Best Bag-holding option?

[nadroJ]

Having a bag at a theme park is a burden but often a necessity, especially if you're doing a brief international visit. Parks seem to have loads of different ways of making you leave your bag somewhere whilst you're on the coaster, so which do you prefer?

I prefer the new 'Merlin' system where a bag-office thing is built into the ride's queuing system. So effective and easy.

 

[furie]

Automagic baggage holds a la Europa Park. OMG! Best. Thing. EVER!!!!

 

[caffeine_demon]

definitely merlin style bag kiosks - need a little thought on queue line layout, but work well, even when the ride has separate load / unload platforms.

2nd choice - storage on the side of the load / unload platform.

last choice, narrowly beaten by "give it to a rhino for safe keeping" is the "take it on with you" - but only if the ride has lots of inversions and vicious twisty stuff to maximise the chance of bag loss!

 

[nadroJ]

Automagic baggage holds a la Europa Park. OMG! Best. Thing. EVER!!!!

I'd argue that they come under the 'chuck your stuff and hope it doesn't get robbed' option ;]

 

[davidm]

Leave it with the "Bag Lady" option?

Also known as "Ian is having a fag" or "Furie has ridden one of these before so is not lowering himself to the credit"

Or if you are just a trusting person "yes this looks like a real person, I'm sure it'll be fine here"

(@Plopsaland)

 

[Smithy]

Assuming these Merlin things are what they have on Swarm?

If so, great idea, but **** up the queue no end when people just push past etc...

Depends on the park/queue/ride tbh. At Blackpool because it was one train operation and walk on everything I left my bag by the side, at Thorpe I just kept all my valuables in my pocket and didn't bother with a bag.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Personally I like the French approach: take it on with you. Nothing like looping in the dark at Disney while trying to wrap your bag strap around your legs and holding it in tight with your knees. As long as your sensible it's safe, and there's no exit faff

 

[Lucy]

I like the bag-office type approach if I want to leave my bumbag which normally has my valuables inside but also, combat style trousers with zip pockets are a necessity for me as well.

 

[Jake]

Bag offices are the best, by far.

I don't mind taking my bag on with me (I usually take a shoulder bag which has one big zip, so nothing can fall out of it). If I'm somewhere a bit dodgy like a fair or something, I'd much rather do that than leave it on the platform.

Leaving it on the platform is alright, but I get worried if there are multiple cars/trains that someone is going to pike it.

Lockers are the ultimate worst! Especially Six Flags... Eugh. You end up forking out about a tenner throughout the day, and generally end up planning the whole day around the bloody things. Vile.

 

[Youngster Joey]

Bag lady...

 

[BBH]

Am I the only one that puts their stuff in the bins? lol. Never have gotten anything of mine stolen at a Six Flags park except a sport bottle, which I promptly stole another of after it was still there succeeding two rounds on S:UF. :lol:

 

[Gazza]

Why isn't free locker on this poll? Like at Universal parks?

 

[Mike]

^ Lockers are still a massive pain, even if they are free.

The Merlin bag offices work really well, but I really don't mind just putting my bag on the platform on taking it on the ride with me either...

 

[Gavin]

Personally I like the French approach: take it on with you.

I'm pretty sure that's a Disney approach as opposed to a French one. I'm not sure about the American parks, but Hong Kong and Tokyo get you to take your bags on and put them on the floor as well.

The actual best one I've seen is on Atlantis Adventure. A ride op pulls a big bin next to your car, you put your stuff in, and the op brings it back to your car as you're getting off. There was a similar system with Galaxy Express 999 as well.

It's basically got the efficiency of just dumping your stuff at the side, without even having to bother to cross the track and leave it on a shelf somewhere, but the security of it not being left in the open for the train in front of you.

 

[Youngster Joey]

^the US disney parks have a place for you to take them on with you. Though sometimes you just got to hold it on the ride -looks at Rock 'N' Rollercoaster-

 

[Mysterious Sue]

I really don't get why so many people like the bag office. They take AGES and the queue spills out onto the station exit (Stealth) or across the way of people trying to enter the ride (Swarm) and just make.a big mess of things.

 

[tks]

I like the not taking bags to theme parks anymore option. Too burdenous.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Merlin's bag drops get my vote for being an ingenious solution to a problem found at every park around the world. All the other options have health and safety or security problems attached. And the fact that the bag drop kiosk requires extra staff and needs to be factored into the design of the attraction itself makes it something that really should be praised.

 

[madhjsp]

The actual best one I've seen is on Atlantis Adventure. A ride op pulls a big bin next to your car, you put your stuff in, and the op brings it back to your car as you're getting off. There was a similar system with Galaxy Express 999 as well.

It's basically got the efficiency of just dumping your stuff at the side, without even having to bother to cross the track and leave it on a shelf somewhere, but the security of it not being left in the open for the train in front of you.

Kings Dominion also does this for Volcano, but that's it. Not sure why they only do it for that one ride, but I agree, it is the best system I've seen.

In general, though, I try to avoid carrying bags at parks so that I never have to deal with this issue. The only things I every really carry with me at a park are my keys, phone, wallet, and a case for my sunglasses, so weather permitting, I can just wear a pair of cargo shorts and stuff all those things securely into the button pockets. But when I do carry a bag, I don't mind leaving it in the station if I don't have a non-rider to leave it with (valuables such as keys/phone/wallet stay in my pockets anyway so a stolen bag wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

 

[Hyde]

No bag lady option?

I do like Disney's built-in ride pouches. Paramount took added this page to their playbook, having similar pouches on the former Tomb Raider ride at Kings Island.

I have modernized this approach, and now wear fleece jackets with very large pockets to parks if I need to carry my phone or wallet.