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Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2026 Discussion

Personally, I think its a bold, brave and necessary move by Merlin. The system has been abused for years, and everyone has suffered from much longer queue times. Hopefully this will make the situation more agreeable for those with problems standing in queues who wont have to wait as long (e.g. limb issues, arthritis etc).
 
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Benzin said:
I think given that a lot of purchases/bookings would've been made prior to this information coming out the claims would be fairly valid.
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Oh, I don't doubt that. But I wouldn't be surprised if one of their T&Cs is "we can change our T&Cs whenever we want".
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Oh, I don't doubt that. But I wouldn't be surprised if one of their T&Cs is "we can change our T&Cs whenever we want".
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You can write what you want in T&C’s but it doesn’t mean a judge will agree with it.

Ultimately you transact money with Merlin in return for a product or service, if Merlin make it impossible for you to obtain the service or product then it’s likely a judge would say the contract is invalidated and the unused value of the contract should be paid back.
 
I believe some people are successfully getting refunds from Merlin where they have recently purchased an annual pass in light of these changes.
 
dave___ said:
I see that Paultons use the crowds sticker as a valid condition for their version of RAP:

paultonspark.co.uk

Queue Assist Pass

paultonspark.co.uk paultonspark.co.uk

I don’t have any skin in this game being fully able etc however I do wonder at the logic of Merlin’s decision. Feels like a way of forcing everyone to use paid fast pass options on first impressions.
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There is a delicious, if somewhat thick, layer of irony in Paultons Park retaining the "Difficulty with Crowds" eligibility criteria, as they are arguably the one major park in the UK where that specific difficulty is least likely to be triggered.

It's very easy to be generous with a queue assist policy based on crowds when you don't actually have oppressive crowds. Offering a bypass for a 15 minute moving queue at Storm Chaser is an entirely different operational proposition to offering one for a 120 minute static crush at The Smiler.
 
There are always off peak days lets not forget though guys. The wait times on these days are often very short indeed and I guess the RAP demand is a lot lower too for those that need it.

That's my only option now to visit towers and I am fully able. My wife would actually qualify for RAP through her Arthritis I imagine but we've never done it once as she's said she'd cope just fine and she always has to be fair.

I just won't visit on peak days anymore due to the way Fastpass and RAP has been handIed by the park. I just don't think i get value for my money and it's a truly miserable experience. I also simply refuse to pay ridiculous fast pass prices for rides I have ridden hundreds of times before. If I visit a brand new park for the first time I might splash out for fastpass occasionally but paying more to ride my beloved Nemmy? Not for me thanks. I'd choose a quiet Wednesday or Thursday in term time and hammer it all afternoon before leaving the park by the FV gate.
 
Drayton have also announced today that they aren't changing their policy, but again, this is more than likely down to crowd and RAP user levels as they are much lower than the likes for Towers and Legoland from my experience.

Maybe lowering the amount of guests who can accompany RAP users would have been a better initial step? I know it opens up a debate of splitting up families though. Maybe under 16s can take 4 and over 16s take 2 in the RAP queue could work?
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
There is a delicious, if somewhat thick, layer of irony in Paultons Park retaining the "Difficulty with Crowds" eligibility criteria, as they are arguably the one major park in the UK where that specific difficulty is least likely to be triggered.

It's very easy to be generous with a queue assist policy based on crowds when you don't actually have oppressive crowds. Offering a bypass for a 15 minute moving queue at Storm Chaser is an entirely different operational proposition to offering one for a 120 minute static crush at The Smiler.
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Quite, I’m sure half the time the main queue goes faster than the accessible queue there.

I can’t see what Drayton Manor do as they still refer to the old guidance and Blackpool Tower seem to use the criteria to give users a virtual queue slot.

I do wonder whether a VQ is the proper way to go about this as a whole but I think that could probably still be open to abuse too
 
Some of the SEN advocates on social media have caught wind of this now so i think it's going to blow up into a larger story for Merlin. Only a matter of time before the press are on it.

People are pointing out that their children qualify for the highest level of education funding, benefits and a blue badge yet don't qualify for a theme park.
 
Surely Towers have been in discussion with some SEN groups/Nimbus though? Surely they wouldn't have just made this decision off their own backs given the subject matter.
 
Bowser said:
Some of the SEN advocates on social media have caught wind of this now so i think it's going to blow up into a larger story for Merlin. Only a matter of time before the press are on it.

People are pointing out that their children qualify for the highest level of education funding, benefits and a blue badge yet don't qualify for a theme park.
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Which is why they didnt announce this at the end of 2025 I guess.

They just cant win here. The system is broken and being massively overused and in some cases abused and pretty much everyone is in agreement on that point.

They decide to change it and they will get called every name under the sun for it no doubt.

If they go VQ then that is flawed too as that doesn't guarantee every guest a chance to ride their favourite attraction. Demand will always be greater than supply on peak days so again you get unhappy guests.

What are they meant to do? Its so tricky.
 
Benjsh said:
What are they meant to do? Its so tricky.
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Fix their broken theme parks? Double entry fee? Dunno. The thing is, if they'd just gone with the monthly slot releases and full digitalisation there would be no uproar, at least this year, because they're introducing two new variables that may well improve things. Certainly the digital queues are virtually guaranteed to improve things at Alton and Thorpe as they have done at Chessington.

I said it at the time and now even more so, i've no idea how Universal are going to deal with this considering their parks are notorious for extremely long lines and few attractions. It's not like DLP where they have the capacity to manage it.
 
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