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Reserve n Ride


Marc

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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.

Scrapping the standby queue just isn't realistic, I know I rely on my phone for train times to get home so will most likely need it to be off for most of the day to save battery.. I just don't think expecting every group of people to have to rely on their phones to get on rides is realistic at all

 

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.

 

no because if the rnr queue is longer you can ride flats etc in the meantime instead of standing in a physical queue

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LOL no, it'd take longer to walk over to a flat, queue for it, ride it, and walk back to the main ride, then it would stand in the standby queue for 10 minutes.

If you want to do that, please, be my guest, it'll mean less people in the standby queue.

I hate to agree with LC, but this system has more holes in it than a lump of swiss cheese.

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LOL no, it'd take longer to walk over to a flat, queue for it, ride it, and walk back to the main ride, then it would stand in the standby queue for 10 minutes.

If you want to do that, please, be my guest, it'll mean less people in the standby queue.

I hate to agree with LC, but this system has more holes in it than a lump of swiss cheese.

The way the system works will be that the virtual wait will nearly always be longer than the main queue. Everyone on the flat rides and even people in other coaster queues can be waiting virtually for the coaster in question. As a result far more people are trying to ride the coasters than there were before. 

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Then I tend to agree with you, to get a true indication of how the system works, you need to remove the standby queue completely and have everybody using the ticket/booking system. All the time you have a standby queue, it's just increasing the length of both queues.

Maybe just make it one or two rides on each day.

Or have they tried that already?

I can understand the theory on a very busy day where queues might be 90 minutes plus, under those circumstances it makes sense.

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The first trials involved no stand by queue and only operated on the swarm and they were a spectacular failure on almost every front. Technical problems, over allocation of people, no one knew what it was and so many people either missed out on the swarm or thought they had to buy fastrack. That was a really unenjoyable day, having to wait 2 hours virtually to be told it was an hour queue we had to join or we were not getting on the swarm at all. Saying that there have since been worse days with RnR. 

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Can someone explain to me what you have to do when you get to the park to use RnR? Do you have to see a member of staff on entrance to the park or can you just set it up all by yourself? I'm probably going to try it next week but I'm not sure if I like the idea. I'd rather keep my phone in my pocket all day to be honest.

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Can someone explain to me what you have to do when you get to the park to use RnR? Do you have to see a member of staff on entrance to the park or can you just set it up all by yourself? I'm probably going to try it next week but I'm not sure if I like the idea. I'd rather keep my phone in my pocket all day to be honest.

Would strongly advise that if it is active when you are there you use it. Even if it is a pain to use it,  it will get you far more rides than if you didn't. 

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The first trials involved no stand by queue and only operated on the swarm and they were a spectacular failure on almost every front. Technical problems, over allocation of people, no one knew what it was and so many people either missed out on the swarm or thought they had to buy fastrack. That was a really unenjoyable day, having to wait 2 hours virtually to be told it was an hour queue we had to join or we were not getting on the swarm at all. Saying that there have since been worse days with RnR.

Oh dear, I hope the system is improved.

James, when I was playing with the system earlier, the software presented to you a qr code that you have to show to 'a member of staff' to be scanned into the system, it recommended doing this in the dome. I didn't get past that obviously but you have to signup to the system with and email and password before you get to that stage, so I suggest doing this part at home to save some time.

Having said that, I wonder what the queue is going to be like for rnr activations in the dome on a busy day, could be stood in that for an hour befor even getting to a ride...

I would hope they'd have people at the turn styles to activate you as you entered the park on busy days, they seem to always have a ton of staff standing around there anyway.

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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 guess I'm asking, surely they haven't built dedicated rnr entrances, or have they?

 

For Swarm, the RnR queue uses the old Backwards Queue and merges at the bag drop.  The normal queue and Fastrack queues are used as normal.  So, they have someone scanning at the entrance to the RnR queue.

 

For other coasters, it's a bit different.  For Nemesis Inferno, they send the people for the standby queue down the second extension and let people using the RnR queue go through the first extension.  There's a staff member batching between the two extensions, so you would simply just walk through towards the station.  Colossus uses the old Fastrack queue for RnR, and have a batcher at the appropriate point.  Not sure about Stealth 

 

 

LOL no, it'd take longer to walk over to a flat, queue for it, ride it, and walk back to the main ride, then it would stand in the standby queue for 10 minutes.

 

Depends on the circumstances.  If I'm by Rush and I make a reservation for Inferno on, say, a 15 minute virtual wait, I can make the reservation, ride Rush, then head over to Inferno.  In the space of 15-20 minutes, I've done two rides, whereas in the standby queue, I'd have done one ride.

 

It's worth remembering that once you've done your virtual wait, you have 30 minutes to activate the QR code before losing your spot.  This gives plenty of time if you're caught in a queue / to get to the ride.  

 

The first trials involved no stand by queue and only operated on the swarm and they were a spectacular failure on almost every front. Technical problems, over allocation of people, no one knew what it was and so many people either missed out on the swarm or thought they had to buy fastrack. That was a really unenjoyable day, having to wait 2 hours virtually to be told it was an hour queue we had to join or we were not getting on the swarm at all. Saying that there have since been worse days with RnR. 

 

The first trial wasn't a total failure; surely if it was, they wouldn't have carried on with the system.  I used it on the second day of trials; there were technical faults which did result in an hour wait after a 50 minute virtual wait.  As soon as the fault was recognised, they stopped any more reservations being made and then fixed the system.  It worked well later on that day and I saw people happy to use it.

 

One of the reasons for a standby queue is because, regardless of how much Thorpe try, some people will want to queue normally.  It shouldn't be a reason for Thorpe to not try the system in my opinion - after all, the point of the system is to minimise queueing - but the standby queue is there as an alternative.  I still stand by the opinion that the system could work with no standby queue, but hey, if people don't want to use the system, then you can't really force them to!

 

Can someone explain to me what you have to do when you get to the park to use RnR? Do you have to see a member of staff on entrance to the park or can you just set it up all by yourself? I'm probably going to try it next week but I'm not sure if I like the idea. I'd rather keep my phone in my pocket all day to be honest.

 

It really is simple.  Once you've filled in details on the website, you go to the RnR kiosk in the dome with your group's tickets/passes, and get them scanned.  Then you can start reserving rides.  You can't set it up all by yourself since you need a member of staff to confirm how many people are in your group.  If you decide to not sign up in the dome, I did notice some people roaming around the park where you can sign up.

 

Having said that, I wonder what the queue is going to be like for rnr activations in the dome on a busy day, could be stood in that for an hour befor even getting to a ride...

I would hope they'd have people at the turn styles to activate you as you entered the park on busy days, they seem to always have a ton of staff standing around there anyway.

 

On busy days, I'd expect they'd have loads of staff in the dome and around the park to get people onto the system - they'll have enough organisation skills to make sure people won't have to wait long.

 

I doubt they'll have anyone by the turnstiles signing people in though - that area is hectic enough as it is, and it's not practical to get people to wait around in groups to sign them in (even if the process only takes 30 seconds).  They'll probably use the bridge to have people handing out leaflets, mentioning the system, etc.

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Well there is no surprise there then.

Also are you able to use RnR on all rides today? Or is it just the way the site is displaying it.

Not sure how you're accessing the site off park, but only the main coasters can be used for RnR. You can buy Fastrack for rides through the website though, hence why most rides are displayed.

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The Swarm trial was never going to work as the system is intended. Putting it on one ride was to simply trial the technology and system, of course people were going to book straight away leading to it becoming full or whatever and it crashed severely multiple times. But when it worked, it worked quite well and must have got good reviews.

 

FN was a disaster. No hiding the fact. The system was ideal for mazes but the overselling of Fastrack remains a problem at FN, plus the park was a lot busier than anyone could have expected. The huge fluctuation in maze throughputs, multiple shutdowns etc always makes the throughput virtually impossible to get accurate and joining any maze queue is basically a "who knows how long this will take" decision. People had also worked out how to work the system with multiple phones using it for one group, the ability to book and move your time slot and so on. But when it was on the 5 coasters over summer it worked on a whole. Yes there were some complaints, but overall it was well received. 

 

The first trial that was on all the coasters was meant to have standbys closed, and for the first 30 minutes or so they were. And this can work, in the first hour you overallocate each ride by a bit giving it a 10 minute queue when you arrive (as I believe that's the aim for the system you'll only have to wait 5/10 minutes upon arrival) then there's always a small amount of people waiting. Plus, if the ride gets quieter the system does allow you to choose to "Ride right now" if you want to even if you had say 30 minutes on the countdown left. You don't have to of course, but the option can turn up. Standbys were mainly opened because people complained so much about not wanting to use the system and then these same people will have moaned at the end of the day about having to queue when they had the opportunity to use RnR.

 

Maybe it should be promoted more about how to use the system and that it's free, but last year there were stands everywhere and the RnR staff at ride entrances (of which there were a few at each ride) were trying to tell guests that say Stealth is a 5 minute wait for free on this virtual system or you can wait 45 minutes in the actual queue. People still ignored that and I think that's more the issue. Not that the system can't work as a system, but how there will always be people who want to queue physically. It's an odd one but I like the system and have only had better days because of it (and I've even had rerides on days RnR is working).

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Clearly that today and all of this week Thorpe have failed to get the idea of RnR across to the people in he park. Colossus on a 75 minute queue but a 30 min virtual wait. What is the point in a trial if no one uses the thing.

 

Maybe the point of the trial is to see if people will use it, as well as to see if actually works when it's used?

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So before half 11 there must have been less than 700 people using the system. Assuming that for a 10 minute queue you would need 170 people ((1000/60)*100 which would mean they get 100% of the rides capacity and all rides achieved 1000pph) and there is 4 rides that would give you around 700 people. So unless I've missed something there was less than 700 people using RnR before lunch. 

Was it actually working before 11:30?

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My personal view is thorpe should keep there normal queue lines but update the app to be a paid for benefit similar to a queue bot at lego and blackpool. So say for £10 per person per day you have access to reserve and ride in its current form. I believe thorpe should also keep fast track along side it could be built into the app or run standalone as present but the tickets should be heavily priced and limited for instant access if that makes sence.

So in summary the amount of r&r and fast track should not exceed the current quota so to keep the main queue moving.

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Well personally to me, that would seem to be the end goal, as when I used it last year it was set up with a purchase button etc. of course it was free as its trials... But I reckon it will be a mobile version of queue bot which you can pay on your phone, and you would also be able to buy single fast tracks as well. But they obviously need some vigorous testing to ensure it works correctly before they start selling the service

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We used reserve n ride today and my opinion overall was it worked very well we were a group of 3, however as the day went n the website kept increasing the size of our group until it saw 46 of us in our group but great day all rides done in under 2 hours obviously excluding saw as it was closed

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