CW and "unreasonable" enforcement of line jumping policy

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Lord Gonchar said: You guys do realize you're just discussing variations on the virtual queue system, right?

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I was thinking the same thing. :)

I think this is a great example of what is wrong with our culture these days. 1) We think every rule needs to have an exception and 2) We think any amount of discomfort requires an accommodation.

Most natural queue waits are very doable, though some may choose not to wait.

In the cases where there the ride is down, you are lucky the park even lets you stay in line. You are given the choice to leave or stay in most cases without any guarantee about how long the wait will be. Requiring an accommodation for your comfort in those cases, in particular, is asking a bit much I think.

Granted the rules are posted, but the Canadian legal system looks at these issues much differently than they do in the States. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Carrie M. said:
I think this is a great example of what is wrong with our culture these days. 1) We think every rule needs to have an exception and 2) We think any amount of discomfort requires an accommodation.

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Sometimes a comment just makes me smile.

This has been one of those times. :)

X2's line was 3 + hours long, the line went all the way over the bridge back to the entrance of Revelution(If you know the park, it is a loooong line)

Security was all thru the line to prevent linejumping(yes, it is indeed a new mountain) If you needed to use the bathroom, security guards would hand you a pass, so you could go and join back your group afterwards. It worked perfectly fine.

Of course with being entertained thruout the line with awsome video and audioeffects made the wait a lot easier. AND they had guys roaming around selling individual pizzas during lunchtime, now THAT's an easy way to make some money!

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Cropsey said:
^Six Flags did this during the Time Warner era. It was called a boarding pass system and used for rides with big wait times. Sequentially numbered tickets were handed out at the entrance to the line.....

Since it required extra staffing and security, Premier/SFI ditched this when they came in.

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They just did it Sunday at Six Flags Great America for Superman. They also did it last year. To me, that's a waste of money.

I am in the Gonchar camp on this one. Either you get in line and gut it out or you don't get in line at all.

I am sick at tired of all these people (mostly teenagers, mostly girls) who try and sneak their friends into line with them. Now a days, the biggest offenders are girls with cellphones, texting their gaggle of friends from across the park to come join them in line for Wowie Zowie: The Ride.

If you want to ride with your friends, great! Just make sure you join your friends back where they are in line, seeing they couldn't enter the line at the same time you did.

Oh, and yeah, Six Flags Great America never stopped using the sequential tickets. They use them on Superman all the time and on V2 from time to time. The lines at that park always border on the ridiculous anyways. I think LG's comment about lines never getting into the realm of atrocious wait times is vindicated by Superman: The Ride there. My guess is the waits for that ride could often exceed three hours if there was a provision for using the bathroom :)

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Kick The Sky said:

Oh, and yeah, Six Flags Great America never stopped using the sequential tickets. They use them on Superman all the time and on V2 from time to time.

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I worked at SFOG in the transitional years of '97 & '98 and saw the boarding pass program get dumped due to budget slashing. Never saw it at any of the other SF parks I visited so assumed it was a company wide dump. Glad to hear it still alive at SFGAm. I thought it was a pretty effective way to battle jumping.

I rarely agree with Mr. Gonch about queues and waiting in line, but this time he makes a lot of sense to me.

However, why use virtual queuing at all on anything? Call me old school, but whether a line for an attraction is 4 hours long or just 30 minutes long, I think everyone who wants to ride should just get in line and wait for it.

I've been the park employee who had to send people to the end of the line. Sometimes it was very difficult to do so because of the supposed circumstances told to me by the line cutter.

Lines have unspoken rules.

The problem with the "take a number / now serving" system - how do you prevent people from taking multiple numbers?

(Which, if you're playing at home, is exactly what Flashpass does).

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Kick The Sky said:I am sick at tired of all these people (mostly teenagers, mostly girls) who try and sneak their friends into line with them. Now a days, the biggest offenders are girls with cellphones, texting their gaggle of friends from across the park to come join them in line for Wowie Zowie: The Ride.

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Actually, there is a good answer to this problem. When the girls ask if they can go ahead and join their friends at the front of the line, you simply smile and say "if they were REALLY your friends, they'd have waited for you". ;)

^^You have an attendant handing out the tickets at the front of the line, one per person.

^ Exactly. This is why most of the Six Flags parks got rid of the practice of handing out these tickets. Too much money to hire an extra guy to hand out these tix. At Great America they already had a "bag nazi" out front making sure people had their stuff in lockers so I think this person has been relegated to handing out tickets, too.

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Word said:

The vast majority of people are going to follow rules whether they are well enforced or not... especially in a situation like this which would require odd circumstances (a large group of people untruthfully vouching for a line jumper). You just have to realize that that sort of situation is rare. I understand it is frustrating when a kid jumps in line in front of you, but that doesn't mean you have to be unreasonable in a situation where the ride is breaking down and one guy has to use the restroom. That is like bringing a rocket launcher to try to kill an ant.

If everyone around is vouching for these people, you should just believe them. Most people follow rules and tell the truth. I suppose some people will cut and then a large number of people around them will lie for them, but that number will be so small it is obsolete... You have to let it slide... especially in extreme circumstances where ride times are abnormally long such as the situation described in the story.

Sorry, but I just don't agree with you at all.

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Then I guess you should be glad I have nothing to do with enforcing the rules at parks.

Since line jumping is universally considered a problem and a pet peeve of many enthusiasts, I don't agree that the number of people who will cut and lie for their friends who cut is so small it's obsolete. Like I said previously, under that system what's to stop someone who wants to join their friends near the front of the line from saying they were just at the restroom? Of course their friends are going to vouch for them.

Like somebody posted before, once you start allowing exceptions, you have more exceptions than rules. If this one gets to leave the line to go to the restroom, then the next one should be allowed to get some food, and that one should be allowed to join his friends because he feels lonely all by himself at the back of the line. Then what next, we'll hold up the ride because the next person in line decides they really, really can't hold it in anymore?

A line is a line. Period. If you leave the line you start over. OR go buy a Gold Flash Pass and skip most of the line and avoid the problem. (can of worms opened again)

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RatherGoodBear said:
Since line jumping is universally considered a problem and a pet peeve of many enthusiasts

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Not picking on your syntax here (i.e. how something can be "universal" of "many") but I'd just like to say...eh, not really.

I've been going to parks pretty heavily my entire life and the times that I've witnessed blatant cutting anywhere has been rare and the times I've actually been bothered by it even rarer.

It may be a combination of - I'm just not very observant, I don't go to many parks where it's a big problem, or I just don't care that much so I doesn't even register with me when people actually are cutting but still, it's just never struck me as something that's really taken away from my fun.

I'd imagine there are plenty who feel the same way.

I'm with you.

I think line jumping can easily be compared with littering. Most people can throw all their trash all over the ground if they want without being caught. At the same time, most people understand that throwing their trash on the ground is something that will ultimately make life worse. Some people are going to litter, but it isn't such a problem that we need to install cameras all over the place and hang the people littering when they are caught.

I understand line jumping is frustrating, and it sounds like most parks are doing their best to enforce line jumping rules. I just don't think that means it is necessary to be heartless and unreasonable in extreme situations such as the one described in this story. Also it sounds to me as if the line jumping "problem" is more about people getting frustrated 'that guy' doesn't have to wait than being frustrated about their 2 or 3 minute delay (assuming a number of line jumpers capable of filling 1 or 2 trains which is probably a little too high especially in a situation with security guards).

I just can't force myself to care about this. I like to think the vast majority of people are honest. I suppose in a location where your patrons are especially unethical, extra policing may be necessary... but I still don't think it is a major problem. Ohh, and it seems to me as if the bathroom pass idea is pretty fool proof in those situations with exceptionally long lines, even if it does bring up flashbacks to third grade... Then what will we all bitch about? The genius 7th graders who mass produced bathroom passes? I'm of the opinion that kind of effort deserves to be rewarded... haha.

I run into these groups of people who send two or three people to the line to "reserve" spots for their friends, and then they say their friends were already in line (when I saw the original group members in front of me). The rest of the group actually PUSHED me trying to get past me. I propped my arms up on the metal rails and held on, while the kids were shoving at me. These kids were telling ME to move so they could join their friends. I rarely say ANYTHING confrontational to everyone, but I said, "Well, if you want to ride with them so bad, have them come to the back of the line with you because I'm not going to let you through". The ride operator heard and saw the whole thing and kicked the whole group out the ride and made them all start over again. They whined and griped, and he said that he could just call security and they could leave the park if they didn't like it. Hehehehehe...I am completely intolerant of line jumping for ANY reason, as it happens WAY too much, and I agree that if we start making exceptions, we will do nothing BUT make exceptions.

But then again, if the guy was just getting some food out of a machine in line, why can't people just wait the 30 seconds behind him and move on when he moves on? If his group doesn't wait for him and then he tries to catch up with them, honestly, how is THAT line jumping? That's not right....I'm not covering any new ground here, but this is just a somewhat thought-provoking and button pushing topic, so...I don't know exactly where the line should be drawn, but it shouldn't be jumped. :)

This is a very interesting topic, and I really do not know where I stand.

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YoshiFan said:
For new rides or ones that constantly have long lines, they should put temporary or permanent restrooms somewhere in the line, maybe in the middle of the line. That would solve the problem.

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Haha that could be hilarious. Have the line literally go straight through a restroom. In other words the restroom is part of the line. Maybe ten people are allowed in at a time and when they are all done they go through the exit door, and a park employee opens the other door to let the next ten people in.

Offcourse now you run into more problems. First, how r u going to let boys and girls use the same bathroom. second, this would be a mess on a slow day, and third the park woul.d have to spend money on both the restroom and the employee who basically just sits there counting every ten people or so. *** Edited 5/28/2008 4:54:01 AM UTC by GIGAFORCE01***

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GIGAFORCE01 said:
and third the park woul.d have to spend money on both the restroom and the employee who basically just sits there counting every ten people or so.

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I would charge for the bathroom :)

I've played way too much RCT.

Since I've been a teen, I never cut. The only time I've ever left and attempted to re enter was when FOF opened at Kings Island. it was a 5hr wait with the breakdowns and I asked a employee for a pass out.

Chuck