Cedar Point Announces Fast Lane On Facebook

Lord Gonchar said:
You sort of touch on something that I think is overlooked or missed completely.

We were all born into and grew up in a mostly pay-one-price, ride-all-day world as far as amusement parks are concerned. It's simply a business model. One that happens to be 'normal' to us because it's widespread and familiar.

You don't know how many people, usually 60's & over, still complain about POP. "Why do I have to pay to get in if I don't want to ride? I just want to watch my grandkids and get something to eat."

And I'm not talking about complaining to the park, I mean random people in the grocery store and stuff like that.

Frankly, these arguments will probably go on until the people that remember the "old way" die off, whether we're talking about POP or FOL.

Lord Gonchar said:
it's this state of arrested development that everyone seems to readily accept where adults have the impulse control and thought processes of children.

Well, adults are allowed to have the impulse control and thought processes of children, so long as they're willing to pay money for it. :) We try to teach kids patience and self-control and "good things come to those who wait," but as adults we can simply shell out $50 and hardly have to wait at all.

Just like a kid who doesn't want to mow the lawn is "lazy," but an adult can pay someone else to do it and it's perfectly acceptable. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact it's one of the reasons being an adult is awesome and being a kid sucks. ;)

Paying someone else to mow the lawn as an adult doesn't mean you're not lazy. It just means you're lazy with some extra cash laying around.

edit: :)

CP Chris said:
The pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality, while it means well, has become a little bit more of a fantasy in recent years. The number of people who have done everything right only to have the rug swept out from under them is staggering.

I disagree with this categorically.

There's plenty of opportunity for those who seek it and are prepared to find it.

I really want to believe it'll be minimally invasive to those in the "standby" line, but I've seen and heard of too many poor setups, KI's included, to conclude anything just yet.

Well here's the thing. The stand-by line is invasive by nature now. It's not the old line of days passed. Again, the business model is changing. You're expecting the line you've always stood in. At parks with VQ/FOL that line doesn't exist anymore.

Lord Gonchar said:

There's plenty of opportunity for those who seek it and are prepared to find it.

There are those who will not be able to afford front-of-the-line access. If a time came when everyone could afford it, it would simply go up in price so that some people could not afford it again.

So I say that if there are plenty of opportunities for people to get a better paying job so that they could afford things like front-of-the-line access, it wouldn't matter, because this pricing scheme dose not work without leaving someone out.

And personally, it doesn't matter to me that I am a single guy with a decent income who can afford to pay for it. What matters to me is that someone is at the park not being able to afford it. A lot of words come to mind describing a system like this. Reptilian, evil, elitist, dividing, segregating, and even slimy and scammy.

LostKause said:
There are those who will not be able to afford front-of-the-line access. If a time came when everyone could afford it, it would simply go up in price so that some people could not afford it again.

Yep. That's how it works.

Just like the gate.

Your complaint exists within a bubble. It's confined to those in the park and standing in line. Your ideas of 'fairness' neglect those who can't go to the park in the first place or those that are truly connected in some way that are ushered in back doors or off hours to get all the rides they want.

You can't whine about fairness for just some. Think about it.

birdhombre said:
Just like a kid who doesn't want to mow the lawn is "lazy," but an adult can pay someone else to do it and it's perfectly acceptable. Not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact it's one of the reasons being an adult is awesome and being a kid sucks. ;)

Kids have the luxury of time.

We always talk about paying for things in life with time or money. Kids have time in abundance. Perhaps we says "lazy" when we should say "time greedy" instead? ;)

The adult can pay in time or money to get the lawn mowed. Some folks are money rich and time poor and choose the paying route. Some are time rich and money poor and choose the mowing route.

Mowing is one of my favorite things. I love the time I get to eascape into my own head and mindlessly push the mower around the yard for a little bit. The white noise of the lawn mower is the perfect background noise for that sort of thing.

CP Chris said:
The pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality, while it means well, has become a little bit more of a fantasy in recent years. The number of people who have done everything right only to have the rug swept out from under them is staggering.

I also totally disagree with this. What is this based on? More to the point, show me where those who are already well-off aren't "suffering" from the same issues in a poor economy. All of this toxicity is predicated on the assumptions that it's only the poor who face adversity, that it's permanent, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. The last part, in particular, I flatly reject.

There have been four or five recessions in my life time, three in adulthood, and in the prior two, I don't recall people generally being crybaby victims at every turn. Outside of technology industries, all I hear is how unfair it is and how people want someone to solve the problem for them. My naive side wants to believe that this is a vocal minority, and that everyone else is busting their ass to make it work.

And the worst part of it is that the recession, in an economic definition sense, has been over for more than two years. No one told the unemployment rate, but it's slowly getting better.

Reading a Coachella review on EW and this totally made me think of this thread:

"Before the show, even the typically aloof media and VIPs became an unruly horde while jockeying to get into a special stage-front corral. 'Get into a single file line up against the fence like you’re in kindergarten!' yelled a security officer."

Exactly what I've been saying all along. The security dude gets it. ;)

We were at CP this weekend for the ACE spring conference. The park was pretty busy, and we had considered purchasing a fastlane. With all the activities of the conference and wanting to take a mid day nap, we decided against it. I am kind of glad we did

As we were walking around the park I took special notice of the fastlane use. On Millennium Force the fastlane queue was completely full with a 40 minute wait according to gate host. Dragster's wait was similar even though they more or less gave the entire front half of the station to fastlane patrons. The regular line was over 2 hours for both of these coasters.

I was not back by Maverick to tell what its fastlane wait was, but I would assume that it was about the same as the others.

Only a few other rides that had a fastlane had any noticeable usage.

To wrap up my observations about fastlane at CP on a pre-peak season Saturday, fastlane was ticking off those that didn't have one as well as those that spent the dollars for it but still had to wait 40 minutes to get on a E-ticket ride.

Would you consider the ACE spring conference a typical pre-peak season Saturday, though? Sounds to me like the crowds were excruciating.

fastlane was ticking off those that didn't have one as well as those that spent the dollars for it but still had to wait 40 minutes to get on a E-ticket ride.

Sounds like it is priced too low/selling too well. But, I'm guessing that with time, the Operations folks will find the right mix.

40 minutes for the Fast Lane queue? That's not very fast.

When are they going to come out with the "Fastest Pass"? For only $100, with the new Fastest Pass not only can you bypass the mere commoners but you can also skip right by the lowly Fast Pass folks as well.

Fast Lane, Faster Lane, and Fastest Lane.

Sounds like regular, gold and platinum Q-bot to me.

I'm confused about the implementation. Is this not the same as SF's Flash Pass where it waits in line for you and then you get to ride immediately? Or were there too many people virtually queuing up and the line to "immediately ride" was 40 minutes?

No, Andy. It's simply a wristband that allows ride access through the Fast Lane line.

CP's isn't electronic. It's a wristband, and you just go up to the ride whenever you want to. Hence the long lines. Seems like a bad implementation for such a busy park.

Yeah, based on Dave's story, it's definitely broken right now.

Not because of the long regular line on a busy Saturday, but because of the long Fast Lane wait.

I'd be very unhappy if I bought in and had to wait in a 40 minute line.

Seems like at this point Fast Lane sells a shorter wait, but still the inconvenience of standing in a line. For me it's more about not standing around in line, I'd rather pay to wait the same as everyone but do it elsewhere than pay to wait in a shorter line.

(Ideally you buy both - again Q-bot wins)