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Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2024 Discussion

Bowser said:
They don't but proportionately it's superior in that they have better ride operations, no fastpass and have deliberately set price points to have lower visitor numbers for a more pleasant experience.
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It’s very much off topic but yes the fast pass and the pricing is better but their operations are nothing to write home about.

Which of their roller coasters gets 1300 an hour?

If you have a national profile and attract lots of guests then you could have the best operations but you can still only accommodate so many RAP guests before it becomes too busy. The only thing that changes is the number of people likely to be disappointed (more people want to visit Merlin parks rightly or wrongly so they have a bigger problem in that regard).
 
Vicki said:
I can only answer for myself obviously, but as my friends and I are local, if we're booking a day we know will be busy, we all go in with lowered expectations. We each pick 1 ride that's our top priority, and aim for those, but we understand even with our RAP there's no guarantees. If we get more done, great, if we don't, we've managed expectations beforehand and just enjoy the atmosphere and the time with each other.
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I agree, this is generally my attitude and i'd expect the same of many. We wouldn't attend known busy days because we are aware the current RAP set-up would still render the parts of the park we want to use inaccessible.

For me the issue has always been that RAP isn't fit for purpose. If you're telling people that you have to wait 90-120 minutes till you can next use your pass then that's fine in my opinion, the issue has always been it has become a lengthy queue in itself for many rides.

Dave said:
Which of their roller coasters gets 1300 an hour?
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It's not about individual throughput so maybe "operations" was the wrong term, it's that they have all rides operational (and clearly advertised if not or little downtime in the rare case they break). You will almost never see a ride with a 30+min queue but it's not like they have a quarter of the daily visitors of the other parks. Anecdotal but half of the problems i see at Merlin parks are big rides being frequently unavailable or running poorly which are causing the lengthy queue times elsewhere.

That's my experience anyway, you're guaranteed a stress free day at Paulton's whereas Merlin are very much hit and miss, which i suspect they justify partly with the cheap MAP so people don't feel shortchanged.
 
But even if it had opened at the time stated you’ve had the same drama with “ it was in my basket, but it wouldn’t let me check out” as everybody rushes to get it done at one second past 10
 
Alphe86 said:
But even if it had opened at the time stated you’ve had the same drama with “ it was in my basket, but it wouldn’t let me check out” as everybody rushes to get it done at one second past 10
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I think the bigger drama is those who have booked their entry ticket but hadn’t yet got the RAP ticket.
 
It'll be interesting to see if they cave in to complaints that people had already booked theme park tickets and got days off work etc. In a way I hope that they don't give in to the pressure as it will genuinely help out RAP users who manage to book their RAP for any given day in future. Today, and the planning for it, has been an absolute farce though. I'll be impressed if they actually start saying NO to people who complain.
 
Having just logged back on to twitter post football, I’ve never seen so many entitled arseholes in my entire life.

I don’t believe in discrimination in any form, negative or positive. What do they expect, Merlin to close the regular queues just to help?

I’m afraid some adults can’t handle being told no, there are limits to everything and this is for the benefit of everyone. Just because you can’t get your own way, it’s embarrassing.

I wholeheartedly sympathise with people who have bought tickets/hotels etc but if it was so important then wait and get the RAP first. You must always expects there are limits. No more or less than the overall capacity of the park.

Finally it seems some of the RAP crowd are seeing how queues actually work

The overall capacity of the park/fastrack is a different issue. On my two visits last year RAP was a farce, I’m glad they’re making things fairer for everyone.

Hopefully they don’t crumble

Squiggs said:
It's hard to see how they won't have to reverse their position when someone rolls up to the RAP queue in their wheelchair.
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It’s discriminatory.

Let someone do something because they’re in a wheelchair?

Shameful
 
BarryZola said:
I'll be impressed if they actually start saying NO to people who complain.
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I'll be surprised, not impressed as it'll inevitably be left to teenage staff to deal with. They need to clarify their position in advance and the fact they didn't even advertise this change to the RAP system beyond their Facebook page indicates there is little chance of that happening.
 
I'd tend to align with a harsh view of the entitlement; however, the fact people could book entry before RAP is a little poor on Alton Towers'/Merlin's part.

Ultimately it has reached capacity, people need to get used to that reality rather than the stupidity of recent years where the Wicker Man RAP queue looks like a promenade of people congregated to stand watching the ride.
 
I hope they don’t crumble. The ironic thing here about the people moaning on social media about needing a RAP because they can’t use a normal queue is that based on the past few years - the RAP queue is just as long as the normal queue! So Merlin restricting passes will actually benefit people with a RAP!!!!

I am sure many RAP holders will just turn up anyway on opening day and just use the normal queues.
 
GaryH said:
I hope they don’t crumble. The ironic thing here about the people moaning on social media about needing a RAP because they can’t use a normal queue is that based on the past few years - the RAP queue is just as long as the normal queue! So Merlin restricting passes will actually benefit people with a RAP!!!!

I am sure many RAP holders will just turn up anyway on opening day and just use the normal queues.
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Merlin have responded to RAP users feedback about the queues being so long, simplest way is to restrict numbers.

And now they don’t like that.

It seems more about not getting their own way.

People are getting signed off to state they cannot or should not queue. Merlin are responding to meet that need, in the right way.
 
Ash said:
I don’t believe in discrimination in any form, negative or positive.
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Do you believe discrimination doesn't exist at all?

Like, there's definitely a lot of shouting and stomping their feet over this and it has been poorly implemented from the park (like RAP has been for years), but there absolutely is discrimination in day to day life. Usually indirectly and more in terms of lack of consideration towards those that need the help. Just taking a wheelchair around to Asda can be an utter pain.

Then you also have people who don't think autism exists even when their own kids are displaying ALL the signs of it.


This is certainly reminisce of when Lego introduced Q-Bot, and the parks need to stay strong in terms of enforcing these restrictions. Otherwise why bother changing things?

I'd imagine majority of complainants will still visit. But if they don't like it (like with anything) they need to vote with their feet (or remaining extremities) and not visit at peak times or at all.
 
Ash said:
It’s discriminatory.

Let someone do something because they’re in a wheelchair?

Shameful
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In this situation the issue not related to the specific barriers someone faces. The only reason I mention a wheelchair user because they are a tangible example of someone who has no other option but to use the RAP queue or not ride anything.

People were able and encouraged to buy tickets before any change to RAP was instigated. Based on the info in this thread it also sounds like that change has not been properly communicated.

So it is very likely there will be RAP holders turning up on opening day with no indication that anything has actually changed until it turns out that they have purchased a ticket to enter a park where they are not entitled to ride anything.

That's the discrimination at play here.
 
There’s discrimination against those with annual passes who also have to book in advance and may find some days are sold out to them but available to the general public.
 
Once this initial fiasco passes the two "simple" changes they need to make are:

1. Synchronise booking process so you can do both together (rather than book one element and find the other is unavailable, though still leave the option for separate bookings).

2. Enforcement. Make sure people follow the booking process (by advertising it clearly for starters) and make sure people cancel bookings they aren't using if full capacities are to be an ongoing occurrence.

I am curious how they've reached a figure deemed capacity. The fact they didn't account for today's issues doesn't give me much hope it was reached logically.

Edit: Just to add, Merlin have every RAP's contact details so the fact this messaging wasn't sent out is inexcusable.
 
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