Live from the Point

Hi, all,

New to the forums, so sorry if I commit any faux pas, but I am here on a beautiful Saturday, in line for TFD. I splurged on a fast lane pass and am glad I did, as the regular wait here is posted as an hour and a half.

This is my first time at CP in over 30 years, so I am looking forward to a great day! I'll check in occasionally with my observations.

Well that was a bust. In the fast lane line about 40 minutes when they announced it was closing for a mechanical issue. Oh well, time for some lunch then try again later!

Well, my experience with fast lane is decidedly mixed. For mid-level rides like windseeker and Gemini, it was awesome - essentially a walk-on. However, for MF and TFD, it's a bust. Just over an hour for MF (regular line was 1:20), and after 30 min in the TFD fast lane line, barely moving, a dad and his son walked back from in front of us, grumbling that he had been in line for over an hour and still had at least a half hour left. I left, too. The posted wait for the regular line was 1:30. LOTS of disgruntled people. Myself included. I'm here for another 5 hours, I'll see if it gets worse or better.

That's awesome to hear for us non-cutters! Sounds like they're not overdoing it.

TFD? You mean TTD for Top Thrill Dragster, right?

I do mean TTD, sorry. I told you I was a newbie!

Overall a fun day. As I said, I had not been to CP in over 30 years so there were many rides I had never seen before. My favorite by a long shot is MF - probably my new fave coaster anywhere.

Once was enough for me on Magnum and to a lesser extent Maverick - both were fun but a bit jarring, to me. Not horrible, just a bit uncomfortable. I still remember and like Gemini and Blue Streak from many years ago, Mantis and Raptor were both fun in their own way. And I never did get on TTD, as the wait time just kept growing, both regular and fast lane.

But it was a gorgeous day, and the park seems to be in good shape, so in spite of the crowds, the issues with fast lane on a couple rides, and the mediocre food, it was a blast.

Ensign Smith said:
That's awesome to hear for us non-cutters! Sounds like they're not overdoing it.

I can see your point - if you mean they are not overdoing allowing the fast lane folks to have priority boarding. In another sense, maybe they ARE overdoing it by selling too many.

Is it possible that when they were deciding what the limit would be, they said, "Hey, we have 20 rides that have fast lane, so we can sell x amount of tickets to space out among those 20 rides." But the reality is that the FL holders seemed to be concentrating on two of those 20, throwing the system way off. At least that is what appeared to be happening today.

Not sure what the answer is (other than scrapping the system altogether, which, as a cash cow for the company probably won't be happening!), but they need to do some tweaking to avoid a lot of unhappy people!

I was wondering how the Fast Lane works on different rides like Maverick, Mantis, Raptor, MF, and TTD. Do they just have sections of the trains exclusive to people with Fast Lane?

After hearing and observing first hand, it certainly seems that some kind of limit needs to be instituted for the most popular rides. I heard the Fast Lane line for MF spilled out onto the midway for most of Saturday, and if you know how it's set up, that's a decently long line.

They need to limit the amount sold for the Fast Pass system to work. Which I highly doubt they will do because why turn down an extra $50 dollars?

Like I said in another thread, I really think a pull tab system or a way to mark the wristband so you can only ride the big 3 once or twice would work wonders. Lo-Q would work too, if CP tiered it like SF does.

ChrisC. said:
They need to limit the amount sold for the Fast Pass system to work. Which I highly doubt they will do because why turn down an extra $50 dollars?

Supposedly they DO limit the number of Fast Lane wristbands sold each day, although they were selling them throughout the day on Saturday, which (to me) was quite crowded. So that "limit" might be very high!

From my experience Saturday, as I wrote earlier, they really need to either 1. Limit use of the FL on the top 3, or 2. Lower the limit of FL passes sold during the day.

Since all of their promotional materials tout that it is unlimited, I'm not sure if they will change midstream this year to make adjustments. But if they don't, there will continue to be many disgruntled guests.

I did talk to the folks in customer service and filed a form; I will let you guys know if I hear anything back!