Loading Times on VR Rides Always This Slow?

I'm curious as to whether anyone here has ridden something with the Samsung headgear option and whether they experienced unusually long loading times. On my 1st ever visit to SFOT several days ago, I was waiting to ride Shock Wave AKA New Revolution and chose not to ride with the VR headset b/c I wanted to first experience the ride without any special effects. (The idea was to ride it the normal way once, then go back later and try it with the headgear.) Once secured in our seats, we sat there for a considerable time before the train was dispatched due to problems riders were having with the headsets. A girl in the row ahead said that she was not seeing the correct image. (I gather that those wearing the gear were supposed to see an airplane.) So a ride op collected her headset and came back with another one. That still wasn't right so the headset was exchanged again. Altogether this rider ended up getting 4 or 5 different headsets before she was satisfied. And in the meantime other riders began raising their hands, saying that there was something wrong with their headsets, so those too had to be exchanged. It was beginning to seem as if we would never make it out of the loading station. Eventually we did, of course, but the addition of the headgear probably more than quadrupled the normal loading time.

As it turned out, I never did get to experience the ride with the VR headgear b/c when I went back later the queue was too long and anticipating significant delays, I decided that it would be a better use of time to grab another ride on NTG (http://upsdownsandupsidedown.squarespace.com/new-texas-giant/), which by that time of night was a walk-on.

Anyone have an experience on a VR ride that loaded quickly?

No experience but expected it would be a major capacity issue.

Curious on the set up for this. Are there specific seats for those that want to use the VR? Is there a separate line for those that don't?

My prediction was that VR Headsets + Six Flags Slowness = Bad Idea To Begin With.

And not to say that Six Flags loading and operations are always slow, but... kind of. Shockwave always had one of the longest lines in the park anyway, so this is a shame. It's an awesome ride and I'd definitely prefer it live over virtual (Bobbie, I think you made the right choice for your first ride on it)
It's not my home park, though, so maybe frequent visitors were ready for this transformation. And are willing to wait even longer it seems.

In response to Le Monster's question, there are no specific seats or separate lines for those who want to use the VR. It's pretty random. The ride ops offer the gear as riders enter the loading area and the riders either take the headsets or decline them. As to what RCMAC said, I agree. This was pretty much guaranteed to slow down loading time but I had no idea how much until I experienced it firsthand.

The loading time on New Revolution last week was appalling. One train every seven to eight minutes.

Europa Park manages somewhat better on their ride. 2-3 minutes from stop to start is normal there.

Thanks for the info Bobbie1951.

The VR thing has no appeal to me and it's a shame they're using it on a great ride that really doesn't need any bells or whistles. I was a ride op on Shockwave in the mid late 90s before there were seatbelts. We used to aim to check the train and dispatch before the other one hit the trims and usually made it.

A rollercoaster is a great reason for people to get off their phones and enjoy life in real time. Now we're strapping a phone to their faces.

As a SFoT homer, I can say that that is completely normal. 5+ minute dispatches are very common...all the head sets need to do their magic and it's only about 80% success on the first try. For some reason you can't wear the headgear in the front row, but you can wear it anywhere else on the train if you choose.

ApolloAndy said:

For some reason you can't wear the headgear in the front row, but you can wear it anywhere else on the train if you choose.

That's actually pretty cool of them to not allow it in the front row. The visuals would obviously be lost with a phone strapped to their faces.

I can't speak from personal experience, but others I know who went to SFoG indicated "the new revolution" had a ridiculous line and awful dispatches. I hate the idea and hope it goes away soon.

The visuals wouldn't be lost in any other row if the guest has a phone strapped to their face?

Sincerely, T-R of V-R

My 10-year-old was less than impressed with the graphics they are showing in the commercial...and he LOVES old school games. We'll probably try it out at some point, but we're not that enthused. The load times are a bummer. I'm sure they'll improve as the summer gets into gear, but what do you expect?

SFGAm made an announcement on Facebook today that Raging Bull will have VR on it this summer. I don't think I'm a fan of them using their tallest (and currently very high capacity) roller coaster for this. Guess I'll have to get there early one day to try it out.

https://www.sixflags.com/greatamerica/attractions/vr/overview

If you "Gonchback" to the thread where the VRs were announced, MANY of us had serious reservations about the impact on capacity.

Personally, I like the visuals of an actual rollercoaster actually rolling and coasting. I'm old that way....

This is the gimmick of the century, and really serves nothing other than to jam up capacity.

Six Flags is the worst at using gimmicks to "freshen" rides at the cost of capacity. They like to do things on the cheap, and then hype them up.

Last year they did the double ride thing on American Eagle, and killed the capacity on a coaster. It's still a popular ride, but normally has minimal wait (they don't even have Flash Pass on it) because of the 4 train operation. Last year the wait time was painful.

They don't seem to get that standing in a miserable line takes away from the guest experience. Even if it is a coaster that typically does not have a long line, all parks need these kind of rides to allow patrons to not have to stand in line all day for everything. Cedar point has Gemini, Mean Streak (although that is apparently changing), Mine Train that serve this very purpose King's Island and King's Dominion have the Racer/Rebel Yell (the biggest reason Thunder Road should not have been removed). But these kinds of rides allow you to ride something, even on the busiest of days.

I normally go to a few Six Flags parks each year. Out of the chains, they are rated the lowest as overall the parks tend to be poorly maintained, poorly landscaped, lack of live entertainment and poor operations in general. But they do have some top-rated coasters. But this kind of stuff may prevent me from going this year. To think that they are going to attempt this on Raging Bull, a popular coaster with good capacity. That is an idiotic decision.

This kind of thing should be restricted to simulators. IMO.

I agree its bad enough that we have our phones in our faces all the time, and now this.

It's pretty certain that Cedar Point is going to be doing this on Iron Dragon. I'll find it very interesting to see what it does to the capacity of that ride.

I say that because Six Flags has never really indicated to me that they give a flying flip about capacity, not the way Cedar Point does. It was Six Flags, after all, who started the whole line cutting for a fee thing. I just hope that line-stopping VR doesn't become a thing that "people demand" like line cutting for a fee did. Capacity is very important for the overall enjoyment of an amusement park visit, and when a particular park seems to overlook this, I begin to overlook that particular park.

Sfne started their vr on superman last week and the park was expecting it to cut the capacity from 900per hour to 400per hour but due to the problems they are having with the vr units its more like 300per hour. I was on vacation last week so i haven't tried it yet but i will try it this weekend but i will use an exit pass to avoid the line. They don't allow the vr in the front or back of the train, and from early reports i heard a lot of people are choosing not to use it.

D_vo said:

SFGAm made an announcement on Facebook today that Raging Bull will have VR on it this summer. I don't think I'm a fan of them using their tallest (and currently very high capacity) roller coaster for this. Guess I'll have to get there early one day to try it out.

https://www.sixflags.com/greatamerica/attractions/vr/overview

Glad they found a ride desperately lacking ridership to apply this to.

Can't wait until it all goes away.

Here's a VR pov of superman that we did on media day.

https://www.facebook.com/sfneonline/videos/1035638293140480/

Right now at SFNE, most of the rides are being reported as walk-ons....except Superman.

Superman is reported as a 150-minute wait....because that's as high as the app allows.

I was afraid VRs would hurt capacity...I didn't even imagine it would be THIS bad.

I just wanted to agree with rollergator. I spent the day at SFNE yesterday and the wait times were also very slow. There is another reason which has been mentioned in other posts. More people are getting sick. I was the next rider and they had to clean the train i was about to get on. I talked to a ride-op and they said that this happens quite often. When this happens they empty both trains, clean the affected car, run them both through the course empty, then finally start to load. As for the experience: Meh.