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The Merlin VIP Annual Pass

MakoMania said:
I wouldn't get rid of fastrack, it's good if you're a geek and you've only got one day at a park and want to do everything.

I would limit it much more than they do at the minute though. With a sensible limit it wouldn't have such a negative effect on other guests.
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Fair point. IMO excluding the busiest of days I expect to be able to do everything in one day, without a fastpass. Alton Towers doesn't feel like a big enough park to warrant spending more than a day. It's a vicious cycle as more people will buy fast track if the queues are bad, which then makes the queue even longer for everyone else and there's less incentive to improve operations
 
Smilertron said:
I have more hatred toward those people that stand in a queue for god knows how long, then invited about 20 of their mates/family into the point of the queue where they are standing. I don't understand how this is deemed a reasonable thing to do. We are the miserable gits that refuse to let them through. We got a right mouthful off some kids at Winter Wonderland. Sometimes, i like to pay for fasttrack, just to avoid a fight haha.
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Glad I'm not the only one that likes to hold onto both sides of the queue line to stop people queue jumping.
 
MakoMania said:
I wouldn't get rid of fastrack, it's good if you're a geek and you've only got one day at a park and want to do everything.

I would limit it much more than they do at the minute though. With a sensible limit it wouldn't have such a negative effect on other guests.
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See that's the Merlin effect making you think it's needed when it really isn't. Crap service = upsell opportunity.

In an ideal world every park would have a good number of flats/filler rides to soak up queues elsewhere, with single rider available. They'd have reliable and well maintained coasters that very rarely break down. The staff would be well trained, motivated and efficient, thus keeping queues to a minimum.

Again I don't want to be that Europa-dork, but you'd easily get on all 13 of their coasters in one day (even on peak days) because they actually want their guests to get value for their money.
 
Europa is win. Even on the busiest days you can get on roughly 30 rides if you try. This is still only around half the park’s rides, though not many parks have as many as EP do. If parks didn’t have fast pass systems, you could easily get on the majority of attractions in a day, providing they were operated efficiently.
 
Benzin said:
Only park Fastrack is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED is Port Aventura, because the queue-jumping is so prevalent anyway you might as well pay for it...
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We've just come back from Tenerife and we went to Siam Park (the place is amazing btw), it was exactly the same there. When you mention it to them, they conviently don't understand English. Fortunately fast track for all slides is 15 groats each, which is an absolute bargain. Highly recommend the place if you like water parks and even if you don't, there's plenty to do.
 
Smilertron said:
We've just come back from Tenerife and we went to Siam Park (the place is amazing btw), it was exactly the same there. When you mention it to them, they conviently don't understand English. Fortunately fast track for all slides is 15 groats each, which is an absolute bargain. Highly recommend the place if you like water parks and even if you don't, there's plenty to do.
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Love Siam Park... awesome collection of water rides and that wave pool is amazing!

Smilertron said:
15 groats
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LOL
 
Rosie said:
Out of interest why do you feel the need to hide it?

Personally I think that what people do with their money is their own business. If i wanted to queue less then i would spend the money too. I don't understand the stigma against people paying for something that is readily available. Why judge people for buying when Merlin/ AT are offering?
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Because although its nice to have, I don't really see the need to have it outwardly visible all the time. Everyone can see you have paid for fastpass when you are in the fastpass queue, so dont really see why it should be on view permanently.

Also, the only place I found convenient was hanging off a belt loop, and after two minutes and the third time of it smacking me in the nether regions when I ran after the kids, I'd had enough. In the pocket it went.

I guess its just a sign of todays society when you can't have nice things or spend money on perks without being considered a show off, toff, flash git, etc, etc... Without wanting to sound like a willy waver, and to make a comparison, I get let out of junctions all the time in the wifes Twingo or S-Max, slightly less in the Range Rover, and when I had a Ferrari I almost never got let out, and even had w*nker signs from complete strangers as they drove past. Experiences like that have kind of instilled in me a behaviour where I enjoy nice things with the family as a family, and in "public" try not to display or "flaunt" anything.
 
MakoMania said:
I wouldn't get rid of fastrack, it's good if you're a geek and you've only got one day at a park and want to do everything.

I would limit it much more than they do at the minute though. With a sensible limit it wouldn't have such a negative effect on other guests.
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Agreed. Visiting from afar we buy the platinum because of our limited time. In August when we visited the only fastrack queue that had people in front of us or behind us at any point was Rita so fastrack had little affect on the normal queues that day. The park was very busy that day too. Fastrack only fails when they hand them out free due to breakdowns and stoppages.
 
Austin Towers said:
Visiting from afar we buy the platinum because of our limited time. In August when we visited the only fastrack queue that had people in front of us or behind us at wasany point Rita
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That's really unusual for Rita to have a ft queue.

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ihaveaspergers said:
That's really unusual for Rita to have a ft queue.

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The hellishly slow batching causes the queue to build a little. Everything else we walked straight on except for Nemmy and WM were you join the main queue. Though we only did the preshow once on WM, we asked to skip it the rest of the time.
 
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but as with Brexit it will take a while as people have brought passes within the last month so will still be seeing VIP about into next season :p
 
Just refund them and get it over and done with.

This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Top move Merlin. Top move.
 
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