Kinda late on this pricing scheme discussion as I’ve had a double whammy of working long days and not being notified of new posts on this thread, but I’m putting in my 2¢ anyway.
Like I’ve said earlier, charging for early entry…erm, excuse me, early ACCESS is idiotic. Some posters brought up some points I didn’t think about: this will add an even bigger traffic jam to an already hectic crowd situation. There’s going to be people getting shut out of the lines and having to get their tickets scanned for early access. That’s going to cause a huge mess.
Also, while getting flashbacks from last year to the terrible express situation which I’ll address shortly, I didn’t think about them ramming through Express while we’re all waiting. They sure as heck BETTER not allow any Express until the event officially starts at 7. Like, c’mon now. They have Express. They’ll be fine. If I’m having to shell out more cash for early entry, I better not be stuck there in a frozen line watching Express be constantly dog-piled in. If I’m having to pay for early access, I better see Express very limited on entering at the very least. I’m paying $10 to get a head start to get all the houses done, not to get stuck waiting for all of Express.
We all know the terrible Express situation last year. I remember last year I saw maybe 50 people at the very MOST in the general entry for Halloween despite it saying 80 min. What should’ve been a ten minute wait at the most ballooned into 45 min despite there being so few people in the regular line. Why? They froze the general line and waited until Express was completely empty to let general budge at all. When the Express was finally emptied out, they let a handful of standby people in, only for three Express people to show up, freeze standby again, and let Express through…then two more….then five more trickled in….then they let some media people through….then they let the entirety of Express dog-pile in after letting media have a buffer. We were stuck for 20 min without moving an inch and it was MADDENING. I really hope they don’t do this again.
The more I think about this, the more I dread going opening night. We only have two confirmed houses so far, but it’s looking extremely likely we will have at least two, if not possibly THREE heavy-hitting IPs on the lower lot. That is going to be a pain trying to figure out a gameplan and that is certainly going to cause a massive pinch to ops. This whole paying for early access is going to cause a massive headache with ops and screw over the guests, especially if they pull the same crap as last year with hammering Express through the houses.
I guess the only silver lining to this new pricing scheme they’re doing is hopefully there will be enough D/N suckers to blow their precious time at SNW to where it may help with crowds. You would be surprised how many people I know want to go to HHN just to do rides and maybe one or two houses. It blows my mind that you would prioritize rides that will be there all year but not houses that will be there for a couple of months and likely never see them again, but that’s how they are. Also at least we are supposedly getting a show in Water World and that venue will be an amazing people suck.
