Fast Lane is coming to the park

I think it's optimistic to assume fast lane purchasers are only going to ride the "big" attractions once or twice each. Even on some of the busiest days at the park (except for Saturday Halloweekends) you can ride nearly everything you want to. Why pay for a pass to ride "everything" in 2 hours and call it a day for rides? Also, it won't be the family with toddlers buying these things, it'll be teens and kid-free adults (potential marathoners). Furthermore, I've seen VIP reviews where people talk of dozens of rides on individual coasters, so the "it gets old" thing, I don't buy. Sure, riding MF 4 times in a row is a little much for most people, but a couple times at 11 a.m, two more times after lunch, two more at night, sure, that's what the pass is for.

I'll fork over the cash for it a couple times this year, when I want to ride a butt load of coasters. That's the flippin point of it.

Shades said:
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?

Those people are generally high school kids, who's ability to do so mostly depends on access to their parent's wallet.

Shades said:
I think the average person (who does buy the pass) will re-ride.

Have you ever been to a coaster nerd club event where ERT on a particular ride was part of the day? Even there, among some of the most hardcore enthusiasts, do I see people hit their re-ride limit enough to lead me to believe that your behavior is the exception, rather than the norm. This is not to say people won't re-ride often with FOL access, but I don't think the phenomenon will be that dramatic or problematic.

Kyle2154 said:
Furthermore, I've seen VIP reviews where people talk of dozens of rides on individual coasters, so the "it gets old" thing, I don't buy.

The VIP pass doesn't allow immediate re-rides. You have to visit another attraction before returning for a re-ride.

Sure, riding MF 4 times in a row is a little much for most people, but a couple times at 11 a.m, two more times after lunch, two more at night, sure, that's what the pass is for.

In my opinion, your second scenario (4 rides on MF throughout a day-long visit) isn't "marathoning". That's just riding as your day allows. Marathoning, again in my opinion, is riding the same attraction many times consecutively without doing anything else. Again, I think "marathoning" will be the rare exception.

To Ralph's point above, many people, especially those that can afford paid FOL access (read: adults with money) simply cannot handle that sort of intense riding. At least that's been my experience. Kids might be able to, but are those kids going to be able to convince their parents to give them an extra $50 (or whatever) for each trip to the park?

Kings Island was the Guinea Pig for this whole thing. From what I have heard from individuals that frequent KI, "marathoning" the "big" rides was really not an issue there.

I was looking on KI's website and noticed that they have a fast lane tab. Anyone know what the "as low as $35" means?

http://www.visitkingsisland.com/tickets

SSL488 said:
I was looking on KI's website and noticed that they have a fast lane tab. Anyone know what the "as low as $35" means?

http://www.visitkingsisland.com/tickets

It means for $70 you can fly around the park in a high speed electric scooter. It comes with cup holders, has a truck horn and even the jet exhaust from the the 1989 Batmobile. Really get some bang for your buck. ;)

Honestly, I think it means the price is different depending on the day.

Isn't there some what of a discount if you buy 4 or more?

Well if it was only $35 for certain days, thats a more reasonable price and I might consider buying it once.

But you know what days it's going to be priced at $35?

The days where it's not necessary.

You bring a good point.

Does anybody know why Cedar Point hasn't announced its fast lane rides? Though Canada's wonderland is the only new fast lane park to announce the rides with it.

^Maverickoo, that was one of my questions as well. I'm not sure myself, but maybe since I'm bringing this topic back, someone will answer that for me and you. My question is does anyone know if the Fast Lane cost will be $50 for every time you visit the park? I also had this question to ask. Since I just recently purchased a Platinum pass, would I still have to pay that price? I know that seems like a stupid question but I figured I'd throw it out there.

Well since my last post, I think every park has announced their rides besides Dorney, Valleyfair and Cedar Point. The only logical idea is that it's one of the last parks to open so it might not be on the top of their list. I'm just happy it won't be up the exit ramp and will have its own permanent entrance.

Shawn, if KI is any indication, yes you would need to pay the $50 (or as low as $30 if in a group) for Fast Lane every time that you visit the park on a crowded day.

Of course, you could just pick historically low-attendance days and avoid that cost.

Thank you Ffej. For people who already pay an arm and a leg for the Platinum pass, we should get that at a discounted price. What do you guys think?

No, Fast Lane is rare instance where I feel discounts for Platinum is a bad idea.

The concept of the program is that the price is high to restrict access. If the price is lowered, then there will be a situation where there is high guest dissatisfaction: The waits would be too long for Fast Lane access, and they'd be increasing the waits for the regular guests.

If you know when to visit the park, there really shouldn't be a need for using Fast Lane.

Alright good point.:)

Besides, they said they planned to limit the supply. So, there would be no incentive for the park to offer discounts.

And before someone says they'll only limit it to how much they can sell, they have already shown they will limit stuff like this with their VIP program. If you go to the reservation page during the season, you will see that many days are unavailable because they are already sold out.

They will obviously offer more of the Fast Lane passes than the VIP. But, I believe they are sincere when they say they plan to limit it. If they let it get out of control, non-fast lane customer satisfaction would plummet.

While it hopefully changes this year, there was a bit of a Fast Lane disaster at Kings Island last year on Columbus Day weekend. They never cut off Fast / Fright Lane tickets, and it apparently got really out of hand.

Some reported Fast Lane waits of 45 minutes or more, and KI was only taking Fright Lane customers into some haunts, so the regular line never moved for hours. As you can expect, this caused much controversy about Fast Lane and lots of bitterness toward how KI handled the situation.

Last year at KI it was 50 if you bought one, 45 each if you buy 2, 40 for 3, 35 each if buying 4 or more. It was more than worth it for me. I go to CP and KI only once each year. With the lines at KI that day I would only have been able to ride 7 or 8 rides. With fast pass i got all the rides in i wanted and even left a couple hours before close to get started on my long ride home.