towers attempting to fix these historic issues, with the Skyride returning next season and the introduction of Toxicator. But these changes will only curb the issue from getting substantially worse, and they evidently need to continue in this direction before we start to see these things improve. Previous attempts by previous management were to introduce the Retro Squad, partially to try and argue for the need for these supporting attractions.

 

[flyingguitar]

looking at some data alton towers isn't too far off:

I chose 3 random european parks on queuetimes.com and compared their rides all time average queue times against alton towers:
Europa:
peak one is voltron with 45mins (new ride to be expected) then Woodan and 3 rides at arround 30-25mins then about 4 rides in the 20 min mark then the rest averaging less

Walibi holland:
untaimed at 42mins, lost gravity at 35mins, goliath, speed of sound, xpress and condor arround 25mins, then 20 mins for 3 rides and dropping bellow that

Disneyland paris (castle park):
no meet and greets: big thunder, train station and peter pan at around 40mins, then 30 mins for more train stations, buzz, autopia space mountain then arround 25-20 mins for a lot of other rides

Alton towers:
wickerman and smiler at 45mins, then 13 at 35 mins, then rita, gal, get set go and spinball at 30mins, then octonaughts, river rapids & RMT arround 25mins then, oblivion sub terror, reborn at arround 20 mins.

I think 2 things could be at play:
not many queue lines are extremely well themed (like what you'd see in Europe) so it can mean less to look at and it feeling like it takes longer, also not many queues under cover, in heat or rain it can also feel like it takes a while.

not many extremely high throughput rides, the highest is obliv at 1800pph, but it can rarely achieve that due to the bagage hold slowing loading to a crawl, and this can make the queue feel like it crawls. add on the RAP and fast pass it can reduce the queue speeds.

Alton is similar to a lot of europe, with their main rides (smiler and wickerman) arround 45mins, then the rest of their big rides around 35-30 mins.

 

[Bowser]

Also I suspect partially due to Merlin’s push for inclusion in their theme park operations (which is a great thing), you have more people with additional needs visiting Merlin’s portfolio, as they have consistent accessibility needs. Something which isn’t always prioritised at Blackpool or Drayton, historically speaking. I can’t speak for non-UK parks but from what I can gather Merlin is actually somewhat ahead of the curve for regional theme park operators on this one.

This means that the queues are often split between three queue lines. Which, despite efforts to manage the ratio of guests going through, will result in the main queue line moving at a slower pace. Add the fact that Thorpe and Towers are generally more reliant on their anchor attractions as a draw for capacity, and Chessington just being a mess with low capacity attractions.

I think RAP gets allocated a disproportionate share of the blame. I haven't been to Blackpool but Drayton and Paultons operate essentially the same system with the exact same qualifications for access but with no detrimental impact on park operations. Drayton don't even have a time out on their system. Notably Paulton's don't have a FastTrack system either (and i gather Drayton's has very low user numbers). RAP has become a self fulfilling prophecy for Merlin because the parks queue times were already so dire that increasing numbers of people who could otherwise manage are unable to do so.

Similarly the parks have disincentivised themselves from dramatically improving this because like you say FastTrack has become so lucrative.

I chose 3 random european parks on queuetimes.com and compared their rides all time average queue times against alton towers:

Interesting! I do wonder if there are other variables at play here though, eg Disneyland doesn't really have an off peak season hence the averages are truly that whereas Alton Towers does so whilst someone visiting on a Wednesday in September might luck out with a day of short queues, the real life experience for most visitors will be well above average.

 

[flyingguitar]

Interesting! I do wonder if there are other variables at play here though, eg Disneyland doesn't really have an off peak season hence the averages are truly that whereas Alton Towers does so whilst someone visiting on a Wednesday in September might luck out with a day of short queues, the real life experience for most visitors will be well above average.

did some more digging:
average maximum queue times for a few was interesting:
alton towers had wickerman at 70mins, smiler at 65mins, then 13, gal and rita at 55mins and spinball at 50, then oblivion, sub terror, get set go & octonaughts at 40 and reborn, RMT and river rapids at 35mins

Disney was very similar to Alton (ignoring the meet and greets) with most key rides being around 40-70mins
europa was better with most being arround 40-50mins (voltron was 63mins, but it is new so nor much data)
walibi holland was also similar with keyrides varieing from 70-50mins

 

[Bowser]

did some more digging:
average maximum queue times for a few was interesting:
alton towers had wickerman at 70mins, smiler at 65mins, then 13, gal and rita at 55mins and spinball at 50, then oblivion, sub terror, get set go & octonaughts at 40 and reborn, RMT and river rapids at 35mins

Disney was very similar to Alton (ignoring the meet and greets) with most key rides being around 40-70mins
europa was better with most being arround 40-50mins (voltron was 63mins, but it is new so nor much data)
walibi holland was also similar with keyrides varieing from 70-50mins

I suppose another issue would be Europa and Disneyland have a plethora of other attractions with shorter queues (to the point they typically require multi-day visits) whereas the real life experience of Merlin is spending the day in long queues for a handful of attractions.

 

[flyingguitar]

not many queue lines are extremely well themed (like what you'd see in Europe) so it can mean less to look at and it feeling like it takes longer, also not many queues under cover, in heat or rain it can also feel like it takes a while.

Had another thought about this, and realised something.
we probably all go to Alton more often than the European parks.
we can probably describe in detail each queue line and since we have seen it, they become much less interesting to us as we already know xyz detail, there isn't much more for us to see unlike a brand new European park, we have never/rarely seen before, everything is unique with stuff you haven seen, thus you may notice the time less as you are spending more time taking in the surroundings.

 

[owenstreet7]

I think we may need to compare the Merlin parks to other similar operators in Europe such as the Walibis. That will give us a better comparison of whether Merlin parks have the worst queues in Europe.

The one thing I have noticed with Merlin that stands out is the amount of fast track that is sold at the parks and the perception that there is more RAP users than the other parks despite other parks with similar criteria having less queues in RAP. I think it is a byproduct of the park's capacity and operations which the parks struggle to cope with the main queue, RAP and fast track.

In addition, it does seem that the queues of Merlin seems to have been normalised in the UK so we expect Merlin queues of 60-120+ mins everywhere.

 

[Matt N]

Maybe I don’t go during “peak” enough season (I’m basing this off of summer holiday and weekend visits I’ve had in recent years, as well as some odd occasions where I’ve observed the queue times), but from my personal experiences (taking into account all the caveats that come with that), I would say that 90-120 minute queues across the board at Alton and Thorpe are by no means par for the course on a “regular” weekend or holiday day.

They’re not unheard of by any stretch of the imagination, but I do feel that the issue of “widespread 90-120 minute queues” at Alton et al is quite strongly overexaggerated on here at times. I have never personally seen this predicament outside of a phenomenally high-ranking day in terms of high crowds and/or poor ride availability (e.g. school trip season, Alton After Dark on 23rd March 2024).

On a usual weekend or holiday day for me, I can go to Alton or Thorpe and have many major ride queues on the park be 60 minutes or less. Granted, I’ve never attended during Halloween (although again, I would call October half term a phenomenally high-ranking period in terms of crowds), but I have attended at weekends and over the summer holidays numerous times, and I would not say that the experience of 60+ minute queues across the board on an average weekend or holiday day mentioned in the opening post reflects my personal experiences.

Based on the more limited number of visits I’ve had to Chessington and Legoland, I would maybe say queues at those two (particularly Chessington) are a little bit worse than at Alton or Thorpe, but even then, I would not say the experiences I’ve had at those two reflect the sort of experience mentioned in the opening post.

Linking to the title of the thread; I’m not sure the Merlin parks necessarily have the longest queue times of any park I’ve been to. I would say that Walt Disney World (admittedly America rather than Europe) often has major queues at least as long, if not longer, than those of a typical Merlin park, as an example.

As it’s been raised as a case study of another park with ostensibly long queues, I also wouldn't have said that PortAventura’s queues were nearly as bad as is often made out, based on my one experience there in September that encompassed a Catalonian public holiday in the middle, with me waiting no longer than 60 minutes for anything all trip and often getting 10+ rides per day in without using Express. I wouldn’t have necessarily said that PortAventura’s queues were that much better than Merlin on a typical day per se, but I’d argue that there was a much greater amount of rides on a very short queue than you’d typically find in a Merlin park, with the likes of El Diablo, Stampida, Street Mission and the water rides rarely exceeding 20 minutes.

 

[flyingguitar]

Europe such as the Walibis

I have done walibi holland above, and it was similar to alton but for completeness:

I am not sure on what the popular rides are so here is the data:
Belgum:
average queue time (left) average max queue time (right):

overall I would say the average and average maximum is probably about 10 mins less than alton,

Rhône-Alpes:
average queue time (left) average max queue time (right):

overall I would say the average and average maximum is probably about 20 mins less than Alton.

whilst they are both better than Alton Belgium isn't too far off the figures seen from Alton, and Rhône-Alpes dose have better queue times, but it isn't drastically less compared to alton.

Maybe I don’t go during “peak” enough season (I’m basing this off of summer holiday and weekend visits I’ve had in recent years, as well as some odd occasions where I’ve observed the queue times), but from my personal experiences (taking into account all the caveats that come with that), I would say that 90-120 minute queues across the board at Alton and Thorpe are by no means par for the course on a “regular” weekend or holiday day.

I tend to go on Sundays as it is more quiet, but I would agree apart from end of scare fest and a couple days in summer the most you would see is probably between 40-50mins (although wicker man was always at like 40 mins) and often it was more like 20 mins.

 

[Dave]

It’s incredibly variable in Europe, sure the likes of EP are amazing but even Phantasia can be ropey with operations (ride for ride I would say Towers is better than PL but Towers have more guests per ride on many days and up time has been poor this year).

 

[Bowser]

Had another thought about this, and realised something.
we probably all go to Alton more often than the European parks.
we can probably describe in detail each queue line and since we have seen it, they become much less interesting to us as we already know xyz detail, there isn't much more for us to see unlike a brand new European park, we have never/rarely seen before, everything is unique with stuff you haven seen, thus you may notice the time less as you are spending more time taking in the surroundings.

My crime is I spend a lot of time checking out queue times for parks I’m not at (albeit in the name of research), that’s one of the things that prompted the thread as I’ve anecdotally never seen queue times like Merlin’s anywhere else in Europe. I typically have a glance most days (today was an excellent day to visit most operating parks you will not be surprised to learn).

I think we may need to compare the Merlin parks to other similar operators in Europe such as the Walibis. That will give us a better comparison of whether Merlin parks have the worst queues in Europe.

I think this is a good point as currently we are only really comparing data with the top tier European parks, though supposedly Merlin fall into that category.

Also another issue with the Queue Time site is some parks times are only available on location so I’m not sure how accurate the data is.

Maybe I don’t go during “peak” enough season (I’m basing this off of summer holiday and weekend visits I’ve had in recent years, as well as some odd occasions where I’ve observed the queue times), but from my personal experiences (taking into account all the caveats that come with that), I would say that 90-120 minute queues across the board at Alton and Thorpe are by no means par for the course on a “regular” weekend or holiday day.

Conversely and equally anecdotally, I’ve never been in a mainline queue at AT as I’ve never seen a line below 45 minutes (except The Curse and Hex).

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

If you would like an objective answer to this question, one can be given with a bit of grunt work.

At the moment people have only compared a few UK parks to parks on the whole continent, which is not the question.

Step one is to define which countries were comparing. All European countries, or just the EU member states and the UK?

Step two is to define what we're constituting as a park / theme park. Are you counting amusement parks? Are we counting parks which cater to a very young audience? I'd propose splitting this into categories for further comparison later.

Step three would be defining the list of the Top 10 most visited parks in each country.

Step four would be defining a list of rides for each park. Are we keeping this to coasters exclusively, are we including flat rides too? Are we comparing flat rides against disasters, or like against like? Perhaps go for the Top 10 attractions at each park.

Step five would then be getting the queue time information for each attraction at each park. Which year are we getting information for, are we looking at 2024, or do we want an historical overview? Are we going for average max peak queue, or average queue?

Step 6 is crunching the data and creating some pretty graphs.

Step 7 is to analyse and present your findings.

Usually I'd farm this out to @Matt N, but he's possibly a little busy these days with his Masters and running PlanCo competitions. I may take a whack in the weekend, I may forget. It certainly beats anecdotal accounts though.

 

[John_P]

The bigger issue is the UK parks awful opening times. A hour long queue at Alton Towers on a 10am-4pm is much more time consuming than a 1 hour queue at say Europa Park with its minimum operating hours of 9am-6pm.
(plus if you're quick you could ride the flying theatre, and the two dark rides in the Italy plaza before rope drop at 9am).

 

[Enter Valhalla]

Having visited theme parks in every continent, I’d say that Europe on the whole actually has some of the most pleasant queue times in the world (with the parks still being commercially successful).

The UK seems to be a bit of an anomaly with longer queues than most of Europe, but this never used to be the case. Merlin queue times have got a lot worse in the past ten years from my experience.

Some other anomalies in Europe which seem to consistently, from my experience, have longer queues than your average European parks, include:

- Disneyland Paris: no explanation needed, Disney parks aren’t like other theme parks

- Parc Asterix: always seems to have pretty sizeable queues, more similar in length to how the UK parks usually are

- PortAventura: also seems to have above average queue times for Europe. Like with UK Merlin parks, their queues seem to have got worse in recent years, perhaps because of increased fast track sales and shorter opening hours than in the past.

Merlin parks outside of the UK tend to have much shorter queue times. A particularly interesting comparison is Legoland Windsor compared with Legoland Billund. Windsor always seems to get longer queue times despite Billund’s attendance being higher. Operations and ride capacities count for a lot in my opinion.

 

[rob666]

Having visited theme parks in every continent...

Those parks in Antarctica must have been pretty nippy.
I don't think Penguin Trek counts.