Freeway Stamps-1 per day-Fair or Unfair?

I see on CP website it says 1 freeway stamp. Does anybody kbow if that's 1 per ride or 1 per day? In either case, it wouldn't make sense. If you limit it to 1 per day or 1 per day, doesn't that defeat the purpose of the freeway stamps. I thought their purpose was to help keep the lines down. If they limit you in any way, that will actually make the lines longer, won't it?

Fair. It would become corrupt and there wouldn't be a regular line anymore. Everyone would use freeway stamps instead of waiting in line. People would plan out their entire day around what time they have to be at a specific roller coaster. Roller coasters would run out of stamps too fast and make people upset (can they run out of stamps? I've never used it, but I assume that there would be a limit). It's a good rule.

Its one stamp per ride at one time. If you get a stamp for Millennium Force then you can't get one for Raptor unless they ask for your other hand. I have seen people come up to our Free Way entrance with a Millennium stamp on one hand and a Wicked Twister or Raptor stamp on the other. I think it just depends on who hands out the stamps because some of those people don't know what there doing.

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Screamsters 2001
Millennium Force/Screamsters 2002
There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?
*** This post was edited by 99er 1/17/2003 9:10:44 PM ***

Yes they can run out of stamps..

The basic theory for issuing stamps is to allow roughly 10% of a ride's hourly capacity to use stamps. So there is a set # of stamps for each time frame on each ride which is why you can arrive at MF at noon and get a time WAY later in the day because they already handed out the "alloted" number of stamps for the previous hours.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
Technical Services 2002
Fright Zone Screamster 2002

You can only get one stamp per day. Regardless of ride. THey only give out a certain number of stamps per hour (see rob's post) Even if you were to get a stamp for one ride and use it and proceed to wash it off chances are the stamps for the other rides are already gone. Besides that we try to use ink that doesnt' wash off that easily jsut for that reason.

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Park Op Jen
2003 Park Op Office
2002 Park Op Office
2001 TL Swings and Swans/Monster Triangle
1999 TL Peanuts Playground / Kiddy Kingdom
1998 Kiddy Kingdom/ Bear Country/ Iron Dragon/ Disaster Transport

The ink doesn't wash off, but it transfers to my clothing pretty darn easily!

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- John
Support Rob in theGreat DDR Challenge!

You wouldn't believe all the people in the bathrooms (mostly young men) near MF trying to wash off the stamps.

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"I can't make a movie or write a song either, but that doesn't mean I'm not entitled to think they suck."
-Jeff

The only thing worse than people who make grammar mistakes are the people who have to point it out every ****ing time.

I can believe it. Its funny to see people come back to the entrance after they tryed washing off the Void stamp not thinking that I just let them in 15 minutes ago. Im pretty good at remembering a face for at least a good half hour;)

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Screamsters 2001
Millennium Force/Screamsters 2002
There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?

Everytime I would come up to the freeway station for a stamp, they would be completely gone...How do I get one before they run out, even if it's for later on in the day? Do they stop issuing them completely at a certain time?

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and remember, if you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter

They stop issueing stamps for the first time period when a set number of persons has requested one (roughly 10% of the hourly capacity as Rob said). From there the count begins with the next time period. Once that number of stamps has been given out for the last time period of the day the employees close up the booth. So in order to get a stamp you must arrive there early in the day.

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James Draeger
-Captain Sarcasm

I must admit this does seem pretty simple & inexpensive. It also seems pretty useless. When my wife & I went to Disney World on our honeymoon back in Sept 2002, they had Fast Pass. This allowed you to use your ticket, which you get when you pay to enter the park, & get a fast pass for any ride during the day. You could only get 1 fast pass at a time. Which means, if you have a fast pass for Space Mountain, you can't have one for Splash Mountain until you've used your Space Mountain one. They would post the times for fast pass & wait times without fast pass. It seemed to work very well while we were there.I know it might cost more money, but, it works for Disney. Why can't it work for CP. Remember Disney World might be larger over all, but, CP is larger than any 1 Disney park except Animal Kingdom. Just a thought.

fair or unfair? Dude, it is free. If we are not paying for it, we cannot claim whether it is fair or not.

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I fool so feelish...

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99er said:
I can believe it. Its funny to see people come back to the entrance after they tryed washing off the Void stamp not thinking that I just let them in 15 minutes ago. Im pretty good at remembering a face for at least a good half hour;)

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Screamsters 2001
Millennium Force/Screamsters 2002
There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?

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Half hour... check.

Just kidding... but really, when I was there once I got a stamp and when it was my time I rode it, but they never stamped my hand with a VOID. So I could have gone again.

I didn't though... other things to do.

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"I can't make a movie or write a song either, but that doesn't mean I'm not entitled to think they suck."
-Jeff

The only thing worse than people who make grammar mistakes are the people who have to point it out every ****ing time.

The Policy by mid/summer 2002 was that each guest could have ONE freeway stamp per day (note my signature) That is one stamp at either Raptor, MF, or WT. Once you have a stamp, your freeway fun is over. By mid-july the final policy was made, before that, you could have more than one stamp as long as one stamp wasn't still pending when you received your second. After some failures with ink, VERY permanet ink was added, and different colors are used for different days, so dont try to use your stamp again the next day... you will be caught!

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ONE freeway stamp a day... ONE

I'm sorry, but, I think that policy of 1 stamp per day really stinks. If you want to cut down on long lines, you allow 1 stamp per ride per day. This would give everyone a chance to get a stamp to ride during a certain hour. Then, if they want, they can wait in line to ride it for the second time & so on. The way it's set up now, it seems that if you aren't early to the park & quick enough, you wouldn't even get a freeway stamp for any ride. I beilieve the only reason it's 1 stamp per day is because you get people who try to take advantage of the system, which stinks too. If that's the case, stop giving stamps & give little tickets out. Use a different color ticket for each ride & switch colors for the next day. I'm glad my wife & I will be going in early to mid May when the crowds aren't big.

The system that Disney uses woudl require ALOT of new equiptment and computers and resources. Does the current system work? Yes I even used it on my days off playing in the park. Would the amount of $$ spent on a new system bring a good return on the investment?

The current system works so there's really no reason to fix something that isn't broken.

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
Technical Services 2002
Fright Zone Screamster 2002

Darling - the ink doesn't wash off? Mine sure did.

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BTS Cedar Point
http://www.btscedarpoint.tk

I've gotten freeway stamps and the void stamp was really light. I could have rubbed it off but I was afraid that the stamp guy would recognise me.

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CP Fanatic Forever!!!

There are two issues with any fastpass/freeway like system. The first is ROI: what does it cost to install, vs. how much more revenue do you get from installing it. That revenue is twofold: you might get a few additional admissions, and people can't spend money on much while in line. CP's solution is cheap, so it doesn't need to generate that much more income to make sense.

The second issue is how it affects the queue lines throughout the rest of your park, and how guests react to it.

Compare CP and Disney. CP's freeway capacity is capped at 10%, WDW's can float much higher than that. At CP most people are there to ride rides. If they aren't in line waiting for Millennium, they'll be in line waiting for Dragster, or whatever. At Disney, the rides are a less important part of the Disney Experience. So, Freeway tends to increase guests in lines (physically+virtually) without encouraging that much more spending in park. Fastpass has a better chance of ROI, since Disney guests don't focus only the rides and attractions.

Even with this, Disney watchers claim that their high ratio of fastpass to standby guests has substantially increased waiting times at the parks, because some guests end up in two lines at once. With the upcoming scheme allowing certain classes of guests to hold more than one Fastpass at a time, this will get even worse.

Finally, Disney's heavily themed queues give them more opportunity to merge fastpass riders with standby riders without the latter seeing the former. For example, at Space Mountain at DLP, I was stuck in the standby queue for 10 minutes without it moving at all. Most people in the standby queue cannot see the fastpass guests entering.the ride; I could only see them because I was at the front of the blocked queue, and could sneak peeks at the monitor that the cast member was watching to monitor fastpass progress. At CP, you see each and every freeway rider, and even at 10%, guests in the regular queue grumble.

Given all of these issues, CP's system strikes me as a good tradeoff. Even if you are at the park on a busy day, you'll get one E-ticket ride without a major wait, if you get there relatively early in the day. Increasing freeway capacity will only put more guests (virtually) in line, increasing wait times for each ride, possibly without a substantial increase in per-capita spending.

If you combine the current Freeway system with the ERT via a Joe Cool pass or resort stay, then it becomes possible to get a good handful of E-ticket rides without much wait at all. For example, when I go with the kids, I usually duck into the park early while the rest of the family is eating breakfast for a short power riding session on Raptor before the park gets going. You can easily get 3-4 rides in this way without waiting more than 5-10 minutes each.

Good point Brian. With morning (and for this year, evening) ERT for JCC and resort people, plus one Freeway stamp per day can give you a lot of rides. On average, I could get 6 or 7 Raptor rides or 3 MF rides and be in line for the front seat before the public came in.

For 2003, Janice Witherow said they are adding Dragster, Mantis, and Magnum to the Freeway program. That's a total of 6 rides offering Freeway. This means that while you may not be early enough to get a pass for MF or Dragster, the odds of you getting a stamp for one of the rides will double this year. Hey, saving an hour waiting in line is the same reguardless of which line it's for.

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-Chris Woodard
"If you're standing in an uncomfortable position, that means you are in the right position because you are riding Mantis!" - Mantis ride op doing spiels on closing day.