Loading Times on VR Rides Always This Slow?

This was the first time I have been there since they brought on VR that they haven't been running two trains. I was surprised to see that on a Saturday in the summer. I wonder if complaints about sitting in the blazing hot sun for about 10-minutes after the 2-minute ride ends, while the other train sloooowly loads on riders was a factor? I must admit that having two trains with VR really does not move that many more people. I think I would rather finish the ride and immediately go into the station and unload..... especially on these super hot, humid days. I bet this also helps with the issue of the headsets overheating and not working.

Small change... but one that I personally like. After just one week of having the VR from park open until 5 pm.... they swapped the times.

Superman VR -Latest Schedule

In the meantime, Cedar Point has already ended their VR program on Iron Dragon. The girl at the line entrance had no idea what I was even talking about.

As I've said before, I have no interest, but was curious to try it out once. (Did I just contradict myself right there?)

The whole Iron Dragon thing was presented as a month-long "beta test" of VR on the coaster. It was never meant to be more than a sporadic, temporary thing...

...for now.

"Right now, it's only in beta test mode so we can evaluate performance, operations and overall guest reaction. No plans for permanent placement at this time."

http://www.cleveland.com/travel/index.ssf/2016/07/cedar_point_testi...al-re.html

I'm not sure if it was just for this weekend or for the remainder of the season, but Iron Dragon was running VR only trains 6-10pm yesterday and again today. I don't think it was officially announced and the line earlier tonight around 9:20 was only about 20 minutes. It was a neat experience but I would not wait in a long line for it.

Tommytheduck said:

You can stop reading now, I'm just going to ramble below. TLDR: LaRonde sucks!

As an example of wait times, on my one and only visit to LaRonde, I witnessed the absolute worst park operations I'd ever seen in all my years of being a coastertool. Single train, long dispatch ops on every single ride, save the B+M Hyper. The teens in the line (who made up the majority of the crowd) did not care one bit. They just casually sat on the concrete, texted one another, and every 7 minutes, got up, moved 10 feet forward and sat back down. I, otoh, certainly noticed. After a few hours of getting nothing done, I left the park early, leaving credits on the table. Perhaps I didn't care much because, let's face it, LaRonde is a credit only park, nothing there worth a special trip. Despite staying in downtown Montreal often for work, I've never returned to that park, and have no desire to ever do so again.

Yes, LaRonde really does suck...I have never seen a more 'ghetto' amusement park - and I am referring to the physical state of the park, not the clientel. This made some of the 'bad years' Six Flags locations look good in comparison. My daughter and I went in the beginning of August and it was run down, some buildings boarded up, others with broken windows, four foot tall weeds, and that is just the start.

But, back to the topic at hand - VR lines...it made SFLR's Goliath's wait 2h10m. Yes, you read that right - and that was on a weekday (Thursday)! I don't even want to guess how long it would be on a weekend! That wait was for a line that only filled about 75% of the queue. (For those of you who have been there - the line started right by the soda vending machines.)

SFGAm must have realized their colossal mess up and have moved the VR experience off of Raging Bull and have put it on Demon. Demon before usually had a relatively short wait, for the VR version the line was over an hour and a half when we went a couple weeks ago...if it made Demon's line move that slowly, I don't even want to guess what it did to Raging Bull...

Dang it! As the 2017 Theme Park season is about to open I was wondering (hoping) that Six Flag and others would give up the Virtual Reality gimmick. No luck! It looks like Six Flags renewed with Samsung with some updates to the VR gear. The biggest change I noticed from the press release below is the fact that users will be able to see the "real world" with the headsets on. Hopefully this will speed up loading times as riders should be able to put the VR headset on prior to loading the train. I guess I will have to go opening weekend to test it out and see if there is any improvement in the dreadful loading times :)

Oh well....

Bummer

Lord Gonchar said:

It's likely another perfect example of a situation where we can try to compare GP and enthusiast attitudes.

If it comes back, it's not generating complaints and the enthusiast is overly sensitive to capacity and wait times. If it goes away, is highly modified or goes full upcharge, it was an issue to the average guest.

Well, it's coming back. Be interesting to see what has changed.

But it should serve as further proof that if you're reading this, you're not representative of the average parkgoer.

I'm glad I got to try a VR when I did, with a very short wait at Fun Spot...delightful - don't need to waste time for that again.

If SFoG and Acrophobia is indicative, I'd say the selection of rides utilizing VR is improving...

Augmented Reality is the next big thing, like the internet and Television was. All the big tech companies are working on it. Apple and Google, to name a few. 20 years from now, it will be very common, and some people are going to look back and say, "I remember the first time I experienced Augmented Reality. It was a a roller coaster at X park."

I remember my first use of augmented reality. It was with a 3DS in 2011. (And most people will say Pokémon go too)

We were at least discussing the potential use of augmented reality in an amusement park setting as far back as 2009 around here.

So now I've done two VR'd rides, and neither one had any significant increase in loading/dispatch times.

I think my experience is less-than-standard....but I didn't try Dare Devil Dive, either...(a lower throughput, higher demand attraction). I guess next month in CA I'll get to see how the VR impacts busy parks and high-demand rides...

P.S. for loriu - they advertise VR spiders on Acrophobia (should turn it into "Arachnohobia" to me, they use some other silly name, SMH)... That being said, never saw a spider.

I must have not read that article very closely because I missed the fact that the VR will NOT be on the Superman coaster but the Mind Eraser this year! OMG... can you imagine that ride with a VR headset on? It's called the Mind Eraser for a reason.. as in you bang your head so many times going around those loops you really do lose your mind.... Add a Samsung headset into the mix... wow. Check out the link just to give you an idea how crazy and jerky that ride is to your head.

No thanks

But my point is that Supes (whatever it's called now) is a fantastic ride that has high demand. By having a VR system in place that *crushes* capacity, you're creating LONG waits unnecessarily. By putting the VR on something like an SLC, at least you're killing capacity on a ride that wasn't in high demand to begin with, and perhaps even bringing in some new riders that otherwise would have skipped, even if it is a "feet-dangly" ride...

Hey, taking off shoes is so popular on inverts, maybe they can take off their shoes while strapping on the headsets...*wink*

If I had a park I'd build a really great VR ride. I'd build a pole barn with three bays. I'd fill cars with riders, back each into one of the bays, shut the garage door and let 'er rip. When it's over I'd open the garage door and pull the car back out. Voila! The best VR dark ride ever, and all coasters would be left alone.
They'll never know the difference.

Busch Gardens Williamsburg is doing exactly that with their old simulator ride. Stick a bunch of people in a dark box, shake 'em around, and they're none the wiser.

Virtual Reality is 100% gone from Six Flags America. They ran it as a trial this spring on the Mind Eraser and have since removed it. The 1st thing I said to myself after trying it this time last spring was "this is a gimmick and there is no way it will be here this time next year...." Good riddance!

CP is bringing back the evening time VR on Iron Dragon.

DoubleMeatTaco said:

Virtual Reality is 100% gone from Six Flags America. They ran it as a trial this spring on the Mind Eraser and have since removed it. The 1st thing I said to myself after trying it this time last spring was "this is a gimmick and there is no way it will be here this time next year...." Good riddance!

Heh. But you also posted in this very thread that it was coming back. Is SFA the exception or are more of the SF parks dropping it?