AJ Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Even if the price is higher, do you not find that psychologically if your getting a discount - even if there is not much difference - you feel rewarded somewhat even though you know in the back of your mind you have not benefited greatly from it? The human mind is great at such trickery. It's like when petrol at the pumps went up from 99p over the £1.00 back in the day. It was only 1p but it seemed that so much more expensive! But then you got that voucher that allowed you to have 2p off a litre at the pump and even though it wasn't that much different - you felt so much happier, especially as you had gone under than triple digit threshold again Its a very small price reduction as the the discount you are getting is off a higher price. Every Little helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt 236 Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 TBH I think it's good that we're getting discount there as qualitywise it's very similar, but better value for pass holders. As for non pass holders, it's only £1 ride at the end of the day, and I still think at £10.99 it offers good value food (considering you can as much as you like). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.S217 Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 RNR will work just scrap the stand by and have fast track an option to jump a head of the virtual queue. So all Virtual queuing on Certain rides (The Big 5, Samurai New Dark ride depending on the day/weather Tidal wave and Loggers leap) leaving the other rides to be queued for in the normal queue while waiting for your time slot. Another thing is RNR would work between 10:30-4:00 so Enthusiasts can have there re rides with out complaints. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Scrap standby queues, apart from the first half hour and the last hour(s)... Not a sensible decision... Besides, the assumption the rerides will just make enthusiasts happy is the sweeping under the rug issues we suffer from currently when it comes to Merlin... pluk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Scrap the stand by queue and then you have a serious in problem to do with physical space. That really would not work. If it was just the coasters then it may not be as bad but with all the rides your suggesting it would just result in mega queues for flats. People go to ride rides. Not wait in a shop for 5 hours so they can eventually get on a coaster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 I still genuinely think Thorpe should try RnR without a standby queue at least once on the 5 coasters. When they first trialled the system in 2013 on just Swarm, it seemed to work well when the system didn't crash (well, in my opinion at least!). RnR was designed with the 'queue free park' in mind, so it would be interesting to see how the system works with that in operation. I fully understand the impracticalities of it all and do think it should be trialled on a relatively quiet day, but I think the system needs trialling like that at some point in the upcoming season! If it doesn't work, then Thorpe should rethink the whole idea; maybe use it as just a Fastrack only thing or something?On a related point, I was always shocked that Thorpe have trialled this system during such busy periods. That must surely say something about Thorpe's faith within the system! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Now there is a reason it seemed to work on the swarm trials and that is because it was 1/5th of the people. I will admit that they should consider trailing it with no stand by queues on the 5 coasters on off peak to see the dynamics of what will happen in the summer. Trailing it on busy periods is a bit stupid as if it goes badly (like fright nights) it gets them a bad reputation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Now there is a reason it seemed to work on the swarm trials and that is because it was 1/5th of the people. I will admit that they should consider trailing it with no stand by queues on the 5 coasters on off peak to see the dynamics of what will happen in the summer. Trailing it on busy periods is a bit stupid as if it goes badly (like fright nights) it gets them a bad reputation. This. It ruined a lot of people's visits on Fright Nights and I think it's unfair to trial such a stupid system when people have paid good money to be at the park. We reserved our mazes, got there at the times to find that we still had to wait an hour! It's just completely pointless, and don't get me started on removing Asylum and then bringing in a maze with a lower throughput! Have they learnt nothing? They need high throughput mazes, aside from maybe one which is "the best." Hence why 2011 was my favourite year of Fright Nights. TPJames 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 It's just completely pointless, and don't get me started on removing Asylum and then bringing in a maze with a lower throughput! Have they learnt nothing? They need high throughput mazes, aside from maybe one which is "the best." Hence why 2011 was my favourite year of Fright Nights. Was the throughput of Studio 13 significantly smaller than Asylum though? Genuine question. I didn't visit FN enough to be able to get a feel for throughput, but given the mazes take a similar amount of time to get through (Studio 13 felt a bit shorter to me actually, but that might be because it wasn't a repetitive boring drag of strobe lights and mesh fences) and have similar amount of people per group, I'd be surprised if the throughput was significantly less. Though, maybe they did have high throughput mazes and Studio 13 was the one with a lower throughput, since it was "the best" last year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 RNR will work just scrap the stand by and have fast track an option to jump a head of the virtual queue. So all Virtual queuing on Certain rides (The Big 5, Samurai New Dark ride depending on the day/weather Tidal wave and Loggers leap) leaving the other rides to be queued for in the normal queue while waiting for your time slot. Another thing is RNR would work between 10:30-4:00 so Enthusiasts can have there re rides with out complaints.I admire your confidence in thorpe and the bringing in of the new system, however I fail to see any logic at all behind this post:Let's take a busy summers day, face it, there's no point doing a trial on a system on an off peak day when the system is designed for a busy day at the park, that would completely ruin the purpose of the system. A busy summer's day sees around 120mins per coaster on average, with tidal wave at 120 as well and loggers leap at 60minutes. Samurai also averages about 30minutes on a peak day at thorpe park. For now I'm going to leave the dark ride out of the question, as we know nothing about it yet. So, seeing as each rollercoaster takes around 1000pph, there are 10,000 people freely roaming who usually would be standing in a rollercoaster queue. Then adding tidal wave, loggers leap and samurai, you are adding another 3000 people who would usually be standing in these queuelines for the rides. That's 13,000 people who would usually be standing in queues. I may have overshot this, maybe a realistic amount is more around 10,000. Then taking away 5,000(an insanely over-estimated number at this point) who will be eating, shopping and relaxing leaves around 8000-10000pph who will want to ride other rides while virtually waiting. The main rides people can now experience in a standby queue are vortex, rush, detonator, X and slammer. Let's say on average these take about 500pph. That's 2500 people per hour spread between these attractions. So either the flat ride and kids rides queues rocket out of control to 120mins+ on a busy day or the streets of the park are taking more people walking around them than they can handle and no one can move. Even taking loggers leap, tidal wave and samurai will only warrant an extra 3,000 and things will still be too crowded to handle. I hope this explanation makes sense but this is the reason I BELIEVE the system will only work in 5-10years time when more high throughput side attractions have been added to the park. holtjammy16 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Was the throughput of Studio 13 significantly smaller than Asylum though? Genuine question. I didn't visit FN enough to be able to get a feel for throughput, but given the mazes take a similar amount of time to get through (Studio 13 felt a bit shorter to me actually, but that might be because it wasn't a repetitive boring drag of strobe lights and mesh fences) and have similar amount of people per group, I'd be surprised if the throughput was significantly less. Though, maybe they did have high throughput mazes and Studio 13 was the one with a lower throughput, since it was "the best" last year. Yes, Asylum was just constant walking whereas in Studio 13 they stop you twice, which reduced the throughput by 300 - 400 people per hour (that's what I was told anyway - the queue definitely felt slower than Asylum's as well). Cabin in The Woods and My Bloody Valentine both have very low throughputs as well, possibly lower than S13. Saw Alive should be the highest throughput but it seems really inefficient and always has stoppages, so basically none of the mazes have a high enough capacity for such a busy event. I disagree about S13 being the best, the theming was nice but that's where the positives end in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 reduced it by 300-400 pph? that cant be right. Maybe down to 300-400pph but not dropped by that much. Mazes are hard to get high throughputs without ruining the experience. JoshC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 I admire your confidence in thorpe and the bringing in of the new system, however I fail to see any logic at all behind this post: Let's take a busy summers day, face it, there's no point doing a trial on a system on an off peak day when the system is designed for a busy day at the park, that would completely ruin the purpose of the system. I agree that the system is designed for busy days, but I still think there's worth in trialling it on off peak days. It helps give the park an indicator of what people will do during the day, what they think of the system and so forth. And if it goes horrendously wrong, then it's easier to go back to 'normal queueing'. I do think Thorpe need to take it slow to get it right. I think if they want to try 'queue free', they've got to first try it on a quieter day before on a busier day. Yes, Asylum was just constant walking whereas in Studio 13 they stop you twice, which reduced the throughput by 300 - 400 people per hour (that's what I was told anyway - the queue definitely felt slower than Asylum's as well). Cabin in The Woods and My Bloody Valentine both have very low throughputs as well, possibly lower than S13. Saw Alive should be the highest throughput but it seems really inefficient and always has stoppages, so basically none of the mazes have a high enough capacity for such a busy event. I disagree about S13 being the best, the theming was nice but that's where the positives end in my opinion. I think you might have been misinformed about Studio 13's throughput - I'm guestimating that Asylum's throughput was no more than 700pph (based on what I've read from a couple of forums) when it was on it's very best. I'm doubting that the throughput was reduced by about half! I agree the throughput was probably reduced. But I think that time-wise the mazes take a similar amount of time to go through, as I think Studio 13's route is slightly shorter. As for the last comment, it was mostly a joke - I was saying Studio 13 was the best maze (which it was in my opinion, as you've probably gathered!) and hence the slightly reduced throughput is fine because of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJ Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 Scrap the stand by queue and then you have a serious in problem to do with physical space. That really would not work. If it was just the coasters then it may not be as bad but with all the rides your suggesting it would just result in mega queues for flats. People go to ride rides. Not wait in a shop for 5 hours so they can eventually get on a coaster. Very valid points for this system working in the parks current state - however if all these trials prove to be successful and the queue less park does in fact work, the infrastructure would surely change? Yes it won't happen overnight but if you know that the place is queue less then new attractions won't need so much queue line to be built. Existing attractions would have their current queue lines reduced and have their spaced used for other activities. The park in the last couple of years have been huge progress in all these little events dotted around the park. If the park had no queue, I'm sure in their long term plan they have ideas of what to offer for people who are not in the queue line. It's bound to be something they already have in mind and all these little events they have in the park during the peak seasons for all you know could be a trial of the type of things they offer on a regular basis for the extra amount of people not queueing. After all the space that would of been used for a cattle pen will now be used for these type of entertainment. These events and RnR trial did after all start the same season! Just putting two and two together here while I ride this. So yes the way the park operates now RnR not the best but once utilised the possibilities are endless and a day out at the theme park may not just be about just the rides but more for an experience. But as we only see the park for what it is currently it becomes hard to justify and picture of what it could become Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 To have RnR to work you need the infrastructure but the infrastructure can only come after RnR. Also what you need to consider is what happens if RnR fails for a day. You still need the queue lines in case the system doesn't work. So you are not able to replace the queue lines with shops ect. Future designs can compact the queues to small spaces and skip on the themeing as it would only be used on an odd occasion. So it would improve shop space but you cant just remove queues all together. Having written that compact queue seems to match the description of the dark ride pretty well. There is a time when RnR will help your day but the infrastructure needs to be there and you want to do a variety of rides. RnR creates the problem in that it devalues the time people will spend on waiting for a coaster as they are not waiting physically anymore. As a result you wont be able to do as many coasters anymore. The system favours you going to get on everything once. The way it works means its not friendly towards reriding rides that would normally have a long wait. All because people will wait longer virtually for a coaster than waiting physically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 All because people will wait longer virtually for a coaster than waiting physically. Surely (in theory) then virtual wait should be the same as any physical wait. During trials any virtual waits only hit such high lengths because the standby queue was still there - so they couldnt allocate the rides true throughput numbers to the system, if they were to try this without a standby queue theres no reason the virtual waits wouldnt reflect what the normal physical wait would be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted January 21, 2015 Report Share Posted January 21, 2015 People wont join a physical queue because they don't want to spend 2 hours of their time waiting for that so they spend their 2 hours on something else which they deem better. However virtual waiting means the 2 hour queue they didn't want to wait in is no longer spending their time. So those that would have passed on the idea will just wait virtually and spend their physical time on the stuff they deem better. Demand increases, supply stays the same, overall cost (time) goes up. Simple economics where time is money. pluk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodge2002 Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 I do feel terribly bad for Thorpe and the way RnR has panned out. People persistently moaned about queue times and when they finally try to do something about it, its failed miserably.Even though it's the type of investment that was always likely to have next to no return. As I've said before though Thorpe are usually very receptive of negative feedback, so I really have no doubt that they will have learned from their mistakes. And I really don't hope this puts them off from exploring new ways to fix the parks problems Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Users Posted January 27, 2015 Report Share Posted January 27, 2015 Even though it's the type of investment that was always likely to have next to no return. No. Fastpass was not created to be charitable. It was created to get people out of queues and in shops/restaurants spending money. RnR is the same. It's not a bad thing because it's incentive for the system to work properly. Also if it's successful, Fast Track can go digital, saving staff and printing costs. AJ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyRed95 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 No. Fastpass was not created to be charitable. It was created to get people out of queues and in shops/restaurants spending money. RnR is the same. It's not a bad thing because it's incentive for the system to work properly. Also if it's successful, Fast Track can go digital, saving staff and printing costs. I get this and it makes perfect sense but for one thing: there simply isn't enough to do/ places to go at thorpe in place of queueing. Were RnR to be properly implemented, the dome and arcades would be packed, people would just be loitering all over the park, and tbh there isn't exactly a vast range of shops. Most of the places are food places but there's only so much people are willing to spend just on food. I dunno, in a bigger park it may work better but I think they're overestimating their own ability to provide other entertainments. pluk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 On a completely separate note, Thorpe's facebook team have confirmed an annual pass holder day this year! The dates are yet to be released. I noticed chessington are having a passholder weekend this year, hopefully thorpe will follow suit. I also hope there are some surprises in store for the new season Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchada04 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Going by previous years it'll probably be on the 7/8th of March or just the 8th with Friends and family day on the 7th. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Didn't Thorpe have a weekend last year? Or did I imagine this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyRed95 Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Didn't Thorpe have a weekend last year? Or did I imagine this? A day the Saturday before proper opening Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFarmerDean Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 does anyone think it literally will just be the day before opening, so wednesday 11th? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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