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The Smiler - General Discussion

Reserve and ride solution anyone .......

once the queue hits a certain capacity say 30m reserve and ride style system to maintain the line .......


but merlin gave up on that Because you know they opted for paid fastrack as that brings home the bacon
 
pluk said:
Not selling fastrack while there are capacity issues, which should never be happening anyway, would do it.
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For once, fastrack isn't the problem here - they're typically posting a 60min wait for one of their most popular rides when many other queues in the park are just as long (or longer). The queue would have to be at least 90 minutes for people to think twice and the only way it could actually be that long (assuming people were socially distancing properly) would be to massively hike the fastrack allocation to slow down the queue. [note - I absolutely do not endorse such a course of action]

They need to do something though - it's impossible to enforce social distancing in the maze of a queue line - the markers are almost entirely ignored by guests as they're so unintuitive and you often can't even see where the next one is from the one you're stood on.
 
Not convinced no fast track on The Smiler would prevent its queue line getting full consistently, I think it'd still fill up just as frequently.
 
Danscott22 said:
Not convinced no fast track on The Smiler would prevent its queue line getting full consistently, I think it'd still fill up just as frequently.
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But during current restrictions FT is contributing to capacity issues by slowing down the flow of the main queue line.

Edit - To be clear I’m not suggesting FT is the sole reason for the main queue to be at capacity, it happened last year without FT but I do believe it doesn’t exactly do any favours in keeping the main queue moving more efficiently.
 
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They would need to make it a claustrophobic Perspex mess to try and remove some of the distancing needed and therefore increase the number of people in the queue.
Not sure it’s worth it really. But that mess of a queueline doesn’t feel particularly great for minimising Covid transmission
 
AstroDan said:
Smiler's queueline really is a social distancing NIGHTMARE.

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Not to mention the fact it can be a lot longer wait than what it should with social distancing. When distancing is good and people stick to the markers, it'll likely be just over an hour or so at capacity. With the lack of social distancing though, I reckon it's more like 90-100 this year
 
Rob said:
The queue line for The Smiler is horrendous at the best of times. The idea of queueing for it during a pandemic is, well, the less said the better. A covid breeding pit probably wouldn't be too inaccurate!
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Don't think the queues for Th13teen and Rita are far off that either
 
Mikw said:
I'm curious as to why, they always send empty trains around after a stoppage.
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If it's a technical fault then after it's been investigated, fixed and the fault has been reset on the control system then it's important to send empty trains to ensure it all works as expected and doesn't fault again. If they loaded the train up immediately then they risk trapping a second load of people if something else happens or the fault recurs.

Also possibly technical services used various modes to clear the fault that shouldn't be used with guests. Running several empty trains on automatic mode gets everything back to the correct state.

I'm sure also the process has been tightened up as @AT86 mentioned as well.
 
I wonder why they aren’t utilising some of the other paths in the immediate area for an overspill queue? Rather than the nightmare mess of people crowding around the entrance when the queue is at capacity , why not form a secondary queue along the main path in front of Towers , with a team member at the front and back . Then , when the extension around the entrance is emptied , temporarily hold the foot traffic while people file through . They did something like this when the ride first opened with an extended queue down towards goal striker
 
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