Flash Passes & Other "Queue Skipping" systems

[Hercules]

We used to each at the restaurant formally known as Wok n' Roll at Great Adventure.

[Teacups Make Me Sick]

^I tried that place, cold white rice and "lo mein".

 

MMMM...

[terrancew_hod]

Please don't tell me tempers were flaring over fast passes...

 

Anyway, I like the Q-Bot systems. Usually I end up going to a park by myself so I usually get one so I'm not wasting time in line. It's a good thing to finish up a park in a half day and head back to the hotel to get some rest before heading out clubbing. The fast pass systems at disney are ok, but most times you have to get there early so you don't have to wait all day for the ride you really want.

 

I know on the Midwest trip the Gold Q-bot was a must to get everyone through the park as quickly as possible. That line at Superman was outrageous!

 

Terry

[SFjunkie2010]

I'm not a fan of having a set time to come back to a ride, because I'm lazy and like to go wherever the park takes me whenever the park takes me there.

 

I do however love the Universal Studios Orlando VIP system. using my hotel key gets me into the fast pass line any time of day which means I can go wherever i want, but still skip lines.

[BarryH]

I can see the good and bad sides of a Queue Skipping system. The good thing about the system is that you can reserve a time to come back and wait a short time for the ride. While you are waiting, you can do other things in the park that have a shorter wait. For example, if I get a Fast Pass for Test Track and my ride time is 2 hours away (while the regular wait is, say, 2 hours), I can do other rides like Spaceship Earth, Journey Into Imagination, the Living Seas, the Land ride, the Land movie, and eat in the 2 hours that I'm waiting for my ride time. I can accomplish other things instead of waiting in the Test Track queue, listening to noisy machines.

 

On the other hand, the system makes the regular wait longer than it should be. One good example is the Spider-Man ride at IOA. In the days before Universal Express, you would stand in line. In the last queue room before you pick up the 3-D glasses, you see a video of Jameson yelling at us to board the Scoops. Before Universal Express, you would barely be in the room for 1 cycle of the video before you enter the other room. Now with Universal Express, you can see a few cycles of the video before you leave the room. A 75 minute wait for Spider-Man could be cut down to 30-45 minutes without Universal Express.

 

Queue Skipping systems also make some people less patient with waiting for rides. You don't want to know how many times I see people grabbing Fast Passes for Dinosaur at AK when the regular wait is 10 minutes! I've seen guests at USJ use their Universal Express pass on Backdraft when the line had like 20 people in it and the wait was 5 minutes! The guests who used Universal Express on Backdraft just got to stand in the first preshow room for a few more minutes than the rest of us.

 

However, do I use Fast Pass, Universal Express, Q-Bots, and other Queue Skipping systems? You bet! I would not have been able to ride what I wanted at SFOT during Spring Break without it. Granted, I try to visit parks when I know the lines will be relatively short or arrive early so I can ride the E-ticket rides a few times before the crowds come in. I don't visit a Disney park without picking up a Fast Pass for at least one ride.

 

Although Queue Skipping systems can be bad things, the good things about it outweigh the bad.

[DenDen]

Is it fair? No.

 

Do I like it? HELL YEA!

 

When I go to park, (not often as I'd like to,) I go there to have FUN. Part of that fun for me is NOT being on a budget. I see a souvenir, I get it. Funnel cakes galore, in my belly. And a way to purchase getting on a ride almost instantly, PRICELESS.

 

If I have to be on a budget, I'll wait till next time so that I won't have to be. I consider a trip to a park as a "vacation", and if you cant have all the best on your vacation, what's the point?

[okinawaboy11]

Honestly? I hate them. Im not paying extra money to skip the lines. Especially when at SFA they will fill an entire train with fast pass riders during one train operation on a hot, crowded summer day. Or when they let people choose any seat instead of the fast pass reserved seat and then one after the other the people keep taking the seat your waiting for. Especially at the front. A 3 train wait eventually turns in to 6 or 7.

[QueerRudie]

If a theme park wishes to use the "elite boarding" type system for their rides, then there is an -imperative- problem with their loading systems anyway.

 

Efficiency lies inherently in boarding a train quickly, eliminating empty seats wherever possible (KUDOS go to the parks with single rider lines!) and rapid dispatch with appropriate staffing to execute this. Look at the difference from say, Dollywood (Tennesee Tornado) to a park like SFA (-ANY-) of their rides where capacity is an issue. I found during my most recent trip to Dollywood that the loading and unloading of TT was amazingly fast, efficient and smooth, whereas -ANY- coaster at SFA has a 2-3 minute dispatch time- which is UNACCEPTABLE at any park where they want to earn their money by getting people through the lines fast enough to spend it in the park.

 

That having been said: Elite Status. Being a very frequent flyer on two airlines, I've earned Elite Boarding status, and Registered Traveler program with the TSA. If a park wanted to get their best customers to stick around longer, spend more money, etc. they would use the same concept: I.E. Season Passholders with a certain number of visits would get to use the FastPass/Preboard ticket concept. And, just like the airlines, people who did not have the "elite" status could then purchase it for a price on a daily basis. In addition, SEPARATE queues for the guests in addition to a single riders line would work nicely.

 

If anything, park operators should take a page from the fastest loading airlines out there: Southwest, with a tiered system to boarding, TED, which uses (at some airports) dual loading bridges, or (God forbid me for saying this!) RyanAir, which uses incentives to get people on the plane faster. Loading was made more efficient by the "flow through" method of boarding a train, but let's evolve this into something more efficient now.

[Jew]

If a theme park wishes to use the "elite boarding" type system for their rides, then there is an -imperative- problem with their loading systems anyway.

 

That's not always true. Disney and Universal are perfect examples of this. Some days it is just extremely busy, so even doing 2000 or more people per hour still only accounts for a very small percentage of the total guests in the park!

[lapseofreason]

I have mixed feelings on Flash Passes.

 

First off, if I ever decided to visit a park (I'll use SFMM as an example) on a crowded day where all the lines were ridiculously long (say, 3 hours), I can see how Flash Passes are worth the money.

 

But on the other hand, there's people like me, who tend to avoid the park on days like that. Also, let me just state that my husband had an Xtreme Play Pass last year, so we got free Flash Passes.

 

Here's my point. We usually visited SFMM in early spring, when all the kids were in school, then a few times again in the fall, and maybe once or twice for Fright Fest.

 

Most of these days either

a) all the rides were walk-ons and we ended up eating Flash Passes, or...

b) SFMM's system is so darn inconsistent that half the time we ended up leaving the line upset. About half the time we visited, the employee took our passes, and we only waited about 2 or 3 trains. The other half of our visits, the employee used the correct procedure and made us go wait in the back of the station.

 

Now I have no problem with following procedure (unlike my husband, who assumed every time that since we were let on the front row with FP's it should happen EVERY TIME).

 

...Anyways, here's an example. Let's say Riddler's line fills up the queue house and is just down the stairs past that. On a good day I think I waited about an hour and fifteen minutes for that. They were running 2 trains. We use Flash Passes and are told to go wait in back of the station as usual.

This is where it doesn't make sense. I've had this happen on several rides. On several occasions we were just handed back the Flash Passes and told "oh, the line is short" and still ended up waiting upwerds of an hour.

 

I know it's policy, and it's good that the employees follow that. My point is, I think the whole point of Flash Passes would work better if they implemented a system on all the rides like that on Tatsu, where the last 2 lanes in the station are used for Flash Pass. (Now, I'm not sure if that has changed, because the last time I tried to visit in December, the Flash Pass line had moved to right before the stairs to go up into the station, merging with the regular line.) Most of the time when we used the special Tatsu line, it ended up only being a 15 minute wait when the line was 2 hours, not a 45 minute wait because we got shoved at the back of the station.

 

I just don't think it's worth the value,and like I said, I think the system needs to be changed; and that's why I don't spend $20 on extra ones for myself.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[cedarpointfangirl]

^ Funny...I've gone to SFMM in the afternoon and they still had plenty of FlashPasses left---and that was sometimes on a Saturday in August!

 

Eric

 

 

I think one reason our park runs out on busy days is because they utilize q-bot and they run out of the little pagers.

[jarmor]

That having been said: Elite Status. Being a very frequent flyer on two airlines, I've earned Elite Boarding status, and Registered Traveler program with the TSA. If a park wanted to get their best customers to stick around longer, spend more money, etc. they would use the same concept: I.E. Season Passholders with a certain number of visits would get to use the FastPass/Preboard ticket concept. And, just like the airlines, people who did not have the "elite" status could then purchase it for a price on a daily basis. In addition, SEPARATE queues for the guests in addition to a single riders line would work nicely.

BUt...Being a frequent flyer means you PAY each time you fly. Being a season pass holder you pay ONCE for unlimited visits. Why would I, as a park owner, want to give a season pass holder that privilege when I would be loosing tons based on that. I personally am for the system especially when I have unlimited access like when staying on property at universal. If im forking over 300-400 a night whereas someone staying off site is paying 50-100 a night I deserve the privilege to skip the line and laugh at the ones waiting!

[Golfie]

I tried the Q-Bot system at Six Flags Great America last year during Fright Fest, and I was extremely pleased with it! I have to say that it surpasses Disney's fast pass system, mainly because you can reserve your spot from anywhere in the park (instead of having to go to the machine near the ride and figuring out what to do for the next hour [note: I was there MANY years ago, and I don't know if/how the system has changed]). The only improvement on the Q-Bot that could be made would be the ability to reserve two rides at a time instead of one (for the rides with longer waits). Also, SFGAm had a great capacity - instead of the 250-per-day paper flash passes, MANY MANY more Q-bots are availible. I don't think I'll ever spend another busy day there without a Q-bot.

[sfotkid]

I've seen guests at USJ use their Universal Express pass on Backdraft when the line had like 20 people in it and the wait was 5 minutes!

 

I have done this before! Only at SF parks. I like having a different view of a ride I.e Batman at SFOT Flash Pass line takes them up a different side of the building.