What makes a queue perfect?
Okay, I imagine many of you right now are saying, "being empty." But I am not talking about the number of people waiting in a line. Let's focus on the physical structure of a queue and what makes it perfect from an operations perspective.
We could talk about the aesthetics and storytelling potential of queues — and those are important. But the primary function of a theme park queue is to manage people while they wait to board an attraction. If a queue fails to do that, it can't be perfect. So let's start there, with operations. And let's limit this conversation to physical queues, ignoring for the moment very real debates that we could have over virtual queues and reservation systems.
I started thinking about queues again when I was writing my newspaper column this week: If the COVID pandemic was managed like a Disney ride. In it, I wrote that the difference between good and great workers are that good workers can manage a crisis, while great workers prevent them from happening in the first place.
My go to example here is from working on Walt Disney World's Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, where the best cast members deftly managed families with anxious children. Disney rules prohibit dispatching ride vehicles with crying children on them, so we wanted to get potential criers out of the queue and off to the side until they were relaxed and ready to ride.
The design of a queue can help operators anticipate and manage potential problems with guests. When I worked Thunder and Pirates of the Caribbean, I very rarely actually needed to ask you how many people were in your party. I already knew. With experience, load operators stop focusing on the party directly in front of them and learn to see deeper into the queue.
Queue design can help that, of course. At Disney World's Magic Kingdom, guests approach the load platforms at Pirates and Thunder by walking down relatively long ramps that allow loaders a good view of approaching parties. That allowed me time to figure out who was with whom and whether anyone was going to be a problem. Were there kids who looked like they did not want to be there and might start crying? Were there women who might be pregnant? Or children who might be too short to ride?
But at Disneyland, guests walk up a staircase to the Thunder load platform, robbing cast members of the chance to see deeper into the queue. On Star Tours, the queue makes a hard turn around a blind corner just before load. I can't imagine how cast members on those rides can see anyone in their queues before they reach the load point.
That's a lost opportunity for proactive guest management. To me, a perfect queue allows operators to see who is coming. And it includes other aids, such as handrails or stanchions measured to the ride's height requirement, so operators have another visual reference to double- or triple-check a child's height before boarding.
And let's not forget accessibility. A perfectly designed queue should be accessible, so that persons with disabilities and their companions do not miss any of the queue experience or are put at any advantage or disadvantage in wait time. But the perfect queue also enables ops employees to get those parties onto the ride without missing a beat. Again, visual notice of approaching parties helps, as do alternate load stations where guests with disabilities can take the extra time they need to get onto the ride without slowing or stopping dispatch for others. Disneyland's Space Mountain looks like a great one to me on this account.
I would love to hear from other readers who have worked ops as to which queues they love and which ones they hate, from an operations perspective. And for those of you who have not worked in a park, which queues always seem to flow well for you? Let's talk about best practices in queue design, in the comments.
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It's frustrating when you are in a wheelchair and you have to skip a well themed queue. I understand the logistics and that I why I don't like it when a ride depends on it's queue to tell a story. It should put you in the world but it should be skippable.
I have often though that if you use the Fast pass you miss out on the Queue and anticipation of an attraction.
Of course, depending on your level of patience and scheduled vacation time, skipping the regular\stand by line is also a great argument.
I do enjoy Skull Island Queue.
But at the same time I do not enjoy some little kids nervous Farts at Disney....
I think most of us outside of the industry looks at a queue in terms of how it moves, keeps us entertained, and keeps us comfortable. We like to have something to look at (preferably themed to the ride) while waiting instead of iron railings that we often get at our local parks. Shade and air conditioning is a definite plus, too, as is a single rider line (even if it bypasses much of the queue).
I think Robert provides an interesting perspective from someone who has worked from inside the parks. Things like line-of-sight for the workers helps them identify those who may be too short (or too large) to ride and be able to group riders together so those waiting in line don't see empty seats on the rides in front of them. These things that a park worker can do can help the queue become more enjoyable as well even if we park goers don't realize that it is adding to the enjoyment.
Robert, do you sometimes find yourself looking at a queue more for its setup rather than just enjoying it as your everyday park-goer does?
Fantastic read today, thoroughly enjoyed. I'm a fan of open queues, such as Big Thunder and Frozen. There are some, such as sections of Little Mermaid, and Fastpass of Navi River, that almost seem claustrophobic as you get into the narrower cave sections, especially when really crowded. Space Mountain is pleasant, as it seems pretty open when you're in the initial narrower single track sections. And I could listen to that melodic music for hours. I many times listen to it on a two hour loop on my computer while I work. It's lovely.
@TwoBits sums up my own thoughts. I know the WDW Haunted Mansion redone queue gets flack but it did work for me with fun touches like the busts of the murderous family, etc. There has been a shift for more entertaining type intros to get folks interested (Universal excels there) and that's far better than the old, just standing and reading a book while waiting for line to move.
This is one of my favorite topics! Which may be why I don't have many friends but still. . .at last. . .a chance to pontificate!
Back in the early 80s, the book "In Pursuit of Excellence" cited Disney and Disneyland workers specifically as great examples for management and design. For a brief while, "Line Psychologists" got a little bit of fame and discussed how--for example--with Space Mountain you wanted to always hide how far away you were from the loading zone. MikeW mentioned it above. You could see a little bit ahead, and measure your progress against the people around you, and you'd always reach a little goal and feel accomplished, and that helped you to feel better about the experience. Even if you turned that corner and saw a new part of the line inside, you were now extra committed, because you'd achieved the goal of getting to that corner.
It's been fascinating to me to see the queues become more and more themed over the years. Big Thunder opened in Disneyland with that beautiful scenic area with the switchbacks, then "Star Tours" blew me away with that amazing indoor spaceport. It had--gasp--audio animatronics to see! Now we get to walk though Hogwarts, and encounter magical snowstorms for crying out loud.
The lines are so cool that we feel cheated if we miss the queues! (O T points that out above and I fervently agree.)
It's been interesting to watch the legacy attractions cope with the changes in queue culture. Some are more successful than others.
Adding FastPass lines with merge points often results in missing substantial areas which had been designed to hold people. The merge point in Star Tours at Disneyland, for example, is often regulated such that people don't get to spend any time in that awesome first room. There's all sorts of funny, cool, geeky, scene-setting stuff going on in there. R2D2 and C3P0 are in there! But we don't get to appreciate it.
Indiana Jones suffers with this too. Good grief, that expansive underground temple was designed to hold hundreds of people and freak them out with the sounds and the settings as they slowly wound through the labyrinth. You'd inch from room to booby-trapped room and read the Maraglyphics and feel really nervous. Now you just rush past it all and don't have time to push the support pillar or pull the rope. All lost due to a dopey merge point.
Single Rider queues are a great idea and--when attractions are designed for them, they increase throughput and that's theme park bliss. However, Single Riders can be hit or miss in the legacy attractions when their lines were squeezed in after the fact. In my experience the Single Rider line for Space Mountain often gets ignored at Disneyland. It has a really odd placement behind the attraction loaders.
"Rise of the Resistance"is the new level. It addresses FastPass and Single Rider (it doesn't get to use them yet but it WILL be able to at some point. Probably. Maybe.) It incorporates a "ride" into the queue in fact. It's difficult to define where the queue ends and where the ride begins. At some point, the queue transports you so far into the story that it is full-on entertainment in itself.
I have to say I'm looking forward to the queues for Super Mario World. I wonder-with those interactive wrist bands--what you might be able to do while waiting in line.
@mikew & @twobits say it pretty much perfectly.
But since I feel like typing something, I am going to say exactly the same thing again :)
the examples I give aren't meant to be the best versions of a queue, but more an example of the most basic version of what I mean. I mean HP & Forbidden Journey is an amazing queue, but it is complicated, and not practical for most rides.
for me it is simple...
The queue needs to keep moving, one of the reasons that big thunder isn't a bad queue is it keeps moving almost constantly.
the view needs to change. Buzz is a good example, not huge amount in every room, but the scenery changes enough to keep you amused.
@Will: Whether one spends time in a queue or not is personal preference. While new queues are amazing, my ultimate goal is still the ride itself. I often will go through the queue one time, then re-rides are done with FP+ or single rider lines where available.
Having said, that, there are some rides that I have never seen the queue. I have never gone through the regular queue of Expedition Everest or Peter Pan's Flight. I know I really should on PPF because of the improvements made after the expansion, but it is still a notoriously slow moving line and I have always been able to use FP+ on it.
All great points being made here with some insight sprinkled in as well. I can not be engaged in a conversation about best queues without mentioning air conditioning. That is a must. Waiting in line, no matter how awesome the queue, is still just standing there but when you are exposed to the Floridian or Southern Cal heat well that makes the experience even less. Most queues are covered but those such as Radiator Springs Racers and Slinky Dog Dash have no indoor portions which sucks.
When I worked at Cedar Point, my ride was the Giant Wheel. As that ride can't operate if it is improperly balanced, checking out the people in the immediate line in terms of "weight profiling" (there's no easier way to say that) was a necessity. Also the number of people in line dictated how many gondolas of a particular color group would be loaded. We'd arrange people in ways that didn't always mean we were maximizing the ride capacity... but the once sentence we all grew tired of saying that summer was "it's for balance."
@TwoBits: Agreed. If I have the ability to FastPass I'll happily use it. But it's neat that there's some curiosity about the new PPF line area. I have the same experience.
Whenever I go to Universal Florida I always end up with the express pass. Which is awesome. But I still feel a little curious about missing the "Allspark" in the Transformers Queue and/or experiencing the full creepy/scary setup of "The Mummy" and I've never seen the whole "Men in Black" "Worlds Fair" preview. But still--there ain't no way I'm giving up my Express Pass!
What's not cool though is in cases like "Indiana Jones" in Southern California. Because the queue and attraction are set in a weird pinch point and were designed just before FastPass came into being, a lot of the cool queue work gets skipped by everybody. Disney has to make the standby people wait outside in an annoying, hot switchback queue because they can't engineer a closer merge point. If those standby people could instead be standing by in that long interior highly themed portion of the experience, it'd just be a nicer experience for everybody.
"Peter Pan" is interesting in Florida, isn't' it, because that new area was developed after FastPass specifically to hold and entertain the Standbys. It's a delayed, but an intelligent response to the changing queue culture.
John's note above about the weight profiling at Cedar Point makes me think of the fairly discreet scales built into the launch areas at Volcano Bay. I like the assist that it gives to the employees, but I still don't envy them their job.
the first themed queue i can remember was ET Adventure at USF...i could be mistaken, but rightly or wrongly i give it credit as one of the first and it started a much needed trend. it still stands as one of my favorite queues today
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Great article as I recall several past attractions where ques could be a bit confusing even as a guest, just as you thought near the end, turn a corner to see a larger wait area. Disney has improved them a lot over the years to make them better and a good effort.
As much as I love past EPCOT Center, I admit it was a tendency to be boring with some ques from World of Motion to Spaceship Earth. At least Horizons passed paintings of cities but others dull. I did enjoy Living Seas with its "evolution of sea exploration" in both real life and movies/TV shows leading to the preshow area.
Star Tours at Studios is good from Ewok village to the robots chatting with guests to set the tone and mood of things nicely. Also, I recall Six Flags Great America's Batman the Ride which starts in a nice, clean orderly park then moves to seedy back alleys to show the striking difference of Gotham City.
Other good ones:
* Dueling Dragons telling the story of the dragons and touches like two knights, one frozen solid, the other burned to set the mood.
* Obviously, the Potter rides are genius but also enjoy Spider-Man setting it up with story and Easter Eggs for Marvel fans.
* Tower of Terror in any incarnation nicely sets the mood up with the hotel.
* MiB with clever touches on the movies and aliens among us.
* Everest with looks at legends of Yeti and past expeditions, real and imaginary.
Those are off the top of my head but the way some ques help set up the story of the ride adds to the experience.