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2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

Wouldn’t touch fireworks this year after the utterly dreadful experience I had 2016. Very concerned for scare fest though, we are booked for the first weekend which is normally quite quiet but given operations and queue times this season could turn out to be horrible
 
Here's what'll happen:
* Scarefest will be an absolute farce.
* Fireworks will be completely unacceptable.
* We will all spend closed season moaning about it.
* Then next year, everyone will still clammour to buy MAPs in the sale.
* A week after that, they will announce that the park will never open midweek again and Only be open midday to 4pm.
... At this point everyone will start throwing their money at the park as they book hotel stays for the opening meet. :rolleyes:
 
The Alton Towers season pass was the worst thing I have done in 2018, there was no way I was getting another MAP after all the cutbacks but I was enticed by the Alton Towers season pass and its very good price.

However in 4 visits this season the highlight of the day has been the breakfast at Waitrose in Uttoxeter, seriously btw as 3 days were appallingly bad. The other day was decent but nothing more than that.

No more trips planned for 2018 and at this moment in time I can't see me willing to go in 2019 either unless things improve drastically.
 
Graham73 said:
The Alton Towers season pass was the worst thing I have done in 2018, there was no way I was getting another MAP after all the cutbacks but I was enticed by the Alton Towers season pass and its very good price.

However in 4 visits this season the highlight of the day has been the breakfast at Waitrose in Uttoxeter, seriously btw as 3 days were appallingly bad. The other day was decent but nothing more than that.

No more trips planned for 2018 and at this moment in time I can't see me willing to go in 2019 either unless things improve drastically.
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Wow that sucks! Too crowded? Too many people and too many cutbacks sounds like the main problem. To be honest I probably won't return until another new coaster opens, since I live in Scotland I might as well explore some new parks instead. Since nowhere is close enough to go in one day.
 
I am on park today and queues are an absolute joke. Not only has nemesis been unavailable all day, and there have been considerable closures throughout the day, queue times are staggering, and especially for a midweek in September. The queues today are worse than I’ve seen in summer holiday weekends. It's clear that Merlin’s cuts are starting to have a big affect on park operations and guest experience- is this how they’re trying to draw guests back into the park?
 
Billionaire'sShortbread said:
I am on park today and queues are an absolute joke. Not only has nemesis been unavailable all day, and there have been considerable closures throughout the day, queue times are staggering, and especially for a midweek in September. The queues today are worse than I’ve seen in summer holiday weekends. It's clear that Merlin’s cuts are starting to have a big affect on park operations and guest experience- is this how they’re trying to draw guests back into the park?
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Sounds awful. Have they extended ride close today do you know?

EDIT:

Looks like they have extended to 5pm.

:)
 
speedy said:
Wow that sucks! Too crowded? Too many people and too many cutbacks sounds like the main problem.
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It wasn't busy in all honesty, shocking ride reliability and cutbacks were the biggest problems.

Once we waited nearly 2 hours for Wickerman with just around 40 people ahead of us in the queue after they reopened it.

Another thing to consider regarding today's shambles is that a lot of days this season they've been giving free returns and fasttrak out like confetti. Now I'm guessing the returns may not be for Scarefest?

If that's the case with so few non event days left where people will think it's quiet it could go a long way to explaining today.
 
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Let's just pray whoever has done their guest forecast today stays well away from weather forecasts. Otherwise we'll have a predicted winter with glorious sunshine and temperatures of 35C plus....
 
Park wasn’t busy at all today. The queues were horrendous and reliability was an issue. Wickerman and Th13teen on two trains. Nemesis didn’t even open til gone 1oclock. We got evac’d from the smiler queue went to Th13teen which then went down, decided to go and do galactica, 55 mins on no VR??? I can only assume that was on one station, headed up to RMT to find it stalled just before the tunnel it was gone 11 and CRR was dry! That was our 19th visit this season and the worst one yet, I understand rides break down that’s fine however the park wasn’t busy at all and that’s what frustrates me!
 
Just got home from Alton Towers. I was initially sceptical about booking for today given the reduced operating hours, which I was hoping would be extended - this was done by late morning if I remember correctly and was most definitely needed.
  • Th13teen and Rita both running well - staff seemed to be moving quickly and efficiently and the queues were constantly moving whenever I saw them.
  • Hex was good, although the doors in the first two pre-show rooms did keep closing on people before they'd got into the rooms - not sure why that was as I'm not really sure how they operate.
  • Oblivion was running one station, a shame considering the queue was far in excess of the 25 minutes it was being estimated at - operations weren't great and trains were banked on the brake run.
  • Spinball had two bouts of downtime whilst I was queuing, all the cars stacked up along the brake run, Technical Services were there within 5 minutes and the ride was running within 10, the same problem happened again and this was instantly solved by Technical Services who had waited for a while.
  • Wickerman had some great operations, glad to see the restraint issues have finally been remedied. I'm so impressed by this ride, especially given that I was disappointed at the start of the season, it was way faster and far more enjoyable this time. Only complaint was that they were packing the pre-show room too much, people were being pushed behind the screen so they could not enjoy the pre-show, and there was no room in the station so the doors kept closing on us o_O
  • We saw the new boats on the Rapids, but I don't think there are any more than two on the circuit at the minute, we had an old-style boat and there were still no waterfalls. More like a lazy river than rapids nowadays. Disappointing.
  • I was surprised by Duel, we walked in and the ride had just gone down in the station, it was stopped for around 5 minutes with everybody waiting, then it started again without the need for Technical Services, although from what I could see it was stop-start once we got off. Not sure if this was for accessibility when loading / unloading. Lots of broken targets, and a few of the timings are off (notably the figure before Electric Bill), the spider scene is too dark and half of it couldn't be seen, mechanics are still visible.
  • We then queued for Galactica and waited a good 20 minutes before being told that there was no VR available for the remainder of today due to "a minor temporary problem" - disappointing as others wanted to try this. Only one station with a 50 minute queue.
  • Nemesis had re-opened by the time we left and we had a ride on that, I must say dispatches seem to be slower on this than ever before - not really sure why.
  • Also interesting that Skyride did not open until 12pm today, or at least that's what the signs said...
There were definitely some problems today, as has been said above, The Smiler took forever to open this morning, as did Nemesis. Th13teen defiantly needed an extra train today, as it seemed to be in high demand after its period of downtime. The whole VR system on Galactica needs sorting, they need to make sure they say from the start whether it is open or not, and those queues need separating!

The Park didn't seem very busy today, but they only just seemed to be coping - I understand the downtime on Nemesis and Th13teen throughout the day, but not so much the Smiler as that was sat idle for a fair amount of time this morning, and we missed ERT. I was impressed with the Technical Services remedies on Spinball. I was also pleased about the extension of queue closure, but it should really be 5pm anyway, especially if they want to keep operations the way they are.

We had a good day, operations could've been improved, but we got a fair few rides done - not sure I'd have been too happy coming in as a full-price ticket holder.
 
Poopoohead said:
Wouldn’t touch fireworks this year after the utterly dreadful experience I had 2016. Very concerned for scare fest though, we are booked for the first weekend which is normally quite quiet but given operations and queue times this season could turn out to be horrible
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Fireworks was far, far better in 2017 than 2016.

They have capped the numbers for starters.

If the park are staffed up to deal with 15,000 - they can deal with 15,000 well. If they aren't they won't.

I am confident the park operations at SF and Fireworks will be fine.
 
A real mixture of a day today,

Arrived at 10am. By 12 only did two rides, Hex and Oblivion. Thirteen, Nemesis and The Smiler all down.

Much better afternoon though, eventually those 3 opened and queues for the rest of the rides seemed to soak away. Rita was advertised at 25 mins but we got in in 10. Same story for Spinball, advertised at 20 mins, but got on in 15.

RMT, Rapids and Duel (as usual) all walk on. Nemesis queue was out of the gate, but said 20 minutes in the afternoon, but we got on in 10 minutes.

We saw one poster advertising staggered openings, so it seems they're back.

All in all got 2 rides before 12pm, but 11 rides between 12 and 4pm. So bad morning, good afternoon,
 
Their twitter and facebook was bombarded as was guest services tonight
We managed 18 rides today but that did include octonauts and the carouselo_O
 
Laura91 said:
Their twitter and facebook was bombarded as was guest services tonight
We managed 18 rides today but that did include octonauts and the carouselo_O
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Eighteen rides (even including Octonauts and Gallopers Carousel) is really a pretty good number of rides for one day – especially with the amount of downtime / poor operations that seem like were effecting the park today.
 
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