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The death of Reserve & Ride

Fammy

Fammy

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Nemesis Reborn
Chessington World of Adventures Resort and all LEGOLAND parks worldwide have seemingly replaced Reserve & Ride with Fastrack:


From: https://x.com/fammypoop/status/2019191135193715034?s=61


Will I miss it? Maybe not because WOW the whole thing was a pain, mostly because Ride Access Pass was conjoined to it. Although to be honest seeing Fastrack at LEGOLAND is kinda cursed since the parks always lived with a virtual queue system.
 
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What's the actual difference in practical terms? I've only ever used One Shots and can't say i noticed a difference across the parks except Fast Track was built into the app rather than a browser so that's an improvement.
 
Bowser said:
What's the actual difference in practical terms? I've only ever used One Shots and can't say i noticed a difference across the parks except Fast Track was built into the app rather than a browser so that's an improvement.
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There were 3 main tiers of Reserve & Ride outside of one shots.
The first one basically had a few rides here and there and when you select one you had to wait the same amount of time as the advertised queue time until you can select another one, then the second one is about the same albeit there’s some more rides and your wait time is instead half of the advertised queue time, then the third and most expensive one includes nearly every single ride in the park and you can just go on another ride straight after the last. From what I heard it was confusing to most guests, and overall wasn’t very nice especially when a queue can just simply close due to an excess amount of riders forcing you to buy a one shot. The whole thing likely wasn’t giving CWOAR and LEGOLAND enough money hence why they switched to the fastrack used at the other Merlin resort theme parks.
 
Legoland Windsor has always been the Reserve & Ride system (although I think it was previously called Q-Bot), it’s also the system that many of the Six Flags and Parques Reunidos parks use.

I doubt it was necessarily not profitable. Just that Merlin wanted consistency across their parks. I highly doubt Six Flags would be continuing to use this system if they thought that a more profitable alternative existed.
 
I'll miss it. Paying £20-£30 each let us queue skip frequently for a whole day. Most rides were included and we could always be virtual queuing for a included ride while queueing for one of the more exclusive options. It did take a bit of planning, but it was not that hard to keep organised.

When using fast track as a family I'll find myself thinking things like "that ride on the dragon cost £15 " which would rather ruin it, with reserve and ride the monetary cost of the skip was at least somewhat hidden.
 
It really is baffling what big business fastrack has become.

I was at Gold Reef City in South Africa a few weeks ago, and they are the only major sized theme park I’ve become across in post-covid years to have absolutely no fastrack system whatsoever. Just classic queuing. It was like a trip back into the 90s. And their queues were mostly moving at a very good pace.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
It really is baffling what big business fastrack has become.

I was at Gold Reef City in South Africa a few weeks ago, and they are the only major sized theme park I’ve become across in post-covid years to have absolutely no fastrack system whatsoever. Just classic queuing. It was like a trip back into the 90s. And their queues were mostly moving at a very good pace.
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Efteling, Europa Park and Liseberg have no Fast Track. They have some virtual queues but those are free. By no coincidence they also have reputations for fast moving queues.

Paulton's Park has no Fast Track (barely used VIP doesn't count) though perhaps that isn't a major sized theme park.

Toverland also has no Fast Track but again might push the boundaries of a "major theme park".

Tivoli Gardens has no Fast Track. With over 4 million annual visitors i think that could reasonably be considered major but might stumble at being considered a theme park.
 
Bowser said:
Efteling, Europa Park and Liseberg have no Fast Track. They have some virtual queues but those are free. By no coincidence they also have reputations for fast moving queues.

Paulton's Park has no Fast Track (barely used VIP doesn't count) though perhaps that isn't a major sized theme park.

Toverland also has no Fast Track but again might push the boundaries of a "major theme park".

Tivoli Gardens has no Fast Track. With over 4 million annual visitors i think that could reasonably be considered major but might stumble at being considered a theme park.
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Not true at all.

Efteling did, although I don’t know if still does, have a free fastrack ticket system for Python when I visited in 2018 which everyone had to use in order to ride Python.

Europa Park 100% does have a fastrack system, called Virtual Line (again, free) which is used on numerous rides. I had several Virtual Lane reservations last month for Wodan and Blue Fire, so you’re definitely mistaken on that one.

Last time I visited Liseberg was in 2018 and again, 100% there was fast track. If you purchased online, you got fast track access on three rides. Grona Lund had the sam system when I visited in 2022.

The other parks which you mentioned aren’t parks which I’d have classed as “major” although I take your point about Tivoli’s visitor count.

So I stand by what I said that Gold Reef City is the only major park I’ve visited with no form of fast track system at all. I stand by that, although I guess I’ll have to add “except Tivoli”
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Europa Park 100% does have a fastrack system, called Virtual Line (again, free) which is used on numerous rides. I had several Virtual Lane reservations last month for Wodan and Blue Fire, so you’re definitely mistaken on that one.
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It's not fastrack though; you wait the same amount of time as the main queue, just virtually.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Not true at all.

Efteling did, although I don’t know if still does, have a free fastrack ticket system for Python when I visited in 2018 which everyone had to use in order to ride Python.

Europa Park 100% does have a fastrack system, called Virtual Line (again, free) which is used on numerous rides. I had several Virtual Lane reservations last month for Wodan and Blue Fire, so you’re definitely mistaken on that one.

Last time I visited Liseberg was in 2018 and again, 100% there was fast track. If you purchased online, you got fast track access on three rides. Grona Lund had the sam system when I visited in 2022.
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I quite literally cited Efteling and Europa as having Virtual Queues in the very post you quoted so to list them back at me whilst stating I am definitely wrong is an unusual discussion tactic! :D

Liseberg no longer has any form of Fast Track, though they do now also have Virtual Queues so i stand corrected on that front.

I gather your point was actually that Gold Reef City is a theme park that only has one physical queue line per ride (as Virtual Queues still tend to require an additional physical entrance)?

There are other parks that have the worst of both worlds, such as Plopsaland De Panne, which has introduced Fast Track but there are no queue lines for the majority of rides meaning users have to use the exit (alongside disabled pass holders), which is awkward for everyone involved.
 
Ok let me rephrase what I said in my original post then. Gold Reef City has no form of non-standard queuing system. I thought it was kind of obvious that’s what I meant but clearly not.
 
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