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Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2024 Discussion

Burner said:
I know this is easy to say coming from an able bodied person, but I think if you can wait 45 minutes in a RAP queue, you can probably wait 60 minutes in the general queue.
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I think that's a fair observation for someone who hasn't experienced using RAP, however, sometimes (not all times) the RAP queues can offer more suitable conditions (regardless of wait times) that make the queue more accessible/achievable to a visitor that may have different needs to those in the general queue. It's not always a case of someone being unable to wait, sometimes for a RAP user, it's a matter of needing quick toilet access, reducing sensory input, having mobility needs/aids etc etc... but it's really easy to see why your point is a frequently made one. This is why it would be a huge leap forward if future queues were designed with greater accessibility in mind :)
 
Not too long ago I waited nearly 30 minutes in the smiler RAP queue due to the merge host not letting RAP move for 10 minutes at a time and then only letting 1 or 2 groups though. I'd rather have been making steady progress in the (approximate) 60 minute main queue, which would have come with the added benefit of spending much less time in the sensory overload room.
 
There’s also no indication of how long you’ll be waiting in the RAP queues (except Vampire) unless you’re very knowledgable of the rides and even then it can vary greatly depending on the ride host, as per the example above.

I’ve seen people (and have done so ourselves) leave because the unexpected wait became intolerable.
 
Problem with fully accessible queuelines is that it only really solves the issue for those with limited mobility.

Which given my last few visits seems to be the minority of RAP users.

Are Towers being as strict as Thorpe in regards to giving out RAP to those who haven't booked? What about the old "we've lost our card" thing (know last visit we were told we wouldn't get a replacement but I'd imagine under duress that would change).

It's why the leap to digital system is such a necessity. Would also remove a need to go and pick up stuff at GS for everyone as well.
 
Whoa! I'm not suggesting RAP users don't need special provision - just that maybe the bar is set too low and/or is being abused. It makes no sense to anyone if the RAP queue is 45 mins - not sure who that's helping. As I said, both my Dad and myself qualify for RAP - but we wouldn't dream of using it.

In 2024 the queue should already be defunct (maybe 15 mins queue). Have a virtual queue for everyone, and whilst not queuing you can do other things/spend money elsewhere in the park. You'll still get on the ride at the same time. Best use of rides/resources, meaning more people get on more rides.
 
Smiley said:
Whoa! I'm not suggesting RAP users don't need special provision - just that maybe the bar is set too low and/or is being abused. It makes no sense to anyone if the RAP queue is 45 mins - not sure who that's helping. As I said, both my Dad and myself qualify for RAP - but we wouldn't dream of using it.

In 2024 the queue should already be defunct (maybe 15 mins queue). Have a virtual queue for everyone, and whilst not queuing you can do other things/spend money elsewhere in the park. You'll still get on the ride at the same time. Best use of rides/resources, meaning more people get on more rides.
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It has been demonstrated in here previously that the nimbus requirement is particularly slack but I don’t think they’re going anywhere so it’s moot at this point. As I say, only AT still seems to be suffering from extended queues which is odd.

Has a park ever attempted all virtual queuing? I agree, seems archaic it doesn’t have greater use.
 
With a virtual queue on everything you realise that a lot of parks are deliberately designed for a number of the guests to always be in a queueline.

Thorpe tried it and it was an utter failure. Though combined with their reliability issues it was on a hiding to nothing.

Imagine Towers at Fireworks during the display but ALL DAY.

I don't think it's doable when being implemented at a later date as the infrastructure required to keep 20-30k guests entertained in the time is incredibly difficult.
 
Wholesale virtual queueing is an excellent idea in theory, but one that raises numerous problems in execution.

One key problem is that a lot of parks are designed with a considerable number of people being in queues in mind. When you take people out of those queues, you need somewhere else to put them, and a lot of parks don’t have sufficient space and non-queue activities to facilitate the sheer number of people that normally stand in queues and have been displaced from said queues by the introduction of virtual queueing. Some parks have trialled forms of wholesale virtual queueing before, and these trials have quickly been ditched due to them being absolutely disastrous.

Thorpe Park briefly trailed Reserve’n’Ride around 10 years ago, and Walibi Holland trialled virtual queueing during COVID, but both parks scrapped it fairly quickly due to similar problems. The displacement of people from ride queues resulted in people just milling around pathways and making them overcrowded, or smaller rides (where the virtual queue was only implemented on major rides) and food outlets and such receiving multi-hour queues. You can’t just whack wholesale virtual queueing in a park not originally designed for it and expect it to work. The whole park needs to be structured in a fundamentally different way for virtual queueing to even come close to working.

And even when the park is designed with virtual queueing in mind, I’d argue that it still has some fairly apparent flaws. As a case study, I visited Universal’s Volcano Bay in Florida last June. This waterpark opened in 2017 and was wholly designed around TapuTapu, Universal’s wearable system that facilitated an entirely cashless and queueless waterpark, amongst other things. I overall felt that virtual queueing worked better than I’d expected in this waterpark, but I did not feel that it was perfect and there were still some fairly apparent flaws.

As an example, I would cite the absolutely obscene virtual queue times for the park’s most popular attraction, Krakatau Aqua Coaster. With a regular queue, it doesn’t often get massive, as there is some incentive not to join a huge queue. But with a virtual queue, that incentive completely disappears. Even if we went to Krakatau Aqua Coaster and joined the virtual queue as soon as we arrived, the virtual queue would already be over 2 hours long, and it would continue to grow and grow and grow, completely unencumbered, throughout the day. I once saw it hit nearly 5 hours by the afternoon, while many of the other slides were walk-on or had virtual queues of only 5-10 minutes. Normal queueing provides some incentive for guests to disperse equally around the rides, but with virtual queueing removing that incentive, people primarily coalesce around the most popular attraction(s) in an incredibly aggressive fashion.

I’d also say that it doesn’t account for any kind of variance in throughput or ride operation. Because of this, the utopia of a “queueless” park is almost never a reality. Often at Volcano Bay, you’d still be queueing physically for what felt like a good few minutes (possibly up to 20-30 minutes or so in some cases), and if there’s anything like a breakdown or a ride stoppage, you get a huge backlog of people with timeslots who need servicing.

Another thing worth noting here is that Volcano Bay is a waterpark, and the waterpark format arguably lends itself to virtual queueing more naturally, what with the wave pools, lazy rivers, splash pads and such that don’t require you to queue. I don’t think this would be quite such a natural fit in a dry theme park.
 
Dave said:
Simple, MAP holders are regular visitors who know the system inside out so are better able to work around the RAP system than the casual visitor.

You also have the online groups who do often post ways to beat various parts of the Merlin system. Including but not exclusively RAP.

For these reasons it’s the casual visitor who takes the hit.
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Understood.

I'll admit, we have block booked mainly Chessington and Legoland for the summer holidays, but only one block at each. So for both parks we have booked max number of days at each but we haven't been immediately booking another one as soon as one is used. We usually visit these parks way more than 3 times each over the summer holidays, mainly for the boy, but even if we wanted to book another day as soon as we had used one we can't due to availability at the time. Comes back to the issue of losing some spontaneity. I think block booking is a by product of the system that is in place now, too many people fighting for a finite resource - story of our lives really :) .
 
Not sure if that was just that day, but the wife visited Chessington recently and said that the staff members scanning at the start of the RAP queues on rides such as Mandrill, Vampire and Dragons Fury etc. were not there, and the scanning was done at the front of the queue. Could be coincidence but she also said that the queues were the worst she has experience for a little while.
 
Just noticed that Chessington and Thorpe Park currently have RAP availability for everyday in August. Maybe they have released more slots and it certainly wasn't like that a couple of days ago.
 
Benzin said:
With a virtual queue on everything you realise that a lot of parks are deliberately designed for a number of the guests to always be in a queueline.
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Then call it a "queue park" with rides 🤣 Perhaps more "high capacity" rides, shows, better dining experiences, etc would help. People in queues aren't particularly entertained, nor are they spending money. There must be a better way that "queue or pay" as we have now.

I don't think RAP can ever work well at busy times when you can "uncontrolled" regular and FP queues 😒
 
If Disney have tried it (and they adore people spending money) with various attempts at waiting areas and digital systems and still build traditional queuelines then there's no hope.

Granted, their queues are all accessible (for most part, the older rides obviously need retrofitting). Though I always feel that's down to the copious amount of people using mobility scooters in the American parks and the sue first culture.

I sadly don't think there's much demand for shows. Though that might be because most of the UK shows are often BTEC/University level Drama students rather than top quality productions. Dining experiences again is a bit of a mixed bag, especially when combined with the lower hours comparatively.

No doubt there are better ways, but it requires buy in from park operators AND guests. And if the system doesn't work (as proven by Thorpe) because of a general lack of alternative options on park then it won't change. And given the lengths people were willing to queue for Nemmie and Hyperia this year I doubt there's that big a need to.
 
Benzin said:
I sadly don't think there's much demand for shows. Though that might be because most of the UK shows are often BTEC/University level Drama students rather than top quality productions.
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I think University level is pushing it massively. Much more GCSE/BTEC. Or, tbh, just generally very poor.

By citing university, you seem to have definitely hit a nerve above... :p
 
Smiley said:
Then call it a "queue park" with rides 🤣 Perhaps more "high capacity" rides, shows, better dining experiences, etc would help. People in queues aren't particularly entertained, nor are they spending money. There must be a better way that "queue or pay" as we have now.

I don't think RAP can ever work well at busy times when you can "uncontrolled" regular and FP queues 😒
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Even parks with higher quantities of high-capacity rides, shows and dining experiences, like Disney, Universal and Europa, have never made the full transition to wholesale virtual queues. Disney have probably come closest, what with the likes of FastPass+ and the Boarding Pass system on newer rides, but even then, they still have considerable amounts of regular traditional queueing and the Boarding Pass system normally gets removed from new rides after the first year or two.

To put it simply, I don’t think wholesale virtual queueing would ever work well without a fundamental change in the entire business model and structure of theme parks. And even then, I think it’s still deeply flawed in execution and brings with it a whole host of new problems. Granted, those problems would be affecting everyone equally rather than just RAP users, so it’s arguably more “inclusive”, but they are still problems, and reverting everything to wholesale virtual queueing would not remove the parks’ queueing problems by any stretch. With virtual queueing tech not exactly being new anymore, there must be a reason why no park has ever reverted to wholesale virtual queueing on a long-term basis.
 
Matt N said:
Even parks with higher quantities of high-capacity rides, shows and dining experiences, like Disney, Universal and Europa, have never made the full transition to wholesale virtual queues. Disney have probably come closest, what with the likes of FastPass+ and the Boarding Pass system on newer rides, but even then, they still have considerable amounts of regular traditional queueing and the Boarding Pass system normally gets removed from new rides after the first year or two.

To put it simply, I don’t think wholesale virtual queueing would ever work well without a fundamental change in the entire business model and structure of theme parks. And even then, I think it’s still deeply flawed in execution and brings with it a whole host of new problems. Granted, those problems would be affecting everyone rather than just RAP users, so it’s arguably more “inclusive”, but they are still problems, and reverting everything to wholesale virtual queueing would not remove the parks’ queueing problems by any stretch. With virtual queueing tech not exactly being new anymore, there must be a reason why no park has ever reverted to wholesale virtual queueing on a long-term basis.
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Efteling are testing an interesting system. It’s only available for one ride currently but from my understanding you can only access the virtual queue for DreamFlight when you are physically in the area. You can then spend that time shopping, eating, using other attractions (or the toilet) until your ride time.

The main queue is open too and obviously you are free to leave the area but I think the nature of the park means people are unlikely to do so (especially if mobility is an issue, though this is a system open to everyone not just RAP).

Whilst it sounds like all virtual queues are not viable I still think there’s potential for a balance but like you say, it requires infrastructure from the offset to accommodate.
 
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