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2025: General Discussion

Dave said:
To be fair I think they have always closed all
Shops other than towers street at ride close (at least for the last 20+ years). That’s not a new thing.
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They to get more shops open at Towers Th13teen and Oblivion have shops unused as well as Tower Street and World of David Walliams has more shops unused that could be utilised again given specific purposes
 
Hid said:
They to get more shops open at Towers Th13teen and Oblivion have shops unused as well as Tower Street and World of David Walliams has more shops unused that could be utilised again given specific purposes
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There are so many unused indoor spaces around the entire park. Not just mothballed ride spaces either.

It would be great to see some of the smaller outlets open with museum / past ride exhibitions alongside the mothballed attractions being reopened, but I expect staffing and recruitment plays a big part in this.

Having 3 or 4 walk through exhibits and a couple more indoor attractions would really enhance your visit and would be a welcome break from B2B coasters.
 
Hid said:
They to get more shops open at Towers Th13teen and Oblivion have shops unused as well as Tower Street and World of David Walliams has more shops unused that could be utilised again given specific purposes
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The problem is those shops clearly didn’t make much money.

More people flock to towers trading at the end of the day and spend than the closed shops would make by being open all day.

I’d imagine smiler shop makes as much if not more than towers trading does as smiler merch is ridiculously popular.
 
I visited the park today for the first time this season so I thought I would just share a few updates I noticed. Overall I had a great day, the park seemed to be running well, it wasn’t too busy but still had a good atmosphere.

Positives:
- The park is looking very fresh, it’s good to see Skyride and Hex back open and most places look very clean. They also seem to have cleaned the queue lines of graffiti in Wicker Man’s and Th13teen’s queue (and possibly others I didn’t notice)
- Toxicator is a great investment. It really does tower above the Forbidden Valley skyline and is such a good ride to watch off it as well.
- Operations today were brilliant. Every single ride (except Oblivion) was on full capacity and they were really hammering the trains out. I’d like to mention the team on The Smiler this afternoon who were doing an absolutely amazing job.
- The rapids seem to have been turned up - most people who got off seem to be relatively wet, a good step over the past few years.

Negatives:
- There are a couple of areas that still don’t look great, Dark Forest and David Walliams urgently need some work. It’s even more stark (and lacking atmosphere) in Dark Forest with Rita closed.
- The Curse didn’t seem to be running particularly well today, I think there were a fair few effects not working unfortunately
- Wicker Man’s pre-show wasn’t working today (and neither were the flames)
- It doesn’t seem like Spinball Whizzer can now operate in the rain? I knew it could only run with 3 people in the past in the rain but I’m unsure of how long it hasn’t been able to operate at all in the rain.

There were no visible signs of anything going on with Rita, one car is on the brake run and the other is in the maintenance shed at a guess, so maybe it’s something with the launch that is needing fixing?
I didn’t venture into CBeebies today, but it looks like lots of work is going on in there ready for next year!
 
AT86 said:
Not sure if this is an error, as the opening times page hasn’t been amended, but it looks like fireworks might be back to three nights?

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Link
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Best event of the year hoping it is back to 3 days. Always consider the Fireworks Grand Finale of the UK Theme Park season where majority of parks begin closed season
 
Tickets for the Friday are currently £39, making them more expensive that the Sunday at £37. £39 for a 10-4 day would be unusual, but not impossible.

The dates on the website have definitely been changed from 8-9th November to 7-9th November. However the opening times page and the description aren’t keeping with this as per other posters comments.

Bit of a mixed bag really in terms of ‘evidence’ and could go either way. Odd to update the dates on the firework page though if nothing has changed.
 
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They do tend to get a budget review mid season so that might suggest they are doing better than expected this season.

Ash said:
Alton make redundant most of their marketing team and remain a shambles

Imagine my shock
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To be fair I don’t think most companies have people obsessively looking at a website whilst they are changing the content. Based on the time scales in this topic I suspect they were mid changes when it was spotted.
 
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Dave said:
To be fair I don’t think most companies have people obsessively looking at a website whilst they are changing the content. Based on the time scales in this topic I suspect they were mid changes when it was spotted.
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I don't agree, if you're going to update something that's public facing on your website it needs to be done in such a way that you're giving consistent messages. Making changes piecemeal over a period of 2-3 days isn't acceptable. Good marketing and comms teams plan these things carefully.

I see they've still not updated the "two whole days!" text.

This is good news though, although perhaps something they should just have budget-protected in the first place?
 
NuttySquirrel said:
I don't agree, if you're going to update something that's public facing on your website it needs to be done in such a way that you're giving consistent messages. Making changes piecemeal over a period of 2-3 days isn't acceptable. Good marketing and comms teams plan these things carefully.

I see they've still not updated the "two whole days!" text.

This is good news though, although perhaps something they should just have budget-protected in the first place?
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I would agree however it is best to give them a day or two as sometimes that isn't possible though, I am no computer scientist however from what I am aware depending on their hosting site it can take hours for one change to be effected throughout the internet (due to cashing, and other stuff) and this can be different for each web page, also the calendar app probably isn't driven from the same server (I would guess it would be attached to their booking system) which may take a while to effect the change

I am also sure they have missed one or two mentions of it, however it is much better than BPB, a day of confusion is much better than the months BPB has had conflicting info on their website.
 
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