Q-bot To Be Used For Rides at Dollywood

Well, we all knew it was coming, didn't we? (well, some of us did ;) )

I can't seem to find an official release on the subject, but Screamscape is reporting that Lo-Q and Dollywood have signed a deal to roll out the full system in the park after a successful test run.

In addition to shows, the Q-bot will also be used for 8 rides in the park.

(it's the future of park visiting, I tell ya! :) )

Edit - should have mentioned the 'go date' for the system is scheduled to be March 31st. Just in time for Mystery Mine's opening in early April.

*** Edited 2/26/2007 7:55:28 PM UTC by Lord Gonchar***

i'd like to know more about these q-bot gizzies you guys have been talking about.

Pay money for an electronic device that holds your spot in line so you can spend the time you'd be standing in a long hot line doing other things. (and yes, that could be standing in a long hot ride for another ride :) )

There's also an 'upgraded' version (at SF parks at least) that cost more but in addition to holding your place in line, reduce the wait time by 75%.

It's a hot topic around here. This thread should heat up any second now. ;)

My only complaint is about how bulky those things are, give me Disney's Fastpass system's paper tickets anyday!

With the money they generate it won't be long until all parks have them

I hope DW will do this right. I hope to see a separate queue for Q-Botters with a merge point, and not just let them clog the exit ramp. I hope to see the staff available to run this the right way. I hope to see that they don't save certain seats for Q-Botters who may or may not be there to fill them. I hope they don't use this as a reason to run rides at low capacity just to get more people to rent the Q-Bot.

If they do it right, I'm not entirely against it. Since it makes so much extra income for a park, I believe that spending some money to see that it works right is the key to it being well received.

One very good thing about it is that it's only $10 for the first person and $5 for additional person who are using the same Q-Bot. That may have to do with the number of attractions it works with.

Granted it's been 3 years since the last time I was at DW, but any time I've ever visited lines have never been a big problem. Unless things have changed dramatically, I don't really see Q-bot as a necessitty for this park.

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dexter said:
One very good thing about it is that it's only $10 for the first person and $5 for additional person who are using the same Q-Bot. That may have to do with the number of attractions it works with.

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I can't say for sure, but I suspect those prices will go up. I believe they haven't updated the info on the site. Those were the show-only test run prices listed since the test run began.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised to see an increase there.

http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=39732742491191

Here's a brief article on the subject, but not from Dollywood.

I'm sure most would use Lo-Q for the shows, as they tend to be quite a draw, especially during the Festival of Nations and at Christmas. The rides, even when the park is packed full of people, tend to not have long wait times. At Christmas, when the overflow parking lot was full, it was 5-10 minute wait on Thunderhead, and TN Tornado was a walk on/ride again and again. A few rides I could see them using this for, but overall its probably a way for them to offer you more for the upcharge.

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dexter said:
I hope to see that they don't save certain seats for Q-Botters who may or may not be there to fill them. I hope they don't use this as a reason to run rides at low capacity just to get more people to rent the Q-Bot.

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lol. Dollywood is well known by us regulars to never let empty seats go. Instead of letting a train go with one or two empty seats, they'll spend 2-3 minutes calling out to the crowd for single riders. In a way, it's very frustrating and definitely slows down the process.

So i kind of doubt they'll go that route.

I had similar experiences, although my visit was 2 weeks before Christmas in December. I can imagine during the height of the vacation season in July that the lines would get considerably longer.

I don't think we'll see the same problems that Six Flags has because, well, it's not Six Flags. Even before the Q-bot, DW was a great park. I doubt the Q-Bot will change that. It'll just give another option for families looking to maximize the number of rides they can go on. I doubt the price will go up that much. Maybe another $2.50 for the bot and $1 per person additional to use it.

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Lord Gonchar said:

It's a hot topic around here. This thread should heat up any second now. ;)

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With Thunderhead and now Mystery Mine, Dollywood is entering the *major* E-ticket attraction arena, so I'm not surprised by this either. But as other parks begin to adopt this system, it will be interesting watch the opinions suddenly change from an "evil" money gouging, line-cutting system", to "much more legitimate option now that it's in a park I like" system. ;)

I wonder how long before CP gets the system. I can see the Ride ops having one more headach on their hands.

^^ ROFL, DWeaver...so true it hurts! :)

Who, pray tell, suggested that Dollywood would quickly expand their Bots to include rides? ;)

Just those of us that tend to 'get' such things. :)

This has lowered my feelings about Herschend. As soon as I heard about this last year, I sent a message to Paula at HW to inform her of this. This is one park that I believe will NEVER introduce this abomidation. Paula responded that HWs way of dealing with line problems is to increase the overall ride capacity by adding more rides as attendance grows. Any park that offers free parking, free drinks and free waterpark extras with admission will not be introducing pay-to-cut.

I would not expect this to appear at KW either because there are only three rides there that ever get long enough lines to justify this (Exterminator, Phantom's Revenge, Raging Rapids). When Phantom runs two trains the lines are reasonable in length even on busier days so as long as thay don't pull any SFGAdv nonsense and run one train on busy days, that leaves two, really.

I know how Gonch feels. He is a free-market classist all of the way. I prefer parks where, once you pay your admission, you are treated the same as everyone else. My main concern is that CP might be next but the good thing there is that they have so much ride capacity and generally make full use of it when they are busy.

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Arthur Bahl said:
Any park that offers free parking, free drinks and free waterpark extras with admission will not be introducing pay-to-cut.

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Just a fun fact. HW's gate has increased 65% since they began offering free drinks.

I can't find another example of a park raising their gate prices even close to that much in the same time frame. (7 years)

What are lines like at Dollywood like in the peak season? Are they large enough for this system to be worth while?

I dunno personally. I only visited DW once on a weekday in August and things weren't bad. Average park lines.

But I'm still budgeting a few extra bucks for our return visit this year - just in case. :)

When I visited, the lines for most of the attractions weren't bad at all. However, Thunderhead had the longest line at 90 minutes. Add in Mystery Mine, and now you've got two attractions likely to carry hour plus waits, even on rather slow days.

I'd love love to hear their reason for adding this system. It's not like they're going to say, "hey, we want the extra cash this is going to bring us". There's usually a more PC reason given, and that should be interesting.