Edwardo wrote:Yes they do make money from faster dispatches. Less time spent in line means more time spending money on food and in shops.
But this also requires more time dealing with lockers (many people have more trouble with them than they do with bins). We can't say absolutely whether it will or will not increase the amount of time spending, as it depends on how much of their time is saved in the line versus the amount of time required to buy a locker (Obviously this will vary a lot depending on the person, how busy it is, etc.) and of course depends on how much they are willing to spend at the park anyway (many people go in with a set amount of money for food, games, and souvenirs that won't change if they're spending less time in line).
The cost at Wonderland for Guardian's lockers (which were an afterthought when they realized how awful the capacity of the ride is) is like two dollars for two hours, three dollars for three hours, which really is very little and just serves to deter people from using them for the whole day or using three when they could use one. I can't stand it either, and I usually end up finding alternative solutions (Cedar Point: Returning to the day lockers we had already gotten whenever necessary. Wonderland: Returning to the car to put stuff away whenever going on Guardian). It's just not good guest service to have people pay for bringing things with them in the park or having bought things in the park earlier in the day. As an example, if I have to pay to get a souvenir bottle at the park, and then pay to store it every time I go on one of these rides, I don't have as much incentive to buy a souvenir cup. Same goes for stuffed animals, ride photos, etc. Also, on really hot, sunny days, if people can't take drinks with them into the line, you are going to have people passing out in your lines! Health concerns, decreased incentive to purchase things, and dissatisfied guests.
And what about people who aren't wearing clothes with pockets? They're taking their phone with them into line and putting them in their bags to throw into a bin, but now they have to leave it in a locker or give it to someone in their group who does have pockets (groups of teenage girls wearing short-shorts with virtually no pockets are a prime example). If you separate people from their phones, more unsatisfied guests and you had better provide amazing entertainment while waiting! Guardian's line is partly indoors, but requires lockers because they don't really have enough space for bins, the station design makes it difficult to get to them (where they used to be), and it has horrible capacity! Millennium Force also requires it because they have separate load/unload stations. B&Ms do not have these problems so with these, it does seem to be a poor choice and feels like just a cash grab. It's helping capacity where there's no issue! And besides, increased capacity should not cost the guests anything! In a perfect world, we would have a system that lets guests put their items in the bin on the load side and somehow manage to retrieve them from the unload side so that it doesn't have to be a mad scramble of both people getting off and getting on fiddling with the bins, but I do not think lockers are a good solution. The park should deal with the less capacity as the guests do.
[END RANT]
