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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-25

Danscott22 said:
Add Runaway Mine Train to the list I posted the other day of rides that have been closed for at least a day. I'm not buying into this "it's early season, it's expected" stuff either, the park is closed for 4 months and we are nearly 2 months into the season, it shouldn't still be happening
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As others have said, I don’t think on and off closures are necessarily unheard of at any park, and factors such as the import of parts being made harder by Brexit is likely making things like part replacement more difficult.

The key thing that was an issue last season and in 2023 wasn’t so much whole day ride closures for me; it was more the fact that the tech services team seemed to be playing whack-a-mole with breakdowns and there was almost a sort of domino effect in terms of short closures throughout the day, with things repeatedly going up and down. From what I can see, this doesn’t seem to be nearly as bad this season; opening things up in the morning in a timely manner appears to be being achieved more frequently, and once things are open, they generally seem a lot better at staying open.
 
Danscott22 said:
Add Runaway Mine Train to the list I posted the other day of rides that have been closed for at least a day. I'm not buying into this "it's early season, it's expected" stuff either, the park is closed for 4 months and we are nearly 2 months into the season, it shouldn't still be happening
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Unless your on park you can't know all the factors or reasons why they are closed Th13teen for example has been mostly power issues
 
Danscott22 said:
Add Runaway Mine Train to the list I posted the other day of rides that have been closed for at least a day. I'm not buying into this "it's early season, it's expected" stuff either, the park is closed for 4 months and we are nearly 2 months into the season, it shouldn't still be happening
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I wonder how many unplanned daily closures Paultons have had so far this season…
 
Bowser said:
I wonder how many unplanned daily closures Paultons have had so far this season…
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To be fair, Paultons has a generally much newer crop of rides than Alton does, and also a crop of rides that are probably a fair amount less complex than some of the most complicated rides at Alton.

I’m not saying Paultons doesn’t have excellent uptime or that Alton has perfect uptime, but I don’t think it’s an entirely fair comparison given the vastly differing nature of the parks’ ride lineups.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, Paultons has a generally much newer crop of rides than Alton does, and also a crop of rides that are probably a fair amount less complex than some of the most complicated rides at Alton.

I’m not saying Paultons doesn’t have excellent uptime or that Alton has perfect uptime, but I don’t think it’s an entirely fair comparison given the vastly differing nature of the parks’ ride lineups.
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Sure but from a customer point of view those things don’t matter if you’re buying a ticket. It’s a parks responsibility to maintain their attractions regardless of age and complexity.
 
Bowser said:
Sure but from a customer point of view those things don’t matter if you’re buying a ticket. It’s a parks responsibility to maintain their attractions regardless of age and complexity.
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They have there reasons why their shut this is the problem Towers has because you have had a decade of limited investment in new rides and the older rides remaining there gonna become more problematic
 
Managed 25 rides today, operations excellent (Galactica aside). Wicker Man was on reduced capacity but The Smiler was running 4 trains which I couldn't believe for a quiet day. Nemesis Sub-Terra operating well as well, some of the best ops on there for a long time on a usually slow loading ride. Better batching on Hex as well, there doesn't seem to be long gaps between the videos for each room starting now. Oblivion ops doing their best on one station ops to get those shuttles out ASAP. That's just a small roundup. Galactica and Wicker Man both opened 90 minutes late which wasn't great particularly when Rita is down. Skyride was pretty consistent, had a small part of downtime but did open at 11:30, so slightly earlier than it has been doing
 
Danscott22 said:
Managed 25 rides today, operations excellent (Galactica aside). Wicker Man was on reduced capacity but The Smiler was running 4 trains which I couldn't believe for a quiet day. Nemesis Sub-Terra operating well as well, some of the best ops on there for a long time on a usually slow loading ride. Better batching on Hex as well, there doesn't seem to be long gaps between the videos for each room starting now. Oblivion ops doing their best on one station ops to get those shuttles out ASAP. That's just a small roundup. Galactica and Wicker Man both opened 90 minutes late which wasn't great particularly when Rita is down. Skyride was pretty consistent, had a small part of downtime but did open at 11:30, so slightly earlier than it has been doing
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You manage to get a glimpse if Rita had more work done to it or not, also how many trains were on Monorail today.
 
Hid said:
You manage to get a glimpse if Rita had more work done to it or not, also how many trains were on Monorail today.
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We have a blue badge so had disabled parking so didn't have to use it.

As for Rita, went over it on the Skyride and there's wires around the catch car which looks like it's being worked on, both trains parked at the back of it. You also can't walk down the quick path towards TH13TEEN because there are lots of temporary barriers around the building underneath Rita's launch, which I assume is something to do with work being done to it.
 
Took these from the Skyride today. Looks like the chains on the catch-car have gone, trains still parked behind the station & still barriers around the motor building. No signs of life in terms of testing though.

Wonder if it's had a cable swap? Or maybe it's something on the catch-car?
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Monorail was only running two trains today (Saturday) part of dark forest closed off with lots of gas bottles and a fork truck which is presumably for Rita. Other than that though operations were decent all day asides wickerman stopping for 20 minutes because someone dropped something on the track they had to retrieve, and oblivion going down for a very short while late morning.
 
The Lynch Effect said:
Monorail was only running two trains today (Saturday) part of dark forest closed off with lots of gas bottles and a fork truck which is presumably for Rita. Other than that though operations were decent all day asides wickerman stopping for 20 minutes because someone dropped something on the track they had to retrieve, and oblivion going down for a very short while late morning.
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Shame Monorail really needs at least 4 trains on track to be efficient
 
Hid said:
Shame Monorail really needs at least 4 trains on track to be efficient
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Yeah, it caused massive queues. It needs to be pointed out though that everything else was running very well. Overall things are running a lot better than they have in previous visits. One of the better visits to Alton over the years. Skyride being back makes a huge difference too.
 
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