What's new
By:
FORUMS - COASTERFORCE

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Fast Pass - opinions?

JJLehto

JJLehto

Hyper Poster
I've always thought they were terrible, even came up with justifications like "lines are part of the experience" or how it was like flashing money in our faces.

Well we're thinking about doing it finally at CP and I now chuckle at those who say "it benefits the wealthy" and is "unfair" and practically take the tone of a Marxist revolution. One comment even said the psychology of a park is that "magic" and fast passes destroy that feeling.
Anyone is free to use it, an extra 50 bucks is not exactly a wealthy luxury, and if you come from far away is it so bad to not want to spend hours in line?

So really, how do you all feel? Is there anything wrong with it? Is it just another service you pay for and people are getting wound up over silliness? Do you use it and if so do you feel bad at all?
 
It depends entirely on the system and how it's managed to be honest.

If there's a dedicated fast pass queue which merges seamlessly into the main one near the station, then I tend not to really notice and it doesn't bother me. I HATE the systems that allow you to be ready to board a coaster though, only to be held back for a train or two while some fast pass w**kers are shoved into the seats you were about to get into. To me, that's just a badly managed system that can't fail to piss people off.

I'll be predictable with the "Disney have got it right" comment before everyone jumps in on that one.

I think the only time I've paid for one is at Great Adventure, which was down to the fact that it was busy, we wanted to get everything done and we weren't going to be back there anytime soon. We didn't really have an option but to get the Q-bot thing, and I'm really glad we did.

For the vast majority of parks, I really don't think you need them. However, I'd happily fork out a few more quid if I was at a park I'd never been to before - and unlikely to get back to - with a lot of rides and on a busy day.

Yes, it's throwing money at a "problem" and creating an in-park class system, but I couldn't give a s**te about that.
 
Wish all parks would just scrap it.

If they made everyone queue normal the times would probably go down.

Not even Disney have it right. Take Big Thunder and Sorin. One side is fast pass only and the main queue is an hour. Cut out fast pass and the queue time is 30 mins, you still normally have to wait 15 mins even with fast pass.

The Disney one is free so people make the most of it.

Am sure it works out in the summer but out of season it should be closed. I cannot believe it when people get a fast pass and the queue times only 10 mins, what's the point in that?

As Gavin said when a park is busy and you have limited time it's worth it.

Some parks like universal and ioa have a ride story in the queue, if you fast pass it you don't get the story same when the parks empty.
 
Disney has it right. Cedar Fair has it wrong. Six Flags has it ok.
 
^ but Disney is starting to change (monetise?) theirs.

I've never paid for one (used Disney's & Univeral's but with Disney it is (for the moment) included and Universal's came with the hotel at the time).

I would not be averse to paying for them on busy days, but (so far) I have not ever needed to - perhaps I just plan to not go to the busy parks on busy days?
 
^Ideally yes. Sometimes it's just not realistic though.

I'll use the Great Adventure example again as it's the only time I've paid for one. It was a week day - yes it was summer, but that just couldn't be helped at all - and much, much busier than any of the other parks we'd been to on the trip. We knew it would be busy, so the fast pass was already pretty much decided before we arrived. If I lived in the area, or had days to play with and/or move around it would be a different story, but in that situation, no amount of planning would have negated the need for the fast passes.
 
What we were thinking is 1 day at CP (they all crapped out early on day 2) and it's a once a year trip, if we can even go that often, so a fast pass may be needed to maximize a 1 day trip. Also it would save us the $$ of a second day.
Also they have the patience of a child and past 45 minutes was too much...they all wanted to keep riding the mine train and water rides endlessly while I'd rather have, you know, sucked it up and waited for a coaster.

We're going in early August, only ever done May or September and while it's never been needed then I expect it to be much more packed then. You're right, avoid parks when they're busy but ya know...life and such, it's when we all can make it.
Still I'd feel pretty s****y about using it
 
I do not begrudge the wealthy or anybody who has means at their disposal to jump in front of anybody else.

I've been on both sides of the fence. I've had a massive queue of Fastpassers jump in front of me and increase my waiting time and I've walked up the exit of a ride to skip a long queue.

Fastpass systems are perfectly fine if managed well and that's where my gripe lies. I've yet to visit a park that effectively manages it. Perhaps that is a good enough reason to prove Fastpass systems don't work; All those parks operating such a system yet none of them can pull it off successfully. Fnarr.
 
Though that's what I kinda realized, "wealthy" we're talking an extra 50 bucks is all.
We're 4 kids that have graduated Uni all within the last year, have loans, bills, one a wife, and if we can manage it I don't think it's a rich luxury :lol: especially if you do the trip cheap.

I agree though, I really get miffed when we get held up after an hour+ wait due to fast passers but it has to be better than spending a second day. Glad it's not totally despised at least ha
 
I have a slightly mixed opinion on them. On one hand they are great when you only have a limited time at a park and want to get everything done quickly. However when managed badly they are a nightmare. On a visit to Chessington during last years Summer Holidays (never again!) the fast pass queue for vampire had become as long as the normal one and they had to "temporarily" stop selling them as opposed to stop selling them altogether. This just seemed stupid.

Haven't been to Disney yet but it seems like they have the right idea. Having a limited number of free passes seems like the most fair way to do it.
 
I don't generally mind them but some of them are just a rip off. I do love the Disneys ones because their free and their system seems to be quite fair.
 
The system when Tussauds was around was good, where you put your ticket in the machine then you got a time slot. I'm not a big fan of fastrack but I tend to avoid busy days anyway for this reason. The whole queuing system with letting how many fastrackers and normal queuers into a ride station is flawed at some parks.

I went to fright nights last year at Thorpe, and they were letting in so many fastrackers than normal queuers - making us wait an extra half hour more :/
 
Rachel said:
I have a slightly mixed opinion on them. On one hand they are great when you only have a limited time at a park and want to get everything done quickly. However when managed badly they are a nightmare. On a visit to Chessington during last years Summer Holidays (never again!) the fast pass queue for vampire had become as long as the normal one and they had to "temporarily" stop selling them as opposed to stop selling them altogether. This just seemed stupid.

Haven't been to Disney yet but it seems like they have the right idea. Having a limited number of free passes seems like the most fair way to do it.
Click to expand...

This is the main thing that irks me about how Six Flags manages their Fast Passes. They just keep selling, and selling, and selling them to the point where on multiple occasions in the last 3 years they had FP lines 20-30 minutes longer than the actual lines. Busch Gardens Williamsburg has a good system, at least from what I've experienced. They don't flash the incentive in your face at every corner in the park, they charge around $20-30 instead of $70+, and they allow pre-reservations days before and stop selling them after a certain amount are sold (iirc they either have a set amount for each day or they curve it according to crowds that day).
 
insanecoastervids said:
I actually like them when there is a long line for a ride use them
Click to expand...

That is the intent :lol:
They're only gunna be used on Maverick, TTD, MForce, Raptor, Gatekeeper.
Though they did have the option available for the antique car ride!!


Indeed, seems parks can't help themselves and sell em irresponsibly.
 
Virtual Queues are here to stay. Being able to make an additional $15-$50 :shock: a head at virtually no cost is to hard to pass up as a business.

One of the biggest problems these parks face is their rides were built, 10,20,30 years before upselling a virtual queue was even dreamed of. Disney has the budget and creativity to go back and retro fit their lines, but for some parks (cough Six Flags), that the lines started out as switchback nightmare, its tough and creates poor guest service perception.

I can tell you I have yet to see a park not continue to sell, even as parks hit capacity and the parks reach their quota of virtual queue sells. My advice is while at Disney, use them wisely (IE get one for Coaster, ride Tower, then your FP is ready), and for the other parks go on a day when you don't need to pay for the upcharge.
 
It is for the park to have money. If you have plenty of money and want it, get it. You aren't a bad person. You want to ride some rides in either short time or multiple times. I was at Kings Island during Halloween Haunt. Beast was a four hour line. Diamondback was three. Each was ten with Fast Lane so I got it. It is kind of unfair but it is still there. Disney does it best of course.
 
Edward M said:
It is for the park to have money. If you have plenty of money and want it, get it. You aren't a bad person. You want to ride some rides in either short time or multiple times. I was at Kings Island during Halloween Haunt. Beast was a four hour line. Diamondback was three. Each was ten with Fast Lane so I got it. It is kind of unfair but it is still there. Disney does it best of course.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much my current feeling. Selfish I guess, but yeah at Great Adventure you either luck out (and we try to pick good days) or you ride each coaster once, after 9 hours :lol: Fright Fest, ugh...we got maybe 5 coasters in and it was a 3 hour wait for El Toro, or go home...
Or at CP, we are pretty much boxed into 1 day this year and that's just not enough time for all the biggest rides/have an impatient crew. I just figure it's really not a super wealthy price to pay (I mean if you work a full time job and are already going is 50 bucks that much?) to get more enjoyment from the day, though sucks people will get jumped over because of it.
 
Disney has it alright a lot of the time. On the higher hourly capacity rides like Test Track, Rock 'N' Roller Coaster, Space Mountain, and Expedition Everest, they work pretty near perfectly. The fast pass line has no issue merging with the regular line and has little to no effect on it due to the large flow of people getting on and off the rides anyway. On the low capacity stuff like Soarin' and Tower of Terror... it can be awful. They give out more fast passes than the ride can handle, and the fast pass line starts backing up until it's just as long as the normal one. Then they start trying to seat all the people with the fast passes, and the normal line just sits at a standstill for 30 minutes. If they can adjust for the capacity of each ride and make it so that fast passes account for something like less than a third (or some other amount, I'm no expert) of the total amount of people that go on the ride, it would work a lot better.

From my past experiences, Six Flags does an alright job with their system. In addition to limiting how many can be sold per day, they still limit you to how many times you can skip ahead and at what time you can get on ride, which works out alright. There's never really any sense of lines being dragged out longer because of the line skipping, and at SFGAdv (I can't say for the rest of the parks, haven't been), the actual physical merging of the lines is managed well.

The real bad example in my opinion is the Universal complex. There's no limit to anything. If you buy a pass, you can get in whatever line whenever and go right on ahead. Not to mention that the two lines are adjacent for most of the queue, so those in the regular line get to sit there and watch those who dealt out an extra $50 per person zoom right on buy. I remember waiting for The Hulk and counting 63 people from the fast pass line go by before they let 5 regular-line people get on to the ride. Horribly frustrating and poorly managed.

I wouldn't say that I'm a huge fan of fast passes, but they can add to the experience when they're easily available to everyone and don't affect the normal lines.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top