Lake Compounce recently unveiled the Speedy Pass skip-the-line. I recently tried the service,
so in this video, I'll review how well it works and help you decide if it's worth purchasing.
Speedy Pass is a skip-the-line system Parques Reunidos has implemented at several of their
parks. At Lake Compounce, it's currently not available for any of the dry rides. It just works
for 4 attractions at the Crocodile Cove water park, although the park says more are coming.
Those attractions are the recently refurbished Storm Surge body slide, the relatively new Venus
Vortex tube slide, the Riptide Racer mat slide, and the Croc-O-nile lazy river.
The limited ride availability is why the price point is so low compared to most parks.
Like many parks, there are different tiers that are dynamically priced,
similar to the Six Flags parks. With the standard tier,
you virtually wait as long as the actual line. This costs $10-$20 depending on the day.
With the platinum tier, you wait half the actual line. This costs $15-$25. The elite tier lets you
enter the queue almost instantly. This costs $30-$40. The cheaper prices are on weekdays.
Then you pay $5 extra on weekends and $10 more on holidays.
Alternatively you can purchase single shots for $6.50-$8.
So how does the system work? You can either use a dedicated website on smart phone
or rent a waterproof wristband identical to the ones at the Six Flags parks.
The latter has a $50 refundable deposit. I recommend this method since it's easier
than carrying your cell phone with you on a water slide.
Quantities are supposedly limited, but very few people used it the day I visited,
so it wasn't in danger of selling out. You have 3 ways to buy the service.
One, you can buy it at least one day in advance on Lake Compounce's main website.
You then get a QR code you redeem at the Chuckles gift shop by the main entrance.
You can then select the wristband or phone option once redeemed.
Two, you can buy it the day of at the same Chuckles gift shop.
Three, you can buy it on www.lc.speedy-pass.com the day of.
Now how much time does it actually save you? Depends on the ride. Because these attractions
weren't designed with Speedy Pass in mind, they aren't as fast as some other parks.
Venus Vortex is the water park's most popular slide. With Speedy Pass, you get to skip the wait
at the base of the tower for a raft. This wait can take 30-40 minutes on busy days.
Once you have the raft, you typically only have a 10-15 minute wait on the tower.
To ride Riptide Racer, you grab a mat at the runoff.
Then there is a queue to access the tower. This can back up on busy days and take 10-20 minutes.
Speedy Pass gets to go right onto the tower, where you'll only have to wait another 5-10 minutes.
For Storm Surge, both regular and Speedy Pass guests enter the lighthouse and climb
the flight of stairs. At the top, regular guests wait in a line to the right around
the rim. This can take 20-30 min due to the slide's low throughput.
Speedy Pass guests have a separate gate to the left that gets them right on.
The one downside with this set-up is if the regular line backs up onto the stairwell,
Speedy Pass users will have to either awkwardly go past others or just wait a little extra.
Croc-O-nile is one of the rare lazy rivers where you have to wait in a queue for a tube
on busy days. With Speedy Pass, you get a tube immediately. I've never waited in that queue
so I don't know how long it takes. It's worth noting this won't save you any
time on the tube slide attached to the lazy river. That has its own dedicated queue.
So is Speedy Pass worth it? I think it is if you plan to spend a lot of time in the water park.
While there are limited rides available, the price point is
so low that it's a worthwhile purchase. Will Speedy Pass expand to the dry park? I
wouldn't be surprised. The one hiccup is that the pre-existing attractions have queues that
won't make it easy to append a Speedy Pass line onto. If dry rides like Boulder Dash or Wildcat
get Speedy Pass, I'm almost certain you'll have to go up the exit. I also would be worried about
the hit to the capacities of the park's coasters since they all run just one train and have really
low throughputs. But as I saw at the Parques Reunidos parks in Europe, this chain doesn't seem
to mind. And if this were to happen, I imagine the price would increase significantly. For example,
Kennywood has a Speedy Pass on their dry rides that costs 3-4 times as much.
So those are my thoughts on Speedy Pass, Lake Compounce's new skip-the-line pass.
What are your thoughts on the system? Have you used it? Let me know in the comments.
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