June 8, 201510 yr comment_210843 It's just not a very busy day... I will say that RnR seems to handle pretty well when there are very few people there, but then you don't need the system as it would be fine anyway.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210858 Project LC, By repeating and repeating, and repeating the same point, you are adding nothing to the conversation, Frankly it's borderline spamming, so please do not post for the sake of posting, In fact if I was you I would write a long blog post and never mention it again; hell I'll even make a whole topic dedicated to your opinion of R 'n' R and pin and lock it so people can see it without having to read every other post in this topic
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210883 I was there today and used RnR for a couple of rides. The park was quiet, of course. The longest queue I saw on a board was about 60 minutes for Swarm, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't that long. The longest queue was probably about 30 minutes or so. Not many people were using the system it seemed; many were happy to use the standby queues; they simply weren't that long. For anyone using RnR, the longest virtual wait I saw was a whopping 3 minutes for Swarm. The merge points of the queues will mean people using RnR won't spend very long in queues - 5-10 minutes at a maximum. For those wanting confirmation - you have to present your tickets / passes when signing up to the system; they're scanned along with a QR code on your phone when you log in. The main point where this can be done is in the Dome, but I did notice a few people roaming around who were able to do it. My experience probably won't silence any critics of the system, as it's too quiet a day and too soon to give any conclusive results. However, this does at least show that, on an off peak day, it does work, and it won't stop people getting re-rides if they so wish. Personally though, I'm still happy with the system and would be happy to use it again on a busier day given that things went smoothly today.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210888 Bare in mind the queue board was most likely wrong. I should also add that the 30 minute queue I mentioned was for I'm a Celebrity. The coaster queues weren't that long in reality; 10-15 minutes top. Being a quiet day, there were probably plenty of people that were happy to just queue normally / the park weren't pushing the system that much. I don't know why people weren't using the system, but not using the system wouldn't have really affected your day.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210894 Supposedly Colossus reached 60 mins as did swarm. Obviously only estimates but that is a bit more than 15 mins. I never saw any queues that looked 60 minutes long. Could of course be that I wasn't around those areas at the time, but it just doesn't fit with how busy the park was today.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210896 How does the scanning the ticket activation work for annual pass holders then? Do we scan our passes instead?
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210897 How does the scanning the ticket activation work for annual pass holders then? Do we scan our passes instead? Yes.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210900 I was there today and used RnR for a couple of rides. The park was quiet, of course. The longest queue I saw on a board was about 60 minutes for Swarm, but I'm pretty certain it wasn't that long. The longest queue was probably about 30 minutes or so. This is a big problem, no? If they can't get this right, which from experience and this post today they can't, how on earth will they ever get such a complex system running smoothly. Despite my general negativity I'd love them to get this working, but how about starting with the very basic 'even remotely accurate queue time' first? Then move on to the world of complex virtual queuing. Making it 'work' (ie not cause the park to implode) on a dead day isn't particularly impressive.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210901 Yes. So what happens when you get you slot, do you walk up the fastrack queue?
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210904 So what happens when you get you slot, do you walk up the fastrack queue? There will be a spot where a staff member with a scanner is waiting. They scan the QR code on your phone and you then merge with the main queue at a certain point; it's separate from the Fastrack queue though. They've made it so you shouldn't wait long after the merge points though.
June 8, 201510 yr comment_210905 The thing is, I wouldn't class it as a success because it worked on a quiet day. If they can get it to work successfully on a peak day then I may have more support for the system, but at the moment whenever they trial it on a busy day it just results in chaos.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210910 The problem with operating standby queues as well as RNR is that is not a realistic simulation of how the system would be operated and it means people just use the standby queues anyway as they don't understand RNR. On the peak days, we need to scrap the standby queues. Thorpe are over-complicating things and all we need is the system with phones and cards. RNR and fastrack, that's it. With the standby queues operating, it's likely to be a nightmare as those on the park will just use standby queues as it's "easier" and therefore they will have massive waits due to low throughput allocations to the main queue. As Jamie says though, this trial is not a success as it's on an off peak day and it proves nothing about the system, it's the later trials in the year we are interested in to see how they affect the park.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210911 Remember the first trial when there weren't any standby queues? Yeah, that's why they have them operating during the rest of them...
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210916 There will be a spot where a staff member with a scanner is waiting. They scan the QR code on your phone and you then merge with the main queue at a certain point; it's separate from the Fastrack queue though. They've made it so you shouldn't wait long after the merge points though. OK, I'm thinking about the Swarm, it has two queue lines (ft & normal) that merge at the counter. Imagine on a busy day the standby queue is a hour, you get your rnr slot, so is the guy scanning the qr codes on the queue entrance, or the merge point? I know I'm not making it too clear lol, I'm trying to ask if the standby queue is an hour, and you have an rnr slot giving you access at the time you go up to the queue line, how do you jump the standby queue if you don't use the fast track entrance? Isn't the whole idea that you skip the standby queue, so in that case, how do you get to the merge point, if the end of the standby queue is a hundred yards before it? I guess I'm asking, surely they haven't built dedicated rnr entrances, or have they?
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210919 At the time of writing: Colossus standby: 75 minutes Colossus reserve'n'ride: 15 minutes. Swarm standby: 10 minutes Swarm reserve'n'ride: 15 minutes. LC will be happy
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210924 At the time of writing: Colossus standby: 75 minutes Colossus reserve'n'ride: 15 minutes. Swarm standby: 10 minutes Swarm reserve'n'ride: 15 minutes. LC will be happy Not quite sure what you mean by that. RnR is doing its job there in making all queues a similar length. Although by the sounds of things they can hardly have anyone using it.I'm sure it will be positive reviews all round in that Colossus queue.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210925 You hate the system right? So I thought you'd be pleased that the standby queue is aparantly shorter than the reserve'n'ride one. I forgot the pink text, sorry.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210927 You hate the system right? So I thought you'd be pleased that the standby queue is aparantly shorter than the reserve'n'ride one.The RnR virtual wait should always be longer. Unless you mean the physical wait for the RnR queue is 15 minutes.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210932 Colossus standby: 75 minutes Colossus reserve'n'ride: 15 minutes. If these numbers are right it sounds like they need to be communicating how the system works and its benefits better. People aren't used to things being free at a Theme Park! They probably think it's a version of fastrack, or simply don't understand it at all. There must be a valid reason for all these people to be joining a massive pointless queue, they can't all be idiots!
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210937 Wait...I don't mean to go off topic but why on earth is Colossus on a 75 minute wait? I thought we were in off peak season at the moment and it had 2 trains back?
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210940 Wait...I don't mean to go off topic but why on earth is Colossus on a 75 minute wait? I thought we were in off peak season at the moment and it had 2 trains back?Yet on Sunday, a lovely hot day it probably peaked at only 45 minutes. What on earth??
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210941 It probably opened on 1 train, though looking at the current queue times I suspect everything is now on full capacity. We can't really learn very much from how well RnR is performing this week. Currently queues for most rides are around 15 minutes so the system seems a little unnecessary. I want to know what happens when there's 15000+ people in the park and queues for coasters would be 90+ minutes without RnR. Will we see 75 minutes for the likes of Rush and Samurai or will people not wait that long? Will the paths be packed with people just wandering around as the RnR allocations have gone and standby queues are enormous? The real test for this system would be the busiest day of the year.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210942 Yet on Sunday, a lovely hot day it probably peaked at only 45 minutes. What on earth?? It's probably to do with throughput allocations of the main queue. That's one of my main issues with RNR to be honest, it makes the standby queue worse still.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210943 If it doesn't have a standby queue and the system is under allocating then seats start going round empty. However if it does have a standby queue and the system starts over allocating then the main queue slows right down. A loose loose situation.
June 9, 201510 yr comment_210946 The RnR virtual wait should always be longer. Unless you mean the physical wait for the RnR queue is 15 minutes. Not quiet. I thought the idea of the system was that it allowed you to 'virtually' queue for your ride, so for the system to work fairly if the standby queue was 50 minutes, then the rnr queue should be 50 minutes (or anything up to that), but nothing over that. As soon as the rnr queue becomes longer than the main queue it defeats the object of the system since you can get on the ride quicker by physically queuing, than you can by virtually queuing.
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