Fast Lane is coming to the park

If you did all of that in 2 hours, you'd be exhausted and ready to watch some shows and drink some beer. :-)

I totally agree with Ride Man. That is the number 1 reason I am against it. Cedar Point does not have enough attractions to take up a full day with fast lane.

Im not for this system however, if CP doesnt have enough attractions for it I cant think of a park that doesnt have Disney in the name that does. If Dollywood can have a Fastpass system Id say almost anyone can. Id say that by doing all the rides on FL and then taking into account two meals and general walking in the park, that will more than take up an average familys/groups day in the park. Lets not kid ourselves...this will be used to re-ride most of the rides and not just doing a once through the list.

I know that if I used the FL, I would ride Millenium, Maverick, Raptor, Dragster,and Magnum each at least twice. AT LEAST. That's already 10 rides b

Maverick00 said:
Cedar Point does not have enough attractions to take up a full day with fast lane.

If Cedar Point doesn't have enough attractions for Fast Lane, what park does?

RideMan said:
Okay, so if you have to wait one cycle for each of those rides, you've spent an hour waiting and an hour riding.

That seems pretty optimistic, and ignores the time spent traveling between attractions (let's say 3 minutes each), bathroom breaks (4 minutes each), snack/beverage breaks (1 minute each), not to mention many people need a short break between rides (1 minute each). That in-between time adds up to almost 4 hours. Now it's almost 2:00PM, assuming the guests started promptly at 10:00AM, took no breaks at the arcade or various vendors, and that no rides broke down at any point during the guests' park circuit.

If the people who pony up for this pass aren't the type to go do it all again, what, then, are they going to do?

Buy stuff! :)

Or, at least, isn't that part of the reason for these systems? Parks generate almost zero revenue from queued guests. Sure, the first few years may see a fair number of guests wandering around the park mid-afternoon wondering what to do with the rest of the day. But once people become accustomed to the paid FOL dynamic, they're probably less likely to "marathon" rides in the way they do now. If I know I can take my sweet time all day long and still ride everything once, and the marquee attractions two or three times, I'm more likely to ride Blue Streak, Turnpike Cars, Raptor and Cedar Downs, before spending an hour (and an hour's worth of money) in the arcade. And so on.

If guests spend 21 minutes doing non-ride stuff after every 5th FOL attraction, that adds 1.75 hours to their day, which brings our hypothetical guests to almost 4:00PM, and they still haven't had a sit-down meal yet.

I agree there's still concern for a park like CP, which has such high overall capacity. But I don't think it's anything more than a learning curve for guests.

Im not totally sure if I like the idea of a fast lane.
Ive always liked the ideal that CF supports, that you cant buy yourself priority or a higher position than other guests.
All guests should be equal and expected to wait the same amount of time, and some people shouldnt be able to pay a certain amount to be able to bypass lines.
Oh well, I guess this is another directional change under the leadership of Ouimet (hard to spell his name!)

But they don't support that "ideal".

Or at least they haven't in the last couple years where they've offered a VIP experience that allows you to pay a large chunk of money to have front of the line access with a tour guide.

D1993 said:
Im not totally sure if I like the idea of a fast lane.
Ive always liked the ideal that CF supports, that you cant buy yourself priority or a higher position than other guests.
All guests should be equal and expected to wait the same amount of time, and some people shouldnt be able to pay a certain amount to be able to bypass lines.
Oh well, I guess this is another directional change under the leadership of Ouimet (hard to spell his name!)

First of all, this change was happening long before Ouimet took over the chain.

Secondly, CF/CP has allowed guests to "buy" priority access to attractions for quite some time. All you need to do is stay in one of their overpriced resorts, and you get access to attractions while all those poor, under-paying "regular" guests wait to be let into the park.

And then, of course, there's the VIP program...

But maybe you were talking about a different CF? ;)

Young Tattered Youth: "Awe shucks daddy. How come Richie Rich can afford to buy three corn dogs and we have to eat in the car? "

Concerned Father circa 1957: (Putting his hand on his son's shoulder) "I don't know Jimmy. I just....don't....know.....I have always believed that this park stood for equality, and that we should all be entitled to an equal number of corndogs regardless of what color skin we have...or how much change we have in our pockets..."

What world do you live in?

Jason Hammond said:
If you did all of that in 2 hours, you'd be exhausted and ready to watch some shows and drink some beer. :-)

The weak among the group - yes. The rest of us would consider that just a good warmup for the rest of the day!

Jason Hammond said:

Maverick00 said:
Cedar Point does not have enough attractions to take up a full day with fast lane.

If Cedar Point doesn't have enough attractions for Fast Lane, what park does?

My point is that it just feels different at Disney. There are several other things to do when your not in line. The list goes on and on. Where at the point, your either waiting in line or paying for a $8 cheeseburger.

While CP may not offer as many non-thrill attractions as you'd find in a Disney park, there's actually quite a lot to do if you're not riding.

Maverick00 said:

Jason Hammond said:

Maverick00 said:
Cedar Point does not have enough attractions to take up a full day with fast lane.

If Cedar Point doesn't have enough attractions for Fast Lane, what park does?

My point is that it just feels different at Disney. There are several other things to do when your not in line. The list goes on and on. Where at the point, your either waiting in line or paying for a $8 cheeseburger.

And hope you don,t have serious indigestion problems from eating the $8 cheeseburger.

djDaemon said:
But once people become accustomed to the paid FOL dynamic, they're probably less likely to "marathon" rides in the way they do now. If I know I can take my sweet time all day long and still ride everything once, and the marquee attractions two or three times, I'm more likely to ride Blue Streak, Turnpike Cars, Raptor and Cedar Downs, before spending an hour (and an hour's worth of money) in the arcade. And so on.

That's pretty much what happened when I used a gold Flash Pass (the one with no wait times) at Great Adventure a couple years ago. I don't think we marathoned anything other than three rides in a row on Toro to end the day. We mostly just took our time and relaxed and took in the rest of the park, and managed to not get bored after being there a full day. CP has a lot more stuff (flat rides, shows, attractions) to keep people busy than Great Adventure does.

As a self-professed marathoner, why would using FL make me want to marathon less? It will have the opposite affect on me - I will marathon even more if I do not have to stand in line.

Standing in line is what kills marathoning. Am I missing something?

Wouldn't you eventually tire of riding the same rides over and over and over and over? I love coasters as much as the next enthusiast, but there is a point where it becomes mundane. I think that may be the case with any activity.

As long as it is a good ride I can ride it all day. Yes, I am one of those guys who goes to an amusement park to ride rides. And if the price is right I will be seeing you at the front of the line as I cut in front of people over, and over, and over with my Fast Lane pass.

I still think the Fast Lane will lead to more marathoning as compared to now. How many times have you gotten off of a coaster and hear people say how awesome it was and that they need to ride it again? If they know they can cut right to the front without waiting in line I would think they would. Now maybe they only do that 2, maybe 3 times but that is 2 or 3 more times than they would have if they had to stand in line for another ride.

I would say that the average person wouldn't re-ride more than 3 times. I would consider myself the only coaster enthusiast in my group of friends, and while they all enjoy the rides, I've had a hard time getting to ride Millennium Force or Magnum two, let alone three times in a row when there was no line. Like Ralph and dj said, myself as an enthusiast and my non-enthusiast friends would probably ride all of the main attractions leisurely throughout the day along with the smaller attractions that may be overlooked if we were pressed for time. Then we could come back to the rides that we wanted to get another ride on later in the day, or once it's dark for a different experience

I agree that the average person is not going to re-ride more than three times, but right now I don't think they are re-riding at all because of the line. If a person gets off of Millennium and says "Wow - that was awesome" and can get right back on without waiting 30-45 minute are you saying they would move on to Blue Streak rather than get right back on Millennium? I think the average person (who does buy the pass) will re-ride. That is my point - I think the pass will encourage it.