New System For Onsite Guests = BAD!!!!!!!!

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Jon360

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Front of the line all day everyday means all day everyday! It does not mean each ride once per day! This system is BAD!!

Let's say I am staying on-site for 3 nights like my trip coming this summer. This is how my schedule would look:

Day 1, 9am:
Universal...
-MIB
-BTTF
-T2-3D
-JAWS
-KONG
-EARTHQUAKE
-TWISTER

This can be done in 2-4 hrs with FOTL. If I go at 9am I am done by 1pm.

Then let's say I head over to IOA and I do:
-Spiderman
-Hulk
-Dragons
-Jurassic Park River Adventure
-Dooms Fearfall

This should take me 2-3 hrs.

At this point it is 4pm and I have ridden all of the rides I want to go on. The park is open till 11pm. I have absolutely no incentive to stay in the parks anymore because I cannot repeat my favorite attractions such as Spiderman, MIB, BTTF, Hulk, Dragons. Ok, maybe I can go back to my hotel and hang out at the pool for an hour or 2 and go get something to eat at CityWalk. Then it is 8pm. In the summer the parks are open till 11pm.. Obviously it would have been nice to go back these last 3 hours and repeat some of my favorite rides but I might as well stay in my hotel room if I don't want to wait 2 hours for Spiderman or Hulk.

Then we get to the 2nd day of my trip. I already went on every ride I am interested in, now I feel like repeating just my favorites.
At 12pm I hit:
-Hulk
-Spiderman
-Dragons
-MIB
-BTTF

Wow that probably took 2-3 hours. Unlike previous trips where I could go on MIB 5-10 times in a row to try and get a good score. Now at 3pm I am done with every attraction I am interested in today.

My point is, it takes enjoyment away from me to limit my FOTL use to once per day per ride and it limits the amount of time I want to spend in the parks which is a money loser for Universal if I am sitting in my hotel room and not in the park spending $$.

I think a fairer system would be to give on-site guests FOTL once per hour on each attraction. That way after riding once, on-site guests would move on to another attraction but they would still have the option of coming back at anytime later in the day. For example, if you ride Spiderman at 1:00, you would not be able to ride again until 2:01. Let me know if you guys agree with me about this!!
 


Jon,
I'm thinking that it might be possible to re-ride with ticket(s) from kiosk , immediately after using on-site FOTL. It's still a wee bit of a mystery how this will turn out, but I'm gonna keep the faith for now. I do like to get right back on the same ride again myself. Whatever the final adjustments end up being on this new system, I'm sure it will suit the masses just fine.
(Is that a Revolution I smell brewing?)
J
 
If I'm going to stand in line at the Kiosks I might as well stay at the Radisson Towers or Sheraton Studio City for 80 bucks a night!
 
Does anyone complaining ever thought to stop and think about why they're only giving you one ride? Perhaps it's because the rides are becomming over crowded, and it's better than just making you wait in the regular line all the time, which is the alternative.. sheesh..
-Rob
 


Personally, I like the new system. The only ride I've ever riden more than once in a day is MIB, and I could live with only being able to do it once.

I don't think FOTL could go on forever as it was with more and more rooms coming into the system, it would get uncontrollable if there were too many people doing it. Might not be too bad for HRH and PBH, but once the add the next hotel, which will be 1,000 rooms + I believe, that would be over 2500 rooms, and just too many folks to accomodate everyone with unlimited FOTL.
 
Don't discount that on-site FOTL for restrooms! Can come in reeeal handy too.
Hope there's not a kiosk wait for this.
J
 
I will be psyched about just being able to ride most of the rides ONCE using FOTL! The last two times we went was in the summer and the lines were LONG....more than an hour for the big rides. We belong to the DVC and also love Universal, but it was not worth the money for tickets and transportation when you spend 50% of your day standing in line.

We are adding three days at HRH this summer hoping that FOTL will change our opinion of the park. I can't wait to find out.

The Gagnons--Bob, Tracy, Jacob, and Emily
 
If I read the FOTL policy correct, onsite guests get FOTL for one ride and Universal Express for 3 rides (assuming you have a separate pass). That to me is a good deal. Besides, I would only use FOTL when necessary, like a 60 minute wait on Spiderman, not a 0 minute wait on the Hulk!

guy.gif


Barry Hom
The moderator formerly known as Barry aka usagi
Moderator, Universal and Sea World Boards


"If you were me, you'd be good looking."
 
Onsite guests get FOTL for all the rides (except Fievel, Pterandon, and Woody ... whatever the usual exceptions are), but only once each day can you use that FOTL for each ride. No limit on numbers or anything like that, and no need for a reservation, just show your key, as you do know, but you'll have to swipe it now through some reader so it can mark you as having used your FOTL for that ride for that day.

The only remaining question I have is will onsite guests still get No Line, No wait ... will onsite guests still get to go ahead of folks using the new "reservation" system or whatever you want to call it.
 
Oh ... are you saying with the new system multi day ticket holders could get three passes, but all for the same ride? That would seem kind of silly to me, if it's busy enough to use the passes, I would think you'd want to ride more than one ride while avoiding the line ...

I would guess that they don't let you hold passes for the same ride at the same time ... that would be my guess!
 
Jon, when I was there in Dec . off season...yes early Dec. 2 days in a row in the morning there was a "0" min wait. :)

jessica5.gif
 
Jessica,

Some of us can only go during the peak times so I can see why you wouldn't care about losing unlimited FOTL. However, if your school work and your job only enabled you to go during peak times you would understand where I'm coming from and why I don't like this new restriction.
 
Jon,

I can totally sympathize with you. I understand only being able to go peak times. I myself have done both.I just feel that you could look at the flip side to this. Utilize your benefits to their maximum. It is not that I don't care about losing FOTL benefits but rather feel gracious that Universal offers any such perk at all. It isnt like they have to. I think this new system, if you review it makes the most sense. How could you possibly enjoy your day at a busy park using a perk (FOTL) that doesnt work to your benefit? If the guests staying onsite are so large how would you suggest FOTL to be beneficial to you and other onsite guests? Take advantage of EE days, use your onsite FOTL access at the parks busiest times and at other times when the park isnt maxed out take advantage of the reserved passes. If you enjoy these parks, you would be going regardless. I am in no way trying to sway you to my way of thinking. I'm just in hopes that you can find happiness with the new system. After all...it is an amusement park..we are supposed to be having fun!!! Have you been fortunate enough to take advantage of FOTL since it started in Nov? Oh and one other thought...nothing is in stone. Maybe they will implement this and change it again! It's only been a few short months that they even offered FOTL unlimited. They had to have some forsight that this could not last forever with new onsite hotels opening.I'm wondering what the lines have been since both properties are now open and it isnt even peak season. When will you be there next. Jon?
Oh yes and, why not reserve your favorite ride 3 times in a row? That way you can reride a few times..like MIB.

jessica5.gif


[This message was edited by JessicaR on 01-30-01 at 03:49 PM.]
 
As in one of the previous posts, do the numbers. If on-site had unlimited access, you could potentially shut out every other rider. Sorry that we can't please every single person, but the intent is to please as many as possible.

BTW, you don't get this much anywhere else. You can always go to the mouse and stand in line.
 
Jessica and Earl,

I agree that when the new Royal Pacific Hotel opens the FOTL will be overwhelmed and this restriction makes sense. However, that hotel will not open till late next year so I am talking about the time period between now and when the RP opens.

The last 2 weekends in January both the Portofino and Hard Rock hotels were 100% sold out. I did not hear any complaints about line problems as I'm sure everything went as usual with the FOTL perk even with another 1000 or so guests from Hard Rock adding to the Portofino guests.

With the KIOSK system, much like Disney's Fast Pass, I'm sure that during peak times the tickets for the most popular rides will be snapped up immediately. If you have tried getting a Fast Pass ticket for Test Track, Rockin Roller Coaster, Splash Mountain, or Tower of Terror past 4pm during peak times you know what I'm talking about.

I just think that Universal could come up with a fairer system that resembles the unlimited FOTL access rather than "once per day". I mean why not twice per day.. like once from 9am-5pm and once from 5pm to park closing. Or if they wanted to be even more liberal, limit it to once per hour. Doesn't that make more sense than the extremely arbitrary once per day rule?
 
The folks that do this stuff came up with this after months of surveys and studying attraction usage. This system is by far better than anything that any other park has that I'm aware of. It's not practical to split the day, especially when the park closes at 6 pm or 7 pm most of the year.

There'a already 1424 hotel rooms on site (750+664), if there were 4 people in each room, that's almost 5700 people just from the hotels, then add how many mutli-day tickets are in the park. These two groups could hit 10K, 15K.... When would everyone else ride anything? BTW, the time limit for the express line is a 15 minute wait, after that it's cut off.

The idea is to give a benefit to as many guests as possible while remaining fair to all. Guest with single day tickets are no less important than any other.

[This message was edited by Earl on 01-30-01 at 06:02 PM.]
 
The longest wait I've ever seen for the Hulk is 60 minutes. Good thing there are singles lines. Once, the queue was 45 minutes and I rode the Hulk seven times in the singles line! :)

guy.gif


Barry Hom
The moderator formerly known as Barry aka usagi
Moderator, Universal and Sea World Boards


"If you were me, you'd be good looking."
 
I'm sure all the decisions have been made, so discussing it is moot, but I just have to put my two cents in. We were at US/IOA the first week in August - really crowded parks. When we used FOTL, we were usually the ONLY ones in that line. Sometimes there was another family, but not very often and never more than one or two other families. Sometimes the other family was one with a person in a wheelchair so they weren't even PB FOTL people. Have the FOTL crowds gotten that much bigger? The new system will save us money, though - we'll only need one day passes to see both parks! I wish they would give you a limit of FOTL rides - not one per ride, but a certain number of times you could use FOTL in a day. For example, I don't care to do Twister again but I'd like to do Spiderman more than once. It seems to be more fair to just say you can use FOTL "this many times" on the rides of your choice. "One day pass holders" may be just as important as those staying on-site, but Universal sure doesn't make as much money off of them!! That is the bottom line, isn't it? Making money? I don't think one FOTL ride on my favorite rides is worth paying ten times as much for a room. If you get to the parks early, you can ride without a huge wait, maybe not as quick as FOTL, but a heck of a lot cheaper!!
 
Nan,

Finally someone who agrees that this program is not the best solution!

What if a family has little children? They can go on The Suess-area rides just ONCE in a day? So one ride on the Carousel and one ride on Cat in the Hat will be enough for families with young children?

Earl, I see your point that the rides may get over crowded but I have not experienced more than 1 or 2 other parties waiting to get FOTL at any given time. Most of the time I was the only one and this was during peak season.

If I am paying $200+ per night to stay on-site, I would say that I am more important than a one day passholder staying offsite.

Look at Nan, she is now going to buy a one day pass and see both parks in one day. If she could have ridden her favorite rides twice, she probably would have bought a 2-day pass and spent one day in IOA and one day in Universal. This harsh 1-ride per day restriction is less enjoyment for on-site guests and is bad for Universal's bottom line! Who can I write a letter about this to Earl??
 
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