Nice of them to do, though I wonder how many people bought gold passes during the flash sale?
I imagine a lot. It seems like every time we fly out from vegas this year (about once every month or 2, the gold early entry line grows each time. I was having to get there earlier each time to still get in with the crowd. It looked like there were probably 60 or so people this time. (Versus the 10 or so earlier this year). When the scanners were new, I was around number 20 in line, and ended up getting in after half the GP did...
I know other parks have done similar things. Knotts does it all the time, but to really enjoy that perk, this is a change that was needed. I'm hoping this will be permanent...
By their nature finger print scanners are very slow to read correctly. What really adds to that time is when someone brings in a new season pass to be processed. Then that has to be processed at the scanner. All the information goes into the scanner. Finger prints need to be scanned. A card needs to be issued and signed. Times this by how many people have new printed out passes and you can see why the gold pass doesn't work with more then 35 people.