Park Operations

[Marc]

I don't see what the park can do unless they employ a member of staff to stand out side each ride to constantly monitor the queues.

Because queues change so quick it's impossible to have them right 100% of the time but know for a fact they are not shown to be longer to boost fastrack sales.

[Benin]

Staff members selling Fastrack should not be making up the queue time and go by the queue time given by the queue time board...

The flat out lying to get people to fork over money is indefensible...

[pluk]

I don't see what the park can do unless they employ a member of staff to stand out side each ride to constantly monitor the queues.

Because queues change so quick it's impossible to have them right 100% of the time

What, like the one selling the fastrack you mean?! In the scheme of things I go rarely but even I can look at a queueline and have a pretty close stab at how long it will take. If a member of staff that works there daily can't look at the queue and get it more than 50% wrong I'd question their suitability for any employment! They know what the queue time is displaying, their are shouting it at people after all!

Anyway, it is incredibly easy to have very accurate queuetimes displayed, you simply count riders in and out of the queueline with either a turnstile or a laser beam breaker at a narrow point. These techniques are used commonly around the world.

... but know for a fact they are not shown to be longer to boost fastrack sales.

The list of reasons and excuses on these forums for why it happens whenever the issue is brought up is long and tedious. To the paying punter it doesn't matter, the point is it does happen and it is an unfair way to take money off of people. The queuetimes happen to be nearly always grossly overstated (this is a new problem, and happens to have come about in the last couple of seasons just as fastrack has exploded), the sales pitch happens to be aggressive, the park happens to make a staggering amount of money off the back of it and in my experience it happens to occur most most on Saw where you are not be able to see the queueline. The level of naivety required to not think these things are linked I find staggering, surely at the very least someone important somewhere has decided this is not a bad mistake to be making for the parks coffers so allow it to continue? All the while the public get fleeced, paying for something they are not actually getting. Do people really not think that is wrong?

[Marc]

What, like the one selling the fastrack you mean?! In the scheme of things I go rarely but even I can look at a queueline and have a pretty close stab at how long it will take. If a member of staff that works there daily can't look at the queue and get it more than 50% wrong I'd question their suitability for any employment! They know what the queue time is displaying, their are shouting it at people after all!

Anyway, it is incredibly easy to have very accurate queuetimes displayed, you simply count riders in and out of the queueline with either a turnstile or a laser beam breaker at a narrow point. These techniques are used commonly around the world.

As far as I'm aware at the moment its updated by rides staff, people who will naturally have a much better knowledge of both the rides throughputs / queue lengths and are better informed to guess the queue time.

Stealth has some counter counting people in and out of its queue which I can only assume is a trial, whilst that works well in theory if the rides running at 100% capacity all the time, only the smallest thing could go wrong and suddenly you have a queue advertised at 20 mins when its really 40 mins, I can assure you 99% of people will be more unhappy at the queue being longer than advertised than if its shorter than advertised.

The list of reasons and excuses on these forums for why it happens whenever the issue is brought up is long and tedious. To the paying punter it doesn't matter, the point is it does happen and it is an unfair way to take money off of people. The queuetimes happen to be nearly always grossly overstated (this is a new problem, and happens to have come about in the last couple of seasons just as fastrack has exploded), the sales pitch happens to be aggressive, the park happens to make a staggering amount of money off the back of it and in my experience it happens to occur most most on Saw where you are not be able to see the queueline. The level of naivety required to not think these things are linked I find staggering, surely at the very least someone important somewhere has decided this is not a bad mistake to be making for the parks coffers so allow it to continue? All the while the public get fleeced, paying for something they are not actually getting. Do people really not think that is wrong?

Personally I dont think its a new problem, whilst every effort is made to keep them updated and systems have improved over the years (particularly this years new boards) they are still only an approximate number and from visiting towers / CWOA not exactly a Thorpe issue. I personally dont think its possible to make the advertised queue length correct 100% of the time, there are to many factors constantly changing to make this possible. And dont forget this is the park trailing a new system to eliminate queues on its major rides completely all in the aim of improving guest experience..

[Benin]

As far as I'm aware at the moment its updated by rides staff, people who will naturally have a much better knowledge of both the rides throughputs / queue lengths and are better informed to guess the queue time.

Then why are those selling Fastrack making up the queue time to suit their sales?

It's the whole that person who sold Fastrack in the Nemesis queue thing it seems, so much pressure to fulfil sales targets that people resort to aggressive underhanded tactics so that they don't get the boot... It's a sad sight to see at the parks, but unfortunately it seems these tactics are pretty much acceptable to the parks because it means money over guest experience...

[Marc]

Heh I saw Port Aventura had fastrack vending machines outside all of their fastrack rides, I'm sure people will be delighted if these replace the people at the front in the UK

[Benin]

But the Spanish don't use Fastrack to queue jump...

[pluk]

As far as I'm aware at the moment its updated by rides staff, people who will naturally have a much better knowledge of both the rides throughputs / queue lengths and are better informed to guess the queue time.

whilst that works well in theory if the rides running at 100% capacity all the time, only the smallest thing could go wrong and suddenly you have a queue advertised at 20 mins when its really 40 mins, I can assure you 99% of people will be more unhappy at the queue being longer than advertised than if its shorter than advertised.

Better informed than what? Because they do a crap job of guessing! Like I said we all know as regular visitors roughly how long the queue will take just by looking at it, so should they. And I get that you wouldn't want the queue to be significantly longer than advertised, but we are talking of it being less than half of the figure they are coming up with. People know breakdowns happen, they are never going to like it but it is expected to an extent, as long as the queue is kept informed when that happens they accept the inaccurate queue in those circumstances. It has always been that way. I don't understand the mentality of over exaggerating the time to such an extent (unless of course you are adding value to a fastrack sale!). This also from the park that seem to be so in control of their queue system they can run their biggest ride with only timed slots and no queue.

Personally I dont think its a new problem, whilst every effort is made to keep them updated and systems have improved over the years (particularly this years new boards) they are still only an approximate number and from visiting towers / CWOA not exactly a Thorpe issue. I personally dont think its possible to make the advertised queue length correct 100% of the time, there are to many factors constantly changing to make this possible. And dont forget this is the park trailing a new system to eliminate queues on its major rides completely all in the aim of improving guest experience..

It is not something I ever encountered before a few years ago, and I agree it is not a Thorpe problem but a Merlin one (who happen to all be selling fastrack!), but other parks do not have the same problem (who don't sell fastrack!). 'Every effort is made to keep them updated' and 'systems have improved over the years' are just straight untruths. This quote reads like a press release form the park! No one can ever give 100% accurate queue times, that's a given (which also makes the 100% queueless thing a bit of a joke, but I digress). It is the huge exaggerations I find hard to defend when the result of it, intentionally or not, is a much more attractive looking fastrack.

I know I sound like a moany old bastard, but it is only because I hate to see the parks do something that can be seen to be so underhand. They can severely dent their reputation with things like this, it really is something I can see cropping up on Watchdog, all for the sake of making a quick quid. Honesty and a fair system would certainly be better for everyone in the long term. It is a total untruth to say the system could not be run significantly better, and with the money they make from it they damn well should.

[Marc]

'Every effort is made to keep them updated' and 'systems have improved over the years' are just straight untruths. This quote reads like a press release form the park!

Surely a system which is both easier to update and syncs up with their new app to keep guests informed of queue times is better than the old system which both didnt always update and didnt sync with the app is a improvement?

I'm interested to see where this reserve n ride goes, it seemed to work well during the trail last weekend and if implemented correctly could solve alot of issues in one shot.

[Hunter]

I was at the park on saturday and got talking to a girl outside one of the rides about how things work, she said that if they think the queue is shorter or longer than what is advertised then they phone through to the ride and ask them to update it. I asked her tongue in cheekly if she'd be told to shout and scream at every guest walking into the queue, she got quite defensive! Apparently they aren't told how to directly sell and their selling technique is up to them

[pluk]

Surely a system which is both easier to update and syncs up with their new app to keep guests informed of queue times is better than the old system which both didnt always update and didnt sync with the app is a improvement?

I'm interested to see where this reserve n ride goes, it seemed to work well during the trail last weekend and if implemented correctly could solve alot of issues in one shot.

I don't think it matters how shiny and new the actual system is, if the data put into it is wrong the info to the guest will be too. It may be able to keep guests update of a time, but it is not anything like the queue time, so what's the point?! A chalk board that is close to correct is surely an improvement over an ap that isn't?

Reserve and ride could be good if it is used sensibly. This whole 'queue-less park' idea has got to be a joke, but as a managed and sensible replacement to fastrack it could do great things. Getting rid of a standby queue though would be a big mistake.

Apparently they aren't told how to directly sell and their selling technique is up to them

If that is correct this explains many things. They have sales targets, they have influence over the displayed queue time, they have an apparent lack of management or direction. What could the result of that possibly be?!

[Benin]

Those in retail don't have any control over the displayed queue time...

If they actually do, then something's wrong with the system...

[Marc]

^This.

Retail / Sales staff have no influence atall over the times displayed on the queue boards. Its a crazy theory made up of someone putting 2 and 2 together and making 5.

[Mark9]

^This.

Retail / Sales staff have no influence atall over the times displayed on the queue boards. Its a crazy theory made up of someone putting 2 and 2 together and making 5.

So the issue is rides staff aren't updating the queue time often enough and fastrack people are capitalising on this.

[pluk]

Retail / Sales staff have no influence atall over the times displayed on the queue boards. Its a crazy theory ...

Even if they don't the whole problem as described still stands.

Whatever the reason or cause of them, are you saying that the exaggerated queue times do not directly lead to fastrack sales? Can't you see that that causes a serious problem of honesty and fairness?

So the issue is rides staff aren't updating the queue time often enough and fastrack people are capitalising on this.

What a convenient problem not to fix that would be. Crazy theory indeed.

[Benin]

Well, considering every park in the entire world over-exaggerates queue times in order to give the illusion that the park's queues aren't burdenously long it's not something that's a major issue...

It's retail who are the problem... Not the ride staff... Especially as more often than not, oversold Fastrack leads to rage between the two departments...

[BigBobJones]

I know I sound like a moany old bastard, ...

Nope I completely agree with you, I went to Thorpe today and left after only one hour to due the fact of single train operation and Stealth being closed and a 65 min queue for the Swarm. One of the main reasons I will not be renewing my pass, they simply get it wrong so often and it really isn't that hard to get it right.

[pluk]

Nope I completely agree with you,

I fear you may have confirmed my concern.

Well, considering every park in the entire world over-exaggerates queue times in order to give the illusion that the park's queues aren't burdenously long it's not something that's a major issue...

You've travelled more than me, but surely you haven't found it to this extreme elsewhere? I know I haven't and I've been about a bit. 10 mins or so on hour queues is expected and, as Marc said, sensible to cover of any little glitches. But having it more than double the real time? The only place I can think of with anything similar was Astrix, and they under rather than over estimated and mostly gave no queue times at all. I'm not sure what's worse, no info or wrong info.

[Gggggggg]

Not sure what rollercoasters you mean. Stealth, Inferno, Swarm and Colossus can only run a maximum of two trains, X can run four trains and Saw can run a maximum of eight cars.

I didn't even know X had 4 trains! lol

[EC!]

I thought I had 5 trains ?

[JoshC.]

I'm not sure exactly, but I think it has 5 trains, and this year can only run a maximum of 4 (now it doesn't stop on the brakes). Before, I think it could run 5 trains at any given point. As I say though, not entirely sure..

[Marc]

I *think* it used to have 5 trains, it has 4 now but only runs 3.

If it runs 4 it will stop on the 3rd animation each time, on 3 it can go straight though so the throughput shouldnt be affected!

[Glitch]

how the hell does it run 4 trains without the blocks.

[OldFarmerDean]

the block sections are still there and can stop the cars if necessary, if it was to run with 4, and it was held up at the station for some reason the train(s) on the track would stop on the block sections and wait?

[Mccy]

To clear things up about who updates queuetimes: The ride operator or rides managers/team leaders are the only people who update queuetimes. To do so, they must phone through to "Control" who then update their system that then IN THEORY updates the board outside the ride. However, the boards seem to have a habit of not updating.

If a queuetime board is vastly off it's either because 1) the board isn't updating properly or 2) the operator hasn't changed it. Retail and Sales do not update the queuetimes and the times are not increased to try to sell more fast-track.