"Proceed to the right..."

On pki.com, in the "tips" section, it's suggested that visitors "proceed to the right, instead of to the left" when entering the park to avoid crowds.

Do most people head to the Action Zone first thing? If you go to the right, you don't hit a major ride until you get to the Beast after 10 minutes of walking. I guess they're just trying to spread people out. Just thought it was curious because I always head to the right.

p.s., sorry for the inane topic, it's still off-season for me...

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

from what i've heard about tomb raider so far. the rush to action zone may be over. i'll find out this evening.

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seek first to understand
then to be understood

I always went to the right to ride The Beast first, then go over to FoF, V-Tex, and back to The Beast. This way I can get away from everyone in Action Zone

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Try Flight of Fear version 2.0: It's great!

OK, here's the "skinny". The Randall Duell Corp., the originators of park design and layout (now out of business, BTW) did a lot of studies to predict guest behavior so they could build parks accordingly. What they found was that most guests, given no clear sense of what they want to do, will head to the right most of the time. This certainly doesn't mean all parks or all guests (actually, teens are the guests who head to the left most often). But most parks ARE laid out in such a way as to accommodate most people heading to the right first...

The company also figured out when/where people want to eat, go to the bathrooms, etc. Not sure why they went out of business, the U.S. is certainly pretty near full of parks...but there's plenty of other countries that need parks planned and built....

Remember, guys; proceed to the right, but dress to the left.

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Without the chaindog, you'd never get up the lifthill...

Maybe they are out of business because now there are enough practical examples to look at that people know longer need to pay consulting fees. Or it could be that the idea assumes that all park guest are leemings and want to experience the various attractions in the order they are presented, by only offering them one path. Parks with Duell layouts also tend to involve a lot of needless backtracking if you care to be more selective about ride order, repeating rides, or reducing wait times by using a little park-smarts..

That said, I wonder if Britons would tend to go left. Reason I ask is that, at least in America things seem to be tweaked, or programmed for people to "keep right", but in England, where folks drive on the left, I wonder if that bias is reversed. .

Therefore if there are no clear advantages of going right vs. left, most people would tend to naturally gravitate to the right. At least that's the theory

Before the Action Zone, PKI was clearly a keep right park, people would either take their kids to HB, or go straght past the tower, turn right, go to Beast then continue to persue the park to the right. Perhaps the Action Zone is where it is to give people a reason to go left. TR:TR will help shift people to the right again, hopefully splitting the load. As Rideman pointed out to me, Disney did some very clever marketing to help obliterate the right vs. left bias. What they did was try to get every guide book they could to say repeatedly in their hints. "Most people go right, so go left" "At an attraction with two lines, the left line is almost always shorter", "At food stands, the windows to the left usually have the shortest lines" etc. However, it may have worked TOO well, so now Disney parks usually tend to have a leftward bias. Next we'll see the publishers of hint books writing "Recent trends show that the rightmost lane is always shorter"

All that said, the way to beat a Duell park is to do a lot of extra walking. As soon as the park opens head to the BACK of the park, and work your way around to the right. You'll be diametrically opposed to the huge crowds doing what the park desingers intended. This tactic worked very well at SFMM where they have a monorail to assist in getting you to the back of the park fast. Using this tactic we had short waits when later on when we were walking the park, the same rides had 2hr+ lines.

In the spirit of staying one step ahead of the guest - some parks actually make provisions to prevent just such strategy by opening the back half of the park later than the front half,, or when dropping ropes, opening gates, wheatever the local custom is, dropping the ropes on the right side first,

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David Bowers
Mayor, Coasterville

wow, this is all very interesting. I usually *intend* to go to the back first, but when I get through the gates, my excitement takes over and I just want to run to the nearest ride. Raptor is *always* my first ride at CP... just like everyone else.

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He let the contents of the bottle do the thinking; can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

Actually, what I've found to be the best strategy at SF Great America (a *true* Duell-loop park) is to NOT get there at opening. I almost always get there two to three hours AFTER opening (in the vicinity of 12-1pm). By that time, all the *early* folks have amassed at the back of the park, no matter what path they chose. Meanwhile, I'm in the front taking advantage of the shorter lines there.

Almost without fail, we tend to steer to the left after entering the park. That is not some mystic guidance, but merely the fact that Shockwave is *right there* so we just *have* to ride it. It usually works out that we run into the heaviest crowd around the American Eagle. But that's okay because AE is high capacity so it doesnt take too long. Then we eat (again @ an off time) and hit everything else.

I personally *hate* backtracking and would *much* rather 'be a lemming'.
lata,
jeremy

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Besides, if we were really shutting down people we disagreed with, would Jeremy (2Hostyl) still be around? :) I think not. - Jeff 1/24/02