It never fails. I drive to one of Orlando’s many fantastic theme parks, park, hop out of my car, speed walk up to the turnstiles, pick what appears to be the shortest line, and inevitably deal with…

Theme Park Entrance Turnstile Slowness

Let’s examine the various possible reasons for a theme park turnstile line moving entirely too slowly:

1. Invalid/Expired/Swapped Tickets – This is the #1 culprit of the most time-consuming individual holdups at the turnstiles. Guests regularly show up, stick their ticket in the machine, only to be denied entrance to the park. What ensues is usually a small argument between the guest, who is often overtired and over-budget, and the turnstile attendant, who is often overtired and bored out of his/her mind. Ultimately, after the attendant explains to the guest no less than five times why the ticket doesn’t work, the guest takes his family and storms off to guest relations to throw a hissy fit.
2. General Confusion/Incompetence – Ever since theme parks moved from physically marking tickets with ink stamps to electronically-read tickets, there is a subset of visitors that simply can’t figure out how to stick their ticket into a slot to enter the park. They’re likely the same people who still write checks at grocery stores. To add to the seemingly-baffling complexity of the situation, theme parks somewhat recently introduced biometric readers onto which guests must place a finger to ensure that a ticket is used only by its owner and not traded around. Of course, this makes the entire process 100 times more difficult for those who have trouble simply sliding a ticket into a slot. The system is designed for the index finger, yet some guests insist on using every finger except that one. Some guests just ignore the finger scan completely, running full-force into the non-moving turnstile bar – an embarrassing act that is generally followed by an angry glare directed toward the turnstile attendant.
3. Tickets Not Ready or Accessible – Let’s see… you’re walking up to the entrance of a theme park. What should you have ready? Oh, your cell phone. No, wait – your soda! No, that’s not it. A ha. Your sunscreen. Actually, it seems like in the minds of far too many theme park visitors, the ticket to get in is the absolute last thing they would ever think to have ready, in their hands, when approaching the turnstiles. Instead, mom has to open her theme park survival fanny pack and sift through tissues, lip balm, ponchos, and thirty other random personal items before finally finding a ticket. Of course, it’s not the right one, so she has to then dive into the backpack that’s sitting in the otherwise empty stroller that doesn’t even have a kid in it. What is so hard about getting tickets out in advance? 
4. One Person Holding Way Too Many Tickets – Of course, there’s always that family with the mom or dad who is the ticket god, responsible for keeping the whole family’s tickets together at all times out of fear that little Susan will lose hers or little Billy will smother his in ice cream. The problem there is that too many of these ticket gods forget to write names on the tickets or can’t keep them organized in any way. So they had a stack of tickets to the turnstile attendant while they push their kids through, wondering why the turnstile bar isn’t spinning as the attendant tries to figure out who is who.

I’m sure there are many more reasons why there are so many holdups at theme park turnstiles, but these seem to be the biggest offenders. My question is: Why do I always choose the line that has all four of these types ahead of me? There really should be separate lines for those who know how to use tickets and those who don’t. Then yet another section for those who actually know how to use tickets and aren’t just pretending to out of pride.

But in reality, everyone should be able to get through a turnstile in no more than 10 seconds. So anyone out there that’s heading to a theme park soon, follow these quick and easy steps:

1. Approach the turnstiles
2. Select a line
3. While waiting, get your ticket out and hold it in your hand
4. Do nothing else but wait for your turn, making sure your ticket never leaves your hand
5. When you reach the turnstile, place the ticket in the slot (or if there is no slot, hand it to the attendant)
6. If there is a finger scanner, place your index finger on the scanner and remain motionless until you are directed to move through the turnstile by a green light or the attendant. (If, for some reason, you didn’t use your index finger the first time you used your ticket, use the same finger you used last time)
7. Grab your ticket as you pass through and clear the area so the person behind you can keep moving

It’s really not that hard.