Virtual Queuing

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

I was just offering a suggestion. I wasn't trying to imply it was a good idea. Anyway, Disney could come up with another scheme to replace the 60 day perk such as more fastpasses for onsite guests or onsite guests being able to book more tier 1 fastpasses than offsite guests. Or some other scheme that makes it worth paying a premium to stay onsite.

As a perk, to me, it's actually a fairly minor one. It means onsite guests get to fastpass a couple of rides in the whole of WDW that offsite guests will have to queue up for. I wouldn't pay to stay onsite just for that perk.

Anyway, I'm going off topic now. This is supposed to be about virtual queues...

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I feel the same as you about the value of the perk.

I suppose Disney have to ascertain the right level of perk to attract onsite and not too much so as to upset offsite.

For me (so far) this means it's a bit more tricky to obtain FPs for the newer attractions or the updated attractions. I'm just being a bit greedy really and as you said queuing is not that big a deal and it never was back in the day

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

I can see Virtual Queuing working if applied to a relatively small number of attractions in each park.

Universal have already started trialing this. Jimmy Fallon uses a virtual queue and they also tried it with Despicable Me (and I think they also tried it with Shrek 4D and Pteranodon Flyers?).

I can therefore see the following working: 25% (say) of the attractions which historically have longer queues are switched to virtual queues and, whilst waiting in a virtual queue, you are allowed to join the regular queues of any of the remaining 75% of attractions (these would typically have shorter queues).

Someone would have to do a bit of analysis on the percentage that would switch to virtual queuing - 25% was a complete guess. Too many and you force too many people into the regular queues of the other rides.

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Sounds sensible to me. I like the idea of virtual queues, but would not wish to upset the rest of the park. It looks as if Volcano Bay is suffering from various VQ issues already, e.g. a ram packed lazy river.

[mysteryjimbo]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

The parks are getting busier and busier and by some accounts even the traditionally less busy times are becoming overly populated.

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They may even save some space with all those ridiculous queuing areas they keep building

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Queues are a fantastic way of managing crowds. You get a lot of people in a small area. Take those away and the parks will be unmanageable.

Fastpasses are just one technique at managing crowd distribution in the parks. They are still experimenting, but if you have a finite number of fastpasses, you are virtually guaranteed to have fairly evenly distributed crowds.

[Monolith]

They were trying it with dumbo during peak times at magic kingdom in early may

[floridasarah]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Perhaps what Disney should do is keep the existing system but only allow fastpass bookings on the day, rather than 30/60 days beforehand? Maybe even when in the park (i.e. the fastpass system would only enable once you've used the ticket at the tapstiles to enter the park)?

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I like this idea. It is one of my biggest gripes that people don't turn up or cancel their FP+ and put it back in the system for others to use. If onsite guests still need an advantage as a perk maybe they could book the day before and offsite guests when they get past the turnstile like you say.