shakey
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Wild Mouse - Blackpool - :(
Still a rip off though.
£10 for a single ride on something you have already paid for unlimited rides on.
That's hardly VFM is it !
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- Start date
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
- Favourite Ride
- Wild Mouse - Blackpool - :(
- Favourite Ride
- Wild Mouse - Blackpool - :(
Wicker Man - General Discussion - Part Two
£10 for a single ride on something you have already paid for unlimited rides on.
That's hardly VFM is it !
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The only reason you can't ride it for 'free' in a fair way is because some people are paying to jump the queue. I don't see why queue jumping should be value for money.
imanautie
TS Member
£10 to save a 90 minute queue seems worthwhile to Mr to be honest.
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I think they should make the single shot fastracks all the same price. £6 for most rides and £10 for 2 others is stupid
Burbs
TS Team
It's because they're the 2 newest and most popular coasters.
AT86
TS Member
If someone was prepared to pay you £10 for something, why would you tell them you would accept £6?
Dave
TS Founding Member
I personally think fast track should be £15 a go and half the FT quota.
imanautie
TS Member
£15 is probably pushing it, but a flat £10 a go seems reasonably pricey.
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You sound like a right tight tyke shakey.
Worth it to skip an hours wait on my duff knees.
And it gives me more time at the bar.
Make them all a tenner, strictly limit the numbers per hour, scrap the multipasses.
And bring back the single rider lines.
Won't happen
shakey
TS Member
The moment that parks started to introduce Fast Track / Speedypass / QBot (or whatever they want to call it), then theme parks became elite-ist.
As far as a time and motion study goes it may well be beneficial to spend £10 to save 90 minutes of your life, but a lot of people simply can't afford to pay extra on top of the money they have already paid, which should have given them unlimited riding in the first place. Not many families can afford an extra £40 just so they can all get one ride on Wickerman.
If you have deep enough pockets then you can walk to the front of every queue in most theme parks in the world but you now have a system where money talks. Great revenue for theme parks but rather annoying to most theme park visitors. Not only do the queue jumpers get to walk straight on, it also creates an even longer queue for everyone else.
It would be nice if parks gave out a set number of queue jumping passes as standard with your entry fee, but I can't see many parks adopting that strategy !
As far as a time and motion study goes it may well be beneficial to spend £10 to save 90 minutes of your life, but a lot of people simply can't afford to pay extra on top of the money they have already paid, which should have given them unlimited riding in the first place. Not many families can afford an extra £40 just so they can all get one ride on Wickerman.
If you have deep enough pockets then you can walk to the front of every queue in most theme parks in the world but you now have a system where money talks. Great revenue for theme parks but rather annoying to most theme park visitors. Not only do the queue jumpers get to walk straight on, it also creates an even longer queue for everyone else.
It would be nice if parks gave out a set number of queue jumping passes as standard with your entry fee, but I can't see many parks adopting that strategy !
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I assume you can hear the laughter from Mr Varney's office in Poole?!
FastTrack is a cash cow (just like the paid parking).
Merlin need to look to that company they "are only second to" in the USA. It reportedly cost Disney the same amount as installing a "fifth gate" [i.e. an entire new theme park] to rollout FastPass+ across it's Orlando operation. 4 theme parks, 2 waterparks, 30 hotels & Disney Springs all covered. The MagicBand / FastPass+ experience is unique & works seamlessly across the entire resort.
MagicBand will store your theme park tickets, FastPass+'s (bookable 30 or 60 days out online), act as your hotel room key & allow charging to your hotel account across the parks. Could you imagine if Merlin attempted anything similar? It'd be done on a shoestring (probably outsourced too) and would crash faster than The... OK, we won't go there!
MagicBand (or the "hard" tickets - actually plastic cards) all use RFID. We only need to look at Alton Towers previous dabble with RFID technology - outsourced to YourDay. It failed, miserably.
I'm sorry, but it has to be said, Merlin are a second rate theme park operator. Yes, they do have some world-class rides, but the underlying infrastructure & customer service behind them is woefully lacking. Just look what a family owned business in Rust, Germany can pull off - a park that gives the likes of Disney a run for their money.
shakey
TS Member
And one of the few major theme parks that don't operate a fast pass system (as far as I am aware)
You’re incorrect, YourDay used the long range and 90% of the Magicband features use the near range. I’ve not encountered any issues using the near range type anywhere, I’ve encountered problems with the long range including at Disney.
If I am incorrect, then I apologise. Did the on-ride photos at Disney use near range? I am guessing not - but that would explain why people were mentioning 3yr max battery lives on MagicBands for some of the features (i.e. long range).
Plastic Person
TS Member
MagicBands are not without their issues, either. The project went hugely over-budget, for starters, and have seriously impacted the quality of experience for the more casual visitor. Their intent is to keep people within Disney property and to keep them spending and spending, as well as collecting their data. MagicBands are a for-profit move, too, rather than simply a technical feat designed to make things easier for guests. Unless you consider having to book a ride on Dumbo The Flying Elephant sixty days out 'easy', that is. However, militant strategy is seemingly now an integral part of the Disney parks experience, at least on the East Coast.
As for Fastpass, Fastrack and it's paid variants at other parks and chains, then I'm afraid that they're now an engrained part of theme park culture. I agree that they cause more hassle than it's worth, but if they weren't for sale, I suspect guests would actually be complaining.
AT86
TS Member
Another argument for doubling the price and halving the allocation.