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Merlin Fastrack

People at gf heard me have rage over it. The queues were only 30 mins there was no need for it all it done was increase ride time for everyone. Disney fast pass works merlins does not!
 
marc said:
Disney fast pass works merlins does not!
But oddly, it doesn't really. When you give out free fast track tickets, you're not making queues any shorter, you'd just be reorganising all the queues. The main queues are longer and the fast-tracks are the bits that would otherwise be in the longer queues. In Disney's case I don't think you are getting shorter waits on average, but the illusion of less waiting.
 
You don't get shorter waits, but, you do get the chance to do other stuff when you would have been in a queue...

The Disney system really, really works, and it can add somewhere between quite a bit and a **** load to your day if you do it right...

I... how anyone could critique THAT system is beyond me.
 
^If you do it for nothing else other than guaranteed re-rides on your favourite attractions, it's still a great system.

Example: Tower of Terror at DisneySea. You can pick up a fast track ticket right away when the park opens, which might give you a time for say two hours later. There's only a short line anyway first thing, so you then go into the regular line and ride. Two hours later, the queue is much, much bigger, but you're already walking straight on for a reride. In the meantime, you've been able to pick up a fast track for something else as well.

It's a great system, and since Disney throughputs are amazing anyway nobody in the "normal" queue notices a few fast tracks going through.
 
Unless its Peter Pan ey :wink:

I just find it really amusing actually. The only place where Merlin fastrack has become essential is at Thorpe Even on the quiet days, people seem quite willing to fuel the fastrack fire and reduce their queue from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Amazing stuff.
 
Hate it with a passion!!
Oversold and Q's go at a snails pace.
Paying a hefty sum to enter the park including rides. Fast track is like 'pay per ride' on top!!
Totally unfair.
 
Whilst I do agree with fastrack, I think Merlin's parks have now overstepped the mark in terms of pricing. My experience of pricing comes from an international field; Gardaland charges around 6 euro's for 4 rides, PortAventura around 20 euros for 8 rides, and 40 euros for unlimited rides. To compare; £80 (approx) at Alton Towers for unlimited rides, £10.50 for 3. It's overpriced, and is trying to simply take as much money out of your pockets as possible. And I wouldn't complain if the parks managed to re-invest it in a good way, but it just seems to disappear into shareholders pockets.

Then they don't pay the staff anything like enough (especially on the R&A side) for the responsibilities they have; I am rapidly realising how much Merlin exploit both their staff and their guests. It's all about making money, not providing a good guest experience, a good experience is needed to make the money, provide the bare minimum to maximise profits, and take it from there seems to be the attitude more often than not.

The problem remains that there is a Merlin monopoly. No little parks provide enough competition in terms of retail products or overall experience, we have a UK focus on world records, rather than building a theme park which delivers an experience. We should start a co-operative and venture into this avenue....
 
^It's not overpriced.

If it was cheaper, a lot more people would get them, which would make the waiting time for both lines (fast pass and regular) a lot worse.

If anything, they should increase the price. Unless, that is, they change the current system to something like the Qbot method.
 
Ian said:
I swear I once abused that for about 20 Dragon's Fury passes one day.

I remember this, it was either wardley weekender or ghosterforce 1, at 1 of them we abused fury's single rider and the other we got loads of fast tracks.
 
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