2013 Fast Lane and Fast Lane Plus

^ How does that happen? The FL queue closes along with the queue for the normies when the park closes, does it not?

We-o-we-oooo said:
^ How does that happen? The FL queue closes along with the queue for the normies when the park closes, does it not?

FL fills up at the last minute too, and their line goes faster in a sense.

Yes, the FL line was extremely long when i walked passed it coming from the frontier trail to get on MF!

Instead of standing outside of the entrance like a bunch of others waiting for the ride night to start (to be the first on the ride for the ride night, dont understand that, but to each his own), id rather wait in line and get an extra ride in. I timed it just to see what the impact FL had on the wait.

vwhoward said:

Dead Sexeh said:

There is evidence that points towards him being right.

I think that's what people are asking for. Where is this evidence? It's been my experience that the wait times are affected very little. I'm not asking for this 'evidence' because the times I haven't used FL, the wait times are just about what they usually used to be. But this is my opinion based on what I've observed.

The evidence being as of late more attractions have been removed than added so that would equate to a reduced value of admission for some. Evidence two FL increases the wait for general admission which reduces the value of admission.

I think it's pretty clear that FL adds *some* amount of wait to the "standby" queue, unless of course no FL users get in line during your wait. The variable is how much wait is added. I'd venture to guess that most times on the higher capacity rides, it's likely less than an additional train or two, so in other words, practically negligible. On low capacity rides, the impact of FL users is naturally going to be a bit larger because 4 people passing you in line for Giant Wheel or Power Tower is a bit more disruptive than 4 people passing you for Millennium.

One thing FL fails to do that other line pass systems that Six Flags and Disney use is attempt to somewhat evenly distribute the load of users across the available rides. Therefore, particularly at the more popular rides, it's certainly possible to have a high concentration of FL users all there at once. I'm sure that's what leads to anecdotal stories like the one JW shared.

Is that enough to dilute the value for an average ticket holder? I imagine they end up standing in line *some* amount longer than they would if there was no FL in place, but I suspect in most cases it's so little they either don't notice or don't care. I don't think you can make any case for it diluting the value of a season pass though, as the passes are already a very good value and you can go as much as you want during the season.

For full disclosure this is coming from a guy who, thanks to work, very rarely gets to visit the park on days that don't start with an "S" anymore. I've seen FL slow the regular queue to a crawl plenty of times, but it is what it is and isn't that big of a deal.

Also, the only guests which make the wait in the standby line longer are guests which enter the Fast Lane line after you enter the standby line. If there wasn't a Fast Lane line, Fast Lane guests already in line would most likely be in line ahead of you anyway if there was only one queue line.

^
Yeah, although those guests start eating your time in a bigger way if they decide to marathon the ride. I was only at CP once last year, and I didn't notice the difference on anything except Maverick, where the extra wait time was painfully obvious, mostly from people I saw get in line multiple times during our wait. This was on a the first Sunday of Halloweekends, and things were fairly dead overall.

The part that troubles me most, however, are the anecdotal stories I've heard concerning Kings Island, specifically that on some rides, the regular line doesn't advance until everyone in the FL line has been brought onto that ride cycle. I haven't been to KI since the system's implementation, but if that was/is true, I think some anger is justifiable.

Kings Island's implementation of Fastlane is mediocre at best compared to Cedar Points. Some rides like Vortex and Racer were implemented very well. Flight of Fear and Firehawk were done horribly. It seemed like on Flight of Fear the line moved 2x as slow as it did before Fast Lane.

By far the worst operational implementation of FL I've ever seen was early in the season at Kings Island last year. Diamondback had roughly one train worth of FL users who were power riding for at least an hour (I bailed on the line at that point). They emptied the entire FL line into the station before letting the regular line move, so with that group plus the other random FL users passing through, only about 1.5 of the 3 trains were actually available to the standby line. After an hour we hadn't even made it through the first set of switchbacks.

Thankfully CP seems to do a pretty good job of limiting the flow from the FL queue so the regular line keeps moving. The only exceptions I've heard of was when they would essentially "reserve" one side of the station on TTD and Maverick for FL users. I assume that issue was dealt with in the earlier part of last season though, as I never witnessed it personally.

Zoug68 said:
First class folks on a plane are only getting big seats in the front of the plane. They don't get 2 or more flights while I wait for my one flight.

Yes, they're getting bigger seats with more legroom at the expense of your comfort - because you get smaller seats with less legroom.

The only difference between FL and first class airline tickets is that one deals with time as a limited resource, while the other deals with space as a limited resource. Regardless, in each circumstance, the person willing or able to pay more gets more.

coolkid said:
Flight of Fear and Firehawk were done horribly.

The lines on those rides move slow no matter what. I swear on Firehawk there can be 50 people in line and it still takes 45 min.

I was waiting in the regular queue line for the MF and TTD. They both were 20 minutes waiting time, and the Fast Lane was 30 minutes and longer waiting time on both. With me Fast Lane isn't good for many people for the price. On these days nobody has a lot of money to use it.

If you purchase a regular Fast Lane pass and decide an hour into your day that you want to upgrade to the Fast Lane Plus, do you have to buy new passes or do you pay the difference between the regular Fast Lane and the Plus?

djDaemon said:

Zoug68 said:
First class folks on a plane are only getting big seats in the front of the plane. They don't get 2 or more flights while I wait for my one flight.

Yes, they're getting bigger seats with more legroom at the expense of your comfort - because you get smaller seats with less legroom.

The only difference between FL and first class airline tickets is that one deals with time as a limited resource, while the other deals with space as a limited resource. Regardless, in each circumstance, the person willing or able to pay more gets more.

Well said

Sorry to bring up a old topic, but does anybody know/think they will have Fast Lane Plus for use at GateKeeper on Opening Day?

You can order them online for opening day so I assume so.

FL at KI last year was handled better later in the season. Early on, the ride ops really seemed to have no clue, and often FL'ers would stream into the station unimpeded, meaning the "standby" line might not move at all.

Later in the season it seems like there had been more training and on most rides it seems like the ride ops were instructed to let FL through at about a 1-to-2 ratio to standby riders.

In general CP does handle it better.

Just wondering if anyone has heard or knows where the FL line will go at GateKeeper? Will FL users be able to choose which side they want to ride on or will FL go all to the left side or right side respectively?

To bring back up an earlier point, if about an hour into the day with my normal FL and i want an upgrade, do i need to buy a whole new ticket?

FL users will be able to choose a side.