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Opening day chaos! !

Well after leaving the park at 6:30 what can I say? A day which had been forecast to be great ( or do staff not read weather forecast? ) was very poorly prepared for!!!! First massive and I mean massive queues at the ticket booths which do not move!!! I queued for over an hour. It's the start of the day and people are already getting annoyed ! When I get to the kiosk I'm just told by young kids it's just a new computer system slowing things down. Now I thought these things would be tested before going live on a sunny march opening day? When asking if ride time would be extended in light of this long delay, I was given a sharp reply of no!! I was going to go to the box office to complain but the queue was half way down tower street and it was 11:30 by this time and the kids wanted to ride something rather than queue (as we had done for over an hour already!) OK start on Heave ho and mayhem then duel (what's happening with tlc to tunnel and spiders? )river rapids and runaway mine train. Kids liked blade but my son was a bit upset because after becoming 1.4m his first go on galactica had no VR no explanation why at entrance? However the queue did move quicker. Then even as air it went out of action. With that and nemesis out what's to do in forbidden valley? Sort out nemesis subterra guys!! It's a joke standing there when people need something to go on! Then trying to get on skyline and that stops! Walking across the gardens I can only hear people grumbling about a poor experience! My son then asked what's in CCL? His expression was hilarious when he went to look! Where's Toadstool? Where's ice age? I'm not going on hoppie horses or those cars were his quotes. To the DF and no Rita and th13een on 50 mins queue! Then no smiler. I tell you I wasn't smiling by this time. Long wait for spinball then quick look in sealife. Then our guest wanted some donuts but girl at kiosk outside sealife refused to sell me any! on my annoyed look her last customer smiled at me and said join the queue, I've felt like that all day!! AT sort this mess out like I keep banging on about there are more than CBEEBIES customers you need to worry about!
One last point food offering not improved either. No where to eat at end of day why can't you get a decent meal before leaving after last ride? Merlin must want customers to spend their money elsewhere? So I hope shareholders don't complain when takings are down.
 
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I'm starting to wonder if our group went through a very lucky pass through the park, food was fine, operations where fine only noticeable problem was the downtime.
 
Was on park yesterday - my thoughts.....

Positives
+ The weather! Amazing!
+ Hex was great, looked fab, new bits added, loved the lighting effect in the first section, lots of smells - however, they reminded me more of Scarefest! The correct smell i thought was the musty smell pumped in just as you are counted through the batching gate. Great work though.
+ Music, everywhere! Some new tracks I havent heard before and added atmosphere to the park. A little concerned however some speakers appear to have been just dumped in bushes, hope no umm, undesirables shall we say decide to try and pinch them or put the boot in given most are on the floor and visible.
+ Towers ruins were open
+ Park looked generally good, lots of fresh paint here and there.
+ Plenty of signage for the new paths
+ Closure extended until 5:30 due I expect to the complaints
+ VR not working on Galactica (I see this as a positive!)

Negatives
- Ride reliability and queues. Very poor day for getting on rides. At one point most of the thrill rides had closed and Smiler closed all day. Spent a lot of time walking back and forth between areas.
- Queue times totally inaccurate. A 15 min queue for Rita turned in to an hour. Single train operation by the end of the day and the fast track queue was over 30 minutes due to number of priority passes being handed out.
- Duel, while most effects were working, the only change from last year was some cobwebs here and there. No trommel tunnel either.
- Getting to and from rapids was a bit of a faff due to the closure of the path
- Cable cars breaking down all day, at one point it appeared people were stuck in them for over half an hour. Surprised its not in the Daily Mail yet.
- Lots of unhappy guests today complaining to guest services about ride closures.
- While the Nemesis alien looks good where painted, it still looks half finished with the top and side facing the photo booth still looking worn and old.
- Whats with the cottage in the gardens which has a giant wooden fence around it to hide it?


Overall we had a great day, and managed to get on most of the main rides, but this was mostly due to the nice weather, company, and the speed of having to walk back and forth all the time! I also visited the ATH hotel the day before and had a wander around.

Cbeebies hotel has totally spoilt the tranquil garden area of ATH. Totally wrecked. ATH has no changes. Same old. Bar area was quite busy with usual long queues for Dragon Bar in the night. God knows how busy it was Saturday night given it was the only entertainment venue. Wandered over to Splash through the walk way - waterpark was closed early - got to the arcade section where I was greeted by a lovely wooden fence blocking any further access to the hotel. Had a peep over the top with the camera and Flambos is still all set up - no work going on in there. Arcade was totally dead.

Enchanted Village was very busy though, though i'd be well peed off paying the fortune to stay in the treehouses but to have a construction site next to me!

Some rumours I heard throughout the day from various people and interestingly, the B&B owner....... Duel may get a refurb next year and may match the theme of SW8. CCL area may turn in to something to do with Lego. Splash to be closed over Scarefest and only 3 hotels to be open at one time except the very peak summer months. Secret Garden to poss get a refurb next year. Sub Terra may reopen this year if not deffo next year due to the restraints problem being resolved (note different restraints in Dungeons version) - not sure the actors will return though.
 
Rita had an issue with the train i was on. Basically it developed a fault, and was taken out of service.
 
Interesting information about duel, and CCL as I suggested that a while back about a lego theme. I really hope subterra reopens as I haven't been on it yet. Just one last thing I wish to make FV better replace ripsaw.

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
 
Today on park was alright but managed to make a good day out of it!

Got plenty of rides but no smiler or vr on galactica, lots of ride downtime and late openings, didn't really bother us too much and managed to work around it. Must have walked a few miles with going back and forth between everywhere.

Guest services was terrible huge queues which weren't moving, getting people through turnstiles was quite slow too.
 
Yesterday was total Chaos, It took 2 hours just to get in and get MAP's. 4 of the Big Six were down at once. Went to Hex, broken down, go to TH13TEEN broke down, wait 5 mins TH13TEEN open 35 min queue advertised but once in queue displayed 65 min queue, get bored in queue discover on your phone that park opening hours are extended by 1.5 hours probably due to constant rides breaking down, get bad ride on TH13TEEN, Go on Hex...

But the good thing was Hex was open and I have an MAP. I'm happy.
 
I really can't see Lego allowing their brand to be watered down to just a kiddy area in an existing park that already has another kiddy area.
How does it water it down? If anything, it creates some great brand awareness for folks who haven't yet made their way to Legoland. Almost like a Discovery Centre does.

The only think that makes me slightly wonder about this, is the planned Discovery Centre for Birmingham, not a million miles away.
 
"Muuuuuum! I want to go to Legoland!!!"
"No dear, it's too far away. I read in the Mail they're building a whole new Legoland in Staffordshire. You can go there. It'll be just the same, if not better, because it's newer."

Parent logic: It's all the same crap so why bother traveling further than I have to with a screaming brat in the back of the car?
Further point: When parents see the inevitably disapointing off-the-shelf kids rides painted in primary colours with some fibreglass giant bricks glued on them, they will assume all Legoland parks are like that.

Parents think Merlin own the world. I have it on good authority (source to remain confidential) that someone recently tried to use a MAP to get a discount at a Disney store, assuming that since Merlin own Lego... and Lego make Disney sets... then Merlin must own Disney! :p


A Lego themed area at any non-Legoland park would hurt the "true" Legoland brand.
 
A little concerned however some speakers appear to have been just dumped in bushes

Nothing to worry about. Most theme parks use specialist sound equipment (usually from Bose) which are designed to remain outside all year round, unaffected by weather. They're also very robust and wouldn't be removed easily. Plus they'd be almost useless as they're not standard speakers with standard connections.
 
TBH apart from the downtime (Galactica ended up with being evac'd, Smiler down, 13 on 2 trains, Rita down to 1, Spinball down, Monorail down, Skyride down and finally my car broke down on the way home) that Saturday wasn't too horrendous. I must have been somehow lucky?!?
 
Nothing to worry about. Most theme parks use specialist sound equipment (usually from Bose) which are designed to remain outside all year round, unaffected by weather. They're also very robust and wouldn't be removed easily. Plus they'd be almost useless as they're not standard speakers with standard connections.

But..... they dont look like they are fixed down, they just appear to be placed on the floor under some bushes! I may be wrong of course, but some are very visible.
 
Legoland could work out well for CCL.
The driving school will just need a quite easy retheme with there cars added instead. The theatre would show Lego 4D movies,Charlie would be replaced with a lego boat ride,Wobble world would be the Discovery Centre and they have a lego shop.
 
Yesterday was total Chaos, It took 2 hours just to get in and get MAP's. 4 of the Big Six were down at once. Went to Hex, broken down, go to TH13TEEN broke down, wait 5 mins TH13TEEN open 35 min queue advertised but once in queue displayed 65 min queue, get bored in queue discover on your phone that park opening hours are extended by 1.5 hours probably due to constant rides breaking down, get bad ride on TH13TEEN, Go on Hex...

But the good thing was Hex was open and I have an MAP. I'm happy.
The park was extended by 30mins. It was meant to close at 5pm and stayed open till 5:30pm.
 
Some rumours I heard throughout the day from various people and interestingly, the B&B owner....... Duel may get a refurb next year and may match the theme of SW8. CCL area may turn in to something to do with Lego. Splash to be closed over Scarefest and only 3 hotels to be open at one time except the very peak summer months. Secret Garden to poss get a refurb next year. Sub Terra may reopen this year if not deffo next year due to the restraints problem being resolved (note different restraints in Dungeons version) - not sure the actors will return though.

I think pretty much all those rumours have come from this forum. The Duel and Lego rumours have definitely been discussed.
 
Chaos? Can't say I noticed any choas on Saturday, in fact I think it was the best opening day in a long while. The weather of course helped but there was a lovely atmosphere on park, more brilliant audio improvememts, overall the park was not looking as shabby as I expected and it's always exciting to see a massive construction site!

Ride availability was poor mind, much worse than is usual for Towers. Hopefully that is not going to be an ongoing trend as it was worse than usual last year, then Saturday was another step in the wrong directions. Fingers crossed it's just start of season gremlins rather than a result of cuts to technical services.

But yes, I had a brilliant day at Alton Towers on Saturday!

:)
 
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