pognoi Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 haha! Jammy, when are you going for summer nights? I doubt it will be. As you stated, there will be alot less guests during summer nights, plus you have to pay extra for it. It seems sort of pointless. Besides, thus far its only been happening for the swarm CharlieN 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchada04 Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 So annoyed it's not being trialled today as the approximate waiting time is 120 minutes (probably more) for forwards. Fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 So annoyed it's not being trialled today as the approximate waiting time is 120 minutes (probably more) for forwards. Fun. Why isn't it being trialled today? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
THORPE PARK Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 We've found a few things to work on and will be resuming the trial on 7 & 8th September JoshC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 Sounds good to us! Another thing - Reserve and Ride info is solidly in the prices section of the website. Definitely gonna charge for that eventually. Presume this is removing fastrack. Least they're hopefully sorting out the diabolical fastrack system! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inferno Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 ^ If they continue to over-sell the amount of priority slots, then the problem remains. The Fastrack problem could be resolved in it's existing format by simply cutting the amount sold on peak days. Hopefully this not just an elaborate way of hiding the Fastrack nightmare. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I don't like this system. Alongside the main queue it could work, but not instead of one. Inferno 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
th13teen Posted August 21, 2013 Report Share Posted August 21, 2013 I honestly see this as a trial to see how well Smartphones will work in having the potential to be able to sell Fastrack via a phone, thus reducing staff costs at kiosks and adding convenience to the ever large tech generation of Thorpe Park's Population. It also ensures rides during their opening few months remain steady rather than facing huge queues, etc. This is my opinion anyway, take it as you will, but I really do not see Thorpe Park offering this as part of the service, possibly to Annual Pass Holders, Hotel Guests and VIP Guests but not so sure it can work for the masses. All in all, fair enough Thorpe Park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 A few parks already do Fastrack via phone sales... Flamingoland springs to mind over in the UK who at least did it a while back... The survey regarding this also asks how much you'd be willing to pay for the service, so it really does look like a replacement for Fastrack's current guise, because if it were to be used as a full on queue replacement, I wouldn't expect to be paying for it... Unless it's aiming for a tiered service... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted August 22, 2013 Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 A few parks already do Fastrack via phone sales... Flamingoland springs to mind over in the UK who at least did it a while back... The survey regarding this also asks how much you'd be willing to pay for the service, so it really does look like a replacement for Fastrack's current guise, because if it were to be used as a full on queue replacement, I wouldn't expect to be paying for it... Unless it's aiming for a tiered service... If it is a full queue replacement, I would be extremely annoyed if you had to pay for it. That's basically saying you have to pay for the big rides. However, I doubt it will be as I expect they will either keep the main queue or have reserve N ride as free and then a better reserve N ride(fastrack) which is paid for. OldFarmerDean 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted August 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2013 They wont make you pay for it if its a full queue replacement. I can see it becoming a tiered as Benin said and id be pretty happy with that TBH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 Note this problem wouldn't be solved if they stopped selling Fastrack. All that would happen is the queue times would be wrong by exactly the same amount. If you are creating a queue time based on a throughput of 1200 and only delivering 1000 then the difference in time would be exactly the same as the extra time taken up by "oversold" FastTrack. I keep reading this and I just cannot seem to understand it... Are you trying to imply that fully removing Fastrack wouldn't make the normal queue quicker? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 All I can think is if they are selling 50% of a rides throughput then they are over-selling the product massively. They could easily increase the price, reduce the amount sold and then please a lot more people. Why aim for 50% happy people when they can go for 100% of people? Inferno 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 Oh I know Ian, I'm just throwing it out there that if it was 50%, it's too high Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted August 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 I'd say generally in that respect operations on park are much better in the last few years in regards to trains being sent quickly. I personally find fastrack is ok until there's a shutdown or something which causes a back log and its a struggle to make that up without letting through alot more fastrack than normal. Back to this Reserve n Ride, I really hope the park stick with it, I think once guests "get it" it will be quite good and totally change how you visit the park. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 The passion with which I hate fastrack, not only it's awful implementation but the whole concept, is hard to put in words. Note this problem wouldn't be solved if they stopped selling Fastrack. All that would happen is the queue times would be wrong by exactly the same amount. If you are creating a queue time based on a throughput of 1200 and only delivering 1000 then the difference in time would be exactly the same as the extra time taken up by "oversold" FastTrack. Not really, as you go on to explain so well the fastrack issue multiplies the error, the overstated throughput is exactly the amount extra they are wrong by with no fastrack, it is considerably more than that with the fastrack problem thrown in. ---- As for Reserve and Ride, I wonder how the park are really approaching it outside of PR speak. I'm going to guess the trial wouldn't even have happened if hey couldn't see some potential ££ at the end of the day. Cynical me, but there are many many simple ways to improve guests day and value without a big complicated system like this so there is clearly something in it for them. The system as described, as a total alternative to queueing creating a queue-less theme park, I think that concept is misguided at best, downright stupid at worst. That is not how a themepark works and they know it. You simply can not say 'this ride will process X amount of people in the next hour' with ANY degree of certainty. So what are your options: -You distribute the maximum potential and then when people will have to queue because of an unforeseen problem they will have the hump (as they have already been waiting elsewhere and have been told they will walk on when their time comes) -You slightly undersell to allow for any delays and not disappoint, but then you'll be sending empty seats when you do achieve (which will give people who can not get on the hump!) -You manage throughput to specific level below the rides full potential, in the same way trains plan to run slower than they can so theycan catch up if needed and are rarely late. This would be a whole new type of stupid. None of them work. This is the beauty of the Disney system. A huge amount of fastrack are given out, but there is a standby queue if you want it, creating a buffer of people to either wait a little longer in case of a problem or fill in the seats when there is a slight lull in fastpassers. It is the obvious solution and there is a good reason the biggest and best park do it that way, that's what this should, and I'm sure will, turn into. I'd like to see it as a straight two tier entrance ticket at differant prices, a 'visitor' ticket for access to standby queues only and a 'rider' ticket with fastrack use. But only one fastrack ticket at a time, so you get to jump a lot of short queues or less longer ones, it's your choice, but outside of that no further jumping. People can not pay their way round the park in a couple of hours and mess it up for everyone else then. What would be even better of course would be to just let everyone queue the same and fairly, charge a fair non bogof'd price to enter that gives them the profit they require and open the gates long enough for everyone to do what they want in a day. But that would be far to simple. Inferno and Benin 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 What I was getting at was the more they overstate throughput the more fastack is available so the more people will push by you, and the more it is overstated the worse that gets. It would only be the actual same without fastrack if you believed that after skipping a queue fastrckers will be waiting as long as that queue would have been before fastracking again/another. Hopefully that is exactly what this new system will do. If a guest is not in the queue for a ride, then they are out on park somewhere else. They can be in shops or restaurants spending money or distributing them to smaller often less-ridden attractions. It improves the guest experience (evidence to be seen) and makes Thorpe more money potentially. BOGOF provides a mechanism for the park to get a large amount of high-profile marketing for almost nothing, to get the same sort of yield spending money would make a significant difference to the gate figure. Otherwise the attendance would drop. Not wanting to hijack this with another fastrack rant thread, but really? That is a very one sided view. Fastrack improves gust experience for those who can or will pay, but for everyone else it is hugely detrimental to their day and as a direct result of the people paying to be in front of them too. The more that pay the worse it gets for those behind, I find that disgusting. From the wizards mouth. Don't break the rules unless you pay us, then you can break the rules. Utterly wrong. As for the BOGOF situation, I totally understand how this works for the parks. But it is a con and you have to be careful with cons. People aren't stupid, it might get them there but when they're hit with the astronomical gate price (which 'happens' to be the same as a season pass! I'm sure that is priced fairly then!), an ever increasing parking charge and a pay to ride system that is becoming close to necessity on busy days they know the score. That is why it gets harder and harder to persuade people to turn up and is a short term view. If they stopped all this silliness people would actually want to come back without vouchers and expensive new rides thrown at them all the time. Most people I talk to, even about theme parks, are from the real non geek world. Almost all of them after a trip will tell me they had a good time but it was a rip off, and many of them will moan directly about fastrack. Thorpe have gone a long way to making things better this year, but fastrack remains a huge problem for me, and the pricing structure is simply farcical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 Maybe I've worded it a bit strongly, but The Regulations introduce a general duty not to trade unfairly and seek to ensure that traders act honestly and fairly towards their customers. They apply primarily to business to consumer practices (but elements of business to business practices are also covered where they affect, or are likely to affect, consumers). I used to have a decent working knowledge of all this OFT stuff, but things have moved on. My general gist is that the gate price is grossly overinflated to then be discounted by way of voucher. The original price in many respects simply does not exist. This is comparable (though clearly not the same as) the sofa companies creating false price points to discount from, or Tesco selling their strawberries for many months at half price after selling them at full price for a couple of days, something which they were fined £30.000 pounds for last week. I'm sure Merlin have themselves covered legally, as I'm sure Tesco and the furniture companies believed they did, but I'd say the practise is skirting around being 'honest and fair' at best. And why would you want to treat your guests like that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 This whole fastrack thing.. I think there's a slight flaw in your argument that the queue will be the same time if they had no fastrack to if they did. If I queued up, and whilst queuing 300 people use fastrack infront of me, those 300 people wouldn't have chosen to ride before me and therefore there'd be a lower queue time for me. So the queue would've been shorter. It depends if the entire system is timeslotted as well, as I don't buy thorpes so I don't know. If they're not timeslotted, I highly doubt all of those with fastrack would've joined the queueline at the same time as they would've gone along with estimated queue times rather than queueing because they've got a quick entry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted August 23, 2013 Report Share Posted August 23, 2013 Fastrack does make queues longer, otherwise why would queues after closing time not be as long as advertised? I experienced that plenty of times at Chessie to see it... Inferno 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Posted August 24, 2013 Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 Well, it wouldn't be replaced by an equal amount - those with fastrack could potentially go on like 3 rides in an hour (say all those queues were an hour). If they didn't do fastrack, it wouldn't be replaced by 3 people in those queues.. that one person would only be in one of the queues. Fastrack has been reduced in vast quantities at towers (by over a thousand a day for certain rides). The impact on the main queue wait times? Neglible, that's with the same amount of guests on park (and smiler closed to make it even). pluk, TPJames, Benin and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted August 24, 2013 Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 I never said they didn't make queues longer, but if you got rid of Fastrack then it would be replaced by an equal number of normal riders. Thus making the stand-by queue longer. The difference being that without fastrack, the queue moves at a consistent rate so whilst it may be physically longer, psychologically it feels shorter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inferno Posted August 24, 2013 Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 This is actually a really interesting discussion, and I am shocked at the amount of pro-Fastrackers out there! I'm an avid hater of Fastrack and think it severely impacts most people's experience for the benefit of a few. You can quote as many figgures as you like, and blame whoever you like for miscalculating the numbers, but none of this matters because it DOES make queues longer a lot of the time for the majority of guests... Much much longer on some days, therefore, as a system it does not work. What would be even better of course would be to just let everyone queue the same and fairly, charge a fair non bogof'd price to enter that gives them the profit they require and open the gates long enough for everyone to do what they want in a day. But that would be far to simple. ^ Couldn't agree more with this. I would be interested to see them run a 2 week trial during busy summer period where Fastrack is completely stopped, just to see how it pans out in reality... I can pretty much guarantee the queues will be more bearable, and guest satisfaction will go up (on the whole). True, that won't turn Thorpe in to a queue-less theme park, but that is an unachievable target so is sort of invalid. Unfortunately Fastrack will continue as long as there is dolla to be made. So we might as well just suck it up. pluk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted August 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 I'd be a hypocrite if I was against fastrack really.. I've used it at towers and Thorpe and often buy the maze fastrack at fright nights too. Regarding this reserve n ride I think if they can make it work it will replace fastrack and it will simply become a system which is free for all but if you wish you can pay and get sooner time slots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted August 24, 2013 Report Share Posted August 24, 2013 Like Marc I have used fastrack. I have never paid for it myself though and I simply hate the idea of it. I have only used it when it's been given to me(by someone random who has to go, customer services, or when I've been stuck on a ride) but I am not going to pay for it. Simple. I always hate it in the nemesis inferno queueline and other queue lines for that matter where you get stopped right before you go into the building, or the station and a massive line of fastrackers go in front of you. YES it does make your overall wait time longer because if you had gone into the station those fastrackers would be behind you, or if they had not fastracked at all they still would be behind you. That is why I simply hate fastrack because its queue jumping and there are many signs around the park saying if you queue jump you will be removed. Do I see fastrackers being removed because they queue jumped? No because they have paid for it. It is unfair. This is why I like the idea of reserve n ride. You are basically fastracking but for free. However everyone does it. Lets say the swarm queue is 60 mins. Without reserve n ride you would just get on one ride, the swarm. With reserve n ride, you could get on 3 rides; swarm being 60 mins, samurai 35 and vortex 20. Instead of using up 2 hours to get on 3 rides, you use up one. That is why I simply love the idea and hope thorpe will continue you with it. I am also hoping to get to the trial on the 8th September. If reserve n ride is continued(which I hope it is), I hope fastrack will be taken away completely from anything with reserve n ride on it. On the smaller rides, there can still be fastrack but I'm hoping they will put reserve n ride on the big ones and remove fastrack. Full stop. In reality, is this going to happen. No because fastrack is a great way to make money and I can't see it being removed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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