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Ugh! Too much Fastrack. Too little time!

AstroDan

TS Team
Favourite Ride
Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
2.9.12

Hot on the heels of my visit to Thorpe Park last week, where the park closed far too early, fastrack resulted in painfully slow queue lines and the park was packed - I really never thought I would feel similarly with a day at Alton Towers!

OK - it was nowhere near as bad as the situation at Thorpe Park - i.e. there were no horrific 100 minute waits or anything like that - but, with higher expectations of Alton Towers than any other UK park - I am afraid it didn't really deliver.

The park took the decision to make today the first 5pm ride close, after the past 6 weeks of 6pm. Obviously, they expected it to be quiet(er). Well - it wasn't. In fact, themed areas were packed out, queues on rides were longer than I have seen as at any stage so far this season!

Maximum queue times seen:
Air 60
Nemesis 30
Th13teen 65
Rita 80
Sonic Spinball 90
Oblivion 30
Sub Terra 60
Squirrel Nutty 60
RMT 30
Flume 40
Rapids 25

Now, is that a busy day for AT or is that a busy day?

Fastrack queues were really quite long... almost Thorpe Park-esque - on most of the major rides. On Nemesis, a group of 20 or 30 people just cut right in front of the main queue, and the Th13teen fastrack queue was down past the photo unit! Th13teen had a ride stop due to an incident, and our waiting time - with no extensions open - from the entrance - was a whopping 80 minutes. The longest I have waited for a ride at Alton Towers all season. We joked in the Th13teen queue that the view we had was of a motionless Th13teen queue line, and beyond - an absolte mass of people, again motionless, waiting in the painfully arranged Rita queue, which was 80 minutes long!

Queues for food outlets at lunch time in Mutiny Bay were also enormous - I chose not to have anything from the Courtyard BBQ due to the queue size.

The queue for Air was outside the entrance - with just minutes to go before ride close!

I cannot believe that Alton Towers did not extend the park hours today! Last season or before, it would easily have been a 6pm close!!
 
I had a similar problem yesterday, it really is pathetic. Even more so today with the earlier close. I'm shocked they didn't extend the opening hours until 6, it's not like the amount of fastpasses wouldn't cover the extra cost!
 
It's not just Merlin parks that have the problem of selling to many fastracks. While I was at Flamingo Land they were filling the rides full of fastrack buyers, Rides such as Kumali, Mumbo Jumbo, Velocity and Lost River ride were getting half loaded full of Queue Buster buyers before the people in the normal queue got to sit down on the ride.

It's sad to hear about this sort of thing happening all over the UK. :(
 
But doesn't Flamingo Land still use the 'virtual queue' system? It's a much fairer system than Alton's system of 'buy ticket, jump straight in front of 80% of queue'.
 
I don't think so, I didn't see or hear any mention of a Virtual queue system, but the was a lot of places to buy queue busters. And the queue busters queue at the exit, so when you got off a ride you had to walk past a load of queue busters.

I would probably say the Flamingo Land's system is worst than Merlins. ???
 
That does sound really bad. In previous years they would certainly have extended ride close as that is something Towers have been very good at doing in the past. I think what sums it up is that Drayton managed to extend ride close to 7.30pm last weekend, yet Towers just stuck at 5pm the following Sunday with the park equally rammed. Very poor.

:)
 
A member of our group tweeted guest services and where told it wasn't busy enough to extend ride close.... Yeah right. Apparently they have today so it seems to depend who is in charge that day.
 
They learn.

Today, the park is quieter than yesterday.

But it has been extended to 6pm.

Maybe someone, somewhere - didn't have the balls to slap an extra hour on yesterday?
 
But surely whoever is in charge on the day, as duty manager or whatever they are called, it is their job to have the balls to make that call?
 
Wow, that was busy :eek:
When I went on 19th July (school trip :3) it was horrendous.
By 11 AM, all queues for the big rides were out the ride entrance, the queue boards saying 2 hours+ :3 Fast track was a problem then too, we were going to get a 'scream' , but there was about a half hour wait just to get the fasttrack, and the fasttrack queues were long :'(
 
Fastrack is one of the worst inventions. I hate it. Until a good system is made for it, it will always get in the way for both guests and ride ops. If Fastrack was completely removed batching would be more simple, queues would be shorter and people on the whole would be happier.

Waste of money. :(

That said, I like a busy park, I feel adds atmosphere. But that busy can be a chore and just make your day not so great.
 
At Flamingo Land you buy credits, you text a number and it allocates you a 20 minute or so slot to turn up to a ride.
 
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