Return of Reserve N Ride?

[TPJames]

Hi all,

I was just having a look at the thorpe website and I've noticed a feature on it.

https://www.thorpepark.com/tickets-passes/ticket-information/

When you click on tickets the options come up, RESERVE N RIDE, is the last on the list however risk still there. However, when you click on it, it comes up with an error message! My question is mainly aimed at thorpe however it takes a while to do a direct message to them so I was wondering if anyone knew if they had plans to bring back the system?

Many thanks.

[kinnaird]

please I hope so they wont get rid of fast track thats the problem

[JoshC.]

They are planning to do further trials with it (well, that's what they've said on the gate map). When, who knows?

I wouldn't be surprised if it slowly ends up as a replacement for Fastrack in honesty. But nonetheless, it'll be interesting to see what any new trials bring...

[Fred]

They've got a "queue experience host" online which will deal with Reserve and Ride.. however their job mainly seems to be updating queue boards around the theme park.

It seems like a very gradual introduction, but their reserve and ride looks to be literally a QBot (http://accesso.com/loqueue-overview/q-bot/)

[TPJames]

They've got a "queue experience host" online which will deal with Reserve and Ride.. however their job mainly seems to be updating queue boards around the theme park.

It seems like a very gradual introduction, but their reserve and ride looks to be literally a QBot (http://accesso.com/loqueue-overview/q-bot/)

Oh wow this company have already put thorpe's rides on their main page inside the Q-bot

Isn't this the system they use at legoland where you have to pay extra for it?

[Project LC]

Reserve and ride was the worst day at Thorpe park ive ever experienced. My entire group also agreed and so did many people in the park (the ones I spoke to anyway). It was a waste of time and in no way reduced the queuing time and I'm quite sure it increased it. However despite the large amount of negative feedback reserve and ride is meant to be in use on the busiest days during summer. As far as I'm aware its still going to be used on smartphones and I'm almost certain at some point there will be a pay a certain amount to reduce wait time.

[JoshC.]

You see, I didn't think it was too bad a system.

When I went, there was trouble with the system which meant that the queues ended up being in the region of 40-50mins (for both forward and backwards). When the problem was realised, they stopped people from being able to book a slot I believe and fixed the system, letting the queue dissipate before starting it up again. I guess that's what tests are for!

So yeah, when it worked, I think it worked well. Definitely was good later on in the day when people were fully aware of what was happening too.

Looking at the big picture, I don't think it would work on the large scale as a replacement for queueing overall, but it was a nice idea..

[Cal]

I have never tried the system myself but I think it sounds like a good idea!

They are defiantly planning on using it again soon seeing as the website has been updated. At the begging of the season they only had Nemesis Inferno and Stealth on the page (even though they weren't using it) and now they have the 5 main coasters, and 3 of them having front row as well! I believe when the system was being trialed they didn't have front row did they?

Interesting to see if they are just going to try it on all of the main coasters if they are actually going to start selling them now. Probably going to be the selling option seeing as they have added it to there website.

[Mitchada04]

https://www.thorpepark.com/tickets-passes/reserve-n-ride/

Page has been updated, set of trial dates added for June and it will be trialled on all 5 of the big coasters. Could be a disaster, could work well. The trial dates start next week on Monday and Tuesday, then a variety of days ending with the last weekend of June.

Which Rides Can I Reserve?

Our five most thrilling coasters:

THE SWARM

SAW – The Ride

Nemesis Inferno

Stealth

Colossus

Trial Dates 2014

2nd and 3rd June

6th and 7th June

23rd and 24th June

27th to 30th June

Will be interesting to see how this works out.

Also

Q: Can I use Fastrack?

A: Standard Fastrack use will be available on 2nd & 3rd June, and 6th & 7th June. Fastrack will be available through Reserve N’ Ride on your smartphone on 23rd & 24th June, and from 27th-30th June.

So they're definitely aiming on integrating Fastrack into the system.

And it seems if you don't have a smartphone you'll get a card to use!

No smartphone?

1. Head to The Dome and ask a staff member to register your account.

2. Go to one of the Reserve N’ Ride kiosks located in The Dome, Nemesis Inferno, THE SWARM or Colossus to reserve your place in the virtual queue.

3. At your allocated time head to the ride and scan your smart card, enjoy the exhilaration and then go back to a kiosk to reserve your next ride.

[Project LC]

On the trail day on which I went, I think it was the 2nd to last one, it was stupid. There were so many people trying to use it that the swarm was fully booked up by 1pm and even then the queue was at 40 mins. the fastrack integration could be horrific depending on how much time it decides to cut. The system will work and reduce queues for the standard one off trip person but when your like me and go there every week it will ruin it. I know where and when all the queues are quiet but with this it is going to level out all the queues and give everyone a similar amount of rides. Which as I said is fine for the one trip person but when I go there trying to get as many rides with out queueing the system makes it impossible.

[Fred]

It adds an interesting experience.. cos obviously not every guest who visits the theme park will get to ride The Swarm on the day, however with this booking system it'll make people want to (potentially every single person on park) meaning that the timeslots will automatically fill up.

Still unsure how it pans out, do they "oversell" to compensate for those people who book and not turn up because it's in 3hrs time, or what?

Everything sounds way more stress and aggro than what the system is actually designed to do, and I highly expect this to show through the trials (maybe just ending up as a fastrack system like disney's fastpass+ and a paid for system on top.. though this will be at the expense of a really really slow stand-by queue).

...and who told me this restaurant's name was different to how I call it? "Use your spare time to relax with lunch in Bar 360"

[Project LC]

I cant express enough how much I want this to fail and to just become the fastrack system. Another thing is that if your a group of 6 you can queue for 6 different rides at a time as each phone carries 6 people. I know that this didnt work for the trail as the queue after waiting 4 hours virtually was about 40 minutes so it prevented that but if the 40 minute queue was planned then what was the point. I would go on about the other 4000 things wrong with the system but I think I may explode of rage.

[Benin]

I like the idea that if you don't own a smartphone you have to trudge back and forth to kiosks to choose what ride you want to go on next...

That sounds like a lot of fun for guests (who obviously will be in the minority, but will still have some poor experiences as a result)...

[Marc]

I cant express enough how much I want this to fail and to just become the fastrack system. Another thing is that if your a group of 6 you can queue for 6 different rides at a time as each phone carries 6 people. I know that this didnt work for the trail as the queue after waiting 4 hours virtually was about 40 minutes so it prevented that but if the 40 minute queue was planned then what was the point. I would go on about the other 4000 things wrong with the system but I think I may explode of rage.

Don't see why you would want it to fail - if, and its a big if, it ultimately works how the park would like it to standing in long coaster queues at the park (and id assume all other merlin parks too) will be a thing of the past (in theory!).

I was there for one of the trails, can't remember which one, we logged on and registered and joined Swarms "virtual" queue, at our time went over and was on the ride within 5 minutes, that said they did seem to struggle with the backwards queue and that was forming a lengthy wait in the actual queue its self.

I said this at the time that it might actually work better if they bit the bullet and put it on all coasters for a trial - I've no doubt it will cause some confusion, but I think being on all coasters people will have no choice but to understand how it all works and to use the system. The biggest problem the park will have is people come to theme parks and expect to stand in line, get on the ride, they are totally changing the concept of visiting a theme park for the majority of guests, but if they are able to overcome that can see this being pretty cool.

Still unsure how it pans out, do they "oversell" to compensate for those people who book and not turn up because it's in 3hrs time, or what?

When they were doing this when I was there I think it was a 7PM close and they were giving out time slots up till around 8 it seemed, to give people who would join the queue at closing time the same kind of thing I guess.

[Mark9]

Disney have learnt at a heavy cost at Magic kingdom that you don't ever eliminate queues, you just move them somewhere else. It levels the playing field on high demand rides like Space, Splash and Thunder. But on the other hand queues are far longer for rides that can't handle it like Dumbos and Winnie the Pooh. Thorpe need to be ever so careful with this if they insist on doing it. I don't want to start seeing things like the Teacups or Rocky Express with 30/40 minute queues for example...

[TPJames]

I think thorpe noticed this topic and took it down as the link is currently not working....

CURRENTLY however this may change soon.

[Fred]

You can just tell from it all that it'll be stress, confusion and lead to worst off satisfaction scores than if you just left it alone.

The best option, and the only real options are:

Build high throughput attractions

Ensure high throughput attractions are getting the high throughputs

Direct guests or persuade them to use the high throughput attractions (advertise heavily the short queues/have high fastrack and low pricing points to persuade guests)

Have entertainment in the queuelines for attractions without high throughputs (if you can only allocate funds to certain queues that is).

Done. You can never remove a queue.

[Cal]

I think thorpe noticed this topic and took it down as the link is currently not working....

CURRENTLY however this may change soon.

I just clicked on it and it's working for me, they might of just needed to edit something? We all know what Thorpe are like with spelling things

[pluk]

Everything sounds way more stress and aggro than what the system is actually designed to do

Abso-freakin-lutely

I thought the original trials were mostly your standard Merlin 'look at us doing something mental' publicity stunt, I never for a moment thought they were naive enough to think a queue-free theme park could actually be a thing. Just no. Nothing can operate with the certainty or precision required for that system and people will be seriously pissed if they find the ride they want has been allocated out and they don't have the option of waiting it out in a real life queue.

Loads of potential for a better managed electronic fastrack type system here, but not this.

Q: How many people can I reserve for at one time?

A: Each reservation can cater for a maximum of 6 guests. Nominate your group ‘leader’ to register and reserve. If there are more than 6 of you then simply split your group reservation across 2 smartphones.

Have they set it up to stop all 6 people registering and the group getting 6 separate rides at once. If they have, how? If they haven't, oh dear!

[TPJames]

Pluk, I was thinking exactly the same last night. The system can be cheated. If you have 5 people in your group, you can ALL still book for your whole group each on one device. From the sounds of it, the system hasn't actually changed and if the queue times are 10minutes in differences your whole group can just queue for all 5 coasters at once, for example:

There are 5 people in the group, person A B C D and E. Each person makes an account on the software and books for 5 people each time.

Swarm has a queue time of 30minutes, person A books swarm for 5 people on his smartphone.

Stealth has a queue time of 40minutes, person B books stealth for 5 people on his smartphone.

Nemesis has a queue time of 50minutes, person C books nemesis for 5 people on his smartphone.

Colossus has a queue time of 70minutes, person D books Colossus for 5 people on his smartphone.

Saw has a queue time of 90minutes, person E books saw for 5 people on his smartphone.

In 30 minutes from lets say 11:00, your whole group will get on swarm. They can then head to stealth and get on straight away followed by nemesis, Colossus and saw.

You have completed all the rollercoasters in 1 hr 30!

I'm not saying this cheat should be used but it is so OVBIOUS and I don't think thorpe can physically remove this cheat. If they have, then well done however it doesn't sound like they have made any changes.

My other problem is, if there are lets say 10,000 people on park who ALL use reserve n ride on the day for these 5 coasters, then each will immediately go up to 2 hours and then the flat rides will also have massive queues.

As it has been said before, there is no way to get rid of queues and they will always remain no matter if people queue virtually or not.

[Cal]

Q: How many people can I reserve for at one time?

A: Each reservation can cater for a maximum of 6 guests. Nominate your group ‘leader’ to register and reserve. If there are more than 6 of you then simply split your group reservation across 2 smartphones.

The only way they could stop this is by 1 smartphone is equal to one person, but the thing is you can still cheat with that. I can take my old phone and my Ipod touch for example, make an account on both of them, then I can que for 3 rides at the same time?

I thought this was a great idea at first but thinking about it, it really isn't going to work out unless there is a solution for this.

[THORPE PARK]

Have they set it up to stop all 6 people registering and the group getting 6 separate rides at once. If they have, how? If they haven't, oh dear!

Registration is tied to your ticket (or Annual Pass) ID. So you can't register multiple tickets.

[TPJames]

Registration is tied to your ticket (or Annual Pass) ID. So you can't register multiple tickets.

You can't register onto more than one phone but my system still works? The system I have described above will still work as you each register on your phone.

I don't actually think there is a way to fix this problem, cheating of the system is always going to happen no matter what?

Also, if you have a tesco ticket will you still be able to reserve n ride as it is now 'attactched' to your ticket ID?

[pluk]

Registration is tied to your ticket (or Annual Pass) ID. So you can't register multiple tickets.

Ah, so everyone individually, not just the lead of the 6, registers to the one account with their entrance ticket? Very much like the old system of the early 00's then but with the phone option so no paper tickets.

[Project LC]

Well there is one solution which requires very little effort. Remove the system entirely. As previously stated you may reduce stealth to 10 mins but rides like rush go up to 2 hours. People are willing to wait an hour for stealth but no one I know would wait 2 hours for rush. I would like to think that was an exaggeration but in reality it isn't. To make things easy lets say every coaster does 1000pph. So there down to 10 mins so they would have about 160 people in the queue. You now have 840 people forced to go else where. If each flat ride manages about 500pph there now instantly at 1 hour 30 mins + the people that were already there. So all you've managed to do is move the queues to somewhere people wont want to queue for. So queues for the coasters may be virtual and people be happy there but by the time they get there they will be angry as theve waited 2 hours for a ride which isnt worth that.

[Fred]

The idea behind it would be so you'd spend more time eating (lol, wheres the decent sitdown restaurants excluding bar 360), more time shopping (lol you have no shops and merchandise is limited) or entertainments (lol you removed all your entertainment, and to put a big show back in the arena would be lovely and costly).

All of this bubbles down to way more cost with little added experience. It's just not worth it whatever, concentrate on directing people/influencing people to ride attractions with short queues, concentrate on maximising throughputs, concentrate on queue line experiences so queues don't feel like a bad part of the day.

That's how to make things successful.