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Paultons Park: General Discussion

I think it was a good decision on Paultons’ part to delay; in 2021, Tornado Springs will be able to open with full fanfare, and Paultons will be able to reap the rewards of their amazing investment! If they’d stuck to 2020, then they wouldn’t be reaping those rewards in the same way as fears of COVID and social distancing would have overshadowed everything. I’m hoping that social distancing will have disappeared by 2021, so that way, Paultons will be able to properly enjoy the rewards of Tornado Springs!

Also, £12-13m is a huge price tag for an independent park like Paultons! That’s on par with some major Merlin investments in price!

On an unrelated note, is Cyclonator technically a Zamperla ride? Or is Soriani a manufacturer who build a design very similar to Zamperla’s?
 
Matt N said:
I think it was a good decision on Paultons’ part to delay; in 2021, Tornado Springs will be able to open with full fanfare, and Paultons will be able to reap the rewards of their amazing investment! If they’d stuck to 2020, then they wouldn’t be reaping those rewards in the same way as fears of COVID and social distancing would have overshadowed everything. I’m hoping that social distancing will have disappeared by 2021, so that way, Paultons will be able to properly enjoy the rewards of Tornado Springs!

Also, £12-13m is a huge price tag for an independent park like Paultons! That’s on par with some major Merlin investments in price!

On an unrelated note, is Cyclonator technically a Zamperla ride? Or is Soriani a manufacturer who build a design very similar to Zamperla’s?
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Yes, it's a Zamperla Discovery 30.

https://www.zamperla.com/zpress/discovery-30-paultons-park/
 
https://attractions.io/learn/paulto...urce=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-456979877677092

A lot of people were speculating about whether Merlin will sell Fast Tracks when they re-open with a reduced capacity. According to this article, when Paultons re-open they’re going to start selling Fast Tracks. If selling Fast Tracks becomes a long-term strategy, then it’s an interesting development for the park. For a long time, their guest feedback has been superior to Chessington’s, Thorpe’s and Alton’s. I’ve always felt that not letting people pay to skip the queues is a key factor in that. Given the financial challenges that all the parks are facing they are going to be making some tough decisions. It’ll be interesting to see whether this turns out to be the right one.
 
I’m sure Paultons will have thought it through, and if it’s an additional revenue source they need, then it seems like a good route to go down, but I must admit that I’m intrigued to see how Fastrack works with virtual queues...
 
Bet there is only our ever optimistic Matt who will happy clap the introduction of fasttrack.
Seems like a good route to go down...
Really?
 
rob666 said:
Bet there is only our ever optimistic Matt who will happy clap the introduction of fasttrack.
Seems like a good route to go down...
Really?
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Well, provided it doesn’t hamper operations too much. Given this is Paultons we’re talking about, I’d say it probably won’t; they care about the guest experience and will have thought this through!
 
If you could show me a method of fasttrack that works that way, I would happily accept it.
There isnt one in this country.
On busy days it creates more hate than mr cummings.
 
rob666 said:
If you could show me a method of fasttrack that works that way, I would happily accept it.
There isnt one in this country.
On busy days it creates more hate than mr cummings.
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I know it’s slightly different to regular Fastrack, but Disney’s FastPass was very good! I also don’t seem to remember Universal Express having a huge impact on operations, either.

I know Disney & Universal are in a different league to Paultons Park, but my point is that they could still make it work.

That being said, the only type of Fastrack I ever remember majorly impacting operations was at Oakwood, where they were filling every other train with Fastrackers. Provided Paultons puts a reasonable cap on numbers, then it should be fine.
 
In theory fastrack was first introduced to reduce the number of people in queues. At Disney it still does this. But as we know a paid fastrack system just makes the main queue longer as the few privileged guests get to go around multiple times.

It all depends if Paultons are doing this for the extra revenue or just to get people out of the queues. I'm very curious to see how Europa's virtual queuing system will work as they've previously been very vocal on being anti-fastrack.
 
Even Disney don't run fastpass particularly well, the detriment to the main queues is often massive as the allocations can get out of control if a ride breaks down after large numbers of tickets have been allocated (morning breakdowns are less of an issue as they can reduce the number they issue).

Case in point - Cars at DCA breaks down all the time, several times a day when we were there last August. By mid afternoon it often had a FP queue to the main entrance even though they were letting FP through about 4 times faster than main queue. Main queue was then at 120 min for the rest of the day but by joining it just before ride close we were on in 30 min.

Visitors who know the system can hope to optimise their use of FP and will usually do better than the average guest but the same is true at parks with no fasttrack. I'd prefer Disney not to have it at all and just let queues regulate themselves - queues would be physically longer but they'd move faster. The Florida system is even worse as it forces you to lock your ride plans in weeks in advance and you basically have to be a hotel guest to get FP on the most popular rides anyway.
 
I'll be incredibly sad if they go ahead with the paid fastrack aspect of this. I'm hoping the fluff piece that it is is describing the functionality they can provide rather than what Paultons are going to actually use.
 
John said:
Even Disney don't run fastpass particularly well, the detriment to the main queues is often massive as the allocations can get out of control if a ride breaks down after large numbers of tickets have been allocated (morning breakdowns are less of an issue as they can reduce the number they issue).

Case in point - Cars at DCA breaks down all the time, several times a day when we were there last August. By mid afternoon it often had a FP queue to the main entrance even though they were letting FP through about 4 times faster than main queue. Main queue was then at 120 min for the rest of the day but by joining it just before ride close we were on in 30 min.

Visitors who know the system can hope to optimise their use of FP and will usually do better than the average guest but the same is true at parks with no fasttrack. I'd prefer Disney not to have it at all and just let queues regulate themselves - queues would be physically longer but they'd move faster. The Florida system is even worse as it forces you to lock your ride plans in weeks in advance and you basically have to be a hotel guest to get FP on the most popular rides anyway.
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Yep Disney offer a "free" FastPass service so everyone in theory does have a chance to get a pass for the rides, but this means more people using it and therefore more people have to go through the FastPass queue. Also as you said in Florida those staying in Disney hotels get a chance to book earlier and in California on the older system, its first come on the day so getting to the park later means all return times may have been distributed.
As basically everyone in the park can try to use FastPass, they often work 80% FastPass and 20% standby at the merge point therefore standby queues barely move even without a breakdown or other issues.

Paid FastTrack at other parks in theory shouldn't create such large queues as as fewer people have access to it as it costs money, but many parks see to sell way to many passes and don't have systems to stop all guests returning too close together. Thorpe Park always feels this way in my opinion.

In general though I don't like most queue jump systems and would rather have a fast moving standby queue (so in Disney where they have a lot of high capacity attractions, I would rather have a standby wait of 20 minutes for all instead of a FastPass with no wait but an hour long standby).

I can't see what significant benefit it would bring to most guests somewhere like Paultons, it would lead to even more people who have the money having a great day out, while making it worse for those who can't afford it.
In terms of Covid I can't see the benefit either, people in longer queues doesn't seem like a good thing.
 
This could be the start of a slippery slope. First they announce paid for Fast Track. Then they start charging for parking. The next thing you'll know, is that Peppa Pig's expired, and the Angry Birds are going up.

Although in the interests of balance, Phantasialand and Universals both charge for Fast Track.
 
Barely anyone uses it in Germany though, it's probably a cultural thing but even when an unlimited one is affordable in a busy park at Movie Park Germany and there's about 5 groups you see using it there's something afoot.

I hope Paultons don't go down the route mind.
 
Can anyone show me where it actually says they are selling fast tracks? Looks like a lot of assuming going on. Vritual queuing could be developed and offered free of charge to ensure social distancing is maintained within the queue lines
 
Themepark-newbie said:
Can anyone show me where it actually says they are selling fast tracks? Looks like a lot of assuming going on. Vritual queuing could be developed and offered free of charge to ensure social distancing is maintained within the queue lines
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In the article...

Working in unison with the app’s existing day planner functionality, guests will be able to build an itinerary for their day, view live wait times, join a virtual queue and even have the opportunity to purchase fast track onto the rides, all from one place
 
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