Europapark wants to change that with a modern system

Thanks to your smartphone, you can save yourself the annoying queue – at least sometimes. (Image source: stock.adobe.com)

Anyone going on holiday to Spain should perhaps visit the Port Aventura amusement park this summer. This season, a new, virtual system will be introduced for the park, which is intended to avoid annoying queues – and which you may already know from Europapark.

The basic idea is simple: Instead of actually physically standing in line for a roller coaster, you register for it via a mobile app. And while you’re virtually waiting for your ride slot, you can just do other nice things like eat something or use a less frequented ride.

The system is called Virtual Lane and it is initially called at a single attraction Hurakan Condor tested. The basic idea based on your cell phone sounds promising, even if it is not new. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Android or iPhone – in contrast to the following experiment:

Virtual queues in Europapark

Virtual queues were introduced in Europapark in Rust near Freiburg in 2020. According to the official website, they can currently be used for six rides there.

The following scenes from a Tiktok video that attracted a lot of attention with over 600,000 views show how much queuing you can potentially save yourself:

Quelle: Tiktok / @denjomusic

In order to be able to use such systems, the official app from the respective amusement park and registration are usually required. You also have to activate location sharing for the app, because this is used to determine whether you are really in the park.

Never have to queue again?

Thanks to cell phones, waiting virtually instead of actually standing in line sounds like modern progress. The extent to which this can work can only be judged to a limited extent on the basis of previous tests.

After all, it is a different matter whether a (more or less) new system of this kind works for a few rides or whether it applies to all attractions in a theme park. Quite apart from the question of its popularity, which has a strong influence on how many people use the system. And the more people do that, the less good it might be.

The most reliable (and obvious) tips for avoiding long waiting times in amusement parks should therefore still be the same as ever: If possible, avoid peak times such as weekends and public holidays – and also go there when the weather is less good.

Have you ever used such a virtual queue in an amusement park or do you know a similar system via mobile phone app from areas other than amusement parks? Would you also be willing to pay for the shortest possible waiting times, as is possible at Disneyland via Premier Access? Or don’t you mind waiting a little longer? Feel free to write it in the comments and join the discussion!