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]

The group I was with on Saturday most of them had VIP passes and they were not happy to say the least. The queue they were in was way beyond 40 minute sand by no means can that be called fast. The people in guest services certainty heard what they had to say. Rule one in business is not annoy your best customers and that is exactly what they have done. If someone pays £500 to get in I would expect them to be treated very well instead of being forced to queue for 40 minutes because they have a system which will never work. 

[Mark9]

I'd be complaining too if I'd wasted £500 on a VIP pass.. There is much better things that could be done with that kind of money. 

[Benin]

I'd be complaining too if I'd wasted £500 on a VIP pass.. There is much better things that could be done with that kind of money. 

 

http://resort.europapark.de/lang-en/c262.html

[Fred]

I thought fastrack was meant to be incorporated into reserve n ride from saturday? this obviously hasn't happened then?

[Project LC]

It did happen, but RnR isn't walk on, its wait 3 hours virtually so you can join a queue of 20-40 minutes.As all of the RnR guests use the fastrack queue anyone with a fastrack is basically paying for a longer wait. And also denied access to the queues once the RnR becomes full which is about 4:30pm for a 6pm closing. So not only does RnR annoy people in the main queue it also annoys people who have paid extra to "reduce" their waiting.

[Mitchada04]

On Friday the Fastrack queues were NOT being used for RnR. Stealth it was using the disable queue, Swarm the backwards queue, Saw the bit in the middle between both queues, Colossus the left hand side of the two entrance paths and Inferno the first cattlepen (although this did mean the main queue was the same length in the afternoon). Therefore Fastrack was not affected on Friday (can't speak for the other days). The only problem we had with the system was that the RnR waiting times were all over an hour for the main coasters when the actual queues were 15-20 minutes (physically as well, not just by the look of it). We walked on Colossus at 5 when the RnR wait was nearing 2 hours. It took too long for them to realise that it could become "ride right now."

[Project LC]

Reserve and ride is highly likely to exceed the main queue. Thats because of the dynamics of the system, most people who are waiting virtually will want to do non coaster rides and do coasters via reserve and ride. Which leads to flats doing loads they cant cope with and coasters having a lack of people for what people are willing to wait. They can try as much as they like to get this system to work, but it wont. they can pour as much money as they like into it but at the end of the day it would be cheaper to install more high capacity rides. 

 

Also meant to put Saturday in my earlier post, I forgot today is Monday.

[Olistjj]

Anyone noticed on Twitter THORPE keep retweeting virtually every positive comment about r&r? Its clogging up my page -.-

[Project LC]

yeah they are, they are replying to my criticism though so ill let them off slightly. Its probably there only positive feedback so they are trying to draw attention to it. 

[Coaster]

After using the Reserve N' Ride system yesterday I have a few thoughts on it.

(It's worth mentioning that they were running RN'R, Main Queuelines and Fastrack).

 

Pros:

- You can get on coasters much quicker, with only 10 - 20 minute 'waits' (which you can spend going on other rides).

- Fairly easy to use (we used cards rather than smartphone)

 

Cons:

- Reduces the distribution of the main queueline to the ride's overall throughput even more, which makes me wonder whether it is actually creating more problems?

- Uses the same queueline as Fastrack.  I expect that people who paid for Fastrack were getting pretty annoyed.

- System broke/was fully booked at some points during the day.  At least they are limiting numbers though.

 

I know this looks negative, but I did find it an interesting concept.  My guess is that it will turn out to be the new system for Fastrack, and that they are trialing it for free to iron out any issues.

[Project LC]

Well its nice to see they are editing the percentages because Saturday the RnR times got way out of hand. waiting 3 hours virtually to then be expected to queue for 40 minutes which was probably longer than the main queue annoyed me a lot. The VIP pass holders were even more annoyed to be expected to wait 40 minutes. 

[Fred]

Why should VIP holders be grumpy? They've only paid to use the fastrack queue regardless of queue length.

 

 

As for fastrack being incorporated post I made.. I meant you had to buy fastrack through reserve'n'ride which was the original idea. But it seems they used the normal fastrack instead and allowed for complaints

[Benin]

Anyone noticed on Twitter THORPE keep retweeting virtually every positive comment about r&r? Its clogging up my page -.-

 

Tbh, this happens with most of the parks... No I don't WANT to know that this random person had a good day at the park, why can't you just favourite these things rather than clog up my news feed?

[Fred]

Chessie is my favourite. They go through a "retweet ALL THE THINGS" pretty much every Monday.

[JoshC.]

Flamingo Land is pretty bad with Twitter as well; likes to just post EVERYTHING in one hit, then you don't there for another week.  

 

So so bad.

[Ryan]

My family used RnR on Sunday and said it was absolutely brilliant and really made their day better. 

[Fred]

Y'know who I think does Twitter quite well.......? Disney.

[Project LC]

RnR stopped at about 1 as it all crashed so my day wasn't entirely ruined.

[darkadder312]

I would be happier they just stick RnR to weekends only therefore throughout weekdays can get rerides.

[Cal]

I would be happier they just stick RnR to weekends only therefore throughout weekdays can get rerides.

 

Doubt you will be getting any re rides on weekdays at the moment. Year 11's have left and there are a lot of people going for school trips at the moment.

[Project LC]

Some people like me can only visit at weekends. RnR needs to be either a replacement for fastrack or removed completely. Evidently their servers are still not up to standard neither are the wifi spots. The dynamics it has on the park ruin it. If you queue normally its a new league of slow and makes guests queuing quite angry. Its easy to be abused and the park isn't set up for its use. A whole new queue line is needed if they want it to be free and that isn't possible. Also people get annoyed when you have a 3 hour virtual wait for saw to find that when you get there its a 40 minute wait. You may as well scrap the system and have an hour queue but that is far too simple for thorpe to consider because all they want you to do is spend more in shops.

[pluk]

The problem here seems to be this bizarre fastrack allocation formula they use which creates a percentage of the main queue time as an acceptable fastrack wait, rather than fastrack being walk on. R&R and fastrack should be combined in one queue and should both be walk on (or no delay at the merge point). The fastrack sales should be timed and sold at a volume which makes that possible.

It can all be so simple. Why they make it so complex is beyond me.

[Cal]

Look's like the next trial dates will be with some flats now, and all of the coasters. Noticed they've taken the Swarm backwards and Stealth pole position away, not sure how it worked out? 

 

Will be interesting to see how some of the lower throughput rides will work out, and the flats, and just the fact that the majority of the rides on park are using it. 

 

Will probably will regret saying this , but I hope they do it next Wednesday, never had a chance to experience Reserve N' RIde.

[JoshC.]

Surprised that they're going full scale with it really!  I too would love to be on park one day to try it out and see how well it works first-hand.

 

I guess with Swarm, they've scrapped having forwards and backwards reservations, and you just choose when you get there?

[Flipper]

Thing is, and I'm expecting people to stab at this comment but this is my opinion; it's all well and good offering Reserve and Ride on every ride going, I don't mind; but it needs to drop the 'standby' queuelines. At first, it was RNR and thats it. Now you're trying to juggle two, which makes RNR'ers wait, and main queue lines in excess of an hour and a lot of grumpy people.

I'd personally like to see the mentioned rides be RNR only, no standby, whilst keeping other rides available such as Zodiac, Dodgems, 4D, Detonator, Rumba, Fish (why is it even on there?!) etc. so there's still enough to cater for people.