Originally Posted By magnet I'm going to prove the statements I made to Barboy in post 137. >>>You cannot optimize the operation of more than one queue at a time for any single attraction. The maximum benefit of a queue's operating design (virtual or standby) can only be achieved by making it the exclusive queue of the attraction. It is only possible to minimize the average wait time for EVERY guest by having them ALL wait in the same queue. FastPass is a failure because it is a two queue solution. The only way to perfect the virtual queue is to force everyone to use it, and this is undesirable because it limits rather than enhances accessibility to attractions.<<< I will now show that mixed queue (virtual and standby) operation can be reduced to an inequitably run single standby queue. Therefore the FastPass setup is inherently inferior to a single conventional standby queue. Stated another way, the FastPass system, which comprises dual virtual and standby queues, is equivalent to a single standby queue in which people are allowed to cut in front of others. Now, before you get all indignant, mousermerf, notice carefully what I said. I did not say that FastPass guests cut in front of the standby guests. This statement cannot be made. However, I can show that the FastPass system is equivalent to a single queue system where people ARE allowed to cut in front of others. The difference is that in the FastPass system, I cannot set an absolute queue position between guests in different queues. Therefore, there is no cutting. There IS still inequity, but I can't show it for a specific guest relative to another specific guest. If I reduce the scenario to a single queue, then I can use the queue rules to show exactly who is getting an advantage over whom. So, let's imagine the following scenario. Let's imagine that there is a single standby queue for Big Thunder Mountain and that the queue is designed so that the entrance to the queue is right at the ride platform. The queue then loops through several switchbacks and returns to the ride platform where people exit the queue and load onto the trains. There is one entrance to the ride, so one queue. Let's look at the FastPass setup now. What do we currently have? Well, in the best operating circumstances for a given percentage of operating capacity, we have enough people entering that FastPass queue in order to fully use the devoted capacity and no more so that no line accumulates. Everyone who does not have a FastPass ticket must enter the standby queue. Let's say for this example that 50% of the ride capacity is devoted to FastPass. So, every other train is devoted to servicing the standby guests at the front of the queue. We can modify the single queue setup we just described in a prior paragraph in order to continue the same FastPass system without creating a second queue. Here's what we must do. We must modify the single standby queue so that 50% of the trains carry away guests who spent no time waiting. Here's how we do that. One train comes in and people load onto it in the same way all standby queues work, from the front of the queue. OK, here comes the difference now -- when the next train comes through, we load it differently. No one from the front of the standby line is allowed to board. Instead, we shut off the entrance to the standby queue and load onto the train from the back of the queue as many people as will fill the train. These people spent no time waiting and there are always enough people to fill that train, while the rest are left in standby. Since the entrance to the queue is right at the ride platform, they just walk directly onto the ride. There, I've reduced the FastPass system to a modified single standby queue where we load from both ends of the queue. Furthermore, this modified standby queue is run inequitably because for every other train we allow people at the back of the line to cut in front of all the people who have been waiting. No one can argue that this modified standby queue is fair to those who have been waiting. But, you might say, this does not actually re-create the FastPass system because people can only get a FastPass every two hours. In the scenario that was just created, someone could conceivably be lucky enough to be at the back of the line every time and so never wait. Fine, let’s fix that problem. So, we’ll fix that by saying that when every guest enters the park, they’re given one FastPass ticket to every FastPass enabled ride. These FastPass tickets have no time printed on them and are only redeemable if you happen, by chance alone, to be at the back of the standby queue when loading occurs from there. You give the CM your ticket to board right then and you’ve redeemed your FastPass for that ride. Everyone gets a FastPass and has an equal chance to redeem it, but not everyone will succeed for every ride. Once you’ve redeemed that ticket, if you happen to be in the back of the line again later when boarding occurs, you will have to continue on into the standby queue because your ticket is gone. In fact, I think my FastPass system is even better than Disney’s FastPass setup! In my system, everyone is given a set of tickets as they enter, so no dispensers are required. You could even do away with the tickets altogether and just tie everything into the admission ticket. Also, there is no time printed on the ticket, so there are no more arguments about when the guest can enter the FastPass queue. FastPass redemption in my scenario is a lottery process. (I’m sure my imaginary system would have plenty of its own problems too, so I’m not trying to re-invent FastPass. I just mention those differences in passing without being very serious about them). Nevertheless, even with this perhaps better system, the operation of the equivalent standby queue is still wholly unfair. What is happening in this situation is that the people who wait in the standby queue are being forced to wait the time that the guest at the back of the line would otherwise have been asked to wait. Since there is only one queue now, I can point at this person and say the time he would have been waiting has been shifted to other people closer to the front of the standby queue. The result of operating the standby queue in this way is that some guest wait times are much, much longer than others. This is worse than the first in, first out (FIFO) conventional standby queue, because in that queue everyone waits the same average time and so it is minimized as much as possible, within capacity constraints, for every guest, not just select groups even if they are randomly chosen. We can also show that the mixed queue setup is worse than a single virtual queue as well. That case is much simpler because if everyone is forced into the virtual queue, then no one waits any time at all. Wait times are zero for everyone. However, the single virtual queue must give everyone equal opportunity to ride the same number of times. Therefore limits are imposed on guests as to the number of rides they get and when they can take those rides. This is the trade-off between the virtual and standby queues. With a single virtual queue, there is no queue wait, but also no freedom to choose when to ride or how many times to ride. With a single standby queue, there is total freedom to plan and to ride whenever and as many times you desire, but the cost is the queue wait for the ride. Personally, I shudder at the thought of a mandatory virtual queue for rides. It is more efficient and equitable than the mixed queue system, but I value the freedom that a single standby queue allows so much that I couldn’t stand to see it taken away. I also despise the way standby has been polluted by FastPass, and now have shown that this mixed system in any incarnation under the best circumstances is still inferior to the traditional FIFO standby queue. The only way to minimize the wait for every guest is with a single queue. Any system incorporating mixed queue operation, even under perfect operating conditions, will cause inequity in wait times among guests who all paid for equal access and so is an inferior system to a single traditional FIFO standby queue or virtual queue. The best solution is to decide whether one prefers the traditional standby or the virtual queue and then go with it exclusively.
Originally Posted By mickeyboy43 "OK, the other aspect of this discussion that keeps surfacing is that, "If I have a FastPass, I have priveleges above those without one." This is the type of dangerous thinking that is spoiling the whole system and that I'm finally fed up with. The type of response I get for speaking against it from someone who feels this way is that I'm just lazy. See, here it is again -- I'm less of a guest because I don't have a FastPass, and really it sounds more like I'm less of a person. That's very disturbing to see this system twist people's minds in such a way." This sounds more like a manifesto against the changing mindset of people these days. you cant change what people think, and this does not illustrate a problem with the system. The argument has also been brought up repeatedly about a broken ride earlier in the day. Disney gives pseudo-fast passes out after a ride has broken down to all people in line. Therefore, a lot more people will be in that line later in the day. The let all fp'ers ride at all costs thing makes sense here, because it allows all the time-framed people to ride within their time and be given a quicker trip thru the line as their FP promises.
Originally Posted By magnet >>>This sounds more like a manifesto against the changing mindset of people these days. you cant change what people think, and this does not illustrate a problem with the system.<<< There is a problem with the queuing system, and it does affect how people think. You can see many examples in this thread of the ways in which it influences people’s perceptions about themselves and others. >>>The argument has also been brought up repeatedly about a broken ride earlier in the day. Disney gives pseudo-fast passes out after a ride has broken down to all people in line. Therefore, a lot more people will be in that line later in the day. The let all fp'ers ride at all costs thing makes sense here, because it allows all the time-framed people to ride within their time and be given a quicker trip thru the line as their FP promises.<<< I think it’s pretty clear that the discussion in this thread has moved beyond what happened Sunday a week ago. Given what has been discussed since then, it’s baffling how you can pick up an idea like, “let fp’ers ride at all costs†from earlier in the thread and throw it back down here. It’s as if you’ve just watched me chop a snake to bits and then burn those bits to ash because I hate snakes, and then you run off, get another one, and drop it at my feet saying, “Watcha’ think about that?†How many times and in how many ways must I disembowel FastPass in front of you?
Originally Posted By mickeyboy43 Look, I can think of dozens of negatives about the FastPass system. The only real positive is that a small number of park guests who know how to use the system well will get on more rides. Everyone else won't -- and I don't think Disney should be structuring their parks to cater to that group." you make a strong point. Back when the system was first installed in '99, people were just using it as they came to it, now people understand the system and maximize their ridage and "take advantage" of the less informed or more lazy people.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost ^^^^or the less than type A personalities that do not see the need to run through everything at warp speed. It's not all dumb and lazy.
Originally Posted By dsnykid I could live with or without fastpass... when we were at DL 2 weeks ago we used it for Soarin' and Indy, and quite frankly didn't feel the need to use it anywhere else. I don't think it is the complicated system that many on here seem too, and yes if you are determined enough it can increase the number of rides you can go on. In all honesty I don't mind the lines, I enjoy visiting with people and looking for hidden mickeys throughout the queues. but I also don't resent anyone who chooses to use fastpass, and I guess I really don't understand why people have their panties in a bunch over it. I don't know anyone personally who structures their day around collecting fastpasses, but I also know enough about the system that when we do use them we also get passes for GRR at the same time we get them for Soarin'.. and until this last trip i never knew that you could come back after the time stated, so I always followed the time on the pass and if we missed the window, oh well, life went on. I really don't see it as the end of life in the parks as we know it; that would be the over cartooning....
Originally Posted By mickeyboy43 "">>>Magnet - though you're obviously denying how time and space functions on the matter as well as all known forms of reality:<<< OK, I’ll march around the walls of Jericho yet again…. You said, “…if all the people in the FP queue and the standby queue wanted to ride the attraction then the wait time would be exactly the same without FP.†Then again you said, “The long standby waits would be just as long without FP.†I gave you an example clearly demonstrating that your conclusion is false. The first statement is false because with FastPass, some guests waited zero minutes and other guests waited sixty minutes, but when FastPass was closed everyone waited thirty minutes. So, neither the FastPass guests nor the standby guests were waiting the same amount of time as they did while FastPass was operating. Your second statement was also false because I showed that the wait time of the standby line was actually shortened significantly by closing FastPass. The total time required to move all the guests through the queue did not change by closing FastPass, but the wait times of all individuals DID change. Since it is the individual’s wait time that is of concern to us, something meaningful was altered. So, you are the one who should stop denying reality. >>> stop saying they arrive after you, they return after you after having been there once. They got there first. They are not cutting in line.<<< You also argue that the one who enters the FastPass queue when another enters the standby queue deserves to ride first because he visited the attraction ahead of the other one to get the ticket. However, there are two queues, not one. One’s position within a queue only makes sense within that queue. Therefore the accusation of line cutting is undefined. I’ll illustrate this for you: Let’s say that there is a ride with a standby queue, and on your way into it you take note of a stranger who is standing there outside the queue watching the people enter. You go on in and wait for one hour while the stranger leaves to ride another attraction. All of a sudden, as you step to the front of the queue after waiting one hour, the stranger comes running up the exit ramp of the ride waving a ticket, points at you, and says to the CM beside you, “I was here at the attraction before that person, and I demand to ride before him.†Would he be allowed on the ride? Of course not, because your rank in the standby queue is determined by how long you have been continuously present and waiting at the attraction, not by holding a special entrance ticket. OK, let’s go back and do this scene over again. Now you’re going into the FastPass queue for the ride and this time the same stranger follows you directly up the queue and when you get to the CM at the loading ramp the stranger says, “I was standing here at this ride for one hour before this person showed up, so I demand to ride before him.†Would he be allowed on the ride? Of course not, because your rank in FastPass is determined by when you logged into a virtual queue and received a special ticket, neither of which the stranger did. So you can’t compare the figure of merit for one queue to that of another. Your argument is comparing apples to oranges. Also, what happens to your argument if the FastPass machines were located somewhere far away from the ride pavilion? Then you actually may not be arriving at the ride before the standby rider did. See, you picked something arbitrary (the location of the FastPass dispensers), coupled it with a figure of merit that only has meaning for FastPass (logging into a virtual queue), and assigned it universal significance for both queues. There is no coherence or sense to what you argue. You try to apply a rule (first come, first served) that has a distinctly different meaning in both queues and say that its meaning in one queue should apply to the other. So, the issue has nothing to do with line cutting. The emphasis on BEFORE and AFTER in my example was to mark the relative simultaneity of events for the purposes of calculating the wait costs standby guests were forced to endure by the implementation of FastPass. It was to help those following along realize how I was doing the calculation."" But this entire example defines the very idea of fastpass. ON many of the in-house commercials, it describes fastpass as doing the waiting for you. This is what it is meant for. If the person standing in the stand-by line for 1 hour did not get a fast-pass, then that is his problem. The other person, while not physically in the line, was in the line via fastpass, waiting for his turn. If this concept is applied to Splash Mountain and others, it might be seen that someone was standing in line for you for 6 or so hours until your FP time arrives.
Originally Posted By mousermerf This is getting ridiculous - i'll admit right now i didn't read most of the posts since my last post. Fact-o-life: Attractions have an operational capacity. Only X-number of people can ride within a certain time frame. This is no averaging of zero wait time and 60 minutes. That's incorrect math. If it takes 1000 people 60 minutes to ride "Stitch's Craptacular Fiesta" then it continue to take 1000 people 60 minutes to ride "Stitch's Craptacular Fiesta" It does not matter if 80 or 20 or 30 or 45.6 percent are FP guests. 1000 people take 60 minutes to ride the Captacular. All 999 of 1000 people FP or not had arrived at that attraction prior to you. It will continue to take you 60 minutes to get on the Craptacular regardless of FP.
Originally Posted By mousermerf "Small percentage of guests" - HA! Find a single person on these forums that hasn't used FP if they've been to a Disney resort since it began. Find one, I dare you. Small percentage my arse.
Originally Posted By mickeyboy43 ""There is a problem with the queuing system, and it does affect how people think. You can see many examples in this thread of the ways in which it influences people’s perceptions about themselves and others."" I was actually talking about the mindset of society in places outside of Disney in my post. I was trying to bring the point across that society has morphed. People have a different view of what life should give them. gotta stop typing now before I stop studying for a massive hard Chemics test and English Test.
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<I gave you an example clearly demonstrating that your conclusion is false. The first statement is false because with FastPass, some guests waited zero minutes and other guests waited sixty minutes, but when FastPass was closed everyone waited thirty minutes. So, neither the FastPass guests nor the standby guests were waiting the same amount of time as they did while FastPass was operating.>> As it has been pointed out, the math is faulty. The length of a queue is dictated by the hourly capacity of the ride, and by how long guests are willing to wait. Getting rid of a FP queue does not automatically make the line shorter; a 60 minute stand-by queue doesn't suddenly become 30 minutes. A single line does move more efficiently (because a CM doesn't have to do any metering), but only maginally so.
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle >>Find a single person on these forums that hasn't used FP if they've been to a Disney resort since it began. Find one, I dare you.<< Yeah, I have to agree with this. I don't really believe that only a small percentage of Disney World guests are adequately using FP while the majority of people wander around clueless. We went to WDW in December 2000 (at this point I never visited any Disney sites like LP and it was also my first trip to WDW) and we saw the Fastpass icon on the map. We had a read, asked a couple of questions to a CM who was near one of the rides and have been using it ever since. It's really not that complicated a system, especially if you ask someone for help. I've had a couple of guests see us using it and ask how you do it, so even if there's not a CM around, most people could find someone to help them if they can't figure the system out by themselves. There are plenty of reasons why people use the standby queues that have nothing to do with not knowing how the system works. Besides, the same people who say that only a fraction of guests know how to use the system, and everyone else is inconvenienced are the same people who say their wait time in the standby line is a lot longer because of the hordes of Fastpassers zipping through ahead of them. Surely if SO few guests know how to use FP properly, the standby line would be virtually unaffected?
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA <This is getting ridiculous - i'll admit right now i didn't read most of the posts since my last post.> I didn't read your posts either.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost >>>Find a single person on these forums that hasn't used FP if they've been to a Disney resort since it began. Find one, I dare you. Small percentage my arse.<<< You're kidding right? You can't possibly think that when the word minority has been used it was meant in a historic sense. Of course, many more people have used it at one time or the other over the history of FP. We have been referring to a given specific day (whatever one that might be), but that said, I'm not sure that it can be proved that it isn't still a small percentage of overall guests. The reason why we know that, on any given day, it is a minority using them, is because that is what Disney will distribute. I think that is tough to argue about.
Originally Posted By demderedoseguys >And tourists not knowing about FP? Whatever. Do the sprint to Soarin in the morning at Epcot and become educated yourself. Guests more then aptly understand how the system works. < That's the point. Why should anyone have to sprint through the parks to make sure they get a good FP? That's not vacation.That's like running to catch a train on a work day. If you're at the MK, you miss all the excitement entering the park, seeing the castle, strolling down Main St and the general beauty of the park as a whole.
Originally Posted By Goofyernmost ^^^^^Amen to that! Or in the probable words of demderedoseguys..."Amen to dat!"
Originally Posted By magnet >>>yes if you are determined enough it can increase the number of rides you can go on.<<< No. You cannot ride FastPass attractions more times with FastPass. It limits the accessibility of those rides. >>>But this entire example defines the very idea of fastpass. ON many of the in-house commercials, it describes fastpass as doing the waiting for you. This is what it is meant for. If the person standing in the stand-by line for 1 hour did not get a fast-pass, then that is his problem. The other person, while not physically in the line, was in the line via fastpass, waiting for his turn.<<< Again, you cannot judge the operation of one queue using the rules of another. That was the point of my post. Having both operate at the same time does create inequity in guest accessibility to the attraction. Glad to know that you thought I gave a good representation of FastPass, though. >>>Fact-o-life: Attractions have an operational capacity. Only X-number of people can ride within a certain time frame. This is no averaging of zero wait time and 60 minutes. That's incorrect math. If it takes 1000 people 60 minutes to ride "Stitch's Craptacular Fiesta" then it continue to take 1000 people 60 minutes to ride "Stitch's Craptacular Fiesta" It does not matter if 80 or 20 or 30 or 45.6 percent are FP guests. 1000 people take 60 minutes to ride the Captacular. All 999 of 1000 people FP or not had arrived at that attraction prior to you. It will continue to take you 60 minutes to get on the Craptacular regardless of FP.<<< I performed no incorrect math within my example! If it takes 60 minutes to move 10 people through the ride, then each rider averages a wait of 6 minutes. If we use FastPass to erase the queue wait time of half of those people, then the remaining 5 must wait an average of 12 minutes, or double the time. In both cases we have 10 people and a one hour interval. In the first case, everyone waited six minutes and in the second case 5 people walked onto the ride as they arrived and the other five waited 12 minutes each. Again, you still don't understand FastPass. Because the ride capacity is fixed, FastPass can only reduce the queue wait time of some guests by forcing others to wait it for them! >>>As it has been pointed out, the math is faulty.<<< No, you’re wrong. The math is fine.
Originally Posted By Mr X No, actually the math is a bit faulty. Think of it this way, if there were no fastpass theoretically those holding said FP's would've still arrived before you (the standby sucker) and you'd still be waiting "behind" them. As it is though, you're only "virtually" waiting behind them because they essentially secured a line "reservation", and when their alloted time is up they show up and stroll past you.
Originally Posted By barboy In response to the morning sprint to EPCOT'S Soar'n: "Why should anyone have to sprint through the parks to make sure they get a good FP? That's not vacation.That's like running to catch a train on a work day." Now, you do know FP or no FP, guests will sprint to the most popular attractions especially in the morning----it's been going on for many years prior to FP.("Rope drop" madness) And I agree with you that running to catch an attraction is not vacation-like.
