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2013 General Improvements

Rob

Rob

TS Team
Favourite Ride
Steel Vengeance
There have been a few topics over the past couple of years regarding the poor state of the park etc. So for a change, here's one about some positives!

Firstly, The Burger Kitchen in CCL looks really good. It fits in really well with the main themed area externally and it looks functional and modern internally. So this is great!

Towers Trading has had a further upgrade continuing on from what they did at the top of the shop last year. They've added more promotional material around the shop and given it a much more up to date feel. I personally think it looks really good!

The Box Office has also had some work done on it. It now has two "themed" walls on either side; one relating to Towers and the other the Merlin Annual Pass. There are less TV screens and the screens that are there are in different positions at different levels etc. They were showing queue times and #boxofficeshoutout's over the weekend which were great! Apparently there is more to be done in the Box Office before the main season starts in March so that will be good to see!

Finally, the toilets! We now have good hand dryers! ;D So that's a nice step forwards. Hopefully it may lead to more toilet upgrades in future years.

It may not be much but it is a fair bit more than we've seen in previous years! There's obviously a lot more that does need doing around the park but at least this is a decent start.

EDIT: Ooooh how did I forget Hex! They've made a lot of improvements on Hex and it is now running a lot better than it was last year. It still has trouble parking but apart from that everything seems to have been fixed, including louder vault music!

:)
 
It's certainly alot more than we got in 2011 and we didnt even get a new ride that year!

I can't wait for March (and May) to see what other changes and updates there will be around the park. Here are some photos from the weekend (from Towers Street Facebook page):

Newly updated towers trading, main changes are new signs around the top, lighting and a slight layout change, you will also notice the old style shelving has been removed around the edge of the shop. I think it will look alot nicer in March when it has all the proper merch in:
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The box office, this is the Merlin annual pass section and next to it is a section on food and drink. On the other side there is a section for hotels, events and theme park.
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The outside of the CCL Burger Kitchen:
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And the inside:
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The Hex improvements deserves the applause it got....or was that sarcastic applause for the parking? I don't know or care.......it is great :D
 
The burger kitchen in CCL looks awesome, loving the look of the building as it now fits in nicely in the area. Has anyone seen the one in FV? The logo is slightly themed to the area as it looks rusty and has hazard tape around the border :)
 
Rob said:
There have been a few topics over the past couple of years regarding the poor state of the park etc. So for a change, here's one about some positives!

Firstly, The Burger Kitchen in CCL looks really good. It fits in really well with the main themed area externally and it looks functional and modern internally. So this is great!

Towers Trading has had a further upgrade continuing on from what they did at the top of the shop last year. They've added more promotional material around the shop and given it a much more up to date feel. I personally think it looks really good!

The Box Office has also had some work done on it. It now has two "themed" walls on either side; one relating to Towers and the other the Merlin Annual Pass. There are less TV screens and the screens that are there are in different positions at different levels etc. They were showing queue times and #boxofficeshoutout's over the weekend which were great! Apparently there is more to be done in the Box Office before the main season starts in March so that will be good to see!

Finally, the toilets! We now have good hand dryers! ;D So that's a nice step forwards. Hopefully it may lead to more toilet upgrades in future years.

It may not be much but it is a fair bit more than we've seen in previous years! There's obviously a lot more that does need doing around the park but at least this is a decent start.

EDIT: Ooooh how did I forget Hex! They've made a lot of improvements on Hex and it is now running a lot better than it was last year. It still has trouble parking but apart from that everything seems to have been fixed, including louder vault music!

:)
Click to expand...

Sorry to poop on a 'positives' topic a bit but in all honesty if that is all they have done to improve and maintain the park beyond what they are obliged to do that is quite frankly pitiful.

At the very least each area of the park should be deep cleaned and repainted each closed season as standard. The only so called 'improvements' we seem to see these days are to satisfy their corporate needs in terms of branding and the like. The rest is just stuff they should have anyway (hand dryers etc).

Whoever managed to get Hex sorted out though does deserve special praise, this is an example of genuine improvements and maintenance being carried out! More of this please!

:)
 
Exactly! The main point here was that for the last few years on the whole there has basically been nothing done around the park in terms of improvement apart from where new attractions are involved. However we have seen a few more things this year, and even if it's not much it is a step in the right direction. I believe there may well be a few more things planned between FHT and opening as well.

:)
 
The other thing you have to remember is park "cleaning" happens between feb half term and opening (as they use the staff they employed in Feb to do it). Last year they deep-cleaned the park and repainted (not rides) between Feb and opening, the only noticeable exception to last year was Air which was left for some reason.

So the points Rob makes are additions not maintenance, you can't fully assess maintenance until March ( and this is before you factor in the work on Flume and X-Sector). For an example of maintenance already done, gallopers and frog hopper have been repainted and cleaned.

Considering last year the only true maintenance was a repaint of Marauders and Toadstools platforms by March we are already massively up on the usual standard.
 
No-one has noticed RMT's lap bars have been repainted, I'd say that was a pretty major thing :p

Also, the exit gates and all of the fencing up Air's exit has been painted :) and the footers and stanchions in the brake run have been jet-washed :)
 
Also, RMT has new disabled access gates and a host's cabin on the offload side which looks like it might have a dispatch button in it. So it seems that rather than boost throughputs EP style they've made changes that'll make it slightly worse.
 
RMT does indeed now have dispatch buttons in both its little huts - will be interesting to see the affect on throughput!
 
Most of the changes seen in half term will be things that have taken a few months to develop and implement. I heard that Hex's changes involved many weeks of a hell of a lot of work which could only be done during the few months of closed season. Between Feb half term and March the quicker jobs will be done, hopefully things such as repaints and cleaning (get those jetwashers out!) - so hopefully by March the whole park will look nice and shiny.

Has Hex had a new projector put in place? I swear I read that somewhere on the weekend?
 
Can someone clean the oil off the walls in the Hex vault? It is a right mess on some bits!
 
You can't expect everything needed to happen at once. This all sounds most encouraging, especially Hex. Hoorah!
 
The park will not be 100% till March - a lot of maintenance goes on between Feb/March!

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What has already been done is such an exciting list of improvements and is the kind of thing that we should be seeing every year. I am definitely excited to see what other things will be done before season opening :)
 
You have to remember most ride staff are only employed 2/3 days before FHT opening, simply for re-audits on rides and very basic cleaning tasks. When the full ride team assembles at the start of March, like others have said, this is when the bulk of cleaning will be done.

The work that's been done so far looks very promising though :)
 
Over at the Alton Towers Hotel, you may remember last year, the flying machine had all its sails removed and replaced with bright white ones which looked very out of place with the golden rustic look. The original rustic looking sails have now been replaced intead of the white ones along with a full refurbishment of the ship and now I think it looks great! :D
 
That's good to hear, the white sails looked very out of place in comparison to the original ones. Glad they've got the old design back. I'm glad the cleaning of the ship is done yearly now too. Great that they are keeping everything on top form in the hotels.
 
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