Blog About Queue Design

"The Third Queue"
http://passport2dreams.blogspot.com/2010/12/third-queue.html

Nothing too new, but a fun read. A well designed queue does blur the line of when a ride actually starts, and it's pretty fun to think about the rides that do this so well. The author mentions her childhood memories of waiting in lines, and it reminded me of being anxious/excited/filled with wonder in the queue for Pirates, Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain. Fun memories of lines.

I still get excited waiting in the star tunnel queue for Space Mountain. I can't think of any other ride/queue that takes me back to my fond family vacation memories of 15-20 years ago.

Love Space Mountain. <3

The new Space Mtn. queue with the Asteroids-style game...amazing! Gotta love the Mouse... :)

I remember enjoing the Disaster Transport Queue when I was a kid.

I remember enjoying the Disaster Transport queue this past August... because it's indoors.

I remember so thourghly enjoying Avalance Run's queue when I was a kid. It was a blast.. But seriously I get amped up waiting for Space Mountain as well. Never been on the newer version. Yet.

Harry Potter at IOA may be the first queue I've seen that would be worth waiting for even if there wasn't a ride at the end. (Not that the ride isn't spectacular.)

Dueling Dragons had a pretty fantastic queue as well.

Dueling Dragons had a horrible queue, and it hasn't been made any better as Dragon Challenge; in fact, if anything, they have made it worse.

Oh, the castle is spectacular. But it is a horrible design.

The reason it is a horrible design is that Dueling Dragons is the first coaster built that can approach, and in fact even surpass Gemini's hourly capacity. Running six trains as it was designed to do , it can move nearly 4,000 people per hour. Running only four trains as it does now, it can still move 2,400 PPH with relative ease.

Now, when you consider the typical distance people will put between themselves, a normal walking pace, and a single-file queue entrance, a single file entrance can allow the passage of about 2,400 PPH.

In other words, the ride is designed to carry passengers at a rate equal to or faster than they can actually arrive at the boarding platform. Combine that with a mile-long walk through a huge castle and cave, and the combination of the hills, stairs, narrow passages, dark spaces, and just plain really long walk tend to reduce the rate at which people can move through the queue. The result is to slow people down so much that when it is running four trains, it is nearly impossible for the crowd to arrive at the boarding platform fast enough to actually keep the trains full. The queue would be great if it were only one dragon, but with two, it actually *reduces* the ride's operational efficiency.

What the ride really should have is a very short queue , more or less a mirror of the exit queue. The rest of that entrance is just plain annoying.

Now, the Harry Potter attraction, on the other hand, has a similarly enormous queue, but the ride's lower capacity means that the finely-detailed queue is actually put to good use, and works very well as the attraction pre-show.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Gosh, Dave, I've yet to see a crew efficient enough to deal with the people coming down the shortcut Express entrance, let alone everyone.

My favourite queue ever is Nemesis at Alton Towers, everything is fantastic. Rivers of blood, the ride around you. I love it.

The worst queues to be in are the queue pens. Horrific.

My all time least favorite queue was Deja Vu at Six Flags Great America. Not only did the ride have incredibly bad capacity AND terrible reliability. The queue was just one big concrete cattle pen.

I always wished they would turn the Dragons queue into a separate attraction. They could keep it a walk through, or easily add dark ride ride system of some kind. Add in a few stunts, and voila! Instant haunted house.

I found the posted article very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Semi-Addicted.

This "next-gen" queue idea will be awesome if it works right. Has anyone here experienced it yet? I remember hearing that RnRC had something like this.

Dueling Dragons had an amzingly themed queue, perhaps the best theming on any ride - but as Dave (sort-of) mentioned, no one spent any time in those elaborate rooms - save perhaps on a summer Saturday, but how would I know about that? ;)

The Forbidden Journey queue is just as well-done, if not even better, and much more "interactive". Plus, the low capacity means you DO spend time wandering through those rooms and are able to *apppreciate* the effort.

In the meantime, however, the incredible theming that went into DD has been stripped bare, and the LONG queue for Dragon Challenge is now pretty much a barren wasteland...on the plus side, Ice/Blizzrock (now Hungarian Horntail) seems to be running infinitely smoother than I recall, so...

I barely remember anything from Dragons' queue, for the same reasons mentioned by Dave and gator: I was able to walk through to the station. I remember it was really well-themed, but that's about it.

We always enjoyed taking our time in the Dueling Dragons queue.

Man, looking at those pictures make me really miss the original theming.

Thanks Gonch, that actually brings back memories. I do remember stopping occasionally to look at some of the stuff, but it's been 10 years, so I forgot most of what's in the queue.

I raced through it once with Mike Graham at the IAAPA 2001 social, and haven't been through if since due to resort/Express passes. That access used to route you to the re-ride entrance, then later down the stairs off the first room.