Six Flags Announces Nation's Best Theme Park VIP Program

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Charles Nungester said:

Mine is a example of the park allowing people to break their own policies if your willing to pay more for it

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Okay, then try this on for size. Next time I go to Holiday World, I'm going to walkback behind The Legend, in the unauthorized zone, so that I can take pictures. I should be able to do this at anytime because, although it is against HW policy to let people walk around back there, if you pay them extera money (Holliwood nights) then they will break their own policy.

Happens all the time....
lata, jeremy
--gator, pass the butter for my popcorn please
Landau: "We had a deal."
Vader: "I am altering the deal! Pray I dont alter it further" *** Edited 3/23/2007 7:21:30 PM UTC by 2Hostyl***

^ You want REAL butter, or the stuff that's loaded with Transfats? ;)

My concern is more about the 12% drop in attendance than with the 13% increase in per-cap. Lose enough customers, and you lose the economies of scale...even if you take IN the same amount of money, it costs you more *per person* to run a park that only has 1,000 guests (for example).

Plus, as we learned from CartmanLand, only Eric enjoys an empty park... :)

I really AM more concerned about the business end of this whole thing, the effects on me are negligible (well, until my SP cost me almost 80 bucks from SFoG...should I feel ripped off? LOL!)... ;)

Regarding the season pass issue, two of the largest parks that don't offer season passes are those two "K" parks in Pennsylvania. Most of us, however still love those parks because of their great traditional atmosphere and the good value that they offer to their visitors that come for a day or an evening.

I still believe that the key to the future of pay queue systems is what Disney and Cedar Fair do. One alternative to pay queue systems would be to have "premium" time in the morning before the park opens to the regular guests. Pay $15 or $20 extra and you get perhaps two extra hours in the park without big crowds.

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2Hostyl said:

...Next time I go to Holiday World, I'm going to walkback behind The Legend, in the unauthorized zone, so that I can take pictures. I should be able to do this at anytime because, although it is against HW policy to let people walk around back there, if you pay them extera money (Holliwood nights) then they will break their own policy.

Happens all the time....

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Is the coaster closed when HW walks you back to take pictures? The reason the rule is in place is to keep people from entering the low zones while the ride is operating. HW is allowing this while they keep an eye on the safety of the people involved. That argument holds no water whatsoever. There is a rule that is there for a reason, just like the "no line cutting" rule is there for a reason.

To escape the effect of the "no line cutting" rule, I say open a few rides for a few hours outside of normal operating hours, and then the regular paying "guests" will not have the service that they paid for interrupted.

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Brian Noble said:

...In fact, I'd argue that the Cinderella meal is *exactly* the same as having two trains on the big coaster, where one is available only to people who bought flashpass....

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Not the same thing at all. Does having a Cinderella meal force people to wait in line longer during the meet and greet? There can be 2 Cinderellas, but NOT 2 Kinda Kas, for example.

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Brian Noble also said:
...This year, the rules are different. Rules can and do change...

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Wouldn't it be chaotic if SF decided that there would no longer be a line. They could drop the "no line jumping" rule all together. I'll tell you who would get to ride first, the strongest and most aggressive. The weak may never get to ride. It would be wonderful if they dropped the line rule because that means I would get right on the coasters without waiting, because I am a little bit bigger and tougher than most.

Lol, Arthur Bahl. I said the same thing you said at almost the same time without reading you post.

It's a very good idea. It would cause our friends Lo-Q to go out of business. You know, I hate to say it, but Six Flags isn't the main instigators in this scam. Lo-Q is the real problem. They came up with a way to cheat paying guests, and SF couldn't afford to say no because of how extremely profitable it seems. I think smarter "guests" of the parks understand who really loses in this situation.

I hope with all of my heart that Lo-Q goes out of business in the future. This would make parks understand that treating your "guests" right is the right way to run a business.

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Arthur Bahl said:
I still believe that the key to the future of pay queue systems is what Disney and Cedar Fair do.

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Cedar Fair dropped their free system and as Brian said, Disney has pay systems in the works. I guess you're right. They are the future of virtual queue systems. ;)

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Does having a Cinderella meal force people to wait in line longer during the meet and greet? There can be 2 Cinderellas, but NOT 2 Kinda Kas, for example.

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Yes, with N character actors playing Cinderella in the park on any given day, one of them (the one in the castle) is not available to the guests waiting in line. It is *exactly* like having N rows of seats on Kingda Ka, but reserving one row for flashpass guests.

Also, I have finally found an example of a park that had pay-to-cut, and abandoned it. For a time, those who bought a package at a Disneyland-owned hotel through Disney or AAA were given tickets that allowed them to hold virtual-queue spots in as many different attractions as they liked; "regular" guests could only be virtually-queued in at most one attraction. This "enhanced fastpass" perk was offered starting in 2003, but discontinued in late 2006 or early 2007.

Interesting, in light of the patents filed by WDI...

About the only reason I could see why CP dropped their free system is because the lines for the stamps were about as bad (if not worse) as the line for the actual ride.

As I have heard it, the reason it was discontinued was that the increase in guest satisfaction (if there was one) was not big enough to justify paying the extra staff it took to (a) distribute the passes and (b) police the queues.

I suspect that is in large part because such a small amount of ride capacity (~10%, if memory serves) was devoted to FreeWay, so very few guests benefited from it. In contrast, Disney often devotes well more than half of ride capacity to FASTPASS. A 75% fastpass/25% standby split is not uncommon.

CP also has relatively few rides (as compared to the bigger Six Flags parks) with extremely long lines. Most of the line problems involve TTD and MF along with Raptor in some cases. There are a number of other coasters such as Magnum XL-200 and Gemini that eat up their lines quickly. If Q-bots were offered, some would use them to deal with the long waits on the more popular coasters but it would be still possible to have a decent experience without one (provided the operations remain good).

Will Disney adopt a hybrid system? Pay extra and you are guaranteed a certain number of FastPass reservations without having to rush to the reservation stations when the parks open. Don't pay extra and you can still use the system on a first-come first-served basis for the remaining FastPass slots not taken by the pay users.

Art, CP's OPs have always been good, unlike the SF parks.

Now I find that dex is kicking me to the curb like so much trash that will sit for days in a Six Flags park till someone actually gets around to picking it up. :(

If Disney does go to a two tiered situation, I see them doing what Universal did and give the perks to on site guests (probably with a discontinuation of EMH.) The speculation on the Disney sites is that they would allow on site guests to hold multiple fast passes at one time (perhaps even being based on what level hotel they are in.)

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Brian Noble said:
A 75% fastpass/25% standby split is not uncommon.

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Wow! They give away as much as 3/4 of the capacity to the random lottery and this is the 'good' system to some people?

I dare you guys to try to convince me that SF is giving away 3 of every 4 seats on ANY ride to Flash Pass.

Good operations and good capacity: That's why there are so few rides with extermely long lines at CP.

As for WDW, are they now going to say that if you stay at those super-expensive hotels that so few can afford, you get better treatment in the parks than someone that stays at one of the more moderately priced on-site hotels? Say it isn't so.

Here are two more ideas for park pricing:

1 Pay per ride. Offer POP only on days that aren't so busy. Uh-Oh, there is at least one park that already does things this way.

2. Make the big coasters upcharges. Imagine CP at $30 admission and $5 each for the 4 or 5 biggest coasters. Interesting, Huh?

Call me nuts, but I don't consider FastPass to be a good system. Yeah, it's free and therefore everyone that pays to enter the park can take advantage of it, but I don't think it really benefits people. I see many people get caught up in the act of collecting FastPass tickets when they could be circling the park and riding things as they reach them. Add that to the fact that most people think you have to use the FastPass ticket before the expiration time when there really is no expiration time!

I guess I can go back to saying nothing about being able to pay to avoid lines. I just realized that the Coney Island Cyclone allows you to stay in your seat if you pay for a re-ride, meaning that by paying a nominal fee, you get to avoid the line and jump ahead of everyone that's waiting. So you all win, I guess. But I still stand by my assertion that companies like Six Flags should first work on making sure everyone that pays is happy before coming up with ideas to make a select few with money to burn at amusement parks VERY happy. Those few customers are all well and good but they shouldn't forget the masses, and by putting an emphasis on virtual queing, I think they are forgetting the masses. First show people that you're doing everything you can to eliminate lines and then show people a better way to avoid the lines that remain. That way, everyone wins.

I don't use the systems either, even the free ones. It's not because I object to them, but because I love discovering the park I'm visiting, layer by layer. I don't enjoy having my day chopped up and planned for me. But that's just me.

On the other hand, at 90% of the parks I've been to, whether they offer these so-called "bots" or not, it just doesn't effect my day. I'm just not conscious of how long I'm waiting, unless the line just isn't moving.

If the lines don't move to my satisfaction, I may not re-visit that park, and the queuing system has *very* little to do with that. Call me nuts, but I still don't get the complaints. To me it's like complaining that rich movie and music stars get free stuff and backstage access that the rest of us don't.

If you don't like it, you've got 3 choices.

1) Spend your life complaining about it.

2) Become a rich movie star.

3) Remove yourself from the equation. ;)

I see many people get caught up in the act of collecting FastPass tickets when they could be circling the park and riding things as they reach them.

I love Fastpass and always use it but I don't spend my day running around getting passes. I know how to use the system to its fullest potential -- without cheating! -- and always end up with more rides than had I not used the VQS.

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dexter said:

Is the coaster closed when HW walks you back to take pictures? The reason the rule is in place is to keep people from entering the low zones while the ride is operating. HW is allowing this while they keep an eye on the safety of the people involved. That argument holds no water whatsoever. There is a rule that is there for a reason, just like the "no line cutting" rule is there for a reason.

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Actually, when I went back in 2002, all the rides were running as this walkback took place in the middle of a standard operating Saturday. I've seen the same thing happen @ Sea World Texas. I just happened to be visiting with other coaster friends on a day when there was some such enthusiast event. The eventers were clearly being led on some 'backstage tour' as part of their event. Similarly, Disney has a 'Keys to the Kingdom' program where if you give them a hefty amount of cash, they'll let you walk around in the tunnels under MK. Our own Coasterville Dave wrote an extensive TR on site about this.

My only point is, parks make the rules and can selectively apply them as they see fit. Arguing specifically "line-cutting" is one thing, but to argue it as 'it's a violation of the parks own rules', means you have a whole bunch of other parks you need to lump in.

IIRC, Chuck was actually with me on that self-same HW walkback.