News Six Flags Launches Fast Lane Ultimate at Most Properties

[rswashdc]

Driving up the price of Ultimate is in general good for the majority of guests. The legacy CF allowed fast pass users too much access, which has a very real economic impact on guests who didn't buy a fast pass.

I'm ok in general with fast pass type systems, but the prices need to better account for how much impact there is on other guests. When a park is packed, an unlimited fast pass probably needs to in the $250 and up range, but often it's $60-80 which doesn't cover how much negative impact it creates for others.

 

[AmyUD06]

Driving up the price of Ultimate is in general good for the majority of guests. The legacy CF allowed fast pass users too much access, which has a very real economic impact on guests who didn't buy a fast pass.

I'm ok in general with fast pass type systems, but the prices need to better account for how much impact there is on other guests. When a park is packed, an unlimited fast pass probably needs to in the $250 and up range, but often it's $60-80 which doesn't cover how much negative impact it creates for others.

Not sure which CF parks you go to, but Kings Island routinely sold FL+ for $150+ on really busy days last year, and Cedar Point's over $200. It still didn't help Beast's FL line going all the way to the Photo Booth or 1.5 hour FL+ waits on Steel Vengeance (when standby is 3+) and 45+ minute FL+ waits on Maverick (when standby is 2+). Which I'm fine with....you're paying for a shorter wait, not no wait whatsoever.

I agree that it needs to be more expensive, but honestly reducing the amount of people who have FL will only improve the experience for FL-havers. I don't see it improving the experience of everyone else, since now there will be more people in the standby queues.

I can't even imagine how this will work on Twisted Timbers (and Steel Vengeance, if this ever rolls out to Cedar Point), with their "combined queue after the lockers" arrangement. Will we see a return of the zippered pouches for phones? Will they go back to having separate queues-to-the-station for FL/standby after the lockers? Very curious.

 

[CoasterBroCam]

Not sure which CF parks you go to, but Kings Island routinely sold FL+ for $150+ on really busy days last year, and Cedar Point's over $200. It still didn't help Beast's FL line going all the way to the Photo Booth or 1.5 hour FL+ waits on Steel Vengeance (when standby is 3+) and 45+ minute FL+ waits on Maverick (when standby is 2+). Which I'm fine with....you're paying for a shorter wait, not no wait whatsoever.

I agree that it needs to be more expensive, but honestly reducing the amount of people who have FL will only improve the experience for FL-havers. I don't see it improving the experience of everyone else, since now there will be more people in the standby queues.

I can't even imagine how this will work on Twisted Timbers (and Steel Vengeance, if this ever rolls out to Cedar Point), with their "combined queue after the lockers" arrangement. Will we see a return of the zippered pouches for phones? Will they go back to having separate queues-to-the-station for FL/standby after the lockers? Very curious.

Honestly, I'm hoping to see TwiTim pouches returning since I have no clue how they're going to deal with the phone thing otherwise.

 

[numberonetumbilidefender]

Honestly, I'm hoping to see TwiTim pouches returning since I have no clue how they're going to deal with the phone thing otherwise.

The lockers at twisted are already after the point where fast lane is checked.

 

[AmyUD06]

The lockers at twisted are already after the point where fast lane is checked.

But if they're promising "10% of the standby time" with FL Ultimate, they need to be able to deliver on that promise. Having the FL queue merge with the general queue at that point results in still having to wait upwards of 20-30 minutes on busy days to get up the stairs and through the few switchbacks that are left in the station.

 

[CoasterBroCam]

But if they're promising "10% of the standby time" with FL Ultimate, they need to be able to deliver on that promise. Having the FL queue merge with the general queue at that point results in still having to wait upwards of 20-30 minutes on busy days to get up the stairs and through the few switchbacks that are left in the station.

I remember during haunt 2024, when I used FL on twisted and STILL waited 30 minutes. They should definitely try to prioritize FL users more especially with it being so expensive

 

[warfelg]

I remember during haunt 2024, when I used FL on twisted and STILL waited 30 minutes. They should definitely try to prioritize FL users more especially with it being so expensive

The flip side here is what’s the right pattern? As long as people are in the FL go first and infill with non-FL? Certain number of seats per train? Rough percentage based on waits?

Hopefully the way it works is it can limit number of people that can use a specific ride in a timespan the way Disney handles it so they can remained balanced. Otherwise this just becomes another thing to buy to keep the general entry usable.

 

[Zachary]

But if they're promising "10% of the standby time" with FL Ultimate, they need to be able to deliver on that promise. Having the FL queue merge with the general queue at that point results in still having to wait upwards of 20-30 minutes on busy days to get up the stairs and through the few switchbacks that are left in the station.

Narrator: "They did not deliver on that promise."

 

[Mojosdad]

I want parks to go back to the old days where every guest was treated equally. No wonder more working class families have quit coming to the parks. Theme Parks have become for the elite in the minds of park management across the globe.

 

[rswashdc]

Not sure which CF parks you go to, but Kings Island routinely sold FL+ for $150+ on really busy days last year, and Cedar Point's over $200. It still didn't help Beast's FL line going all the way to the Photo Booth or 1.5 hour FL+ waits on Steel Vengeance (when standby is 3+) and 45+ minute FL+ waits on Maverick (when standby is 2+). Which I'm fine with....you're paying for a shorter wait, not no wait whatsoever.

I agree that it needs to be more expensive, but honestly reducing the amount of people who have FL will only improve the experience for FL-havers. I don't see it improving the experience of everyone else, since now there will be more people in the standby queues.

I can't even imagine how this will work on Twisted Timbers (and Steel Vengeance, if this ever rolls out to Cedar Point), with their "combined queue after the lockers" arrangement. Will we see a return of the zippered pouches for phones? Will they go back to having separate queues-to-the-station for FL/standby after the lockers? Very curious.

If a park admission ticket is $50 and FL+ is $150 that day, that's basically a 4:1 cost ratio. If the general queue to FL queue is around that ratio, economically it's fair. The issue is when FL is 10 mins and the regular queue is 1.5 hr+, then non FL guests are getting screwed over while FL users are marathoning rides.

$300-400+ FL prices on busy days aren't unrealistic if the differences in wait times are huge.

 

[Zachary]

On the Reserve side of the offering, it's a shame they aren't using a wristband system to visually indicate who is using it. In an ideal world, the Reserve option should be very cheap—like $20 to $30 max—often probably about $10—and it could be a great, bonus profit center for the chain. Honestly should even be free to Prestige members, probably.

The issue is that they can't keep those prices way down because the system has no way to prevent Reserve-holding guests from also riding other notable attractions while they wait for their Virtual Queues—effectively turning what should be a basic Virtual Queue offering (which could boost in-park spend on food and merch as well FastPass-style!) into the ability to double up on your waits.

 

[Mushroom]

But if they're promising "10% of the standby time" with FL Ultimate, they need to be able to deliver on that promise. Having the FL queue merge with the general queue at that point results in still having to wait upwards of 20-30 minutes on busy days to get up the stairs and through the few switchbacks that are left in the station.

In theory, I feel like this should be an easy fix by holding people before the lockers so that there’s never more than about 2 trains’ worth of guests waiting in the station.

 

[AmyUD06]

In theory, I feel like this should be an easy fix by holding people before the lockers so that there’s never more than about 2 trains’ worth of guests waiting in the station.

That would necessitate another employee on the queue side of the station, communicating with the post-locker attendant with how much space is available, since plenty of people wait for the front/rear rows of the train.

The easier way would be to just re-open the left side of the stairs for FL people to bypass the standby queue, and have the post-locker attendant direct FL people that way. You know, how it originally was.

 

[Mushroom]

The easier way would be to just re-open the left side of the stairs for FL people to bypass the standby queue, and have the post-locker attendant direct FL people that way. You know, how it originally was.

That would also necessitate another employee at the merge point in the station. Otherwise folks from the standby line would just slip into the FL line, hence why there’s always an employee at every FL merge point.

I don’t see why holding people before the lockers would require an extra employee. All you’d need is a TV monitor showing a camera feed of the station, so the locker attendant can see how full the station is — a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars max.

 

[AmyUD06]

That would also necessitate another employee at the merge point in the station. Otherwise folks from the standby line would just slip into the FL line, hence why there’s always an employee at every FL merge point.

I don’t see why holding people before the lockers would require an extra employee. All you’d need is a TV monitor showing a camera feed of the station, so the locker attendant can see how full the station is — a one-time investment of a few thousand dollars max.

I guess that's true. I just really want them to go back to separating the queues post-locker so FL-havers can get their money's worth and not be needlessly held up.

 

[amperedragon]

Again, my experience comes mainly from the west coast parks, but I've generally seen one of two systems employed on Fast Lane attractions out here...

-For rides that merge at the station, the grouper mixes in the Fast Lane queue as appropriate. Typically, the procedure is to fill either every other train or every third train (depending on the ride and the crowd level) with as many Fast Lane guests as possible, then any available seats are filled from the regular line. The non-Fast Lane trains are filled as normal.
-For rides that merge prior to the station, only three to four trains of guests are allowed past the merge point at any time. When its time to send the next batch, one train's worth is counted out from the Fast Lane queue (or the full queue if less than that are present), then the regular queue is allowed to proceed until the designated cutoff point.

I'd expect one of these two options to be implemented to any attraction that doesn't already have a similar procedure in place.

 

[AmyUD06]

-For rides that merge prior to the station, only three to four trains of guests are allowed past the merge point at any time. When its time to send the next batch, one train's worth is counted out from the Fast Lane queue (or the full queue if less than that are present), then the regular queue is allowed to proceed until the designated cutoff point.

Cedar Point does not do this on any of their rides with a pre-station merge, nor does Kings Dominion at Twisted Timbers. Could they? Sure. But I don't think they ever have (before the queue-line, double-sided lockers were installed, both Steel Vengeance and Twisted Timbers had dedicated FL queues/stairs that ran all the way to the station).

KI and KD sort of do this on the Flights of Fear, but that's moreso out of necessity in that the area between the merge and the station can only hold 2-3 trains worth of guests.