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2013: General Discussion

Dave said:
Noticed today that they are building something on the access road you can see on RMT.... Asked around and it turns out its going to be a store shed so you can't see the bins that are stored there when on RMT.

Awww, I like the bin theming on RMT. I am going to miss seeing the bins when on the ride. ;)
 
delta79 said:
Dave said:
Noticed today that they are building something on the access road you can see on RMT.... Asked around and it turns out its going to be a store shed so you can't see the bins that are stored there when on RMT.

Awww, I like the bin theming on RMT. I am going to miss seeing the bins when on the ride. ;)

I wish they would open that area up and make it part of Katanga Canyon. A nicely themed children's adventure playground would be good.
 
Alastair said:
Does anyone know what they're doing in the corner of the Towers on the right when you exit Hex through the current exit? They've taken out an awful lot of bricks from the ground and seem to have a decent sized hole there.

This has been posted on the Scarefest topic as it is to do with Scarefest. I think this will be the location of the trick or treat stage (as its in Fountain Square this year), so the new manhole covers will be for electrics such as lighting and sound.
 
Well this morning everything's down! No monorail=long walk in the rain. No turnstiles working entire park has power outage apart from forbidden valley and now I've finally got here nemesis has gone down too. No music around the park and fog. Pretty eerie!

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Somebody's cut through a power cable and for a 50mile radius the power is apparently out

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According to Western Power they expect power to be restored by 11:30. If it comes back at that time it'll probably be getting on for midday before normality starts to resume. Time to play the waiting game :p
 
e4kenndr said:
Somebody's cut through a power cable and for a 50mile radius the power is apparently out

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One man, One JCB (other backhoes are available) and one big heap of problems :D :D
 
One of the worst days I have had on park (company excluded).

Utterly dire, communication to the public without having to constantly ask? Zero.

Attitude in general of the management for the problems of the morning? CBA.

The obvious thing to do today, was to hold the thrill rides open until 5:30 at least to make up for the utter abject farce of the morning, this is not rocket science Towers!

Close the quiet areas down, leave the big thrill open as it was mostly adults on park. I mean for goodness sake, The Smiler still had a 70 minute queue today, it was fully up to the entrance with the entire queue open, and at one point Nemesis had a queue up to the gate, out of it, and around the first Helix - so there was enough reason to keep a few thrills open a bit later.

Rita broke down repeatedly, Sonic went down, Nemesis was all over the shop, including going down during the power outage meaning only air was open thrill ride wise!!

I know these things can happen, but these were extreme, and as a MAP holder you actually get treated worse than a member of the GP. They really do not give a crap.

Towers, today, (apart from, as usual, the majority of front of house staff who were lovely) you were a disgrace.

Absolutely fuming with them. Pathetic.

Also, can someone confirm, HB Leisure - can you use a MAP on their stalls or not? I got told "not on this particular game" when I asked at a stall?

Is this photo-rip off MkII or is that true can someone confirm? Given that after multiple emails I have still had NO response to being refused the photo refund on the basis I am an annual pass holder, if I have now also been had by a HB Leisure stall and todays ludicrous situation I will be going all out for some serious answers, the culmination of many, many niggles now this season is mounting up to quite a major complaint.

Poor, poor form! (Great staff, as mentioned, aside of course).
 
TheMan said:
Also, can someone confirm, HB Leisure - can you use a MAP on their stalls or not? I got told "not on this particular game" when I asked at a stall?

As far as I was aware you could use MAP on all game stalls and you got a buy one go get one free perk with them.
 
I will be there for scarefest this year. I am getting excited (only 4 weeks to go) but the bad VIBES are making me very nervous. I don't know weather its because I go onto this website and the negative air is everywhere. But still I think I can overlook some of the problems as I don't get to upset about the little details. And can usually see the silver lining of a mushroom cloud. ill hopefully just walk around and sheer ignorant bliss. Which is what more people should do on here.
 
LiamC said:
TheMan said:
Also, can someone confirm, HB Leisure - can you use a MAP on their stalls or not? I got told "not on this particular game" when I asked at a stall?

As far as I was aware you could use MAP on all game stalls and you got a buy one go get one free perk with them.

Apart from the "prize every time" stalls...
 
Benzin said:
LiamC said:
TheMan said:
Also, can someone confirm, HB Leisure - can you use a MAP on their stalls or not? I got told "not on this particular game" when I asked at a stall?

As far as I was aware you could use MAP on all game stalls and you got a buy one go get one free perk with them.

Apart from the "prize every time" stalls...

Right so more BS on park then. I thought that was the case, this wasn't a prize every time stall, just a standard basketball - I thought he looked shifty when he said "er, I don't, not on this stall mate", in a way that suggested perhaps he had a very special stall, maybe you won a genie? Or a magic carpet?? Or a wonderful flying white elephant?

NO.

You had a NORMAL stall pal, there was nothing special about it, in fact - it was one of the very dull ones it just happened to have something I wanted, like a shiny gem....

Don't even get me started on Burger Kitchen, and £18 for a large fries...(no, I didn't end up paying that, but I nearly did).
 
I think most stalls that have it do have a little sign stating as such, perhaps the issue is that the basketball games don't count?

Does anyone even know?

Either way, HBL are crap...
 
TheMan said:
Benzin said:
LiamC said:
TheMan said:
Also, can someone confirm, HB Leisure - can you use a MAP on their stalls or not? I got told "not on this particular game" when I asked at a stall?

As far as I was aware you could use MAP on all game stalls and you got a buy one go get one free perk with them.

Apart from the "prize every time" stalls...

Right so more BS on park then. I thought that was the case, this wasn't a prize every time stall, just a standard basketball - I thought he looked shifty when he said "er, I don't, not on this stall mate", in a way that suggested perhaps he had a very special stall, maybe you won a genie? Or a magic carpet?? Or a wonderful flying white elephant?

NO.

You had a NORMAL stall pal, there was nothing special about it, in fact - it was one of the very dull ones it just happened to have something I wanted, like a shiny gem....

This has happened to me twice this year also - once on an actual game and once with the Battle Beam. The second was incredibly frustrating as I was able to claim the offer on my visit before! I did try to challenge it but to no success, and then emailed Merlin Annual Pass and had no reply...
 
As far as i'm aware last season all stalls (Except prize every time) were included and all the the 2 for 1 logo on them. However this year at towers the majority of these logos seem to have been removed on the games (not sure if you can still use 2 for 1 on these or not). It was still listed a perk on the annual pass website.

In regards to power cuts at Towers, I have been there before and they haven't a clue what is going on, and as far as I can tell, they have zero systems in place to communicate or anything. It was a bit of a joke when we were there earlier in the season and there was a power cut, no one in any area of the park knew what to do or what was going on.
 
I wonder if their radio system is affected by power failure on park, due to it being a duplex or repeater based system.

If it is a repeater based system then if the repeater loses power the radio system will stop working. This could account for the communication problems during power outages.

just a side note, There are 4 Business licences assigned to Alton Towers address, One belonging to HB Leisure (via multi site licence), two for Alton Towers Resort Operations Ltd and one just for Alton Towers.
 
djtruefitt said:
As far as i'm aware last season all stalls (Except prize every time) were included and all the the 2 for 1 logo on them. However this year at towers the majority of these logos seem to have been removed on the games (not sure if you can still use 2 for 1 on these or not). It was still listed a perk on the annual pass website.

In regards to power cuts at Towers, I have been there before and they haven't a clue what is going on, and as far as I can tell, they have zero systems in place to communicate or anything. It was a bit of a joke when we were there earlier in the season and there was a power cut, no one in any area of the park knew what to do or what was going on.

That was my understanding RE the stalls.

The power cut situation however was ridiculous, and to not keep the park open a bit later for the guests that had come to me was just nonsensical. No communication whatsoever. I understand, these things will happen, of course they will - hence I didn't go round giving the staff grief for it, what could they have done? Nothing of course.

However, true service is found out when problems do occur, and obviously there is only so much GS can do in these situations (and we all know what that is). They are cleaning a mess that simply has no need to even be there in the first place.

If they had left a few rides open for another hour, they would have gotten a letter of praise rather than yet another of complaint. Of course, they responded at least this time, but the talk of being the UKs most visited park and listening to feedback etc - yes GS, you do, we know that. Unfortunately it seems that those who need to listen and make the changes, aren't!

I feel sorry for GS, they no doubt got obliterated in the morning, hence I left visiting them till late afternoon out of respect for the staff there, I did however make it perfectly clear that I thought the management behind it was an absolute joke.

There are many great staff, undermined by many stupid and in my opinion, selfish decisions. Guest satisfaction from the UKs pinnacle theme park? Right now, they are struggling to get the basics right!
 
I think you have all hit the nail on the head regards to the power cut and the communication.

First, Im sure the staff are well versed in what to do in an event of a power loss. But as a power drop is sudden, it will catch the friendly folks of guard, so people do panic. However I wonder if they are told to wait instruction and none is forth coming. Due to the upper end of the management team wondering why the kettle wont turn on.

Second, if the radio's don't work with a power loss, do most rides have a land line system (the old fashioned way) Not a great systemto have in the loss of power.

Third, Ive never had a problem with GS at AT, its always the people above them that seem to make the situation worse. Ive never seen anyone back there staff.
 
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