Will Pay-to-cut come to Kennywood?

Dave, your examples with wheel chairs are to me apples to oranges. Personally I think that while a coaster should be handicapable (thank you Sue Sylvester) accessible, I've never understood why people in wheelchairs don't have to wait to ride. That really is cutting in line, but I don't complain because, well, I could be in a wheelchair.

But your examples always seem to be the extreme. I've been the victim of extreme examples in my time with que/cut systems before, but those are never the rule and always an exception. I've encountered far more people actually cutting in line without paying that were overlooked that I was far more annoyed by.

You're gonna get the argument that those other things don't affect those people paying less.

And I'll argue that when I went to see BEP this past spring, everyone else who paid more got to see Fergie up close and far more personal than I did, and it did affect me. Then I remember that I had a chance to pay a higher price for tickets.

At all the parks near me wheelchair users have to wait the length of the line just not be in line like a paper version of a Flashpass where you get a boarding time. That is for Great Adventure and Dorney. Hershey also makes you get a boarding time for almost all coasters and many popular non coaster rides. I have never used the systems at Dorney since they changed it or Great Adventure but I have at Hershey before when going with to the park with my uncle and when Reese's was a 30 minute wait for example we had to wait 30 minutes before being able to ride and could not get another boarding time until we rode Reese's.

Jeff said:
Those who have figured it out? Do you really think that FastPass is some mystery only those with the secret handshake can figure out?

I find nothing complicated or difficult to explain. I am not a Disney nerd, and yet, I can use FastPass, park hopping and all, and never find myself to be at a disadvantage... I don't think you have enough experience with the system to make these sweeping generalizations, because they just ain't true.

I don't visit Disney regularly anymore, but I did spend exactly one year living in Orlando, and my best friend worked fro Disney. We visited Disney or Universal each week, with some of the lesser known park thrown in when we got bored of those. In a years time, I visited the Disney compound about 20 times, all within different times of the year.

When it wasn't peak season, I found fastpass to be very useful. It worked very well, especially because we knew how to take advantage of it (abuse it, perhaps). When the park was really busy, Fastpass sucked.

So, as the saying goes, your mileage may vary. Depending on what the circumstances are, it could go both ways. You are right, at least partially.

As far as people not knowing how fastpass works, a lot know, but there are still those who don't. It's their own stupid fault though, because Disney does everything that they can to educate people on how it works. So I agree with you there too, to a certain extent.

There are people who abuse Fastpass, and there is where the problem begins. I admitted that I abused it, as well. The temptation made it hard to resist, just like any line cutting scheme.

Kennywood didn't seem like the kind of park that would put their valued guests thought this kind of confusion and belittlement.

Tekwardo said:

Why should I be punished and have options taken away from me when I work hard every day to make money and I feel that paying for perks is worth the money I make?
...I feel that if I have the money to spend to make my day Magical, then darn it, give me some extra magic.

I'll never understand why pay to cut is looked down upon, but paying for a better seat or better experience in any other catagory is okay.

I feel the same way. I love spending money on me, because I work my butt off too. But see, pay-to-cut makes if more fun for the ones paying at the expenses of those who are not paying. As it is now, it is a punishment to those who are NOT using it.

I almost always pay for a good seat at a concert, when it's available. A line and a seat reservation are not perceived by me to be comparable, because a concert can't be done any other way; people MUST sit in different seats. A line can be done the way it has always been done, first come, first served. To complicate that for profit is unnecessary.

Of course most of the people who are less empathetic about others really get a kick out of bypassing the line. I am in a very odd position, because I do it because I don't want ANYONE to cut in front of me. If it can't be fair (first come, first serve), then I am going to get mine. Then I start to feel guilty, and selfish, and I am a sensitive, kindhearted person, so that's a big problem for me. So we have the opposite problem, Tekno.

Tekwardo said:
Dave, your examples with wheel chairs are to me apples to oranges. Personally I think that while a coaster should be handicapable (thank you Sue Sylvester) accessible, I've never understood why people in wheelchairs don't have to wait to ride. That really is cutting in line, but I don't complain because, well, I could be in a wheelchair.

It was supposed to be. I don't think anybody is going to begrudge the occasional special load (if you do you may have other problems...) but the acceptability of the situation does depend on how much it affects you. That is the point. The fact that I recall a real-world example...well, that is an exception. When you spend a lot of time visiting parks you get to see some exceptional situations, and I never meant to suggest it was anything but. The point is that when the exception that never really bothered you becomes the rule instead of the exception, that's when you start to complain.

But your examples always seem to be the extreme. I've been the victim of extreme examples in my time with que/cut systems before, but those are never the rule and always an exception. I've encountered far more people actually cutting in line without paying that were overlooked that I was far more annoyed by.

Extremes make for the best illustrations, because when the situation is magnified, the effects become more apparent.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

LostKause said:
Kennywood didn't seem like the kind of park that would put their valued guests thought this kind of confusion and belittlement.

Oh, the friggin' drama! You should quit the newspaper and go to work for a tabloid.

How exactly do you "abuse" Fastpass? What did you do jump into the FP line past the ticket taker so you got on faster without an actual FP?

There were several FP rides that my wife and daugther did not want to ride. So my son and I used their FP to get 2 FP rides each. Not sure if that is viewed as an abuse of FP. Worked well for us though. :)

LK, why couldn't concerts just be pay-one-price and then seats go on a first come, first served basis? That would be a whole lot like the "old way" amusement parks used to be run. They could even have a line outside that you could wait in before the doors open.

And then some enterprising person would say, "Wait a minute! I have an idea. If you pay me $10 more for your ticket, I will let you cut the line waiting for seats and get front row seats. I call this invention...reserved-seating-bot!"

The only time I was able to cheat the FP system is when Disney accidentally checked us out a day early while we were at the park, this invalidated the credit card feature and the ability to open our room door from the KTW card. They sent new cards to us at our lunch reservation. Our old KTW cards still were recognized by the FP machines as were our new ones, so for the rest of the day we got double the FPs.

ApolloAndy said:
And then some enterprising person would say, "Wait a minute! I have an idea. If you pay me $10 more for your ticket, I will let you cut the line waiting for seats and get front row seats. I call this invention...reserved-seating-bot!"

I did just that for the last concert tickets I bought.

I paid a small premium per ticket ($9) during a public presale to guarantee a good seat for a concert. (in the first few rows)

That is to say, by paying a little extra I was guaranteed to get seats in the first so many rows. Those not willing to pay that premium are given tickets on a first come, first served basis starting where the people who paid the premium left off.

Essentially, it was pay-for-FOL access for tickets.

I've been telling you guys, it happens everywhere. It's not only going to keep expanding to more and more things, but it's going to become less 'hidden' as it expands.

Reserved seating already fills the need for most people for most concerts. I was responding the LK's argument that it's okay for concerts to tier price levels because "there's no other way to do it."

Clearly there is another way to do it (first come first served), but the reason we're not all pissed off about reserved seating is because we never experienced the "other way." In fact, concerts have been doing things the "new way" for so long we don't even think about the old way existing. It seems contrived to imagine that a concert would be first come, first served for every seat.

That's the real issue here. It's not that the new way is unjust. It's that some of us miss the old way because it benefited us more than the new way does. For the vast majority of people going to parks now, there isn't an old way and a new way. There is only "the way" which is why, like with concerts, nobody else feels screwed.

I joined the "fan association" for DMB at a price of $35/year, just for the opportunity to purchase pre-presale tickets. As a result, I was able to snag some killer tickets to a couple of shows this summer, that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten.

I'm OK with it.

I joined the U2 fan club solely to get access to a pre-sale and get the tickets I wanted last October. Turned out to be totally worth it since the last time they came through I paid the difference and then some on the grey market for much worse tickets. There were actually 3 levels of fan club pre-sale based on length of membership.

Maybe Six Flags just needs to rename q-bot to "fan club".

ApolloAndy said:
Reserved seating already fills the need for most people for most concerts. I was responding the LK's argument that it's okay for concerts to tier price levels because "there's no other way to do it."

Yeah, I know. Just pointing out that even reserved seating access is being given first to those willing to pay more for it. Reserved seating isn't necessarily even first come, first served anymore as all of our examples show. Pay a premium and get premium access - and it certainly affects people in the same way because those are seats that would have been available to them if someone hadn't paid a premium to get it first.

But yeah, you're dead on. It's that 'change is scary' thing that we haven't brought up for a while. But as time goes on, this isn't a change, this is how it is.

VQ has been around in some capacity for a decade now. It's entirely reasonable to think that the next batch of adults hitting the world (those 16 - 18 now) don't remember a time when Disney or Universal or Six Flags didn't work this way.

"Back in my day you had to stand in lne to get on a ride"

"Yeah, whatever, grandpa!" ;)

ApolloAndy said:
I joined the U2 fan club solely to get access to a pre-sale and get the tickets I wanted last October.

Andy used "U2" and "October" in the same sentence. Just HAD to note that, since most all of my fav U2 music is from that era. Sorry for the interruption, now back to whatever it is you were discussing. :)

"Yeah whatever, grandpa." I was still in diapers around the time of October.

Yeah, there are plenty of pay to cut schemes for concerts that we aren't discussing. And it is exactly the same thing, as often the best seats sell out before the public offerings go onsale. And I'm okay with that.

ApolloAndy said:
Clearly there is another way to do it (first come first served), but the reason we're not all pissed off about reserved seating is because we never experienced the "other way."

Probably because of this.

So we could argue that parks offer FOL passes in the interest of guest safety. :)

Funny thing about that, Vater...I sat through a class about crowd crushes and special venue fires back in February (interesting history course, actually...) and of all the crowd-crush incidents, that's the only one that was caused by people trying to get *in* to a space.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

I was trying to say that at a concert, people can't sit on top of each other in the best seat. People have to sit in different places.

The rules for forming and waiting in a line have been ongoing since the beginning of intelligent humanity. There is no need to place people in different areas of a line, because every line up until now have been first come, first serve. It's an unspoken rule. There is no need to change the way it works, except for profit$. Sure, reserved seating can be used for profits, or it can just be assigned first come, first served, but that's because people have to sit in different places at a venue. There must be guidelines made to determine where people sit in a venue. There have already been guidelines for how a line works, that are burned into our brains at a very young age.

---

Edited to add...Concert seating and ride lines are two very different things, the way I see it.

And in reply to me being dramatic and tabloidish (lol), I just wanted to state a fact that is obvious to those who know me in person. We should have video replies to get to know each other better...

(That's what she said)