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Do you wanna know what really grinds my gears?

Chris Brown

Chris Brown

Mr CoasterForce 2016
Why, in this day and age, do parks still think its acceptable, after spending god knows how much money, to use the manufacturers standard ride name?! How boring do you have to be to buy a new Zamperla Air Race and then go and call it Air Race, the same **** name as every other **** Air Race in the world.

Not so much a topic dedicated to the above but do you have any major gripes in the world of coasters / themeparks? Here's a place where you can let them out!
 
I hate car park fees.

I'm paying £45 to come in to the park, piss off making me pay another £10 just to park my car. It's one of those things that makes the whole experience just feel like a money grabbing exercise.

I don't often eat in-park food, but it's well known that it's expensive. I can accept that (to a degree) as you can bring your own or leave the park or something.

Car park fees just feel like daylight robbery...
 
Hixee said:
I hate car park fees.

I'm paying £45 to come in to the park, piss off making me pay another £10 just to park my car. It's one of those things that makes the whole experience just feel like a money grabbing exercise.
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I don't mind these as much where the park is easily accessible by public transport (ie somewhere like Thorpe) but when it's somewhere like Alton which is an absolute ball ache to get to otherwise (I'm assuming this, as I've never tried going there by public transport!), then it really does piss me off.

I think the thing that annoys me most is assigned seating. I just don't see the point, it never seems to extend the line or slow down operations at parks that don't do it. I think I'm just pissed that I never got my front row ride on Fury 325, despite riding it multiple times.
 
Unfair/oversold fastrack systems.

I'm not against fastrack. Indeed, when reasonably priced, I'm happy to fork out a little extra money to bypass one or two of the busier queues at a park if it's a one-off visit, but when it gets to the point where more than half the people getting onto the ride are from the fastrack queue, it really annoys me.

Why? Because it shows a complete lack of care and thought for standard guests, especially as many these standard guests are loyal and visit the park more regularly and therefore don't need fastrack. If you oversell fastrack tickets, it just screams to all your guests that you couldn't care less about their enjoyment and only care about milking them for all the money in their pockets. It becomes less of a service for the customer's convenience and more of a service for the park's profits.
 
Chris Brown said:
Why, in this day and age, do parks still think its acceptable, after spending god knows how much money, to use the manufacturers standard ride name?! How boring do you have to be to buy a new Zamperla Air Race and then go and call it Air Race, the same **** name as every other **** Air Race in the world.
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I agree! Just last Thursday, I've been to a waterpark that did so with each and every one of their slides/attractions. While I think Air Race does sound kind of cool, names like Family Rafting Slide, Uphill Navigatour and Body Slide make me want to puke...

https://www.aquacolors.eu/attractions/t ... nd-slides/
 
Going to the media day of an RMC to learn you wont ride it, then go back to the park 4 months later & still not riding it because it's closed for god knows what reason. That's pretty frustrating.
 
What really grinds my gears? Fast track. It's a pain in the behind at a park like Pleasure Beach, where there are no queues that justify the use of fast pass. After waiting the very short 10 minutes, as the excitement builds as you have front seat on the Big One, prepare to have the joy smacked out of you, when people rock up the exit and get to CHOOSE their seat. These are people who are probably local as well, who probably visit the park once a week. Unlike these people, I am aware the park closes, and I am aware that at PB the rides close as early as possible. I am making the most out of my visit, because I know it will be months before I return. And now, I have to wait the equivalent of one more ride cycle before I get the seat I've queued for. The whole point of fast track is a terrible, money grabbing idea that only appeals to the greedy and ungrateful when it's in such a quiet park.
 
To carry Burniel's thought on fastpass systems further;

What grinds my gears are poorly planned fastpass systems, such as Cedar Fair's current program.

While Six Flags, Disney, etc. use a fastpass system that considers queue length and gives a time estimation to return back to the ride, Cedar Fair simply has another queue built for FastPass-ers to wait in, which theoretically shortens their wait. However, since Cedar Fair parks are not moderating which rides FastPass-ers can queue for, this inevitably means FastPass-ers wait in longer FastPass lines for popular rides (as they cluster their, same as the rest of the park guests), while less popular rides remain walk-on for FastPass. This causes inefficiency in the system; the more equitable system would employ a moderation of the popular rides, allowing FastPass-ers to queue for those rides while also taking advantage of short queues for less popular rides throughout the park. For instance, the Six Flags Flashpass allows guests to virtually queue for popular rides while waiting in normal lines for others. Cedar Fair, instead, only uses a price premium for access to the most popular rides; this however does not truly moderate queues. And since Cedar Fair has FastPass-ers still in the queue, this requires far more complex logistics for waiting than a simple pager system that allows guests to simply slip in when their time to ride comes.

I also hate assigned seating.

It can be simple enough to have a ride op man the queue line, to limit number of riders coming into the station. But assigning seating, especially ride ops who are very adamant on the assignments, always takes away from the experience.

Finally, I hate rides that do not have an MCBR.

Yes, hypocritical as I have a number of highly ranked coasters without MCBRs. However, there is so much value to coasters that allow for multiple trains on the course. Even shaving 10-20 seconds off on dispatch times from MCBRs counts, especially if you are waiting for 20+ cycles before riding.
 
I hate assigned seating too - Think all coasters should have separate queues for both front and back seat - dunno why wodan and blue fire have it yet silver start is a free for all station.

also - the only complaint I have regarding fastpasses, is when you're in a group and have planned to take up a number of rows, and you're then spited, so I think fastpass should merge inside the loading station.

and single train ops (looking at you Karacho and oakwood!)

and unnecessary "no singles" rules (translates to all "no singles" rules)

oh - and people who take the pi$$ out of handicapped lines - (but I have ADD..)
 
Park chains using the same name for several coasters. I mean, how hard can it be to find a name you haven't used before? You're watering out the marketability of either of them. Bonus annoyance points if the rides are otherwise completely different.

I guess the worst offender is Six Flags with their Goliaths: One Giovanola Hyper (Magic Mountain), a B&M Hyper (Georgia), a B&M Mega (la Ronde), an Intamin Mega (Holland), a B&M Invert (Fiesta Texas), an RMC woodie (Great America) and a frickin' Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang (New England). I mean... wow. No excuse. So many different ride experiences (and, to be fair, some similar ones), but the coasters aren't allowed to be set apart by name? Untold millions spent on engineering and marketing, while the name decision process can't have been more than a few seconds long.

"Character: The Ride" is also lazy. I can understand the need to incorporate the character name in the ride name, but could they not find any other subtitle than "the ride"? It's not like you need to have Picasso levels of creativity to come up with a suitable name.

Also, I agree with what Chris Brown said, the people who decide to name their new, innovative coaster "Wild Mouse" or "Big Apple" should go step on a LEGO brick.
 
ukthemeparkfan said:
members of the gp who think they know what they talking but really don't
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Damn them and their opinions! Boooo!

Friends who say "Never get me on that ride!" but they've skydived, done a bungee jump etc. Which are far more scarier I'd think?
 
The way parks in the US are not consistent with the inclusion of tax in the price of food.

If they were smart they would include tax in the posted price so guests can prepare correct change, and this would surely speed up transaction speeds.
More $$$$ for them.

Disney, to their credit, include it, because they obviously acknowledge most of their visitors would be from outside the country so wont know the tax rate.

But nobody else does, and its retarded.

The silly thing is they manage to include tax when yoi go through the parking toll booth.
 
Huge portion sizes. When you have more than one person and you can share, it's great. When it's just you, and you can't choose a size, it's pretty annoying.
 
the fact that you have to plan at least 45 days before you go to disney world is mother **** **** ridiculous. what if somebody lives in orlando, wants to get a fast pass, oops! you aint paid 45 days in advance? WHAT THE ****
 
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