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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-25

I agree with @rob666. I do sometimes wonder whether overfamiliarity might make some fixate more on the park’s flaws and exaggerate them.

As someone who only tends to visit Alton once a year or so (maybe twice or three times in a particularly Alton-heavy year), I sometimes feel like I don’t visit the same park as some on here who go a lot more often. When I’m in the park, I don’t feel myself fixating on the flaws nearly as much as some on here seem to. Maybe it is the fact that I visit less than some.

To me, it does feel as though availability has markedly improved this season and the general tone around the park seems more positive. This season definitely seems to have improved upon the last couple, in my view!
 
For reliability, I don't think it has been too bad this year (much better than last year) admittedly the past week or two hasn't been too good (for some reason) however I think over the year if you ignore rita (which is evidently having some major problems) I think it has been pretty good, to the point where (with the exception of poor weather) I rarely noticed any rides down when I go (again apart from rita)
 
Islander said:
I think this is an important point. It’s really not THAT long ago that if you were riding something in one area, you’d have no idea what rides are shut down elsewhere.

Really the introduction of the apps etc has just highlighted availability to people that previously wouldn’t have noticed.
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This is definitely true and arguably the driver of most of the discussion on here.

I’d counter it with my real life experiences. We only tend to visit once a year and have had more bad times than good. To the point that this year we only went to the water park and skipped the theme park, which seems absurd on the face of it.

I then compare that to our European trips that have been overwhelmingly positive. So I’d say outside enlightenment has been more of a factor than online availability awareness though the latter certainly contributes to ongoing weariness.
 
Mick said:
I think TPW’s vlog from yesterday summed it up quite well where he said you can go there and have a good day with low queue times, but it just doesn’t feel quite right, a bit flat etc.
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Did they say anything new, or just the same fake excited stuff on their 7,829th vlog of the place? Not going to mention that they've just had a quite big thing happen in their lives and normal folk would at least have a little break to be a family. Like, even a couple of weeks. Wasn't even anything happening, let's just make a pointless vlog when we should be at home.
 
BarryZola said:
Did they say anything new, or just the same fake excited stuff on their 7,829th vlog of the place? Not going to mention that they've just had a quite big thing happen in their lives and normal folk would at least have a little break to be a family. Like, even a couple of weeks. Wasn't even anything happening, let's just make a pointless vlog when we should be at home.
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Without dragging this off-topic, it wasn't a pointless vlog at all. He talked about the current Cebeebies and Scarefest progress, as well as the current operations and rode closures.

You need to remember that TPWW are local to Towers, so will naturally visit a lot. They also do personal visits (without vlogging) quite a bit as well, again because they're local to the park.
 
Skyscraper said:
Without dragging this off-topic, it wasn't a pointless vlog at all. He talked about the current Cebeebies and Scarefest progress, as well as the current operations and rode closures.

You need to remember that TPWW are local to Towers, so will naturally visit a lot. They also do personal visits (without vlogging) quite a bit as well, again because they're local to the park.
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Without wanting to continue the conversation, as the mods will rightly point us in another direction, they were hardly the most pressing of issues and I'm sure would have been covered in other vlogs and in online communities. It wasn't necessary at all at the current time. We can happily respectfully disagree on this one my friend if that's alright with you :)
 
Dan19F1 said:
Not to drag this off topic further, but I’m not sure how you can say that there wasn’t anything happening when you suggested in your first sentence that you didn’t watch it?
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You do not need to watch a video to see that there aren't a plethora, or even really a smidge, of updates about Alton Towers.

Especially when you're immersed, or even vaguely, interested in the park... as Members of TowersStreet are likely to be.
 
Bowser said:
I then compare that to our European trips that have been overwhelmingly positive. So I’d say outside enlightenment has been more of a factor than online availability awareness though the latter certainly contributes to ongoing weariness.
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Europe is an interesting point of comparison.

I'm just back from a bit of a European jaunt, and having done four European parks in the past week, including Efteling, and in every one at least one attraction was closed for the duration of our visit. And we also ran into staggered openings, rides not opening at the expected times, and notable downtimes throughout the days.

So I don't think that Alton Towers is as much of an outlier as the app-chasers would have you believe. There is definitely further improvement to be made, but this year is looking like an improvement on last year, not least because of the reduction in long-term closures, with the Skyride and Hex back open.

The goal here has surely got to be to remove that element of roulette, where your choices from hour to hour can really affect your day - being in the wrong place at the wrong time can surround you with rides that are closed, and sometimes a long slog to the other side of the park.
 
Squiggs said:
Europe is an interesting point of comparison.

I'm just back from a bit of a European jaunt, and having done four European parks in the past week, including Efteling, and in every one at least one attraction was closed for the duration of our visit. And we also ran into staggered openings, rides not opening at the expected times, and notable downtimes throughout the days.

So I don't think that Alton Towers is as much of an outlier as the app-chasers would have you believe. There is definitely further improvement to be made, but this year is looking like an improvement on last year, not least because of the reduction in long-term closures, with the Skyride and Hex back open.

The goal here has surely got to be to remove that element of roulette, where your choices from hour to hour can really affect your day - being in the wrong place at the wrong time can surround you with rides that are closed, and sometimes a long slog to the other side of the park.
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What doesn't help is there isn't rides nearby to enjoy at Towers whilst one is having issues that is one of the reasons Flat Rides, Dark RIdes and Water Rides are so important away from the coasters
 
Squiggs said:
Europe is an interesting point of comparison.

I'm just back from a bit of a European jaunt, and having done four European parks in the past week, including Efteling, and in every one at least one attraction was closed for the duration of our visit. And we also ran into staggered openings, rides not opening at the expected times, and notable downtimes throughout the days.

So I don't think that Alton Towers is as much of an outlier as the app-chasers would have you believe. There is definitely further improvement to be made, but this year is looking like an improvement on last year, not least because of the reduction in long-term closures, with the Skyride and Hex back open.

The goal here has surely got to be to remove that element of roulette, where your choices from hour to hour can really affect your day - being in the wrong place at the wrong time can surround you with rides that are closed, and sometimes a long slog to the other side of the park.
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Absolutely. Unfortunately today ride availability did have big impacts on our day today.

Spinball Whizzer was closed when we arrived at 10 so had to go to The Smiler instead, and both rides in the dark forest were not open, as well as Sub terra.

Unfortunately with a busy day on park this meant all the queues became rather long as Dark Forest was empty! And when one ride went down the queues for the others soared. The skyride also went down around 1 today due to the higher temperatures
 
So in the past 3 days, Spinball Whizzer didn't open at all on Sunday along with NST and Rita, and todau TH13TEEN only opened with an hour to spare. It's just completely unacceptable. No other park seems to have these issues, as consistently as Towers. Ride availability was looking much more positive but it seems to be going the other way again sadly.
 
Squiggs said:
Europe is an interesting point of comparison.

I'm just back from a bit of a European jaunt, and having done four European parks in the past week, including Efteling, and in every one at least one attraction was closed for the duration of our visit. And we also ran into staggered openings, rides not opening at the expected times, and notable downtimes throughout the days.

So I don't think that Alton Towers is as much of an outlier as the app-chasers would have you believe. There is definitely further improvement to be made, but this year is looking like an improvement on last year, not least because of the reduction in long-term closures, with the Skyride and Hex back open.

The goal here has surely got to be to remove that element of roulette, where your choices from hour to hour can really affect your day - being in the wrong place at the wrong time can surround you with rides that are closed, and sometimes a long slog to the other side of the park.
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Which were the other 3 parks out of interest?

My personal experience and that of others i've spoken to at the likes of Efteling, DLP and Europa is that beyond advertised ride closures, unplanned all day downtime is very unusual. Obviously luck plays a role so perhaps you were as unfortunate as i've been fortunate.

However the comparison extends beyond ride availability, the overall experience is of a higher standard imo. AT is arguably the premier theme park in the UK but it's clearly a level below the mentioned parks, which as a result set a higher level of expectation. I'm sure there are plenty of lower quality European theme parks too but especially across France, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium i think there's a better base line which does extend to overall availability.

I'm not suggesting AT is some kind of abomination but i think it's quite apparent their standard of ride maintenance (and Merlin's UK parks in general) is lower than many of the equivalent top level European parks. Yes there are historical reasons for that but that's the parks problem, not the paying customers and when they have 4 months downtime to get on top of things it makes it all the more galling for multiple attractions to be regularly closed as the summer season begins.
 
Danscott22 said:
So in the past 3 days, Spinball Whizzer didn't open at all on Sunday along with NST and Rita, and todau TH13TEEN only opened with an hour to spare. It's just completely unacceptable. No other park seems to have these issues, as consistently as Towers. Ride availability was looking much more positive but it seems to be going the other way again sadly.
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You should have been on the Beach mate.
Big One opened very briefly, if at all...no National still, Dipper on one train 12 till 4, Valhalla opened for three hours, FY4 food court closed bar the chicken shop, and still no mention of the invisible dodgems.
Towers is not alone in having dodgy ops...consistently.
 
Danscott22 said:
So in the past 3 days, Spinball Whizzer didn't open at all on Sunday along with NST and Rita, and todau TH13TEEN only opened with an hour to spare. It's just completely unacceptable. No other park seems to have these issues, as consistently as Towers. Ride availability was looking much more positive but it seems to be going the other way again sadly.
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First of Rita and NST were stated to be down before hand its different if a ride is scheduled before hand.

So really only two unscheduled rides have been down Th13teen and Spinball all day.

And yes other parks do have the same problems SeaWorld San Diego does and Magic Mountain, Walibi Parks equally have consistent downtime.

rob666 said:
You should have been on the Beach mate.
Big One opened very briefly, if at all...no National still, Dipper on one train 12 till 4, Valhalla opened for three hours, FY4 food court closed bar the chicken shop, and still no mention of the invisible dodgems.
Towers is not alone in having dodgy ops...consistently.
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Your conflating Ops and Ride Availability together the 2 are different ops at Alton Towers are actually really great they get the trains out fast especially on Smiler, Wickerman and Th13teen the operations are a step above Phantasialand and the Walibi Parks
 
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