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Efficiency or interaction; which do you prefer to be emphasised within ride operations?

Efficiency or interaction; which do you prefer to be emphasised within ride operations?


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Matt N

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Hi guys. Ride operations are a very important element of theme parks; how they are influences how much the ride queues move, and they can indirectly influence the sort of experience guests have. There are arguably two main things you can prioritise when operating rides, and they are efficiency and interaction.

Different parks will prioritise a different one of these things.

A famous example of a park that prioritises efficiency is Europa Park. The sole objective of the staff on these ride platforms is to get you on and off the rides as quickly as possible, and the airgates and restraints are opened as soon as is safely possible, the staff run down the platforms checking restraints with great urgency, and there is a general sense of pace about their operations; the staff at Europa do not mess around, and not a second is wasted!

However, an occasional criticism I’ve heard of Europa Park is that the park is too cold in atmosphere due to the ride staff being so efficient and not focused on interaction, and that the experience feels impersonal, like you’re a mere cog in the machine rather than a valued guest.

In order to combat this, some theme parks focus more on interaction in their ride operations; these parks don’t mind sacrificing a few pph for the sake of making guests feel valued and providing a more personal experience when operating rides. They might chat to their guests as they check restraints, or play games with riders before they send the train; for instance, I know that a common one in some parks is something along the lines of “Let’s make some noise! I’m not sending this train until you all scream as loud as possible!”. One example I can think of of this is the Happy Valley theme parks in China, where the ride staff apparently do a little dance with riders before opening the airgates on any of their roller coasters.

So with this in mind, I’d be keen to know; do you personally value efficiency or interaction more within ride operations? Do you not mind a less personal experience if queues move and things flow like a well oiled machine? Or do you not mind sacrificing a few pph for a more personal experience?

I don’t know how popular this will be, but personally, I would always come down in favour of efficiency. I personally had no issue with the staff at Europa Park; they were perfectly pleasant, and they kept the queues moving like I’ve never seen anywhere else! And now I’m becoming more interested in ride throughputs and operations, I personally find a fast moving queue caused by good ride operations a genuinely beautiful thing to watch! In my mind, I don’t really care about much else as long as the ride operations are functional and keep the queue moving, which is always the case at parks focused on efficiency. If I’m on and off the ride quickly and operations are good, I’m happy.

And to be honest, some attempts at additional interaction within ride operations, although well intended, often make me feel more uncomfortable than happy. Although that could be because I’m an introvert who sometimes struggles with smalltalk and doesn’t really enjoy forced participation…

But what are your thoughts? Do you prefer for efficiency or interaction to be prioritised within ride operations?
 
Too much efficiency can be a bad thing. I remember back in the days when Merlin were allowed to do throughput challenges and the staff (mainly at Thorpe Park) would literally yell at guests to hurry up and take their seats, they’d run up and down the platform, do their checks in a way which appeared shoddy, and all in all it was just a really unpleasant experience for the guests.

Then again, I guess you could argue that the shouting at guests was a form of interaction, so they achieved both!
 
Parks only prioritise interaction when they know their throughputs aren't good enough and are trying to compensate.

Just look at Disney. We praise Europa for being efficient but Disney have operations that sometimes even shame them. Ever seen the batcher at Big Thunder Mountain duel batching 2 x 30 seater trains at once! The only reason most of their rides have long queues is the pure volume of people.
Yet they are also really good at interaction.

It's easy to be good at both if the right people are in the correct roles. Ride operators and loaders should be no-nonsense and efficient. But ride hosts should be engaging and interactive.

But if the ride can't keep up with the demand and the ride staff end up with unavoidable downtime then the push shifts more towards interaction to try and compensate.
 
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Before I was beaten to it, I was going to say that "interaction" is the consolation prize. Staff shouldn't need to apologetically entertain you because the park operations have been so poor. A park that does it at the expense of good operations is like going on Bullseye and walking home with the Bully mug instead of the Speedboat.
 
First seen by me...A magician {rumoured to be the park owner} performing card tricks to the two hour queue for t'ultimate at Lightwater, about a week after opening.
Would have preferred to see an extra ride op checking belts on each side, those trains are (sorry were) long.
 
There are a lot of variables here. As Enter Valhalla said, I don’t think efficiency should ever become an excuse for rudeness. It doesn’t take long to say please and thank you. You could argue that too much interaction is compensating for a slow moving line, but then again, shouting at the staff like a drill sergeant could be too.

They do load Big Thunder Mountain very quickly. The fact you take bags on with you, and only get a visual check of the bars (assuming they haven’t changed things recently) clearly helps a lot. Physically checking bars does slow things down, but I totally understand why a lot of parks do it.

There are lots of different types of interaction as well, and interaction doesn’t necessarily have to be verbal. Making eye contact with someone and smiling could be a form of interactions. Sometimes just acknowledging someone is enough.

It sounds like Matt’s talking about a certain kind of interaction, and I totally get where he’s coming from. It’s the high fiving, jazz handing style of interaction. I think there definitely are times when it’s good to slow down, such as when you’re height checking a child, particularly if they’re likely to be too short. When breaking bad news to guests, I think it’s nice to show some empathy.

I don’t think Matt’s talking about that kind of interaction though. I think ideally you need staff who can adapt for different situations, but they’re not always easy to come by. Delaying a dispatch to do a dance or make people scream is quite an extreme example. It might be nice to do that on a children's ride without much of a queue, but clearly you don't want that when there's a long queue for a ride. But it should be possible to have some interaction and achieve decent throughputs. Something like shouting 'choo choo' on the Runaway train as it comes through the station seems to work well, and doesn't appear to slow things down.
 
Interesting to hear about interaction serving as an apology for poor operations. It’s made me think back to the time when I worked at Chessington and one particular park manager said that, when batching guests on to the rides, we should always say “sorry for the wait”

I totally disagreed with him on this, and thankfully it was never enforced, primarily because you’re putting negativity into guests’ heads. Most guests are fine with queuing and accept it as part of the theme park experience, but if they’ve already been waiting in a slow queue, to then get an apology for the wait suggests to them that the wait shouldn’t have been there. Rather than apologising to every guest for the wait, the effort should be put into trying to minimise that wait time.
 
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