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Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2024 Discussion

Matt N said:
I’m not suggesting people visit on a whim, as I know that’s not feasible for many RAP users. I was more suggesting strategies such as looking at crowd calendars and trying to avoid the very busiest days. I know many will be unable to visit on off-peak weekdays, but some weekends and holiday days are much, much quieter than others. I’d argue my recent visit is evidence that the start of the summer holidays can actually be surprisingly quiet, so if you are trying to avoid crowds, it might be worth doing your research and going in a weekend in late July rather than, say, October half term. I’m not saying the Merlin RAP system doesn’t have flaws, but I think there are things an RAP user can do to lessen their own struggles with it, such as trying to avoid the very busiest days (as I would advise anyone to do regardless of disability status).

If you turn up on a slammed day in October half term, for example, you cannot expect a seamless experience with many, many rides. On a super peak day, there will be crowds and there will be queues; that is unavoidable to some extent.

How exactly do you feel my recent visit “isn’t particularly reflective of the average real life experience”, out of curiosity? Granted, I did use single rider queues on occasion, but I visited on a weekend in the summer holidays, which is a peak period. I also did not pay for any kind of Fastrack. I got on 28 rides across the 2 days (17 on day 1, 11 on day 2), and I should add that I got dragged out at 1:30pm on day 2!

While we’re on the subject, I should add that RAP queues appeared minimal to non-existent on my recent visit. I did not notice any kind of notable “queue” for RAP as I used to see in the past. It seemed better managed than it has been historically!

I’m not advocating for ambulant RAP to not be there by any stretch. I know how important it is to a great many people. I was purely trying to refute the suggestion that “smaller queues don’t exist in Merlin parks”, because from what I can see, that is plainly untrue regardless of what demographic you’re discussing. I do think that queue times at Alton in particular are greatly exaggerated on here at times.

I do get your point, however, that other parks are not the same as Alton. Chessington in particular does seem to acutely struggle on peak days in a way that none of the other 3 do.
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As @TPick exemplifies, this is all moot as the parks are only viable for genuine users (imo) with a pre booked RAP.

We tend to aim for quieter days for general crowd levels and shorter time outs but if we don’t have a slot we can’t attend, simple as that.

So the notion of “smaller queues” becomes semantics. You cited 35 minutes which simply isn’t possible for some. You also described it as “surprisingly quiet” which was my whole point, RAP users can’t attend without a slot hoping for that.

Glad to hear you observed minimal RAP queues though, which is how it should be regardless of how busy the park is.
 
Bowser said:
As @TPick exemplifies, this is all moot as the parks are only viable for genuine users (imo) with a pre booked RAP.

We tend to aim for quieter days for general crowd levels and shorter time outs but if we don’t have a slot we can’t attend, simple as that.

So the notion of “smaller queues” becomes semantics. You cited 35 minutes which simply isn’t possible for some. You also described it as “surprisingly quiet” which was my whole point, RAP users can’t attend without a slot hoping for that.

Glad to hear you observed minimal RAP queues though, which is how it should be regardless of how busy the park is.
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I guess the only thing I could suggest is booking slots further in advance.

How early do the slots release? If you looked at a crowd calendar (Queue-Times.com is a good one), you could book on a peak weekend that seems quieter as soon as the slots release.

Obviously you can’t predict with perfect certainty how busy a day will be, but you can gauge an idea. A park like Alton Towers will have a certain degree of seasonality to it, so if you book on a day that has historically been quite quiet, chances are that it will be again.

For future reference, I myself have visited in the last weekend of July for the last two years in a row, and both times, I have found it surprisingly quiet for what is supposedly a peak period. Of the “peak” periods you can visit in, I’d 100% recommend that one.

For clarity, I should also clarify that 35 minutes was the longest queue I personally waited in, not an average.

RAP usage honestly appeared minimal all trip. Not nonexistent, but definitely very minimal, and hardly even noticeable at all compared to prior visits. If I remember back to visits a couple of years back, where rides had legitimate queues of RAP users (Wicker Man during Alton After Dark in March 2024 was a particularly horrific example) , it honestly seemed like night and day. I’m not a RAP user, admittedly, but I do feel that the booking requirement has made a notable difference to the on-park RAP queues (from appearances, at least)!
 
Matt N said:
I guess the only thing I could suggest is booking slots further in advance.

How early do the slots release? If you looked at a crowd calendar (Queue-Times.com is a good one), you could book on a peak weekend that seems quieter as soon as the slots release.
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It varies but the discussion wasn’t about slot availability, it was other people (not you) saying the parks were accessible to ambulant RAP users without a booking which I strongly disagreed with.

Yes on a technicality one could pre-book FastTrack if available but that’s not an equivalent and if it’s the only way to attend becomes a morally repugnant disability tax.

We’re actually facing this for our visit to Phantasialand as they offer no RAP service so it’s an incredibly expensive trip as a result. I’ll always appreciate how Merlin and the UK in general are leaders in accessibility even if there’s room for improvement.
 
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