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.

[Project LC]

If that is the case or even half as bad as what I have said and they expect me to go shopping then I wont be coming back. I'm not going to a park where the queues are massive for terrible rides which I can find else where.

[Marc]

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).

I think this is important for this to work well.

They have Thorpe Live over the weekends in Summer (some of the artists have actually been pretty good!) which does attract a fair crowd at times, but a show along with that will help even more. I guess theres now also Angry Birds 4D to help too.

[Deleted Users]

On the one hand you have to give it to the park for attempting to 'eliminate' queuing but I just can't believe they are trialling it with the 5 big coasters during June. I was expecting Saw and Swarm as they are the newest coasters and are at the edges of the park so would force guest movement. Honestly at best I think the system is going to confuse people and at worst completely shutdown due to not being able to handle the amount of people hammering the server.

[Project LC]

I dont see any outcome where this will reduce total queueing time. All it will manage to do is make everyone angry as all the rides would have been booked by midday like on the trails. So for the last 4 or so hours your limited to flat rides which because of the system have massive queues. The server is the only thing I expect to work out of this entire thing. I strongly hope that Thorpe realise the problems this will cause and limit to a paid for system acting as fastracks.

[Whiteknuckle]

Well, after last time, I won't be going to Thorpe while this is in place. would rather do the 4 hour journey to Alton. Stupid idea IMO

[TPJames]

I dont see any outcome where this will reduce total queueing time. All it will manage to do is make everyone angry as all the rides would have been booked by midday like on the trails. So for the last 4 or so hours your limited to flat rides which because of the system have massive queues. The server is the only thing I expect to work out of this entire thing. I strongly hope that Thorpe realise the problems this will cause and limit to a paid for system acting as fastracks.

Like the Q-bot system at legoland? I've never used it before but it's a payed system and I've heard it works well!

[Morgan]

Q-bots are a great way of offering fastrack, I've never used one, and probably won't unless I go to a busy park that I'll most likely not be returning to in a long time, to make sure I get everything done. It obviously works at parks like Six Flags, and as a premium system I think it's much better than the current fastrack system, as it at least bases the improved wait times on the rides current queue length.

Although the best queue system is Disney's Fastpass (or Fastpass+ now). That is the ultimate fair system, it's free and accessible to everyone to use, it doesn't overly impact the regular queues and it's easy to use, even more so now that you can make reservations on your phone and in advance.

With regards to eliminating queues, it won't ever happen. People queue naturally, even if the system works, you will still get people turning up before their slot to wait to go in. Obviously the idea is for people to make the most of their freed up time, but if they've got 15-20 mins until their slot and it's not lunch time, they are most likely just going to wait for their slot.

[Cal]

On the one hand you have to give it to the park for attempting to 'eliminate' queuing but I just can't believe they are trialling it with the 5 big coasters during June.

I guess they've tried it just with the Swarm before so they've got to try it with all the coasters before they start selling it or using it so they can make any adjustments or just to see how it worked out.

[JohnD]

The way I see it, the physical queues are an essential way to manage guest flow round the park. If you've got over 15000 guests then you need somewhere for them to go, and normally a huge chunk of them would be in queues for the main 5 coasters as they're amongst the highest capacity and most popular rides. They can have far more people queuing for a given waiting time and people are willing to wait longer for them anyway, this helps to moderate queues elsewhere and prevents the paths from getting too overcrowded.

If you're eliminating the option of a standard queue from each of the big 5 coasters then on the busiest you've talking about 5000 or so guests displaced onto other rides and attractions - that's going to have a catastrophic effect on lower capacity rides, and make the park feel much busier than it is.

Reserve and ride could work well as a paid system as a fastrack replacement, but as a free system all it will do is move the problem.

[Fred]

Q-bots are a great way of offering fastrack, I've never used one

How can they be great when you haven't used one?

The best way to fastrack is literally timeslotting fastracks. You know how many roughly per hour you get on ride, so allocate 10% to fastrack. Sell those out, done.

The thing with QBot is that they offer VIP experiences, so someone could literally go "hmm, fancy this ride now..." book, and have it instantly accessible to them. There's no limit either, so in theory 100 guests with VIP qbot could all turn up at once and all have the same timeslot. It's a horrible way of managing guest flow, plus I hate the idea of the basic ones where you pay to queue anyway.

[Coaster]

A better system would be no jump the queue tickets/Q bots of any kind, and rides running at full throughput.

[Cal]

A better system would be no jump the queue tickets/Q bots of any kind, and rides running at full throughput.

Good idea but that will never happen...

Remember theirs people coming up the exit of the ride as well.

[JoshC.]

A better system would be no jump the queue tickets/Q bots of any kind, and rides running at full throughput.

In theory, having Fastrack does not affect the throughput of a ride. It can do if the merge point is placed stupidly and creates loads of faff when people are boarding, but for the most part, it won't affect throughput at all.

Anyone who doesn't use Fastrack would love to see it gone, but it just ain't gonna happen, unfortunately. It's basically a foolproof way to make money (and that's for any park!).

[Coaster]

In theory, having Fastrack does not affect the throughput of a ride. It can do if the merge point is placed stupidly and creates loads of faff when people are boarding, but for the most part, it won't affect throughput at all.

It doesn't affect the throughput of the ride directly, but it affects how much of that is utilised by the main queue. What I mean is if a ride can take 1000pph but fastrack takes up 400 of them then the main queue moves much more slowly.

[Marc]

A better system would be no jump the queue tickets/Q bots of any kind, and rides running at full throughput.

No thanks - fastrack is very useful in certian situations!

[Project LC]

No thanks - fastrack is very useful in certian situations!

I havent had to use a fastrack since 2009. The only time I think its needed it to fastrack a new coaster if you havent been on it yet. Apart from that I see no reason why it is needed.

[Marc]

I havent had to use a fastrack since 2009. The only time I think its needed it to fastrack a new coaster if you havent been on it yet. Apart from that I see no reason why it is needed.

Thing is it's easy to say that when your a regular and know the park inside out, Thorpe is getting to the stage where on a reasonably busy day it's difficult to do it all in just one day - so you either buy fastrack or stay over.

I can totally understand why a non regular uses it, as a regular I rarely use it unless there's somthing I really want to go on - but when I go to parks I don't visit often / new parks I'll always choose to buy fastrack

[Benin]

If a park is at a stage where you need Fastrack to enjoy your day surely it's doing something wrong?

That especially applies to Port Aventura (because of the queue jumping mostly)...

[pluk]

Thorpe is getting to the stage where on a reasonably busy day it's difficult to do it all in just one day ...

...because of fastrack. Thorpe is not, by any stretch, a multi day park in terms of size and attraction numbers. It's only not doable in a day if Thorpe make it not doable.

[Coaster]

If a park is at a stage where you need Fastrack to enjoy your day surely it's doing something wrong?

...because of fastrack. Thorpe is not, by any stretch, a multi day park in terms of size and attraction numbers. It's only not doable in a day if Thorpe make it not doable.

Agree 100% with these.

[Marc]

You could enjoy the park without fastrack of course (even portaventuta) but you would IMO struggle to get on everything.

The way I see it is if I'm traveling / paying a lot of money on a trip, if the park offers fastrack to ensure I will 100% get on everything I want to then there's no doubt I'll take up the offer.

It's easy to blame fastrack for queues, id be intrested to see how much difference it actually made, the queues may feel faster as you would move more but I'm not convinced it makes queue times as much longer as is made out.

[JoshC.]

Yay, the Fastrack debate has come up again!

It's a complicated one. In theory, Fastrack is a great idea - you create a queue for those who are willing to pay extra to queue for a shorter period of time. But then, of course, that also can increase the queue time of those in the ordinary queue. You want to create a good balance, whereby those who want to pay extra can, but so that it doesn't negatively affect the experience of those who do not. That is very difficult to achieve though.

To be honest, I'm not against the idea of Fastrack at any parks - if it's done properly. The number of Fastrack tickets needs to be restricted, preferably into time slots too so that Fastrack queues don't get 'busy' at popular times, and it should be done evenly so that the ratio of Fastrack to 'Normal' guests is the same all the time. But then you've got the added complications of Unlimited Fastracks, Disabled Guests and whatnot which just make such things harder to control. Does anyone know how the actual Fastrack system works at the Merlin parks these days - do you just buy a Fastrack ticket and use it whenever? Or are you given a strict time slot to keep to? Or what?

So yeah, that's my quick reckons on all of this. I did a long, rambling, possibly nonsensical blog post a while back about this - http://forum.maniahub.com/blog/10/entry-349-how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-fastrack/ (love how topics on TPM always circle back eventually), which may help put some of my thoughts in a bit more of clear view...

[dragon2000]

The confusion on facebook has begun...

[Mattgwise]

So I have a question. How does this work if say your time comes for swarm but you are only half way through a 30 minute queue for say rush as an example. Would you be expected to leave and go to Swarm?

[dragon2000]

Last time your reservation would just sit on your phone until you used it. I believe if you make a reservation this time and it 'flashes' it means you can ride it immediately and your reservation will expire within 15mins (e.g. Coasters first thing in the morning, Flying Fish all day (when all the rides get added at least)).