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2016 Entry Pen

Ben

Ben

TS Founding Member
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Your Dad
After looking at todays opening day photos one thing I simply cannot understand is the new pen at the park gates to hold people.

Why?

If you are a non ERT guests you used to be able to wander towers street and now you are stuck in a horrid, cramped waiting pen, like some sort of 2nd class citizen.

What a great first impression, please pay your £50+ and stand in a confined space, outside the park.

Surely giving people the actual space of Towers Street was better, chances are the might buy a coffee, grab a bite to eat (if the outlets weren't all closed).

Also the 'rope drop' while not a disney event was quite entertaining and made and event of the day when people ran off to rides etc,

If you rant the park and had the option of cramming people into the smallest space possible or welcoming them into your park and the entry are what would you pick?

Whoever chose this deserves a good kick and clearly never visits the park. idiot.

 
Ben said:
After looking at todays opening day photos one thing I simply cannot understand is the new pen at the park gates to hold people.

Why?

If you are a non ERT guests you used to be able to wander towers street and now you are stuck in a horrid, cramped waiting pen, like some sort of 2nd class citizen.

What a great first impression, please pay your £50+ and stand in a confined space, outside the park.

Surely giving people the actual space of Towers Street was better, chances are the might buy a coffee, grab a bite to eat (if the outlets weren't all closed).

Also the 'rope drop' while not a disney event was quite entertaining and made and event of the day when people ran off to rides etc,

If you rant the park and had the option of cramming people into the smallest space possible or welcoming them into your park and the entry are what would you pick?

Whoever chose this deserves a good kick and clearly never visits the park. idiot.
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I loved standing in the pen , I'm such a pig , oink !

But yeah not a great welcoming back to the park at all :/
 
I really do not inderstand why they've done this. What was wrong with having a staff member at the entrance to the areas for just ERT guests eh?

Merlin are not doing themselves any favours.
 
Seems to me like they're creating the perfect opportunity to open up some of the disused turnstiles as a premium Fastrack park entry option. :pensive:
 
Seems pointless. People in a pen cant spend money. Walking people will buy fasttrack, merchandise, coffee etc. By merlin standards this is just backwards logic. They use every opportunity to rape is of our money but when they have a legit chance....no..cattle pen us
 
Maybe it's another part of pushing people to book online. Don't know how it would encourage people to come back and book online though.
 
Didn't like the pen, completely pointless, having to show your pass twice, once to gain entry to the pen and the again to be scanned to exit the pen into the park.

Wan't allowed into the pen until 10 minutes before the gates open. The only thing that it does do and that is stops you from talking to the staff.
 
Has it been there all 3 days?

Can only wonder if it was done to make the place look busy for media being their usual vultures wanting to make the place look empty maybe?
 
e4kenndr said:
Has it been there all 3 days?

Can only wonder if it was done to make the place look busy for media being their usual vultures wanting to make the place look empty maybe?
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It looks like it's been there all 3 days. It was used this morning when I arrived.
 
I would guess it's to save money, opening towers street requires around 10 staff to man the barriers, this doesn't.
 
Dave said:
I would guess it's to save money, opening towers street requires around 10 staff to man the barriers, this doesn't.
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Seem odd 10 staff at £7.50 per hour is £75. Surely they would make mire than that opening it. The likelihood is the staff will be onsite working and being paid anyway so you may as well open and make some contribution to your overheads. Just doesn't make sense
 
JB1985 said:
Seem odd 10 staff at £7.50 per hour is £75. Surely they would make mire than that opening it. The likelihood is the staff will be onsite working and being paid anyway so you may as well open and make some contribution to your overheads. Just doesn't make sense
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It doesn't just cost £7.50 an hour though, there is employers national insurance contributions on top, plus depending on the terms of their contract they might need overtime paid or extra breaks if working long days. Yes it might feel quite simple to open Towers St early, but if they aren't opening Towers St Grill at all then it doesn't make any sense to open early as the cost of extra staff would be higher than the income.

I think just opening the turnstiles at 9:50 and keeping everyone (except ERT) outside the turnstiles completely would be fine. (But then I'm not sure what the current system is).
 
It's 2016. Why can't the turnstiles be updated and the tickets altered so that those eligible for ERT are allowed through (along with AP holders) and those with tickets not eligible for this simply can't get through?

It would save all this faff.
 
I don't think staff knew what was happening on Saturday morning. The park obviously opened at 9am and after entering a few of us decided to venuture in to Towers Trading (it was about 9.15am at this time). As we wandered in, a woman who looked like the store manager came up the other way asking us to leave as they weren't yet open! Apparently Towers Trading was opening at 9.30am and she said that for some reason "they'd opened the park gates early". So it would appear that the retail manager of Towers Trading was not even aware that the theme park opened to guests at 9am!

Opening/ERT procedures at Towers seem to change multiple times through the season so it wouldn't suprise me if the pen is gone in a few weeks. Saturday morning was the longest it has taken me to get into the park in a long while. Towers really need to sort out entry for annual pass holders; I still think it is crazy that they cannot be used on the main turnstiles.

:)
 
Rob said:
Towers really need to sort out entry for annual pass holders; I still think it is crazy that they cannot be used on the main turnstiles.

:)
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Do they not? I could have sworn they did! At least when I last had an AP a couple of years ago anyway.
 
LiamC said:
Do they not? I could have sworn they did! At least when I last had an AP a couple of years ago anyway.
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They did, then they didnt't for a while, then a couple of years ago they did again, but for all of last season they didn't. It's crazy, especially when you have a lot of annual pass holders trying to get it but only two gates. You can be in quite a long queue to enter whilst there is no queue for any of the turnstiles!

:)
 
Used my pass on turnstiles scarefest, but couldn't yesterday. No idea why.

Cam see ert being cut next year tbh
 
I think they stopped allowing APs to just be scanned as it means no-one is checking the photos. I assume some people were sharing a pass and just scanning allowed them to do that.
 
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