Major Operational Changes for 2018

[themeparkfan]

What cuts are they introducing at the London attractions? as they were really quiet when we went last year! Far quieter than AT but that's logic for you I bet this is some stupid model based on a computer algorithm on how to operate rides cost effectively.

I renewed our MAP's yesterday at a cost of £517 for the 4 of us and i regret this now....i was in two minds anyway

The days of hot footing around the park getting on most rides int he first couple of hours are gone

And only opening the rapids from may is a disgrace the queue for RMT will be horrific and one of my kids is under 1.4 so them 2 rides played a big part in our day

Not happy

Is there not a cool off period for a full refund? It's not activated till the first visit. That would be the ultimate complaint and a few guys asked for that I bet merlin would notice!

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[John]

A thought on staggered openings, presumably part of the reason for this is that maintenance budgets will have been cut such that it is no longer possible to get most of the rides ready for opening time. This suggests that they will also be more prone to ride downtime, unavailability and running rides on low capacity.

I also noticed that the wording on the website now states that the park closes 1hr after queues close, could this be a sign that wicker man (and possibly other rides too) could close early to ensure the queue is no more than 1hr at the nominal queue close time?

 

[themeparkfan]

A thought on staggered openings, presumably part of the reason for this is that maintenance budgets will have been cut such that it is no longer possible to get most of the rides ready for opening time. This suggests that they will also be more prone to ride downtime, unavailability and running rides on low capacity.

I also noticed that the wording on the website now states that the park closes 1hr after queues close, could this be a sign that wicker man (and possibly other rides too) could close early to ensure the queue is no more than 1hr at the nominal queue close time?

The g**s that was my idea of a protest to recommend people to start queueing at 5;55, 4;55 or 3;55 to make a point

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[Benjsh]

Having already bought a £55 pass (and badly regret that decision now) this will definitely be my last year at AT for a good while I'd say. With the next few years being low to no investment years I really can't see a reason to go back anymore. In fact if I could get a refund on the pass I bought a few weeks ago I would do.

Can only see it going two ways for the park. Merlin to sell it off or it will eventually close. I just can't see them recovering now when I foolishly thought they might.

 

[Lurker]

It's their way of encouraging people to view the gardens, and ensuring people take the time to look at the restoration works.

"No rides open? Long queues, visit our gardens, only £5 per person, per hour extra charge!"

On the annual pass Facebook page they are claiming they have no information regarding Alton towers opening times, and that it's too soon to know when the park doesn't open until march. They recommend e-mailing [email protected] , as they aren't based at towers, so couldn't possibly help.

 

[Croftybaby]

if I could get a refund on the pass I bought a few weeks ago I would do.

Try your luck at getting a refund. If they refuse then go to the press.

On the annual pass Facebook page they are claiming they have no information regarding Alton towers opening times, and that it's too soon to know when the park doesn't open until march. They recommend e-mailing [email protected] , as they aren't based at towers, so couldn't possibly help.

Forbid any customer who want's to make an informed choice about visiting while planing a family break based on the parks operating hours. It's insulting to treat customers in this fashion.

"We are open/Closed Take it or leave it" - Will leave it thanks.

 

[Benjsh]

Try your luck at getting a refund. If they refuse then go to the press.

Yeah they're non refundable so I can see how that is going to go. Hahahaha

I'm just going to keep them and go purely to experience Wickerman as it will only torment me if I don't. Get a good few rides in on Nemesis too as they maybe my last ever ones who knows (that's seriously depressing thinking about that)

 

[GaryH]

I dont see how they advertise short breaks at the moment, with all these closures, no announcement on opening times or days, treetops closed,.... its very sly.

I wonder how Mr Varney would feel if he booked a summer holiday to a 5 star hotel, only to arrive and be told its actually closed on a Wednesday, he cant have any drinks until after 12, he cant have any food until 1pm and not after 4pm, oh and the swimming pool is closed all year. His first response would be - well, it didnt say all this on the website. Towers are essentially doing the same at the moment.

Edit - just noticed all references to Treetops have now been removed from the official website. Sad, I quite enjoyed that.

 

[Austin Towers]

Had to check this thread again this morning as I thought maybe I'd just had a bad dream and there was no way they would do this to their customers. I then checked my bank account incase Merlin had charged me for dreaming.

I've now resigned to the fact that customers are just an inconvenience to them.

 

[Inferno]

All this bad news, and now this...

Teletubbies' Tinky Winky actor Simon Shelton dies aged 52 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42788001

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No seriously, I’m a long time lurker on here and thought I’d throw my opinion in.

Had an annual pass up until last season, when I actually gave up on Merlin... visited one Merlin park, Thorpe at Fright Nights... and had no desire to return to any other Merlin establishment at all...

Got to say I am so sad to see the park in this mess. Towers is such a fantastic place with so many happy memories.
I know this is a stupid thing to say, but it’s always been “my place” - so many childhood memories, and happy times right up until recently, even memories made with my now wife! Alton towers has been an enormous part of my life and has brought me so much happiness over the years.
To see it how it is at the moment is devastating.

There is literally no point in traveling to Alton towers for me now - it’s just not worth it at all, for the amount of time available in the park, and rides available.

All the fun and excitement is being sucked out of the place. Merlin have gutted it.

I really don’t fancy standing in a 3hr queue for wicker man with almost EVERYONE on park at once, then following a route around the park determined by Merlin’s schedule...
That’s not a fun day out to me...

To see such a reaction on forums such as these is actually so so sad, this is absolutely not what theme parks are about.

Merlin are an absolute joke of a company - perhaps their shareholders are realising this??

 

[IanSR]

I can see them reversing some of the decisions made, seems to be the case every year...

That seems to be a popular trend of recent, announce draconian cuts / insane changes, then roll back the most unpopular ones based on feedback, everybody rejoices and forgives.

I blame Ian Duncan Smith for this particular trend as he started it when he was at the DWP, everybody else has just copied it, Merlin, Tesco, FIA, NASCAR etc.

 

[Mi-Nigle]

Now that the news has sunk in, I've moved from sadness to anger to utterly dumbfounded.

They are admitting that they lose money if open too long. I find it hard to understand how this is a solution and I can only see a sheer downward spiral, especially when you take into consideration the general consensus from initial Facebook comments. People simply won't turn up. It is an ill considered reflex to diminishing profits and if it works in any way at all, it will be very short lived.

On the subject of the possible intentional "leak" to force Merlin's hand towards a revision... It did cross my mind at the time and I would love AT to be fighting our corner on this but I simply can't fully believe that that's what happened.

 

[ringo]

Wicker Man will open at the start of the season, unless it burns down before then!

That’ll be a Merlin world first wouldn’t it, first thing to open ahead of announced date

 

[neil-R]

I thought this would be a comeback year for Alton Towers. After all, with a new ride its an opportunity to come out with all guns blazing (no pun intended). But what do you know, they screwed it up.

Explains why those season passes were so cheap though doesn't it.

 

[Sauron97]

Even if it was fully reversed if they were to realize what a monumental **** up this was, they still did it and were willing to go through with it. The UK theme park industry will fail unless we get change soon; it's turning in to a diseased, monopolistic, disgraceful, under performing mess. And it's all because of one company.

 

[jmc]

Bottle necking guests into very limited areas of the park for the first 2-3 hours. Encouraging everyone to flow around the entire park in a very similar fashion rather than dispersing across as they please at the beginning of the day. Result = longer queues. Unhappier guests. But more Fastrack sales for Merlin of course (!!)



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[Funcone]

All of these decisions are reversible, particularly at this stage. However it’ll take more to reverse these decisions than just a meeting.

Let’s take the rapids as an example. If there is an early heat wave and long lines of people queuing up to complain about the rapids being closed, it’s not like a manager can just say, ‘go and fire up the rapids’.

Each year the rides are stripped down so that parts can be inspected and replaced where necessary. If there’s an early heat wave but parts of the ride’s in pieces, then they can’t open it. It might be that the external ADIPS inspectors who check the ride aren’t booked in until a certain date, although there would be flexibility here, particularly as Merlin are such a big customer in the UK, companies wouldn’t want to upset them. If they started the strip down late, because they weren’t expecting it to be open for the start of the season, then they might have found problems later than they would in a normal inspection schedule. This means parts would have been ordered late and might not be ready for fitting.

Then there’s the training the operations team need. These days ride operators can have quite long training time for a ride like the rapids. I’m sure if push came to shove they could get it open quite quickly if people’s jobs depended on it, but getting a ride opened quickly is a logistical challenge. After the Drayton Manor accident they certainly won’t want to rush the process.

I assume part of all of the changes is to cut down on staff. Engineers are expensive, so how many engineers have they lost? By cutting down ERT and opening some ride at 12 it gives the engineers a much bigger window to complete their morning checks. This means they probably don’t need as many engineers, although I don’t actually know that they’ve cut the number of engineers. They might not have done. If they have cut the number of engineers, then to bring ride openings forward might require more engineers again. Recruiting and training engineers can be a very slow process.

Decisions can be reversed and we’ve seen it before, but if the main reason is to cut staff, then once the staff have been lost you can’t just magic them back.

 

[Benjsh]

Won't be long until they charge you extra for the SRQ and that will be it for me as I always use them. Smiler is practically always a walk on on SRQ as is Blivy.

 

[Inferno]

They might as well just go all the way through with what they want... run it like a Dungeon...

Have everyone in a big group, then just walk from one ride to the next...

If they only had one group, they would only need to have one ride open at a time!

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There are so many things they could do that would actually save money and make a lot of sense...

For example,
- self service ticket machines / gates at the entrance,
- bin off the idea of 2for1 “vouchers” as such, and just allow users to redeem discounts online - this would reduce the need for so many staff at the ticket counters and also help with crowd predictions.
- closing all the ‘manned’ baggage holds in the queues, and having sliding cupboards in the stations (a la Thorpe),
- reducing the staff stood at the queue entrances on the rides (the other parks don’t have this... why do Towers need it?)

These are all sensible cost-saving ideas...
Why do they need to keep half the park closed?!

 

[RoyJess]

Won't be long until they charge you extra for the SRQ and that will be it for me as I always use them. Smiler is practically always a walk on on SRQ as is Blivy.

Don't give them ideas

They might as well just go all the way through with what they want... run it like a Dungeon...

Have everyone in a big group, then just walk from one ride to the next...

If they only had one group, they would only need to have one ride open at a time!

and don't you give them any more ideas

I think the wicker man has gone to Alton's head, they herd you onto the Wickerman first thing in the morning and then they turn you into sheep, because once you get off, all you can do is follow the crowds around the park