OOHH NOOOO!!!!!

Screamscape.com has in their News and Rumors that Cedar Point managment took a liking to the Disney "FastPass" virtual queue
concept while visiting the Orlando area and may be looking at a way of trying it out at The Point in the near
future. This would end up being a non electronic version apparently and involve distributing a limited number
of passes to the guests by hand.

That idea has its good and bad side. Good would be that lines for MF would be shorter. Bad would be not being able to ride multiple times.

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14 and counting
See my Po!nt?
"Dont post if there is nothing to post about"

Last year on one of the last weekends they were testing a new pass system on Raptor. It was in anticipation for MF. You were given a ticket and it had a number on it. You had to be in order with the corresponding number in front and behind you, or else you couldn't ride. This would eliminate line jumping, and make lines more efficient. Don't doubt CP, they'll find a way to make it better than Disney.

When Batman the ride opened up here in Jersey the system was terrible, they ended up giving up and a rior almost ensued, I am sure CP can do it better than premier did.

I was there last year and hated that on Raptor.

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Raptor Flights: 12
Force Rides: 9

Actually, the Disney system works pretty well. You insert your ticket into the machine (yes, Disney's is electronic which helps in this case). You got a specific 2 hour window to return. Once you received your time, you could not get another one until you rode the apponted time stated. I did Rock and Rollercoaster three times in two hours with a 5 minute wait as opposed to waiting in 90 minute lines. The problem with giving them out by hand is that someone could keep grabbing passes and wind up with an unfair advantage, making the idea pointless. Nobody is going to be able to do MF 10 times in one day with or without passes due to what the line is now. If it can be utilized properly to prevent cheating and greed, then I say go for it. If it will create more problems than it will solve, then why bother?

I don't know if anyone else has notice this but the queue is already set up for it. There are two gates at the queue entrance, the left takes you through the switchbacks, the right is a straight shot to the ramp whose intended use is probably for light days (like we'll see those anytime soon:)). Hmmm, I wonder if the park ops has something in mind.

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Scott W. Short
sshort@mediaone.net
http://welcome.to/midwestcoastercentral

I don't really like this idea. I'll admit that I've never been to Disney and I don't even know exactly how the system works, but it sounds like they are assigning you a time when you can ride a ride and you can't ride outside this assigned period. Sometimes when I'm at the park, I go eat dinner around 3 or 4 so that when I come back at 5 or 6, the crowds have sometimes thinned out since everyone else is starving and needs to eat. Supposed the machine assigned me a time that puts a damper on my plans and strategy. I don't think I'd be very happy. I don't really understand what the purpose of such a system is. If people want to wait let them! :) Afterall, they built the huge queue for it! :) Also, it'd be nice if we could pick our seats too after our long wait! :)

-Matt

What could be better than Y2K @ Cedar Point - America's Rockin' Roller Coast?

I agree, Matt. I'm not paying my way into CP to be told when I can and can't ride the coaster I came to ride. You should be able to decide when you want to ride the MF. And what if you and the party you're with wanted to ride it together and they got separate times? That could suck. And yeah, I heard they are assigning seats at the MF. I hate that. I like the front, or the very back, not in between, but chances are that's what I'm going to get if they make me sit somewhere. I understand though that the line for the front would be extreme if they let everyone pick. It'd probably cause problems, but that still doesn't make me feel any better.

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Question: How do you explain the actions of millions of people who wait hours upon hours to be dropped down a hill?
Answer: You don't...

...Furthermore it has been reported here that adding the third train to Millennium Force has not reduced the waiting time by a third as one might expect, but by half. I'm guessing that the lines for Millennium Force, if they can keep that level of performance up, will be overlong, but no worse than for Raptor in its first season. Look for 2-hour waits, tops, with about 90 minutes far more common.

The sequential ticket system was used and abandoned on Mantis in its first season. It was intended to be line-jumping elimination more than anything else.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

yea i was at the point last year when they tried this on magnum,the thing that i couldent understand is why the were passing these things out when the line wasent very long.

I've used the "fastpass" system at MGM in Orlando and found it to be useful aroundmeals and whatnot. Its like waiting in line for a ride without being in the queue. Instead you can go enjoy some food or a walk-on ride or two. In essence its still waiting, but more productive. Even if you don't like the idea, it is an option. It really didn't seem to make the normal lines all that slow in the process anyway.

I've used the "Fastpass" system, and it does work well. Let's say that you come once a year on a July weekend, and would like to ride most of the big-ticket rides. Well, if you had to wait a couple of hours for MF, an hour for Raptor, Mantis, and Magnum (each), you wouldn't have much of a day left. It might not help us too much, but it would help the people that only come occasionally. I would guess that they would let season pass holders ride it a few times a day (If it was electronic).

I've used this type of system at Universal Studios Hollywood -- for the Studio Tour. They gave you a time for you to take the tour, and you go and do it then. It worked out fine for me, we just scheduled around it. But that's becuase you really don't wanna do that tour more than once anyway, and it was the only "ride" they had this system for. If CP did it, let's say just for the MF, that would be cool -- especially if they gave you a choice of times, like 3 chances throughout the day that you could either use one or all of those "chances", depending if you wanna ride it that much. I mean, you probably wouldn't be able to get that many in a day if you were waiting 4 hours a pop... anyway... CP will work something out if they do it.

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CP the best... and if you wanna argue that I'll take you down...

I guess it's a good idea, but Cedar Point will never spend the money on the technology to implement it. It doesn't really help them generate revenue, so why bother? Judging by the reactions of people exiting the ride, they can deal with the wait, so their overall experience isn't that negatively impacted by the wait.

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 23

Just to clarify Fastpass, you can ride as much as you want. You can either get in the regular line and wait like usual, or get a pass, come back at the assigned time, and ride with no more than a 10 minute wait. After the two hour window is over, you can get another for an upcoming two hour window later in the day. Fastpass appointments are for getting on the thing in 15 minutes or less- however if you want to wait in the regular line and ride 20 times in a row, that's up to you. You still get a choice- no one's saying it has to be one way or the other. I like the idea, but as was mentioned, the cost might be too much. It's great if you only want to do something big once with no waiting. Otherwise, there's the old fashioned way.

Looks like they may consider it for the future.

http://www.sanduskyregister.com/cgi-bin/LiveIQue.acgi$rec=38467?frontpage

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Cedar Point Virtual Midway
http://www.schmidty.com/cpvirtual

A difficulty with a reservation system in a park such as Cedar Point...

The park does not have enough total ride capacity to handle all of the people in the park at once. They're working on it, but at the moment that capacity simply isn't there. Possibly more important, the park does not have the total *midway* capacity to handle all of the people in the park at once. The smooth operation of the park on a busy day *requires* that a certain percentage of the population is sucked out of the midways and standing in line somewhere. If you were to take all those thousands of people who are waiting in line for the coasters on a Saturday in July and dump them out onto the midway, where would you put them? What would they do? Food service is obviously not a good choice as those departments are overloaded (and understaffed) as it is. Smaller rides can take up some of the slack, but I am remembering how much shorter the lines for Gemini got when Raptor opened. Shunting people from waiting for the new ride to waiting for the old rides just means longer lines *everywhere* in the park. And if people are just dumped out onto the midways to mill about for a few hours while waiting for their appointments (remembering that the lines for the other rides are now too long for them to go ride other rides and still make their appointments with the new rides) then what is the point...still waiting hours in line, just not in the actual queue structure...

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I agree with Dave. I think we can use Six Flags Ohio as a case study for this, actually.

Before I get started, let me just state that I'd never been to Geauga Lake before this year, and I've only been to SFO twice (opening day, and Friday the 19th).

Both days, there were relatively short lines for rides, and ***PACKED*** midways. SFO is a nice compact park. Almost TOO compact. If you looked at the crowds milling about, you'd have sworn you were there on the absolute busiest day of the year. But once you got in line for something, you were through before you knew it. I honestly would hate to see this place on a busy day, given how crowded the midways were... (Now, for all I know those WERE busy days for that park ;) )


Now, Cedar Point is a much bigger park. Lots more midway space. BUT they also have a lot more rides, AND some of those rides get BIG lines. Now imagine dumping those long lines back out onto the midways. What you get is congestion.

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--Greg
http://www.pobox.com/~gregleg/
MF count: 2

Regarding capacity, all the more reason to build another ride that will pull 1,600 more people an hour!

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Jeff
Webmaster/Guide to The Point
Millennium Force laps: 23