Park Operations

[Benin]

I think it's a culture thing too, Movie Park Germany has an unlimited day fastpass for €30, yet very rarely did I queue with any more than 2-4 other groups...

It's all about management prevention really, rather than dolling out to get the person to go away...

[Mark9]

9 hours ago, wegloo said:

Getting back to the point in hand; what is good compensation for a ride malfunction? Well, let me say that today I found out (even if it's not news to some) even Europa offer fast track passes for up to 4 rides during a ride breakdown. That's more then merlin, and they offer it to the entire queue & station. Whilst there are countless things to take into account with how these issues are dealt with, how common breakdowns are etc., I think it reinforces the idea that to a certain extent, fast track is the most logical option of compensation, and a lot of the moaning done about it is pretty obtuse. At the end of the day, if a ride malfunction has prevented you from visiting another ride as you would normally, it would make sense that the park sort something out for you so you can visit a ride quicker, causing less interruption to your day. I don't necessarily agree with fast track being a standard addon package, especially at the scale it's done within merlin, however it is very, very difficult to deal with break downs and keep guest satisfaction, at least moderate after that kind of incident.

 

The problem isn't fastrack itself, it's more the numbers that are sold. In a ride breakdown, I think a fastrack for other rides is appropriate. I got evacuated from Indianna Jones at Disneyland last week and an open fastpass for up to 6 people is fine. What isn't fine is say going to guest services to complain about something like graffiti in a queue line and then being compensated with fastrack. How does that solve any problem. The main issue then becomes people knowing how liberal Thorpe (for example) are with their exit passes and its very hard to reverse that trend.

When I talk about selling, I mean there is no distinction from the parks about the amount sold. Stealth could open two hours late in the morning or Colossus could be one train or Dragons Fury on five cars and the same amount of fastrack would be sold because we have it from Merlin that the busier the rides, the more they as a company are allowed to sell. It only forces the vicious circle to get worse.

[pluk]

1 hour ago, wegloo said:

I just want to take this back quickly to the issue of fast track. As mentioned/asked a little while ago, what would people do in alternative to fast track during a ride breakdown, there weren't very many straight responses. I find it funny how people are open to critique parks, however have very little constructive to offer them in return. 

There is nothing wrong with queue jump tickets being issued as 'compensation' for those caught up in a ride breakdown. That has been a thing for a much longer time than the concept of fastrack has existed; back in the 90's it was completely standard at Chessington and Atlon for the entire queue to be given an exit pass each as they filed out if a ride had a total queueline emptying shutdown. 

In terms of how it is used now, I'd rather fastrack didn't exist at all and that the park just charged what it needed to turn the desired profit and everyone queued up equally. In that case, a queue of people with an exit pass is nothing really and can easily be absorbed by other rides with no major issue. But if in the parks eyes fastrack does have to exist then this can still be done without being so hugely disruptive to everyone there. The first problem is with how the whole system is set up at the moment, with the amount of tickets sold seemingly unlimited and with no tight timeframe for returns, meaning the queueline can't cope at the best of times.

Lets suspend reality for a moment and say that there is an actual timed allocation of tickets for a given ride at a given time. If were the case then the freebie tickets need to come out of that allocation and not be an unchecked excess to it. That way the rides will be able to cope and other guests not unduly inconvenienced.

This stuff seems so simple, but time and again the parks get it very wrong. I find a queue line on an even moderately busy day a very frustrating place to be now. Reserve and Ride seems to be dead and buried, if only they'd have put a bit of the time, effort and money that was chucked on that on getting the paper system to run smoothly, and not trying to work to an always un-achievable aim instead of keeping it simple, then maybe we'd be in a better place with queue systems rather than making the same mistakes that were being made a decade ago when it was new.

[pognoi]

Very much appreacite your comments guys,  I think it's great as a community we can calmly discuss things such as these, although I must say I'm slightly surprised that the people who raise these issues and are the frontline to critique the park are still to reply.

[Coaster]

It's my opinion that the only reason Fastrack should exist is for compensation for a queueline evacuation, or for people who cannot queue.  This doesn't apply just to Thorpe or Merlin for the record, I just think the concept of paying to queue jump is wrong.  There is no excuse for it either, when smaller/family owned parks such as Drayton Manor and Pleasurewood Hills don't operate such a system, a company as large as Merlin can afford not to.

Compensation for queue evacs in itself would not cause congestion in the queues, and I think that is a great way to compensate people for that particular situation.  The issue comes when the main paid system is oversold, priority passes are handed out to deal with compaints about everything - and the Premium Passholder £5 vouchers and VIP passholders have a very small contribution to this as well, which on the worst days could be all it takes to throw the system into disarray.  I also think that there is an issue with the way the numbers are limited - the sold tickets don't seem to take those handed out for compensation into consideration, which shouldn't be the case.

[Project LC]

What could be done which I imagine is quite appealing in merlin's eyes although may not compensate guests very well is if they gave out discount vouchers to be used in park. So they give you a xx% off voucher to be used in a merlin owned shop/restaurant/fastrack. So the customer feels they have got something meanwhile merlin makes money off of it. No idea how guests would respond to it or if it would work but it is only a suggestion.

Really the issue with priority passes given out is that they don't account for it when selling fastracks and they give them out for pretty much anything. 

[Ian-S]

When we went to Paulton's a couple of years ago they didn't have fast-track, I don't know if things have changed since but the longest we waited was 45 minutes for big water ride, and this was August Bank Holiday Monday.  I don't like Fast-track, especially when it costs 3x what it does to get in.

[Roodie]

I'm afraid I am one of the few who likes the idea of fast-track.  Having 2 small young children, it means I am able to ride the big scary ones (as my 5 year old puts it), and it doesn't impact on their day.  The idea for the family to visit a theme park is for everyone to have fun. It is not easy to control children (legally) for an hour while daddy goes and spends 1 hour in a queue.  If there wasn't fast-track then it would spoil my day.

However I do agree that the selling of fast-track in merlin parks seems to be a bit much.  I wouldn't mind paying more for the service, as it is giving me more time with my family.

A solution to this problem could be to scrap all fast-track sales and implement the reserve and ride system.  Should this be offered at an additional cost? Maybe, as there will of course be a loss of revenue.  I don't think priority passes should be issued for any complaint, if the complaint is non ride related then they should give out a voucher.  I think Legoland do something like that.  That way it is a win win for the park, a happy quest who then spends money in the shop.

[Ian-S]

I think in principle the idea is a reasonable one, they just oversell it so much.  Plus there never seems to be a lot of common sense with some ride ops, if you've got an exit queue full of priority pass holders, put them all on the same train and get rid of the queue rather than drip feeding them in, as that just makes both queues longer.

[Roodie]

9 minutes ago, Ian-S said:

I think in principle the idea is a reasonable one, they just oversell it so much.  Plus there never seems to be a lot of common sense with some ride ops, if you've got an exit queue full of priority pass holders, put them all on the same train and get rid of the queue rather than drip feeding them in, as that just makes both queues longer.

I totally agree that it is oversold, hence why it should be more expensive.  But to do that they do need to improve general operations IMO.

[RobF]

Tbh double the cost of fast track so its a premium product, half the amount of sales keeps the revenue but ensures more consistant accurate queue times

[Ian-S]

I don't think the price is a controlling factor, if it were people wouldn't pay £80 a pop now for it.

[Daniel.S312]

Don't know if its been published here yet but park figures have come out for 2015 here they are : http://www.aecom.com/content/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2015_Theme_Index__Museum_Index.pdf

[Roodie]

1 hour ago, Ian-S said:

I don't think the price is a controlling factor, if it were people wouldn't pay £80 a pop now for it.

I actually think £80 is a decent price for what you can get, however if it were £160, I would have to seriously think about it.  Of course for some this wouldn't be a problem.

[Dodge2002]

I personally think the park have experimented too much with trying to streamline operations when the park hits its peaks, when instead they should be focusing more on dispersing their crowds out throughout the year. 

First of all they really need to introduce off peak pricing, and begin a strong marketing offensive highlighting the benefits of visiting off-peak. When people start to get wind of the idea that its cheaper to visit, and they generally won't be waiting nearly as long for the rides, people would be far more inclined to take time off of work for a visit, rather then just go at the weekend. Hell they could even introduce some sort of "maximum queue gaurantee"  and offer a free return ticket if X amount of queue times go over X Mins. Considering gate price only makes up a fraction of the overall spend per guest, and a more relaxed group of customers are more likely to spend time at the games stalls and eating and drinking more, they probably wouldn't actually stand to lose anything from this. 

The park, by design, is always going to suffer from capacity issues. Its just physically too small to deal with crowd control in any meaningful way. They need to start thinking outside of the box on how to deal with these issues. 

[JoshC.]

^It's interesting you mention about dispersing crowds throughout the year.  In the last MTDP, Thorpe did explicitly mention that they were expecting to have an growth in the number of visitors each year, and that this growth would come from more visitors on off peak / quieter days.  Whether they had some sort of plan to do this (as opposed to just wishful thinking), I don't know, but it is something the park were at least aware of.

On 26/05/2016 at 1:52 PM, RobF said:

Tbh double the cost of fast track so its a premium product, half the amount of sales keeps the revenue but ensures more consistant accurate queue times

In theory, this sounds great, but then you run risk of creating a situation where theme parks become too expensive for people to bother with.  Fastrack has its positives too, especially for guests who rarely visit / can only visit once.  If such guests could only visit on very busy days, and see the option of Fastrack avaliable, they might see it as one way to be able to maximise their enjoyment for the day.  Make it too expensive, on top of the ticket price, and people might just not bother. 

 

Of course, I agree that Fastrack is a premium product and should be expensive, but there still has to be a balance.  To make an unlimited Fastrack ticket cost £160 would be pretty outrageous in anyone's books.

[Cal]

All coasters are closing at 6:30 today instead of 6 due to ride availability according to thorpes twitter

[pluk]

On 5/29/2016 at 7:37 AM, BaronC. said:

 

... but then you run risk of creating a situation where theme parks become too expensive for people to bother with.  

 

 Fastrack should never be considered an essential. If it is the system has already failed imo. Increasing fastrack price will have no effect on how much a themepark day costs if you don't use it.

 

On 5/29/2016 at 7:37 AM, BaronC. said:

Fastrack has its positives too, especially for guests who rarely visit / can only visit once.  If such guests could only visit on very busy days, and see the option of Fastrack available, they might see it as one way to be able to maximise their enjoyment for the day.  

And that's fine. But it has to be remembered that every single fastrack sold is to the direct detriment of a queue full of others who are jumped when it is used. How are those people to 'maximise the enjoyment of their day' if they are queuing twice as long (not an exaggeration) for rides without being forced into buying it as well? And at that point you are making a day out unreasonably expensive.

 

On 5/29/2016 at 7:37 AM, BaronC. said:

 Make it too expensive, on top of the ticket price, and people might just not bother. 

 Good. There's only so many people who are not to prepared to queue the park (and all the other guests) can reasonably handle. 

 

On 5/29/2016 at 7:37 AM, BaronC. said:

Of course, I agree that Fastrack is a premium product and should be expensive, but there still has to be a balance.  To make an unlimited Fastrack ticket cost £160 would be pretty outrageous in anyone's books.

Not in mine. Sounds about right tbh, considering the continued repeated times that one person is going to make a queue full of peoples day that little bit worse. It all adds up.

[400400]

[Cal]

Good they are doing that, but ride availability has been very poor the last few days.

[James Allgood]

What was so bad about ride availability today I wonder.... Apart from the ghost train being shut *chuckles to himself thinking he's funny*

[JoshC.]

On 02/06/2016 at 6:39 PM, pluk said:

 Fastrack should never be considered an essential. If it is the system has already failed imo. Increasing fastrack price will have no effect on how much a themepark day costs if you don't use it.

 

And that's fine. But it has to be remembered that every single fastrack sold is to the direct detriment of a queue full of others who are jumped when it is used. How are those people to 'maximise the enjoyment of their day' if they are queuing twice as long (not an exaggeration) for rides without being forced into buying it as well? And at that point you are making a day out unreasonably expensive.

 

 Good. There's only so many people who are not to prepared to queue the park (and all the other guests) can reasonably handle. 

 

Not in mine. Sounds about right tbh, considering the continued repeated times that one person is going to make a queue full of peoples day that little bit worse. It all adds up.

 

I agree that Fastrack should never be considered as an essential thing.  But if you see it from the perspective of someone who is visiting for their first time, doesn't visit theme parks regularly, and isn't planning a visit again any time soon.  If the park is busy, then buying Fastrack seems like a logical option to help try and maximise the day.  In that respect, whilst it's not essential, it's a huge, mighty helpful thing to offer, especially if it's limited.  

 

And I guess that's the whole point of it.  Fastrack should be a product which is hugely limited, but, as it stands, isn't limited enough.  But that extreme limited availability shouldn't happen by just making it ridiculously expensive.  Yes, make it expensive, but not to the point where it becomes a rich man's product.  

 

I wonder just how different guest satisfaction would be if the park were to 'double the price, half the number' of Fastracks?  Yes, it means there's less Fastrack users, but how much will that affect the overall queue times?  Not that much I'd bet.  And then less people will get Fastrack tickets, despite the obvious demand for them, and people might be put off by the price, leading to cries of the park being too expensive.  So whilst it make queue times slightly shorter, you may end up with more unhappy guests in the long run.  Of course, I'm not saying this would be the case, but it's certainly not implausible in my books.

 

[Matt10]

The one positive that can come of todays, lets be honest abysmal operations, is the fact that engineering was present within five minutes every time they were required and the park seemed fairly committed to attempt to get everything open. For example on Colossus there were 4-6 engineers there till about 3pm from opening with the lift chain system being largely disassembled at the base. They could have just left it for another day and just said that the ride was undergoing maintenance, where instead they opened it. Same with Stealth, engineers probably spent most the day trying to keep it running, which was definitely a losing battle.

As well as this, every ride seemed to have a large amount of operators working upon them, greatly speeding up the dispatches of many working rides. Samurai with 3 people doing restraints, 2 each, near enough halved the loading times.

[Mark9]

3 hours ago, BaronC. said:

I wonder just how different guest satisfaction would be if the park were to 'double the price, half the number' of Fastracks?  Yes, it means there's less Fastrack users, but how much will that affect the overall queue times?  Not that much I'd bet.  And then less people will get Fastrack tickets, despite the obvious demand for them, and people might be put off by the price, leading to cries of the park being too expensive.  So whilst it make queue times slightly shorter, you may end up with more unhappy guests in the long run.  Of course, I'm not saying this would be the case, but it's certainly not implausible in my books.

 

 

In my experience, a longer queue isn't that bad when you move frequently. Particularly on high throughput rides like Nemesis or Rapids, the standing around waiting to move is so small that you barely notice how long you've waited. It's when you wait without movement that I find the queues unbearable. And for me, that is the biggest issue with fastrack systems. As someone who has had to batch Dragons Fury fastrack (a low throughput ride), it is a painful experience,

[Stuntman707]

As a rule, I think Stealth should close the Fastrack queue when there's only one train running. The queue line hardly moving together with Thorpes terrible time estimates got to the point where people were were walking away after about an hour and a half of waiting. I don't mind people paying to beat queues but I don't think it's fair when there's a long queue for Fastrack and the regular line isn't moving.