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Do you buy fast pass tickets ?


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Today, when i visited my fave park, i had an extra amount of those people who had to not queue at all and could just cut the line with these fast-passes.

What is your opinion on them ? Do you hate them (not the people lol), and if not, do you buy them ? If yes, when ?

 

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I try not to, which I do by going to parks early/late season and weekdays if I can. That's a lot harder now when you work, but yeah got no issue with them, to be cheap I try to avoid em but if its a weekend esp during peak months, I'll get one, also I sometimes will if Im solo just bc ya know....alone and wanna move quick. Exception being Cedar Point I literally always get one there. 

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Generally not for the day unless it is really inexpensive but I am prepared to buy it if I am at a park I know I won't be getting back to anytime soon. I normally try instead to have a strategy to ride everything I want without it. When Dorney was my home park, I did buy the All Season Fast Lane Plus every year because it was so cheap ($99 a year at first and then $125) because I used it in the water park where it saved a lot of time and it provided unlimited instant or almost instant access to slides that could have up to an hour wait some days.

 

 

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I do everything I can not to buy them, but they're a nice option to fall back on if otherwise I wouldn't get on a ride/rides.

I agree you're paying money for nothing essentially, but if I were to visit a theme park, pay admission then hardly get on anything, I'm essentially paying admission for nothing too. 

I can only think of a few examples where I've got Fastpass; Parc Asterix (15€) when I could only visit on a busy Saturday, Thorpe Park (approx £5 x 3) when it was unexpectedly busy and the queues were a non-covid-compliant mess, and Halloween Horror Nights when it was my only way of getting on everything. 

I'm glad to see the back of Fastpass, it was an unmanageable mess and I hated planning my days in granular detail two months before I visit. Genie+ at the moment is reasonably good value and not the devil incarnate but it is another twisting of the screw by Disney. I found Boobash far more objectionable. But I am not keen on it excluding some rides and you having to pay extra. Would I pay for Genie+? Probably yes, it will be the only way I can ride everything. Would I pay for the extras? Probably not, I would attempt to rope drop those.

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I work a ton so my time as I've gotten older is limited with my companies, so I normally buy them unless the park is dead. I'd rather have a good day and enjoy myself than missing out on the rides I went to ride. Even if I'm not re riding a bunch, the extra time saved gives us time to explore areas we otherwise wouldn't of appreciated or known about. Even though I control my own schedule, weekends are naturally more open so we're at parks on the busier days, fast lane, fast passes, VIP tours, etc give us the ability to use our time wisely at parks.

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When parks initially started introducing them, and I wasn't making quite as much as I do now, I hated them.

Now, that I'm pretty financial comfortable, I pretty much always get them regardless of the weather forecast or anticipated crowd level; at local parks that I have season passes to, I have the all-season Fast Lane/whatever option when its available.

My time is much more valuable than money.  My personal tolerance for waiting in lines is about 15-30 minutes.  After that I start to get annoyed.

Since I often go to parks alone, there isn't much worse than standing in an hour+ line without anyone to talk to to pass the time.  Even when I am with friends, eventually we run out of things to talk about.

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I have only bought them in advance on CF's President's Day sale. I have purchased FL+ in person at Cedar Point on one occasion and Kennywood once. 

Now that I have the means to do so, I wouldn't hesitate to buy skip the line passes, especially at faraway parks. If a park is so crowded that fast passes sell out, I'd rather be somewhere else anyway.

Most of my faraway park visits are midweek and generally not as crowded. When you think about the number of rides you can take with a skip the line pass vs. without it, it's a no-brainer for me.

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2 hours ago, boldikus said:

Local parks? Pretty much never.

Parks I'm traveling to and only have a day or two at? Abso-f*ckin-lutely.
 

Pretty much this, though occasionally I won't. I didn't when I visited my sister in SF two years ago and we swung by SFDK and CGA for a few hours mostly because I knew going in both parks were gonna be pretty dead and there were only a couple rides I wanted to get multiple rides on (Joker / Railblazer). When Rikki and I did two weeks through the Netherlands and UK, I bought fast passes for every park we went to that sold them. 

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for my home and other local parks?   almost never - unless I'm meeting up with friends from out of the area (and they've bought it so I add on to be with them).

 

when I travel to a park out of State - almost always (at least 1 day of the visit).

 

as to the question:  "Do I hate them?"

No. . I don't.  If someone is willing to pay the $$ to skip the lines?  good for them.   I have that option too, and if I chose not to purchase it?  that's on me.

I *do* however get a bit annoyed at the SF chains "you get 4 free skip the lines because you're a member" stuff (as Bill mentioned above).    I realize that too, is a benefit that was given to those who were PAYING for Membership (and then bonused up to make up for Covid). . but still. . . that can be a bit annoying when I'm in line at SFFT, and suddenly there are 40 people ahead of you on a  low capacity ride, right when you're next in line) 😛

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14 hours ago, Ozano305 said:

Today, when i visited my fave park, i had an extra amount of those people who had to not queue at all and could just cut the line with these fast-passes.

What is your opinion on them ? Do you hate them (not the people lol), and if not, do you buy them ? If yes, when ?

 

Home parks, or parks I get to fairly often, not usually...

But sometimes on vacation I will, especially when I know I won't be back for several years...

Upcharging for an upgraded experience is everywhere... I'm really surprised that it took parks as long as it did to start cashing in...
 

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The idea that parks just add those to make more money sure is annoying but the truth is that parks that don't may be quite frustrating.

If I had a park near home which I could go to anytime, I probably wouldn't buy those passes often. But when you invest a lot of money (and time/effort) to go to a park which you might not visit anytime soon, it does feel good to have a way of getting on rides more quickly (even if you have to pay more)

I can tell you that I have made trips to parks which didn't have any pass and in many cases I'd spend the entire day running around and stressing. And sometimes I really was not able to get on everything that I wanted (even just once) and that is very frustrating when you travelled a lot for that single place.

 

 

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2 hours ago, rcjp said:

The idea that parks just add those to make more money sure is annoying but the truth is that parks that don't may be quite frustrating.

If I had a park near home which I could go to anytime, I probably wouldn't buy those passes often. But when you invest a lot of money (and time/effort) to go to a park which you might not visit anytime soon, it does feel good to have a way of getting on rides more quickly (even if you have to pay more)

I can tell you that I have made trips to parks which didn't have any pass and in many cases I'd spend the entire day running around and stressing. And sometimes I really was not able to get on everything that I wanted (even just once) and that is very frustrating when you travelled a lot for that single place.

 

 

Ik what you mean, but couldnt you just make sure to not attack the bigger and famous rides prime time and do the high capacity rides that time frame ? Like, right when the park opens, you could rush to all the big main attractions and ride them one by one if youre fast enough. After that, let the prime time come in and go to the big capacity rides with not so high queue time. Somewhere to the ending times of the park, go to the bigger rides you have missed out in the morning again, this is the best way feel like to attack this.

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When I did TPR tours, Robb and Elissa always made sure we had the best advantage (i.e. tickets and passes) for a day at any park.

So I would easily say YES, if going to park far far away, Fast Pass would be the way to go, to enjoy the whole day. IMhO.

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On 8/20/2021 at 6:58 AM, Mike240SX said:

When parks initially started introducing them, and I wasn't making quite as much as I do now, I hated them.

Now, that I'm pretty financial comfortable, I pretty much always get them regardless of the weather forecast or anticipated crowd level;

I pretty much feel like this about them. They are kind of a crappy concept, elitist in nature. But now that I am an adult with adult money, I can spend it however it makes me happy, right?! Lines suck, if it’s worth it to skip them I’ll fork up.

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1 hour ago, Haymaker said:

As a family of 4, no. Its not worth it to me at $400+.

I have a number of issues with them, personally, but all of that aside, just from a practical standpoint, it boils down to this for me as well. With 5 of us every time we go to a park, there is no world where it's practical, or economical to do.

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