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Ride Access Pass and Disabled Access - 2026 Discussion

imanautie said:
Pretty much everyone on site seems to think it's been intentionally run down so they can point fingers for justification to repeat their "trial", I've got that feeling as well due to some technical design choices which don't feel accidental with everything considered (there's a lot of poor choices for the app)
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It's probably worth remembering Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Or, in the context of the UK theme park industry: "Never attribute to a grand conspiracy that which is adequately explained by a tight OpEx budget."

The app was originally designed and tested for the restricted, heavily culled user base they thought they were going to have in 2026. It wasn't designed to handle the sudden, massive influx of reinstated users they're currently dealing with. The "poor technical design choices" you're experiencing are the hallmarks of an MVP, which hasn't gone through rigorous real world testing. The app is failing because it's a cheap app trying to manage an impossible capacity equation, not because Fiona Eastwood is playing a long con to steal your Access Card.
 
At Drayton today and they’ve had to adopt a 1:1 ratio for their Ride Access due to complaints people have made to Nimbus about how busy the queues have been. Whether that’s down to more Access Cards or more Fast Pass sales is a separate discussion, but a heads up for small groups or people bringing 2 kids for example on their own.
 
imanautie said:
Pretty much everyone on site seems to think it's been intentionally run down so they can point fingers for justification to repeat their "trial", I've got that feeling as well due to some technical design choices which don't feel accidental with everything considered (there's a lot of poor choices for the app)
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Care to expand? I’ve not encountered any issues with the app itself other than the “finished riding” glitch.
 
I know there's the not checking out of the ride issue but what are the others?

I've not either looked into it or tried to take the mick with it. Sad that many are still trying to take advantage of it.


Annoying that Drayton have gone for a 1:1 ratio for us though. Doubt they'll let the kid be the carer for Mrs. Guess people who were miffed by the Merlin changes are spreading elsewhere.
 
Benzin said:
I know there's the not checking out of the ride issue but what are the others?

I've not either looked into it or tried to take the mick with it. Sad that many are still trying to take advantage of it.


Annoying that Drayton have gone for a 1:1 ratio for us though. Doubt they'll let the kid be the carer for Mrs. Guess people who were miffed by the Merlin changes are spreading elsewhere.
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The not marking done riding one it's for staff to recognise and challenge (they can see the time the pass was issued), there's 5 seperate issues I'm aware off, a couple of them technical some quite easy to exploit without much technical skills involving how it's offline first.
 
Benzin said:
Annoying that Drayton have gone for a 1:1 ratio for us though. Doubt they'll let the kid be the carer for Mrs. Guess people who were miffed by the Merlin changes are spreading elsewhere.
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According to the website this is based on your Access card number of carers.

In theory if the baseline is one guest per user then someone with a +1 would be allowed two guests and so on but it doesn’t explicitly state this.
 
TPick said:
Ninjago is terrible, takes so long to try to merge in as people just think you are queue jumping. Our boy is completely wound up even before we have got into the queue.
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My best friend has four autistic kids and has had awful experiences with that merge point as well.
 
Combining RAP and FT is the sort of thing that makes complete logical sense and from an operational point of view would be totally fine if both systems were operated properly such that there was only ever a nominal wait for either FT or RAP. Realistically that'd have to be with a rate limited virtual queue bot style system at the Merlin parks to ensure no waits at merge whilst keeping main queues moving. I'd argue that having FT and RAP combined also serves to de-stigmatise RAP to a degree as people in the main queue wouldn't be able to judge the eligibility of those getting on the ride ahead of them.

In fact if both of those systems worked properly then the SRQ arrangements on Galactica and Oblivion would also be fine, as single riders could proceed straight to merge and not be unnecessarily stuck behind a load of people with FT
 
Poisson said:
Combined RAPtrack makes sense from an operations point of view, especially if they have timed slots.
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RAP isn't timed slots in the same vein as Fastrack though. They'd have to completely rework one of the systems to match the other.



Sky Lion ends up being an utter mess as a result of the merged queues. Because then you might have to factor in if you need to stop RAP users coming on due to limits on how many can be on at once.

Ninjago is pain because of the merge point being a decent length of queue away from the station with the slow throughput.

Dragon for wheelchairs is an utter disaster mind. Onload side, opens into the main queue which then needs to move out of the way when getting off the ride.


If Smiler's lift is still out of service this year doubt we'll bother to ride it.
 
We're going to have this same exact discussion about this pass every season aren't we until we're all blue in the face? It simply doesn't work because too many people are qualifying for it. Timed slots and all these work around ideas are sticking plasters that won't fix the issue. I think they made the right steps with the announcement but buckled under the first sign of pressure. If they'd have stuck to their guns the bad press and complaints would have stopped by now and they could have moved on. All they've done is continue to make the park experience on busy days **** for everyone, including RAP holders ironically.

I'm not a fan of Fastpass either. I'd rather it didn't exist however if you're going to have it in place it needs to be at a price where people have doubts. It is clearly not expensive enough right now as people just pay it on peak days it seems. That's the other big problem. I found that out at Epic Universe the hard way. Practically half the guests had fast pass on our first day there with the fastpass queues getting up to 90 mins at times. If everyone has fastpass then what's the point? You may as well just raise the ticket prices and everyone has the same experience.

I remember the good old days at parks where you weren't punished for not earning as much money as other guests or weren't penalized because you didn't have a very minor condition that doesn't stop you going to work or school and doing everything else in life but it does get you out of a 2 hr queue for the Smiler. Can we go back to those days again please? Common sense needs to come back into society more than ever.
 
Benjsh said:
I remember the good old days at parks where you weren't [...] penalized because you didn't have a very minor condition that doesn't stop you going to work or school and doing everything else in life but it does get you out of a 2 hr queue for the Smiler.
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It is most bold of you to assume that outside theme parks, people aren't quietly suffering in everyday life because society and workplace/classroom/present environment stigma has deemed their, as you call, 'very minor conditions' to be a burden to everyone around them and they have to mask their 'very minor conditions' to keep up the exhausting pretence that they are as functional as you might be.
 
Benjsh said:
We're going to have this same exact discussion about this pass every season aren't we until we're all blue in the face? It simply doesn't work because too many people are qualifying for it. Timed slots and all these work around ideas are sticking plasters that won't fix the issue. I think they made the right steps with the announcement but buckled under the first sign of pressure. If they'd have stuck to their guns the bad press and complaints would have stopped by now and they could have moved on. All they've done is continue to make the park experience on busy days **** for everyone, including RAP holders ironically.

I'm not a fan of Fastpass either. I'd rather it didn't exist however if you're going to have it in place it needs to be at a price where people have doubts. It is clearly not expensive enough right now as people just pay it on peak days it seems. That's the other big problem. I found that out at Epic Universe the hard way. Practically half the guests had fast pass on our first day there with the fastpass queues getting up to 90 mins at times. If everyone has fastpass then what's the point? You may as well just raise the ticket prices and everyone has the same experience.

I remember the good old days at parks where you weren't punished for not earning as much money as other guests or weren't penalized because you didn't have a very minor condition that doesn't stop you going to work or school and doing everything else in life but it does get you out of a 2 hr queue for the Smiler. Can we go back to those days again please? Common sense needs to come back into society more than ever.
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I see we are back to the usual they aren't really that disabled they don't need it topic this thread consistently gets to without fail.
Disability isn't one constant always need the exact same supports in every single environment, a shop is a completely different environment compared to a theme park in practice, it doesn't even need that deep a look to see a short queue in a shop isn't a tightly packed multi hour queue in a location designed to be a sensory assault.
 
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