• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2024 Discussion

Bowser said:
But again why is this an issue exclusively at AT and TP when so many other parks are using it?
Click to expand...
As mentioned previously, and at risk of repeating myself, you can get great reception at Alton Towers, but you're not always guaranteed to have an active cell connection. Each transmitter has X amount of limited capacity, the moment that a device makes an active request to that tower capacity is reduced. Alton Towers is in a rural area, so there aren't lots of redundant capacity transmitters around. Given that the park is seasonal this is expected.

Football stadiums, arenas, even Hyde Park (slap bang in the centre of London) suffer from the same cell tower connection issue when events are on. Your reception will show as full, your connection won't be active. These are in highly densely populated areas too, where it's easy to get planning permission to build transmitters and it's financially acceptable with a commercial interest for the mobile network operators. Throw in, of course, that not all of the mobile network operators have transmitter sharing agreements with each other and you start to see why it's not as robust as it seems.

Anecdotally, I can get full 5G reception on my Pixel 7 Pro at Thorpe Park, but my connection is never active. I can't load anything, I can't send anything, without a timeout (happens if I switch to just a 4G network too). The coverage is there, the connectivity capacity is not.

WiFi is possible, but again the size of Alton Towers is its own worst enemy here. Most commercial WiFi access points can handle 255 devices at one point. The range of a WiFi access point is a little complicated to pin down, there are many different variables which can affect signal strength, range and speed. Frequency, line of sight, obstructions, signal noise, the list is quite long. To effectively cover a queue line, with guaranteed access, you're going to need a lot of access points operating on your mesh network.

The current WiFi set up at Merlin's parks relies on it not being at capacity and not being in use. It works (kind of), presently, because people don't need to rely on it. Then are the additional third party and GDPR issues, as previously discussed, with an open and "free" WiFi network. If you don't want to share your personal information with the company operating the WiFi network, you can't use it.
 
Apologies if this has been covered and my search skills have let me down. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how RAP will be handled on Hyperia when it first opens? With Legoland and Chessington having different systems and being able to limit turns to one per visit on new rides, I was wondering how Thorpe Park would implement a similar system, if they are going to do that at all.
 
TPick said:
Apologies if this has been covered and my search skills have let me down. Just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how RAP will be handled on Hyperia when it first opens? With Legoland and Chessington having different systems and being able to limit turns to one per visit on new rides, I was wondering how Thorpe Park would implement a similar system, if they are going to do that at all.
Click to expand...
RAP only get one ride on Hyperia per day. The time card will have a Hyperia section on the back which will be hole punched (no time out).
 
Bowser said:
Other than school days RAP is now fully booked going into June for AT and similar for Legoland and Chessington.

Guess we won't be visiting this half term :disappointed:
Click to expand...
Yep. We went to Legoland today which we had to book three weeks ago and it rained pretty much all day. We are at Chessington this coming weekend and had to book that 3 weeks in advanced as well. Now we can't book anything for the rest of the month. What a great new system this is :mad:.
 
Whatever happened to spontaneity?
Disabled people can't decide what to do on the day, they must plan a day out a month in advance now?
Shame those with a minor disability can't just rely on the skyride, isn't it?
Good to see they are really cracking on with it now...oh.
Maybe next year, or the year after.
 
Can probably blame us as the second Sunday of half term (2nd June) was free until this past week.

The question is how the booking system is affecting RAP queues on park. Was clear that there was a high number of people using it given the horror queues over the past few years.
 
TPick said:
Yep. We went to Legoland today which we had to book three weeks ago and it rained pretty much all day. We are at Chessington this coming weekend and had to book that 3 weeks in advanced as well. Now we can't book anything for the rest of the month. What a great new system this is :mad:.
Click to expand...

I think they do need to at least implement something to make sure people are using their bookings. With MAP supposedly if you miss 3 bookings without cancelling they can cancel your pass so something like that.
 
Spontaneity has gone from our visits now unfortunately. Silly as it sounds, but we will get half term out of the way and will then be looking at booking days for the summer holidays.

Maybe wouldn't be so bad if it seemed to be making a difference. Still been almost out of the building for Sky Lion, and still got the queues for Lasers at Legoland and Vampire at Chessington and walked away again because of the length. Don't think we have had a day this year when we have come away thinking the RAP queues were massively different. We are basically having to book weeks in advanced to get the same experience.
 
TPick said:
Spontaneity has gone from our visits now unfortunately. Silly as it sounds, but we will get half term out of the way and will then be looking at booking days for the summer holidays.

Maybe wouldn't be so bad if it seemed to be making a difference. Still been almost out of the building for Sky Lion, and still got the queues for Lasers at Legoland and Vampire at Chessington and walked away again because of the length. Don't think we have had a day this year when we have come away thinking the RAP queues were massively different. We are basically having to book weeks in advanced to get the same experience.
Click to expand...

We walked on for everything at CWOA yesterday (though admittedly the park was very quiet due to the weather) but same on our previous visit over Easter.

Haven't been to Legoland yet since the changes but i suppose the issue there is the rides all share RAP with FastTrack so there's likely to be less of an impact.

AT was walk on for everything. Again was an off peak day but there were still 30+ minute queues advertised at times and we got 2 back to back rides on Thirteen and 5 goes on WickerMan which would have been impossible previously.

I think generally the capacity changes have been effective but it looks like we'll just have to start randomly booking multiple slots for upcoming holidays to stand a chance. They really need to allow people to manage their bookings themselves because i can't imagine many people are cancelling their unused sessions.
 
Bowser said:
We walked on for everything at CWOA yesterday (though admittedly the park was very quiet due to the weather) but same on our previous visit over Easter.

Haven't been to Legoland yet since the changes but i suppose the issue there is the rides all share RAP with FastTrack so there's likely to be less of an impact.

AT was walk on for everything. Again was an off peak day but there were still 30+ minute queues advertised at times and we got 2 back to back rides on Thirteen and 5 goes on WickerMan which would have been impossible previously.

I think generally the capacity changes have been effective but it looks like we'll just have to start randomly booking multiple slots for upcoming holidays to stand a chance. They really need to allow people to manage their bookings themselves because i can't imagine many people are cancelling their unused sessions.
Click to expand...
Every day is different I suppose.

For our recent visit to AT there was generally no difference to the RAP queues to what we have experienced previously.

For us the only change has been that we cannot visit as much as we used to due to the slots being full which is a bit frustrating considering we are Platinum Pass holders. Maybe things will get better, but with summer then Halloween and then Christmas coming I doubt it very much. We are limited to visiting during weekends and holidays as well which will also have an impact.

Bit of a rant, but can only speak from our experience I'm afraid. If it is working well for others then that is good.
 
TPick said:
For our recent visit to AT there was generally no difference to the RAP queues to what we have experienced previously.
Click to expand...

Was your visit during Easter holidays when they were still allowing people to apply on the day due to the launch debacle? We did one visit then and one a few weeks ago when it was pre-book only, it was a night and day experience.

Hopefully summer will be a lot easier to get slots as you're spreading demand. And at least AT allow you to manage your booking so all i can suggest is taking a chance on 3 dates that seem viable, then modifying them as necessary nearer the time.
 
Bowser said:
Was your visit during Easter holidays when they were still allowing people to apply on the day due to the launch debacle? We did one visit then and one a few weeks ago when it was pre-book only, it was a night and day experience.

Hopefully summer will be a lot easier to get slots as you're spreading demand. And at least AT allow you to manage your booking so all i can suggest is taking a chance on 3 dates that seem viable, then modifying them as necessary nearer the time.
Click to expand...
Yeah, visited AT over Easter so that might explain things.

AT is too far for us to visited regularly but Chessington, Legoland and Thorpe are all close, the ones where it is harder to cancel the slots - lol.

If the having to book three weeks in advance thing keeps going then think we will just keep rolling bookings going, two or three at a time for each park and once one has been used book another one. Not an ideal way to use the system but only way can see to give the boy his regular theme park hit 🙂.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top