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February Half Term - why isn't the park prepared?

Park feeling way busier than previous years half terms - and they have coped well I think, most issues seemingly rectified for Sunday.

Nemesis had issues on Saturday, of which you could only find out once people had been continually riding it apparently, so no amount of pre-planning would have prevented it. Least it was fully working for Sunday - and we had two trains, unlike last year.

Rides wise - it's clearly mentioned, everywhere, that it's limited availability and what rides are open. If people don't read it, that's their problem really. Winter maintenance (and weather) cannot be helped.

Weathers gorgeous as well, that helps. Though let's see how it goes when it gets colder later in the week.
 
Well no not for us maybe. But the event wasn't aimed at thrill seekers at all, it was a family event with a few kids offerings. I know nothing about Moshi Monsters, but the queues to meet the characters were rather long. And a few of us tried out the Moshi Quest which seemed good fun; I'm sure kids that play Moshi Monsters really enjoyed that. It also looked like they had some good things on over at the hotels.

I just thought that side of the event was pulled off almost perfectly. And going by the promotion and marketing this side of the event was the main focus. Just look at the FHT page on Towers' website. It states:

Alton Towers said:
Visit the Alton Towers Resort for February Half Term 2013 and meet the Moshi Monsters, along with a selection of rides and attractions that will be available. Take part in the Moshi Quest, Moshi Medal activities and even earn thousands of Rox when you stay over in the Alton Towers Resort hotels
So clearly Moshi was the focus of the event. I don't think the event would have gone ahead without an external sponsor.

:)
 
Sam said:
Ahh. All I noticed was some different music on Towers Street, a few staff giving away flashing keyrings and a park mostly full of adults. Not quite as good for me as a 180ft £12m B&M Dive Machine but each to their own I guess. :)

I suppose they could have cancelled the repaint and opened it

;)
 
The few kids that were on park didn't seem particularly enthralled by the Moshi Monsters thing, but maybe that was just my impression.

Dave said:
I suppose they could have cancelled the repaint and opened it

Obviously I'm not proposing that they should have opened Oblivion. Th13teen would have been a perfectly acceptable substitute, which I'm sure a lot of the kids there would have been much more excited by than a free keyring. :)
 
The park was very much full of kids Sam, There were certainly more younger kids on park than a usual day there, but its probably because you were not looking in the kids areas of the park like CCL and the farm, both of which were very busy.

I think the Moshi stuff was great, I dont really have a clue about it, but my younger brother loves it, and I know for a fact he would have loved to have met a Moshi Monster or taken part in the quest. You also have to remember this was the first time the Moshi Monsters have ever done a event like this, and it was the first time for anyone to have ever met and got a photo with a Moshi Monster.

I for one have never seen CCL looking so busy with the amount of people queueing to see the Moshi Monsters and taking part in the quest. It was a fun idea and I think it worked great.
 
Sam said:
The few kids that were on park didn't seem particularly enthralled by the Moshi Monsters thing, but maybe that was just my impression.
Hour long queues for the meet and greets, kids carrying their collections and gaining stickers and badges all over the park.

I think your perception has been misguided.
 
The only thing I saw an hour long queue for on Saturday was Mutiny Bay BBQ - the food offerings were spectacularly misjudged.

I don't know where this hour long queue came from, I only saw five minutes at best at each Monster thingey on Saturday. I got a general sense of disappointment from the adults on park (the overwhelming majority) that they came for a bread & butter thrill rides event that they'd experienced in previous years, and they found the number of major coasters open down by a third.

There was no reason this couldn't be a thrill seekers event AND a Moshi Monsters event, and there was no reason at all for Th13teen not to be open.
 
Yup I have to say the families looked very satisfied and Towers marketed this directly at families. Though they need more family rides but that hopefully will be fixed in 2014. Sam I think you are ignoring the Moshi impact to make a point, the meet and greets where hugely popular as was the quest.

Th13teen wouldn't have helped thrill seekers as thrill seekers hate it :)
 
Anyone who visited the website, which most will have done when they booked their tickets, will have known what rides were open.

If people have expected more and left disappointed, it is their own fault.
 
Regardless of whether the Dark Forest should have been open or not, I don't think any visitor to the park should have been complaining about the ride selection. There was a reduced admission cost to an event that was publicised online, on park and on Facebook as being Moshi Monster based alongside a clearly publicised ride list... If people were moaning that things were not open then perhaps they should have paid some more attention.
 
Wasn't overall impressed with the product offering as a whole compared to previous years. Not their fault so much, but felt like half the park was redundant.

Moshi stuff looked great for kids, and plenty of rides open for them.

Towers undeniably attract the thrill-seeking bunch as well - and I don't think what was on offer really warranted visiting unless you live relatively close. Luckily I'm past being overly bothered about ride counts, so I still had a great time just enjoying the weather outside the Tavern, with a couple of rides here and there. Shame the Gardens were closed.

It's always a nice event to break up the closed season a little, but I wouldn't necessarily blame anybody not part of a 'family unit' for being a little underwhelmed. Not saying it was avoidable on the park's part, but regardless. The food situation on Saturday was pretty dire. :( I settled for a sugar fix from Corner Coffee for lunch. :)
 
Kaycee said:
Luckily I'm past being overly bothered about ride counts

Whaaaaa? ;)

The only thing I really noticed was "crap, big queue for RMT... oh well, nemmy it is". Followed by "Darn it!! NO FRIES ANYWHERE!!! - Oh well, bought a sarnie" Thanks to e4kenndr for the chip though ;D

I'd kinda anticipated it was going to be busy, food outlets etc, I just found nemmy was as hungry for queues as I was for fries, and I was a bit pleasantly surprised by how (relatively!) short the queue was considering how busy the park felt.

Thankfully I didn't go on this meet to judge the park ;D
 
Kaycee said:
Luckily I'm past being overly bothered about ride counts

I love this in busy times when rides (apart from Nemesis) don't matter, I could whore Nemmy for ERT then just chill all the rest of the day.
 
Personally really happy with the Half Term offering this year – the Moshi additions both on park and in the hotels seem to have perfectly hit the zeitgeist with kids and that's reflected in the completely unexpected rise in attendance this year (I'm sure things like F&B queues have never been a problem at Feb before?!) and that perhaps wasn't something Towers could predict.

This kind of thing is totally subjective, obviously, but for me I thought there was far more atmosphere parkwide than the event's had in previous years, though that could just be from the large numbers in the park, but oddly given the reduced rollercoaster lineup there was far less of the "in a half-open park" feeling.

More of this please :)

AstroDan said:
A few entertainments staff around on the streets (pirates etc.) and the event would have been complete. Park still feels a bit lifeless though.

On that note I think Ents are already just about pushed to their limit at this event, and coping very well for it – from the standard February requirement of a few staff to run Wobble World, they've now got to have staff for that, Ice Age, Moshi Station, Question Masters, Moshi costume characters and their supervising staff, and Moshi stuff over at hotels, and I doubt there's been any sort of major budget increase to fund this demand of staff. Was interesting to see not only hosts but actors, ride staff and even techies doing jobs they wouldn't usually be (similar to managers working on rides!)
 
We visited yesterday for the first ever half term event, was a little disappointed in what they had to offer even after looking at the attractions that were open online.

Max quelines yesterday were 45 for RMT and Squirrel Nutty! It would have been nice for TH13TEEN to be open even Charlie and Sub Terra purely to boost up the rides.

The Moshi Monster music and everything the park had to offer looked amazing! Can't knock that! But next year I would like to see more on offer. Maby with Oblivion back TH13TEEN or Rita as well and potentially Submission and/or Enterprise? I don't think The Smiler will be open next feb half term due to the amount on maintenance it will have to receive after its first year of operation.
 
Snorlix said:
We visited yesterday for the first ever half term event, was a little disappointed in what they had to offer even after looking at the attractions that were open online.
Does not compute?

How can you be disappointed by the selection of rides available after already looking up what was going to be on offer? :)
 
For christ's sake. ::)

I'm NOT SAYING that I felt conned because of the ride selection. I am perfectly aware that it was fully publicised on their website, and people who went should have expected only those rides to be open.

I'm CRITICISING their choice of ride selection. You can't just CONSTANTLY reply to that with 'Well they publicised what was open'. I'm not criticising that - I'm criticising their original choice to begin with. ::)

If it was for families only, then they shouldn't have bothered having any thrill rides open. If it was for thrill seekers and families, they should have had enough thrill rides open (I know Th13teen isn't white-knuckle, but it's a decent enough replacement for Oblivion). Instead they made it clear that in part it was a thrill-seekers event (Nemesis and Air open) but then made it mediocre by having so few big rides open.
 
What have I started? :eek: :p

Must admit, I wrote the first post in this topic whilst in a bit of a huff (about real life stuff) and the negativity came across more strongly than intended - I agree there were lots of good elements to Feb Half Term, and that it's a vast improvement on how it has been in previous years overall - also, whilst I personally find Moshi Monsters tacky, it's certainly proved popular!

Was looking for opinions on the few bits that irked me, and wondering what can be done for future years (but forgot about mentioning the positives!) :) - which is good, as thats what the thread has essentially turned into! Glad to hear the F&B side of things improved on the Sunday too.
 
There are two different arguments going on here: one is about the number and range of attractions open, the other is about the park's (lack of) preparedness for the number of guests attending this week. They are indirectly related, as the number of attractions will affect queue times, but the park doesn't really have the ability to add to the line up at short notice.

In the current age of pre-booking the park has the best indication it has ever had as to the number of people who are likely to turn up on any given day. Pre-booked tickets, along with past data and weather forecasts all give an indication as to how busy a given day will be in advance. It should have been apparent well before the weekend that far more people were going to turn up than in previous years. In terms of rides, there's not a lot they can do to improve things as there are only limited staff available, though they should still aim to ensure all rides have enough staff to run at maximum efficiency. They should also be able to adjust the number of people in food outlets/retail according to predictions. It would seem that on Saturday in particular this was not the case, with very long queues both for food and in Towers Trading at the end of the day, caused more by understaffing than guest numbers, which weren't really that high compared with a peak day. Ride queues are unfortunate and unavoidable, food and retail queues could and should have been prevented, and will leave a poor impression with guests.

Clearly the event has been a big success for the park so far, however it is important for future events that guest satisfaction does not suffer as a result, otherwise the success will be short lived.
 
Sam said:
If it was for families only, then they shouldn't have bothered having any thrill rides open. If it was for thrill seekers and families, they should have had enough thrill rides open (I know Th13teen isn't white-knuckle, but it's a decent enough replacement for Oblivion)...
People would definitely have complained if that had been the case - at least this way there was something for older guests to do (and something very good at that!). Had the event been purely marketed at families, with NO major coasters open - I probably wouldn't have made the trip, and I suspect a lot of others wouldn't either. What was available wasn't just 'better than nothing', but enough to cover all the bases in terms of visitor age range. Indeed, in reality, the only ride which could potentially have opened is Thirteen - and I'm not at all convinced it would have made that much difference!
As I've said, my personal February half term experience was far from mediocre, compared to those of previous years, but I'm happy to agree to disagree :)

[Sorry John, I'll read your post now...

I have now read your post. You make some excellent points that I have no counter-argument to :) ]
 
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