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Ride Access Pass Systems and Disabled Access (pre 2024)

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Danscott22 said:
Is RAP still available on all rides? I'll be visiting for Scarefest with someone in a wheelchair. I know Oblivion, Smiler, Nemesis, Galactica and Rita still have theirs as I saw them when visiting in July. Just thinking with Thirteen, you usually walk up the exit path so can't see how it'd be possible.
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Hi there, when we went to Alton Towers, RAP was operating as usual on most rides, if not, it would use the fastrack queue lines, for example Th13teen and Galactica. On Th13teen, you would sit just in front of the dummies, making the capacity of the ride absolutely tiny.
 
Joel3 said:
Hi there, when we went to Alton Towers, RAP was operating as usual on most rides, if not, it would use the fastrack queue lines, for example Th13teen and Galactica. On Th13teen, you would sit just in front of the dummies, making the capacity of the ride absolutely tiny.
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Ah, thanks so much! They haven't gotten back to me, so good to know!!
 
Sigh, and this is what we have to deal with.
(Blanked out name is an innocent party).

b75a68fb2709ac095866692ae679b814.jpg



Image description: a Facebook comment by Jenny Howe ""the spaz pass is still available for those who want to push in front of normal people. A complete farce."
Comment from Gregory Oakley-stevenson (me): oh yes because as an autistic I'm such a spaz for pushing in front of people /s"
Comment from Jenny: "queue like a normal person or don't come simple. Queues are bad enough without people pushing in."
Comment from (redacted): "Is there such thing as a dickhead pass? You might be entitled. (Grinning face).
 
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imanautie said:
Sigh, and this is what we have to deal with.
(Blanked out name is an innocent party).

]
b75a68fb2709ac095866692ae679b814.jpg



Image description: a Facebook comment by Jenny Howe ""the spaz pass is still available for those who want to push in front of normal people. A complete farce."
Comment from Gregory Oakley-stevenson (me): oh yes because as an autistic I'm such a spaz for pushing in front of people /s"
Comment from Jenny: "queue like a normal person or don't come simple. Queues are bad enough without people pushing in."
Comment from (redacted): "Is there such thing as a dickhead pass? You might be entitled. (Grinning face).[/SPOILER
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Oh my word, that is no way to talk to people! Where was this?
 
That is absolutely awful. The problem is some people are so damn ignorant and oblivious to people's feelings, and I just don't think that's on, especially in 2020!!
 
Of course, if they had no queues a lot of RAP guests wouldn't need RAP. It's partially a problem of the park's own making. Just another symptom of the customer service disaster that Thorpe has become - a park full of 2 hour waits isn't going to result in happy guests.
 
That screen cap wouldn't look out of place on the r/entitledbitch page.

Shocking person hasn't been removed from the group though. Imagine thinking that was an ok thing to say?


Edit - The starred word is a female dog for anyone curious.
 
John said:
Of course, if they had no queues a lot of RAP guests wouldn't need RAP. It's partially a problem of the park's own making. Just another symptom of the customer service disaster that Thorpe has become - a park full of 2 hour waits isn't going to result in happy guests.
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Although Thorpe is particularly bad for waits and oversells Fastrack, two hour waits at major theme parks are not uncommon, but they should only really occur on the newest couple of coasters. I don't think people with autism trying to find a way to enjoy theme parks is related to the longer waits due to Fastrack.

Personally I think there are a couple of issues going on.
The UK theme parks have historically never made their regular queue lines accessible for mobility impaired people (such as wheelchair users) so they always have to enter via the exit or a dedicated entrance.
More people are talking about Autism and sharing ways to assist those living with it. One of the ways to help is to offer them the option to wait away from the main queue so people who can't deal with crowded environments now have a chance to enjoy theme parks. It feels like understanding on these issues has really come about in the last 5 years and its brought in changes at parks to accommodate those who need to wait in an alternative place.
However whereas Disney just has those people join the Fastpass queue, the Merlin parks have those needing those accommodations join the same queue as mobility impaired people. This means the batching host has at least three different places to batch from. At Disney they simplified the system and on many rides mobility impaired people join the main queue and those who can't wait in the main queue come back to the Fastpass queue, this means the merge process is much simpler.
I think having to try and accommodate three different queues, all potentially coming from different places is what causes some of the issues at the Merlin parks for RAP.
 
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