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Controversial Alton Towers Opinions

I think it seems like Towers gets a disproportionate amount of criticism on here because we are a Towers-centred forum. Alton Towers gets more discussion than other parks overall, so naturally, there’s going to be more negative discussion about it as a consequence.

But that’s not unusual for any space dedicated to a particular park or chain of parks. Go over to a Disney or Universal-focused forum, for example, and Disney and/or Universal get plenty of criticism on those in a very similar manner to how Towers is criticised on here.

With that said, I do somewhat agree with @Hid on this one. Even if the park is not perfect and certainly has its areas for improvement, I think the decline of the park is quite drastically overstated on here at times, and I think there’s fundamentally still a lot to be proud of and happy with at Alton Towers.

That’s not to say that I think we should only be positive about Towers by any means, however. There’s certainly valid stuff to complain about at times!
 
Matt N said:
I think the decline of the park is quite drastically overstated on here at times, and I think there’s fundamentally still a lot to be proud of and happy with at Alton Towers.
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I remember when the park was run in a much better fashion that it has been for the last couple of decades.
It was a more rounded park, with an awful lot more to do than thrill rides.
Parades, shows, paddling pool, petting zoo, even an ice show...all gone, like another dozen or so attractions.
I remember the queuemunching machines like the monorail and oblivion, now a shadow of their former efficient selves.
Operations slowed for cost efficiency and profit, not customer satisfaction.
The queues for the majority of rides have only got longer as well.
When all the ride queues got to an hour, even on what used to be known as off peak days...with a limited offering compared to the past...the magic was completely lost.
Cheap value passes fill the park now, the place is bargain basement, not a quality attraction.
 
rob666 said:
I remember the queuemunching machines like the monorail and oblivion, now a shadow of their former efficient selves.
Operations slowed for cost efficiency and profit, not customer satisfaction.
The queues for the majority of rides have only got longer as well.
When all the ride queues got to an hour, even on what used to be known as off peak days
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The “slower” throughputs are mostly due to the health and safety. There are so many pre dispatch checks staff have to complete these days that simply don’t allow for quicker dispatches.

Gates on exit platforms were never a thing and they could dispatch with guests stood on platforms.

Other parks may still do some of these, but due to 2015 the park had to be seen to be making changes to make thier operations safer across the whole resort.

That said, I still think they do acheive high throughputs when they can, but they simply can’t push the staff for it anymore due to what happened.
 
...and then of course, there was the "fresh air" profit of fasttrack.
Lets smash the fun by letting the lucky richer ones jump the queue for extra money, therefore making the general punter wait longer.
Paid fasttrack and ultra cheap season tickets, hated things that just didn't happen a couple of decades ago.
 
Poisson said:
They short staff as well. It could be much faster on several rides with even just 1 or 2 more hosts.
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Is it short on staff or are staffing levels deemed that is what they need to operate the ride?

I see a lot of people mention that towers will purposefully make queues longer to sell more fastrack, but then that would make the fastrack queue longer resulting in more complaints.

I genuinely find it hard to beleive that Merlin would want queue times to be longer for fastrack and even for normal queues.

I’m sure we’ve all been on park enough to see that it’s the customers that usually slow things down. They haven’t put their stuff in thier bags so spend 30 seconds on the side of the station putting it all away before boarding. Let’s say this happens on every other dispatch for example. That would be an additional 15 mins wasted just per hour. Multiply that across the whole day, and then across each ride….

You can have more staff, but this doesn’t solve the issue of customers just being slow. The average customer may not visit theme parks as often as we do and aren’t as prepared to board.

And it’s not as if there isn’t enough signage or announcements to say be prepared…
 
AltonLover123 said:
I see a lot of people mention that towers will purposefully make queues longer to sell more fastrack, but then that would make the fastrack queue longer resulting in more complaints.
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The fast track line has already bypassed the vast majority of the queue so the impact on them would be negligible whereas for the main queue each delay is cumulative.

Though I expect when people make that suggestion it’s about the ratios at batching (and is across all the parks not just AT).
 
AltonLover123 said:
Is it short on staff or are staffing levels deemed that is what they need to operate the ride?

I see a lot of people mention that towers will purposefully make queues longer to sell more fastrack, but then that would make the fastrack queue longer resulting in more complaints.

I genuinely find it hard to beleive that Merlin would want queue times to be longer for fastrack and even for normal queues.

I’m sure we’ve all been on park enough to see that it’s the customers that usually slow things down. They haven’t put their stuff in thier bags so spend 30 seconds on the side of the station putting it all away before boarding. Let’s say this happens on every other dispatch for example. That would be an additional 15 mins wasted just per hour. Multiply that across the whole day, and then across each ride….

You can have more staff, but this doesn’t solve the issue of customers just being slow. The average customer may not visit theme parks as often as we do and aren’t as prepared to board.

And it’s not as if there isn’t enough signage or announcements to say be prepared…
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Problem is most of the rides were never designed for everyone to have bag its why Oblivion is much slower. I reckon mandatory free lockers are what is needed at Towers could have it in the old X Sell area for Oblivion
 
And back in the day of course, every other thoosie didn't have a bloody backpack, we just had a nice jacket with zip pockets.
AltonLover123 said:
...I see a lot of people mention that towers will purposefully make queues longer to sell more fastrack, but then that would make the fastrack queue longer resulting in more complaints...
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No, that doesn't happen because the fasttrack queue is always prioritised over the main queue.

If the fasttrack queue gets long, more seats are given over to it, simple.

Occasional full trains of fasttrackers happen.

Just to keep the queue down.
 
rob666 said:
And back in the day of course, every other thoosie didn't have a bloody backpack, we just had a nice jacket with zip pockets.

No, that doesn't happen because the fasttrack queue is always prioritised over the main queue.

If the fasttrack queue gets long, more seats are given over to it, simple.

Occasional full trains of fasttrackers happen.

Just to keep the queue down.
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Yes, which is the point of fastrack, but to say they purposefully make the queues longer to make more people buy fastrack is absurd.

They don’t need to do anything. People will always buy convienience. I’ve seen people with platinums midweek in September when queues don’t go over a walk on.
 
Despite what many say, I still think Alton Towers throughputs are pretty good in the grand scheme of parks. That may be a controversial Alton Towers opinion in itself, I feel!

Granted, they’re not Europa standard, but I think they do well enough on the whole. Coasters mostly run on a full complement of trains, dispatches are decently quick, and numerous rides get reasonably close to or even exceed their theoretical throughputs.

Wicker Man, for example, regularly hits or exceeds its theoretical theoughput and mostly runs all 3 trains. As does Thirteen. I also think Smiler does pretty well if they have the baggage hold open and all 4 trains running, which they very often do.

On some of the older rides, I think they are burdened by H&S a tad. The newer things generally have better operations. I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been managed better in some cases, but I do think H&S is a millstone around their neck with regard to some of the older ride throughputs.

I’m not saying Alton’s operations are perfect, but I think in general, they’re pretty good. I’d say the same about Thorpe. In the grand scheme of parks, I wouldn’t call the throughputs and operations of either park slow by any stretch of the imagination; while they may not quite hit Europa standard, many parks out there do far, far worse on throughputs than Alton and Thorpe, in my view. Thorpe in particular seems to have a reputation for hideous operations that I find wholly undeserved.
 
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Matt N said:
On some of the older rides, I think they are burdened by H&S a tad. The newer things generally have better operations. I’m not saying that it couldn’t have been managed better in some cases, but I do think H&S is a millstone around their neck with regard to some of the older ride throughputs.
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Oblivion struggles with bags IMO, not really H&S (especially when running odd number of trains on 2 stations) as you end up with multiple people trying to cross on the train (due to the small width they can't pass) and then a massive crowd around the relatively small bag cage and they take up a large part of the dispatch cycle.

if it had a baggage bay, or lockers I think it would operate much better, but I struggle to think how it would be implemented

overall I think AT are quite good
 
Matt N said:
But that’s not unusual for any space dedicated to a particular park or chain of parks. Go over to a Disney or Universal-focused forum, for example, and Disney and/or Universal get plenty of criticism on those in a very similar manner to how Towers is criticised on here.
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I've been posting on the wdwmagic forums since 2001 (that's not a typo) and believe me, they are never bloody happy! :tearsofjoy:
 
They absolutely add to throughput. If they didn't, why would something like Olympia Looping run with 7 of them if they didn't have to? Nemesis shouldn't stack, even with the timing changes but you find the host covering the 3 row is usually the last done due to the extra. With the extra host they could speed this up.
 
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