King’s Island introduces “Fast Lane”

JUL
20

Posted in News by

3 Comments

 

In the last decade, various theme parks have introduced “virtual queuing” systems and up-charge skip the line passes. Parks with these tickets include Disney, Universal, and Six Flags. Cedar Fair remained the only major American theme park chain not to give-in. After new CEO, Matt Ouimet dropped hints on a visit to the park just over a week ago, Kings Island rolled out Cedar Fair’s first ever skip-the-line ticket Fast Lane. For $50 a person, guests receive a wristband that allows one to skip the line on ten popular attractions from noon to 7 pm. For the seven hours, guests have unlimited use of the wristband.

Despite others concerning that the system could be abused and allow large groups to take over a ride for hours on end, the system is very similar to Universal’s Express Pass ticket included with hotel stay. With that system, guests simply show their key and skip the majority of the line for their entire visit. I don’t see guests being able to abuse the system unless they are allowed to board before the regular line is, which would be absolutely terrible.

The question is now raised, will other Cedar Fair parks soon follow? Could we soon see Cedar Point offering a wristband that offers skip-the-line privileges for a vast majority of it’s 18 coasters? How would the system work out at smaller parks with fewer highlight attractions? There is no doubting that Ouimet is keeping a close eye on how the system does in Kings Island and assessing whether or not it should be implemented into other Cedar Fair parks.

Fast Lane is now available to all Kings Island park guests.  For more information on the ticket option, click here.  So do you think this is a good deal?  Will it help or hurt guests experiences at the park? Leave a comment with your Park Thoughts below.

Related Posts

  • DynaMike

    Knowing the Busch “Quick Queue”, It most likely will still be for the most part fair to the guests waiting in line. For those not familiar with QQ, On Apollo and Alpengist, the 2nd row is chained off specifically for QQ; On griffon, the attendants lead you to the station, but you still have to wait in line for each row; the other attractions on QQ have similar policies. I do believe that the price will go down if they do not see enough (Busch’s original QQ started at about $30, but now is about $15, depending on the day).

  • Auralae40

    We just returned from a trip to Busch Gardens Williamsburg this weekend, where we spent three days at the Park…after two days of tramping around, waiting in quite reasonable lines (no ride’s lines were even half to capacity) my feet were KILLING me, so on the third day, I and my eldest daughter (who also has flat feet and special inserts) bought “Quick Queue” passes for 35$ apiece (we have season passes, so qualified for a discount, the regular price at the time of our purchase was 40$ for unlimited times, or 20$ for once per ride with QQ available.) This is the most fantastic idea since fans with water mist were added on hot days, if not since sliced bread.  In some places, it wasn’t an especially gigantic advantage, since the lines were already short–but on Apollo’s Chariot, for instance, we never had to wait longer than 3 cars to be seated. (The Quick Queue line is seated in the second row for this ride) for some rides, it merely allowed one to skip half or more of the line, and then choose which line to join–so one could still choose to wait for the first car for rides other than Apollo’s Chariot.  For people who aren’t disabled, but are still suffering on hurting feet—this is an EXCELLENT option, and one I can not recommend highly enough.  Speaking as one who saw others using this, while we weren’t the first two days–it wasn’t interfering with our enjoyment any, and I’m just glad it’s an option.

  • Fhbgfhgdgh

    I love Fast Lane passes i have used them once with no regret one of the lines was 3 hours long and i got on the ride in 2 minutes it only took me that long cuz there was a bunch of stairs i rode the drop tower 3 times in a row with no wait