The sun may have forgotten to put his hat on for, what felt like, the majority of the summer, but the quiet period did afford the Xperiology team a well-deserved break to indulge in some family holiday time. This year, we made the brave decision to visit not one but five visitor attractions, back to back in a week; Chessington World of Adventures, Legoland Windsor, Thorpe Park, The Natural History Museum and The Science Museum – with a very excited 7 year old in tow.
Ever the event manager, I spent the week before researching tips on how to avoid the queues, the best time to arrive and even the least expensive cafes on-site – like with Xperiology’s events, I was leaving nothing to chance.
I discovered that many of the attractions now offer some rather nice ‘virtual’ queuing and ticketing options, which we hope to showcase at Ticketing Technology Forum 2016. Historically these ‘queue jumpers’ have come at quite a steep price and have been something that the majority of family’s can’t justify – Legoland’s cheapest option was £15 pp – so it was refreshing to see Thorpe Park offering virtual queuing for their most popular rides, using your smart phone, completely free of charge. Download the app on entrance, tap a few keys and enjoy queue-free thrill seeking all day, if that’s your kind of thing.
Seeing as not everyone in our little family of three is enamoured by the idea of being thrown around at 60mph, it really helped the day’s logistics for Daddy to be able to hop on a ride at the scheduled time without the need to split up for hours – well played Thorpe Park, you get my vote.
Of course, no family holiday is complete without some good old family snaps – but this year, we decided to do things a little differently. The game: try to look as bored as possible on the ride when the camera flashes and then run excitedly to the photo counter to see how you did (whilst receiving some very strange stares from those around you) – the result? Well, see for yourself… trust me, it’s a lot harder than you might think!
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