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2020: General Discussion

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I'm on park currently, and I wouldn't say it's anything that we haven't seen so far, if anything I'd say it's felt a little quieter than other days I've visited, but that could just be because we planned well. Wickerman was 60 mins even with a bit of downtime. Everything else was pretty similar (around 45 mins)
 
Suspect Towers changed the numbers after the chaos of the no-water supply day.

That's just a guess but social distancing quickly became very difficult and I think they'd be concerned about a similar situation arising again.
 
Steve74 said:
Yes but if the system of "3 strikes and your blacklisted" was used, that is unfair on pass holders if there was a genuine reason why they couldn't use their booking, eg illness. There would be no such blacklisting for full paying guests. Yes they'd lose their money but they wouldn't be stopped/restricted from buying tickets again in the future.
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You have a point, i have s lifelong illness and sometimes i just can't manage the drive there, let alone the long walks and the rides.

With this season's prebook system i can't just go when i feel up to it, i have to book weeks in advance. Have only been once this year, but have booked a couple of dates when it should be quieter in September.

If i wake up on those mornings and i'm too sick too go i risk being blacklisted under the "3 strikes and your out" system that some propose.
 
I do think a pre book but give it back system would be better. It would be a win win, if you pre booked and paid £5 or £10, then got it back as a voucher on Park you could buy lunch or merch, etc. That way towers get your money regardless, but you think like it’s costing you nothing.

Then if you don’t turn up then you will lose the money.
 
I personally find making passholders pay any sort of pre-booking fee completely disingenuous. You’ve already paid up for the pass, so why should you have to pay again to book, that’s not in the terms and conditions when you buy the pass surely?

To a lot of people a £1 booking fee is neither here nor there but to increase it to £5? Some people come to these parks, bring their own lunch and don’t spend any money on merch. That’s practically robbery to expect passholders who have forked out good money for unlimited entry to pay an extra £5 per visit. Quite frankly, the food quality in UK parks is pretty terrible, I wouldn’t even want my £5 back as a voucher.

So glad I don’t have a season pass at any uk parks right now. The chaos of prebooking and being fully booked for weeks completely defeats the point of an annual pass.

I have a Phantasialand annual pass and it’s been frozen until things are “back to normal” and I can visit unlimited again- as a goodwill gesture I can book in for free for once a month. I’ve booked in for next month- in my opinion that’s a far better system then as no one loses out on anything and there’s no extra charges for prebooking or anything like that.

And then merlin could have made the extra money by people who wanted extra visits who weren’t satisfied that once a month was enough.
 
I rather like how Blackpool Pleasure Beach have done their pre-book system, I think it works better for those with annual passes. You can only book a week in advance so nobody booking out day and days at a time. Plus no charge. I'm not really fussed about the £1 charge to be honest because we now otherwise even more people might take the mick with booking. I do think restricting the how far in advance you could book like Blackpool might work in better in preventing the overbooking. Still I've had no issues getting a pre-book for Blackpool.

If Towers is bad for pre-book Legoland is even worse. 3 weeks in advance I decided to go down to London for the weekend and though oh I'll go to Legoland. No chance. Pre-booked Chessington instead which is fine. It's got a log flume and it's nice summer.
 
TPJames said:
I personally find making passholders pay any sort of pre-booking fee completely disingenuous. You’ve already paid up for the pass, so why should you have to pay again to book, that’s not in the terms and conditions when you buy the pass surely?

To a lot of people a £1 booking fee is neither here nor there but to increase it to £5? Some people come to these parks, bring their own lunch and don’t spend any money on merch. That’s practically robbery to expect passholders who have forked out good money for unlimited entry to pay an extra £5 per visit. Quite frankly, the food quality in UK parks is pretty terrible, I wouldn’t even want my £5 back as a voucher.
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How else would you encourage people to actually turn up and use their reservation?

Just move it to one booking per pass as you suggest and therefore block out more people?
 
Danscott22 said:
Anyone know why Galactica, Nemesis and Rita opened at 9:30?
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With forecasts of high winds today maybe they were trying to pull guests away from the likes of Oblivion and Smiler, which quite often close with the slightest breath of wind. Nemesis, Galactica and Rita tend to remain open even on the windiest of days
 
LordOfDarkness said:
Went on Spinball for the first time in a while yesterday, advertised queue of an hour, was on it within 20 minutes.

Forgot how much of a fun ride it is. That little twisty turny bit just before the end was actually quite intense...
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Really need to ride it, although I might've left it too late now being 6ft 2. :p
Am slender though tbh so I might be alright.
 
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The limit is 1.95m, and 6ft 2 is roughly 1.88m according to Google, so you should be fine. Even with shoes, you should be nowhere above 1.9m!
 
Hats off to Towers and their staff. Spent 4 days on park and I've no complaints at all regarding how they're running things with the Covid restrictions. The atmosphere was relaxed and we got plenty of rides in. Only had to remind folk behind us in the queues to keep their distance on 2 occasions over the 4 days we were there which was nothing to do with the park who are doing their best with social distancing announcements.
 
Austin Towers said:
Hats off to Towers and their staff. Spent 4 days on park and I've no complaints at all regarding how they're running things with the Covid restrictions. The atmosphere was relaxed and we got plenty of rides in. Only had to remind folk behind us in the queues to keep their distance on 2 occasions over the 4 days we were there which was nothing to do with the park who are doing their best with social distancing announcements.
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I had a mixed experience the other day, nothing to scare me away from visiting again but there were a few areas they could've improved on which I've sent my feedback to towers about!

  • Was in the queue for Wickerman when it broke down. They played the pre-recorded announcement to leave the forest which caused confusion and led to people pushing past me in the queue line wanting to leave the queue. Feel like a simple announcement from the ride team explaining the situation and either saying to remain in the queue or saying a managed emptying of the queue was going to take place would've solved the issue.
  • Congo river rapids & runaway mine train queues ended up queuing outside the entrance onto the paths, causing overcrowding in Katanga Canyon and making the pathways impossible to socially distance. This wasn't just a few people but a full fledged queue had formed over some time. Feel like these queues should've been closed once they reached capacity (like they do with The Smiler).
  • Certain rides not playing enough announcements or at all, found it was luck of the draw whether you were going to enter a socially distanced queue or a free for all. Dark forest seemed specifically bad for this.
  • I did praise The Smilers ride team who handled social distancing fantastically. Instead of playing pre recorded messages the Ride Op was making announcements every five minutes telling people to stand on a chevron and saying masks are needed once entering the building. Every person I could see listened to this direction. A long with closing the queue once it had reached capacity I was very impressed with them. I made the point that if Towers were consistent and every ride team was like The Smiler's then my experience would've been a lot more pleasant!
 
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