Ride Access Pass Systems and Disabled Access (pre 2024)

[BarryZola]

There should be at least one person at each major ride who is confident enough to enforce the rules. Even if it takes the ride operator to temporarily stop the ride operation and come out of the booth to lay down the law. Frankly, if they're not confident enough to do that then they shouldn't be in charge of a major piece of engineering like that and the safety of people that comes with it. Ride Ops will usually be more experienced too. Ideally the platform staff would all be confident enough to tell people straight but I accept that this won't always be the case and that some customers can be total divs.

 

[Benzin]

The way of the world is far worse in terms of self-entitlement than when I worked as a 16-19 year old at a theme park.

Working there certainly hardened me in a way, but if people acted that way to my 16 year old self I certainly would've struggled dealing with it.

Managers probably need to offer far more support to staff in these situations, certainly not helped by the lack of effort ever put into complaints, what with often just throwing exit passes at the complainants.

Plus I'd imagine if the ride ops dared to stop operating a ride over this sort of situation they'd be the ones in trouble.

 

[Alsty]

Something I've noticed over the years is the various teams have got younger. There used to be a balance with older, more experienced team members who would be able to step in and help with situations like this. These days it looks like even the managers are in their early 20s!

 

[Rob]

They are! A manager we spoke to at Chessington was 21.

 

[Islander]

I think manager is often an inflated job title, and more often than not they're little more than team leaders :-/

 

[Matt N]

Out of interest, what is the problem with managers being young?

 

[jon81uk]

Out of interest, what is the problem with managers being young?

In the context of this discussion its about having the confidence to stand up to guests trying to abuse the system and who may potentially be abusive back to staff. Some young people may have that confidence, but often it is harder when a 30/40 year old parent is shouting at a 21 year old for them to be assertive.

Working as a retail team leader when I was 25 I definitely struggled with some entitled customers.

 

[Matt N]

In the context of this discussion its about having the confidence to stand up to guests trying to abuse the system and who may potentially be abusive back to staff. Some young people may have that confidence, but often it is harder when a 30/40 year old parent is shouting at a 21 year old for them to be assertive.

Working as a retail team leader when I was 25 I definitely struggled with some entitled customers.

Ah, that makes sense. I’m not quite 20 myself, and I know for a fact that I would really struggle in that kind of situation.

 

[Katy]

As others have said, it does seem to be abused and need some work. An example, last time I was at Towers two people got on Thirteen via RAP, the op wrote the timeout on the card and they then walked round to Rita and got on instantly. At the time Thirteen was on a 75 minute main queue, Rita I think 40, so in this case - either the ride ops were not putting anything more than a 5 minute timeout, or people are able to get hold of multiple RAP cards to cycle between them.

I don't really know what they could do to improve it, maybe a digital system stops the "I lost the card, can I have another" situation. At BPB a few years back they basically gave a free Speedy Pass to use as RAP (I think this was a third tier as it allowed instant access but then blocked booking another ride for x minutes), although they have since changed back to the paper cards.

 

[Danscott22]

From the MAP disability Facebook group...



Can't imagine the RAP being that long, must've been over 70 minutes or so to be that far up the hill. And this just shows how the system is being abused.

The TH13TEEN RAP queue was 2 hours yesterday, and The Smiler’s was 75 minutes, so I’m informed. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[Skyscraper]

The TH13TEEN RAP queue was 2 hours yesterday, and The Smiler’s was 75 minutes, so I’m informed. Absolutely ridiculous.

That's bonkers. How long until Towers have to restrict Thirteen and Smiler to 1 ride prr day for RAP like Chessy have done? Can't imagine the uproar but it might be necessary at this rate. They have no excuse not to transfer to the app system now the WiFi has been improved.

 

[jon81uk]

The TH13TEEN RAP queue was 2 hours yesterday, and The Smiler’s was 75 minutes, so I’m informed. Absolutely ridiculous.

I assume one of the main issues is the rule that some guests can only sit in the back row is a major part of the issue as it cuts the throughput of RAP guests significantly.

The number of users they could cope with if the return times were used correctly and all seats were filled from all queues. But if they restrict some guests to one row only it will cause this issue.

 

[Poisson]

I assume one of the main issues is the rule that some guests can only sit in the back row is a major part of the issue as it cuts the throughput of RAP guests significantly.

The number of users they could cope with if the return times were used correctly and all seats were filled from all queues. But if they restrict some guests to one row only it will cause this issue.

Evac purposes means they want the location of those with extra needs to be consistent

 

[Matt N]

I must admit that I was previously confused as to why new Merlin rides like Mandrill Mayhem, Project Exodus and Project Horizon are having RAP queues built that almost look like legitimate queues in themselves based on the plans.

I’m starting to see why now… usage of the service seems to have exponentially increased as of late.

On a side note; from my experience, Thirteen seems to be one of the Alton Towers rides that struggles most with RAP. I wonder why this is? It’s a fairly high throughput ride when it runs at full pelt (easily over 1,000pph), but the queue often seems to move quite slowly in spite of that… something like Wicker Man has a throughput that’s no higher than that of Thirteen (WM gets a bit over 1,000pph on a good day, from my experience), but the main queue seems to move noticeably faster for some reason.

You’d think that Wicker Man would struggle more with RAP, what with it being a newer ride than Thirteen, but its main queue often seems to move noticeably faster, for some reason…

 

[Skyscraper]

I must admit that I was previously confused as to why new Merlin rides like Mandrill Mayhem, Project Exodus and Project Horizon are having RAP queues built that almost look like legitimate queues in themselves based on the plans.

I’m starting to see why now… usage of the service seems to have exponentially increased as of late.

On a side note; from my experience, Thirteen seems to be one of the Alton Towers rides that struggles most with RAP. I wonder why this is? It’s a fairly high throughput ride when it runs at full pelt (easily over 1,000pph), but the queue often seems to move quite slowly in spite of that… something like Wicker Man has a throughput that’s no higher than that of Thirteen (WM gets a bit over 1,000pph on a good day, from my experience), but the main queue seems to move noticeably faster for some reason.

You’d think that Wicker Man would struggle more with RAP, what with it being a newer ride than Thirteen, but its main queue often seems to move noticeably faster, for some reason…

With Wicker Man, only those in wheelchairs have to sit in a particular row (the back), and ambulant RAP can sit in any row. With Thirteen, all RAP have to sit in the back row, ambulant or not.

 

[pjanvil]

I'm beginning to wonder if things like making all RAP sit in the back row ambulent or not are deliberate to make the RAP queues worse. Since Merlin can't roll back RAP access easily without getting the Daily Mail on their back maybe if they are making the RAP queue worse then normal queue it will encourage ambulant users to just use the main queue and therefore reduce demand and make it clearly not an 'advantage' - crafty

 

[Matt N]

With Wicker Man, only those in wheelchairs have to sit in a particular row (the back), and ambulant RAP can sit in any row. With Thirteen, all RAP have to sit in the back row, ambulant or not.

I thought RAP was allocated the back two cars or so on Thirteen?

 

[jon81uk]

Evac purposes means they want the location of those with extra needs to be consistent

But I get the impression most other theme parks don’t do that. Disney certainly doesn’t.

 

[Skyscraper]

I thought RAP was allocated the back two cars or so on Thirteen?

Last Scarefest they were only using the last car for RAP I think. Also remember that only one red RAP is allowed per train/car on some rides.

 

[Alsty]

I'm beginning to wonder if things like making all RAP sit in the back row ambulent or not are deliberate to make the RAP queues worse. Since Merlin can't roll back RAP access easily without getting the Daily Mail on their back maybe if they are making the RAP queue worse then normal queue it will encourage ambulant users to just use the main queue and therefore reduce demand and make it clearly not an 'advantage' - crafty

Disabled guests have always sat in the back row of Nemesis for over twenty years. This is to make evacuations easier, especially non-ambulant guests. This was before the system was oversubscribed like it is now with RAP. It's not something that was introduced to "make the RAP queues worse"

I don't know why other rides have different requirements but this is presumably set through risk assessment.