Volcano Bay waits

[FlipHipster]

I've been to enough water parks to know that not all the slides need something like a virtual queue,even in the middle of summer with the parks at peak capacity many slides are 5-15 minutes depending on the slides.To hear that there's no standby line is disappointing,the same way with the Jimmy Fallon ride,I love the attraction and the line free queue but if there's no option at all to ride for 5 hours or to wait,that's a fail.As I write this I cannot wait to get in this park but I think waiting until crowds ease off and have Universal figure out this line system is the best option.Maybe use the tapu tapu virtual queue in the 3-4 most popular slides and the other slides are normal standby might be the best option for this type of system.

From what I could tell yesterday, there is no "traditional" sb line. However, if the wait time was low enough, the tapu tapu terminal said "Ride Now" or something similar and you could tap and go right on the ride. If this is true, I imagine they will allow you to tap and walk on as long as no SB line is forming (5-15 min wait). Once a line starts to form the terminal will require you to get a return time. Not sure how I feel about it, still not 100% sure that is how it works but if that's the way it ends up working it doesn't sound so bad. If the wait time is 30 mins for a slide would you rather stand in the line for 30 mins or lounge in your chair, swim, get a drink etc?

I think where it starts to suck is if there truly is no walk up, you can only have 1 reservation at a time + the aqua coaster and everything is a long wait, you end up only getting on a few rides and waiting all day just to ride the headliner once. That would probably sell a lot of EP's though...

It's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out, it sure looks like fun. I can definitely see spending a morning in the parks then capping the day off with some water slides and fruity drinks under a volcano.

 

[Duffywannabe]

I drove by on Tuesday, and there was dust flying while they were working on stuff. Obviously they barely finished on time and didn't get a chance to really test a lot of things. Glad it is open, but I think I will wait a bit before going to see how it works out.

I would think they have to go to some tier system with the bands. Like, the popular rides, you only get one at a time, and then get another for he less crowded slides while you wait. Or if it is over a 2 hour wait, you can choose another attraction while you wait. I can't see paying that kind of money and not getting on every attraction without having to purchase EP. While relaxing sounds ok between rides, I don't want to wait 4 hours between them either, with the only option to cool down being the people stews they call the wave pool or lazy river.

 

[andrecardosop]

This system makes no sense to me. Basically I'm tied up to a ride the entire wait time, even if other rides are good to go?

 

[jagafen]

I drove by on Tuesday, and there was dust flying while they were working on stuff. Obviously they barely finished on time and didn't get a chance to really test a lot of things. Glad it is open, but I think I will wait a bit before going to see how it works out.

I would think they have to go to some tier system with the bands. Like, the popular rides, you only get one at a time, and then get another for he less crowded slides while you wait. Or if it is over a 2 hour wait, you can choose another attraction while you wait. I can't see paying that kind of money and not getting on every attraction without having to purchase EP. While relaxing sounds ok between rides, I don't want to wait 4 hours between them either, with the only option to cool down being the people stews they call the wave pool or lazy river.

Granted, some may be lounging in chairs/cabanas/in restaurants/shopping, but I wonder how crowded the "overflow" water areas will be if the majority of people are there rather than in lines?

I hope it doesn't turn into a cluster, and that they have done indepth exploration into this issue (considering it's the basis of their line management, I'd assume it works somewhere else?) We'll be there in about a month, and I'd like to not have to deal with kinks, just crowds....

 

[anricat]

We will be there a week from today, but I'm trying to form some pretty low expectations. If we can ride the coaster and maybe one family tube slide and the faster river thing, hang out in the wave pool and do the lazy river, have lunch and be done early afternoon we'll be happy. We're staying on site so we're going to go for early entry. I'd like to thing we can get those things done over the course of the morning->early afternoon.

 

[DLgal]

I think the six hour wait was basically people arriving later in the day and being given a ride time that was six hours from then. Eventually, it reached a point where it filled all it's Tapu queues and the line was listed as "closed". I would expect that if you arrive later in the day during the busiest times of the year, you could potentially get a Tapu without the coaster loaded on it since all the reservation slots would be taken (kind of like when a fastpass runs out of time slots, just think of tapu in that way with the "wait time" basically being the fastpass return time).

It'll probably be crazier this weekend, but just understand that with these posted waits, it probably isn't the time people are waiting in actual lines, but more like a return time. An exception would be when the ride is experiencing technically difficulties, like Oh-No and Oh-Yeah did yesterday. The Aqua Coaster had problems to a lesser extent as well, to be expected on opening day. I could see those building actual lines as the ride cycles through down time.

I understand it is a return time, but having to wait 6 hours = having to wait 6 hours. Heck, I don't think my family has ever even stayed at a water park for 6 hours.

 

[RalphinSC]

I understand it is a return time, but having to wait 6 hours = having to wait 6 hours. Heck, I don't think my family has ever even stayed at a water park for 6 hours.

I think there is always the option to just pick a different ride and get out of the virtual line you are in by simply visiting that ride's Tapu station. And I've also heard that the "ride now" Tapu stations would not boot you out of your current line (have seen reports, but haven't seen it verified by multiple people yet)

To be totally fair, it's opening weekend on a holiday weekend for a very highly anticipated water park. I think if anyone is going in there with the expectation to be able to ride every ride in one day, then perhaps their expectations are set a bit too high. Wouldn't be surprised to see the park hit capacity closure tomorrow and Sunday.

Also saw a report from someone in my AP group that arrived after five yesterday and rode an even dozen rides with the longest Tapu wait being about half an hour. Like most water parks, I think the waits at Volcano Bay will peak early in the afternoon and then die off, even when it is busy.

If I Tapu's a ride and it said it was a six hour wait, I think I'd just have to go find something else to ride. I'm not waiting for six hours to see anything. Lol!

 

[DLgal]

So, something I am wondering about. If a ride indicates "full" can you still get on it using express pass?

 

[soniam]

One update to day in my trip report. First link in sig. we are there now.

 

[apocalyps3]

If I Tapu's a ride and it said it was a six hour wait, I think I'd just have to go find something else to ride. I'm not waiting for six hours to see anything. Lol!

It wouldn't be that bad if you could schedule more than one thing at a time though. Its kind of unrealistic to ask someone to sit in the park and wait 6 hours without being able to, in the meantime, ride some of the other rides that might not be as long. Imagine if the Fallon ride worked like that... you pick a time to ride and until that time comes up you have to hang out and enjoy the scenery. I'd rather stand in line for 45 minutes for something because at least then I get to ride 8 things. Otherwise I get 1 ride in 6 hours.

Granted its the opening days of the park, and I'm sure its a learning experience and they'll (hopefully) work the kinks out. I'm just wondering what their idea of the ideal operation looks like.

 

[Anjelica]

It wouldn't be that bad if you could schedule more than one thing at a time though. Its kind of unrealistic to ask someone to sit in the park and wait 6 hours without being able to, in the meantime, ride some of the other rides that might not be as long. Imagine if the Fallon ride worked like that... you pick a time to ride and until that time comes up you have to hang out and enjoy the scenery. I'd rather stand in line for 45 minutes for something because at least then I get to ride 8 things. Otherwise I get 1 ride in 6 hours.

Granted its the opening days of the park, and I'm sure its a learning experience and they'll (hopefully) work the kinks out. I'm just wondering what their idea of the ideal operation looks like.

Here now and I can attest to really upset folks - guest services needs "tapu"

Almost every ride has a 2+ hour wait; repair folks on standby everywhere

It's a beautiful park but they opened to soon for "full capacity" - more soft openings would have been the way to go.

Just look at social media accounts of folks here now who aren't happy:

https://twitter.com/chady70/status/868182635767623684

https://twitter.com/j3yoda/status/868171374858293249

https://twitter.com/scottiewithers/status/868166051648987136

 

[Liljo22]

I honestly think the Virtual Queue is never going to work as UO intended and probably will have to have major tweaks to it. There always need to be a standby line because it fills in the space between the VQ and EP riders. Every time the Tapu reads a wait and there is no one actually riding the slide, that is a major fail on the system. Every time a guest has to sit in the wave pool waiting on a 2 hour queue while other slides are short waits, that is a major fail on the system. UO probably needs to use Tapu like they use the one in the parks that would give you the same wait as the ones in the standby line and then they entered in the express pass line.

 

[soniam]

I think there is always the option to just pick a different ride and get out of the virtual line you are in by simply visiting that ride's Tapu station. And I've also heard that the "ride now" Tapu stations would not boot you out of your current line (have seen reports, but haven't seen it verified by multiple people yet)

To be totally fair, it's opening weekend on a holiday weekend for a very highly anticipated water park. I think if anyone is going in there with the expectation to be able to ride every ride in one day, then perhaps their expectations are set a bit too high. Wouldn't be surprised to see the park hit capacity closure tomorrow and Sunday.

Also saw a report from someone in my AP group that arrived after five yesterday and rode an even dozen rides with the longest Tapu wait being about half an hour. Like most water parks, I think the waits at Volcano Bay will peak early in the afternoon and then die off, even when it is busy.

If I Tapu's a ride and it said it was a six hour wait, I think I'd just have to go find something else to ride. I'm not waiting for six hours to see anything. Lol!

We are here too. Get to the park as early as you can or buy unlimited EP.

 

[DLgal]

This is what happens when you rush an opening. This park should have soft opened for a couple weeks to test out this virtual wait tech. It is obviously a failure if a slide has literally NO people in line but a 2 hour virtual wait.

This will last a week, tops, before they ditch it and go to standby lines. The word is spreading fast on social media and it's not good press.

 

[gotomu212]

This system makes no sense to me. Basically I'm tied up to a ride the entire wait time, even if other rides are good to go?

The only way I could think to explain it to my family is to say just think of it as getting in the standby line-don't think of it as a fastpas- but you're basically tied up in a line except this line allows you to wander around a grab a drink or swim. Just like you can't stand in 3 normal lines at the same time you can't stand in 3 virtual lines.

I personally don't love the concept because I think more people get in virtual lines than would stand in a standby line (for example when a ride hits 60 minutes to stand there more people walk away so you're chance of having to actually wait for 60 probably goes down--but with a virtual line I think more and more people sign up so now you get lines over 2 hours that you get in the back of). I get why some people would prefer it over standing in an actual line but I honestly prefer standing in a queue than walking away trying to kill time.

 

[rastuso]

As I thought, VB is a disaster, which is such a shame. People should be fired over the decisions made. The open back of the Volcano makes this a very standard park, with no special rides at all. I have yet to hear a lazy/torrent river report and if they go through themed areas. I must assume there were MASSIVE budget cuts to this park taking it from a truly next level park as it was advertised to just another water park, with a fatal flaw.

TapuTapu is a horrendous idea. Especially with Express Passes available. Essentially, you can't visit this park without EPs at this point. They need to greatly lower the EP sales, and the gate max. Obviously both of those will hurt the bottom line, but it just won't work. The same would happen if you could buy FPs at Disney. Plenty of people would pay $20 an FP for the Pandora rides this summer. It would create a similar disaster though.

The BIG thing they missed, that I saw was going to be disastrous, is the psychological effect. Many people will pass on a line that is long, and look for one that is shorter, even if that is for a lower thrill ride. If there are no lines (theoretically), then everyone will get in line for the best rides. So all the big rides will fill up to capacity quickly. And most folks don't visit a waterpark all day, especially in Orlando in the Summer. It's too draining. So a 5:30 ride time is worthless to many waterpark goers at noon.

I think they majorly overestimated the ride capacities. Yeah, they have 4 and 6 person rafts, but what is the average rider number per raft? Probably only 3, unless they are forcing half naked people to squeeze together, which VERY few parks do. Many of the rides seem VERY short too, so there is no payoff really. Like 20 seconds of ride time. Looking at all the slides, assuming 3 per person on the rafts, and singles on others, and 30 second dispatch average, I think 50 riders per minute is about it (not including the water coaster). THat's 3000 riders per hour, using VERY favorable estimates. Real world could be as low as 2000 per hour. THat means in a 10 hour day, they could only be giving 20,000 rides. How many people are they going to pull a day? At least 5000, meaning you get FOUR rides a day, plus the coaster, if you're lucky. That is crazy. Yeah, a lot of those numbers are pulled out of my you know what, but I think they are pretty reasonable. And again, everyone will wait for the big rides. Why not? If you finally get a chance to pick your next ride, are you really going to pick a standard bodyslide over the bigger slides?

Plus, many will be afraid of the 3 volcano drop slides, lowering overall capacity again. Those slides should be standby only.

I'm curious what they do the last hour of the day. If no one waited around for their Taputapu time, will the ride really operate at reduced capacity, essentially waiting for people to show up?

It's sad, but Universal completely botched this park, and I am a big Universal fan, spending more time there than Disney every trip.

J

 

[bobbie68]

Hi, I have to agree with other posts. I love Universal and will be going later in the summer. Volcano Bay is what is drawing us there. When I first heard of the Virtual Que system I knew there would be problems with wait times running out. I figured there would be stand-by lines. When they mentioned no stand-by lines I knew it was going to be a major problem. I also agree they should have never went to a full capacity opening just yet. They weren't ready with this new idea. I don't know what they do at this point because from what it looks like there is no set-up to add a stand-by line if they wanted too. I really don't know how the kinks will be worked out but I hope they do. Universal is going to have to find a way to improve the concept of the tapu tapu to manage this park. I hope they figure out something fast.

 

[rastuso]

Looks like they are doing damage control on Twitter, telling complainers to contact them. Wonder if they will start coughing up some refunds to the vocal.

 

[havaneselover]

We're due at UO in late August for seven days. I will be getting my kids to Water Country (Williamsburg) this summer in case Volcano Bay is still a disaster. Sort of sounds like some of these issues are hard to fix.

 

[damo]

Maybe they will just need to get rid of EP at VB.