Do UK parks have the worst queue times in Europe?

[Smiley]

What irks me most is that 4-abreast rides often running at 80% occupancy. Air, Nemesis, Inferno spring to mind - always plenty of empty seats because the batch loading is so bad (due to lack of staff). Compare to e.g. Saw where almost 100% due to staff and SRQ. So it CAN be done!

Every empty seat adds to a queue. It's not a new problem, and batching helps for some rides. But really it requires the theme parks to be interested in solving it...

 

[Enter Valhalla]

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

Fair point. I’ll re-phrase that to ‘theme parks in every continent that has them’

Got to get these things right.

 

[Bowser]

Fair point. I’ll re-phrase that to ‘theme parks in every continent that has them’

Got to get these things right.

What parks have you been to in Africa and South America out of interest?

 

[Enter Valhalla]

What parks have you been to in Africa and South America out of interest?

Gold Reef City in Johannesburg and Hopi Hari in Brazil.

Also some in Mexico but I’m not sure if Mexico is classed as north or South America?

 

[neil_wilson]

I normally post under a different name. I work in the industry and although I wouldn’t share anything confidential, I don’t want my opinions about anything reflect on who I work for. But having written some books about queues, throughputs and capacities (the Absolute Efficiency series) I thought I’d post this one under my real name.

I don’t think there’s any way of objectively measuring the ‘worst’ queue times in Europe. There are lots of ways you could try to do it but there are so many variables you’d never get something that fully reflected the issue.

Firstly you’ve got to compare apples with apples. Are you trying to find similar parks (e.g. the different Legolands), similar sized parks (e.g. parks that get a million visitors a year) or similar rides (e.g. comparing wild mouse coasters at different parks)? And what are you comparing? For example are you comparing queues on the busiest day of the year, an average of the 10 busiest days, an average of the 20 busiest days…? Or are you analysing something else, such as the rate of complaints about queues in Trip Advisor reviews?

Whatever you do is going to be a bit flawed, for example even if you compared waiting times on different wild mouse coasters, they’re going to have different levels of theming, be in different areas of their respective parks etc. It won’t be a complete ‘apples with apples’ comparison.

Also are you just looking at the standby lines or factoring in waiting times with things like Ride Access Passes?

Whilst it’s impossible to precisely rank European countries for queues, I do believe the UK is at the worse end of the spectrum.

There are a lot of variables at play here. For example:

• School holiday patterns. The UK certain has one of the shorter summer holidays in Europe, although to be fair, things do tend to balance out more over the course of a year.
• The international mix of visitors. This is probably a key one. For example, I used to work on Vampire at Chessington. At the time we had to have a minimum of 6 riders so the train had enough weight to make it round the track. There were days when on one train operation we were having to wait for more guests before we could send the train. On the busiest days we had a 3 hour queue. When I worked on Silver Star the queue generally ranged between 20-40 minutes, although it did occasionally go above or below that. There are lots of reasons for that, but it helped that Europa Park got a very international mix of visitors, meaning visitors were following different holiday patterns (chiefly France, Germany and Switzerland), whereas Chessington’s visitors were mostly following England’s school holiday patterns (although there are some differences, such as between private and state schools).
• Weather patterns. Every country has variations in weather patterns and in any country people are more likely to visit when there’s a positive forecast. But perhaps the UK is affected more than some countries by visitors targeting their visits on a relatively small number of days with positive forecasts.
• The age at which children start school, as parents with pre-school aged children are less likely to be tied to school holidays. Also, the percentage of children where both parents work full time.
• Where there’s a culture of adults without children visiting theme parks, as these are also less likely to be tied to holidays.
• The balance between opening on more days and opening on fewer days for longer hours

All of these things affect the distribution of guests. In terms of the standby line the uptake of Fast Track style schemes, and Ride Access Pass style schemes definitely has an impact. As do attitudes towards health and safety and the interpretation of it, the cultural balance between ‘guest service’ and efficiency, and the availability of qualified engineers in that country.

I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom. For example, the UK does have a short school summer holiday compared to many other European countries, but we have been effective at shifting attendance away from the summer, particularly around Halloween, and the UK parks have also been effective at attracting school visits, particularly before the summer holiday.

The issue of visits at UK parks being clustered around positive weather forecasts isn’t a new one, and parks have tried a number of solutions, such as rain checks, advance booking discounts and dynamic pricing, as well as weather proofing by design (such as more undercover areas), but I’d say the issue persists

The UK industry does seem to be generally aware that a shortage of engineers can be exacerbating waiting times, which may be a factor in things like Merlin’s new Engineering Academy.

The UK attractions industry is aware of some of the issues, although some parks are aware of the problems more than others, and these are generally the ones that have done a better job of addressing them. I do think on the whole the UK parks do face some clear challenges. In particular, I do think parks near the border of different countries can have a clear advantage and that’s a factor in Europa Park’s success which often isn’t talked about.

 

[Bowser]

Also some in Mexico but I’m not sure if Mexico is classed as north or South America?

North America.

The issue of visits at UK parks being clustered around positive weather forecasts isn’t a new one, and parks have tried a number of solutions, such as rain checks, advance booking discounts and dynamic pricing, as well as weather proofing by design (such as more undercover areas), but I’d say the issue persists

Thanks for the post! On this point in particular, it's an issue that's been mentioned many times but as ever, the obvious solution is the one tried the least... indoor attractions! It still baffles me the distinct lack of options in the UK on this front, particularly at the parks most affected by adverse weather conditions. Is it purely a cost issue? The parks with the most indoor attractions are Disney and Universal (honourable mentions also to Legoland and Efteling) which suggests budgetary concerns play a large role.

There's also the fact that European parks seem to have constructed their outdoor rides that are more tolerant to poor weather than the UK (eg Europa and Energylandia). I'm not sure if they are outliers or there's some other historical reason for this but it all contributes to the overall picture in terms of queues.

 

[Smiley]

The UK attractions industry is aware of some of the issues, although some parks are aware of the problems more than others, and these are generally the ones that have done a better job of addressing them.

Perhaps they could buy some copies of your books . None of what you said addresses my issue: fewer staff = longer queues. Longer loading/checking times, poor load management, fewer trains on tracks (perhaps due to long maintenance times), lack of investment in tech to help manage queues,......

If you ran an airline like this you would go bust in a week. And yet this is how (at least) UK theme parks - and Merlin in particular - are run. They believe adding £1-2 on the cost of a ticket will break their business model - yet what's the ACTUAL cost of visiting a theme park?? Day off work, travel, (poor quality) food and drink, accommodation, car PARKING...

I've no idea what management are thinking, but like airlines you're in it for the long-haul (sorry, couldn't resist). And that means great experiences and repeat business. No-one cares if they've paid £30 or £35 for a ticket if they've spent all day queuing for 6 minutes of ride time.

 

[flyingguitar]

Perhaps they could buy some copies of your books . None of what you said addresses my issue: fewer staff = longer queues. Longer loading/checking times, poor load management, fewer trains on tracks (perhaps due to long maintenance times), lack of investment in tech to help manage queues,......

he wasn't directly replying to you though, it was a general statement about the wider UK theme park industry with some good points (for instance it can get very busy on a good day, but be quiet on a rainy day), or that Europe has different summer holidays spreading out demand.

What irks me most is that 4-abreast rides often running at 80% occupancy. Air, Nemesis, Inferno spring to mind - always plenty of empty seats because the batch loading is so bad (due to lack of staff). Compare to e.g. Saw where almost 100% due to staff and SRQ. So it CAN be done!

Every empty seat adds to a queue. It's not a new problem, and batching helps for some rides. But really it requires the theme parks to be interested in solving it...

I would argue that 80% occupancy is pretty extreme, normally (apart from gal, which often dose have poor occupancy) I see the trains at least 95% full

it dose irk me too seeing empty seats in vehicles and thinking it could be improved, I think you should consider how it can be improved.

Often what you are talking about is a new queue being added in addition to the ones existent, this takes time but they are doing something about this, spinball and 13 have received SRQ's this past year.

one thing is also a lot of rides had SRQ but they were replaced with RAP making the rides more accessible to those who can't queue

Rides are also a weird thing and you also have to consider the impact adding the SRQ may have on capacity. Nemesis did have a SRQ but it dropped capacity because of how it had to be done (entering via what is currently the disabled entrance)

The staff point is a bit of a different one, many rides have one row sorter?? permanently (the smiler, wicker man, rita, oblivion) only Nemesis and Gal don't have one permanently and often they probably aren't needed, on a regular day the smiler could be at like 40 mins Nemesis can be at like 15 mins, they don't really need one for that, on more busy days they will and often they do gain a couple people. although the skyride may allow for guests to circulate quicker and allow for the queues to spread out more.

Galactica can be quite quiet as well, but it is more dependant on the trains running.

I can't recall if 13 dose have one permanently or not after the SRQ being added, but I haven't seen it without one since.

 

[Benzin]

A 3 hour queue for Vampire? If that was in more recent times I utterly dread to think how awful that day would've been.

A lot of the time unless you have a dedicated batcher or well organised SRQ empty seats just happen. My time on Vampire (especially on 3 trains) the time it often took for people to fill it up would lead to trains stacking on top of lift 2 or the brakes. Absolutely not worth the faff when you have 30 seconds to get people off and on.

It comes down to sensible design, rather than trying to fit systems in. The SRQ on Dragon's Fury was bloody awful for space up the exit ramp.

As an aside, I could probably watch the batching for Danse Macabre all day. Granted they get help with a tablet, but it's still a lot of brain work and mental maths to ensure it gets filled up.

Also once saw at Europa the Blue Fire op was absolutely pissed at the batcher being useless (and he really was), so they swapped staff to someone who could actually do it. Amused me.

 

[djtruefitt]

I definitely agree that bad design doesn’t help a lot of Merlin’s rides. They are clearly designed by people who don’t ride them or done care for capacity. Things like the queue after wicker man preshow, mandrills whole farce not opening the station gates until the train arrives. Etc. all of these things can slow throughput down. Baggage systems abroad can often be better to than what we often have in the UK.

 

[Bowser]

I definitely agree that bad design doesn’t help a lot of Merlin’s rides. They are clearly designed by people who don’t ride them or done care for capacity. Things like the queue after wicker man preshow, mandrills whole farce not opening the station gates until the train arrives. Etc. all of these things can slow throughput down. Baggage systems abroad can often be better to than what we often have in the UK.

Wickerman annoys me the most because it could be so easily improved by turning the merge point into a single queue.

Alas post show is a lost cause.

Mandrill at least modified the gates after the first year.

 

[djtruefitt]

Wickerman annoys me the most because it could be so easily improved by turning the merge point into a single queue.

Alas post show is a lost cause.

Mandrill at least modified the gates after the first year.

But even now Madrill has the gate after the batcher where the batcher has to awkwardly push past everyone to open it into the station for now reason now. But the throughput is that bad it doesn’t really matter on that ride. But you could easily double batch in the station if you wanted.

 

[owenstreet7]

I definitely agree that bad design doesn’t help a lot of Merlin’s rides. They are clearly designed by people who don’t ride them or done care for capacity. Things like the queue after wicker man preshow, mandrills whole farce not opening the station gates until the train arrives. Etc. all of these things can slow throughput down. Baggage systems abroad can often be better to than what we often have in the UK.

Completely agree, I'd love to see Merlin invest in some locker systems along the lines of FLY.

Stealth is in desperate need of one of these

 

[Bowser]

But even now Madrill has the gate after the batcher where the batcher has to awkwardly push past everyone to open it into the station for now reason now. But the throughput is that bad it doesn’t really matter on that ride. But you could easily double batch in the station if you wanted.

They tend to leave that open now, ask people to wait and double batch, one group by the air-gates regardless of what the train is doing (my son loves seeing it whizz past on the launch) and one batch on the numbers.

Or sometimes they do use the gate but still double batch. Both scenarios result in the same throughput.

Mandrill never has an awful queue (QueueTimes says average is 29 minutes). Get the impression it’s too intimidating.

 

[flyingguitar]

Completely agree, I'd love to see Merlin invest in some locker systems along the lines of FLY.

Stealth is in desperate need of one of these

I haven't seen the FLY lockers, are they similar to universal (a romm where you have 2 sided lockers and put your park pass in to unlock one side then so the same when exiting.)

I think swarm needs something for baggage more, it use to have a baggage clam but I don't know how long it has been since they used that and it adds so much time in the station with people fafing around with bags.

 

[owenstreet7]

I haven't seen the FLY lockers, are they similar to universal (a romm where you have 2 sided lockers and put your park pass in to unlock one side then so the same when exiting.)

I think swarm needs something for baggage more, it use to have a baggage clam but I don't know how long it has been since they used that and it adds so much time in the station with people fafing around with bags.

They're exactly that - FLY, Voltron and Arthur have lockers that card, use a locker, lock it one side, go on the ride and exit the other side.

I personally think Swarm needs pre-batching. Their free for all batching is an absolute shambles and makes operations worse.

The bags I'd say ideally needs lockers or a baggage hold however it's not as much of a detriment as the current queuing system is.

Mandrill Mayhem is better organised with it's batching and operations.

 

[flyingguitar]

The bags I'd say ideally needs lockers or a baggage hold however it's not as much of a detriment as the current queuing system is.

I recall it being quite bad, you had like 50 secs in the station just waiting for people to mess with their bags (because how the station is set up with its exit, it means there is a lot of people crossing past each other, and if people are stopping to place/pick up bags it stops everyone

 

[Bowser]

I recall it being quite bad, you had like 50 secs in the station just waiting for people to mess with their bags (because how the station is set up with its exit, it means there is a lot of people crossing past each other, and if people are stopping to place/pick up bags it stops everyone

The worst I’ve seen is Harry Potter at USJ. It’s themed like an old British school locker room and people from both merge points plus riders disembarking all converge so there are dozens of people fighting for locker access simultaneously then trying to find the entrance or exit.

It’s very untypical Japanese behaviour! I’m fairly sure you could re-ride indefinitely too if you wanted, though that would be distinctly not Japanese.

 

[John]

It's been years since I visited but the way it used to work was that when entering the locker area from the queue you were handed a safety instructions card which you had to give back to a staff member in order to go through to the station. In theory this meant you couldn't go round again.

The issue with Swarm seems to be that they just don't open the gates for ages, I'm not convinced the closure of the bag room is entirely to blame for that one. I'd like to see the one on Saw close as it seems more of a hinderance than a help, Stealth runs fine without one.

 

[Bowser]

It's been years since I visited but the way it used to work was that when entering the locker area from the queue you were handed a safety instructions card which you had to give back to a staff member in order to go through to the station. In theory this meant you couldn't go round again.

That does sound vaguely familiar now you mention it. I was also the only foreigner in my group so plausible one of my friends took it on my behalf. Scheme foiled.