Was it busy cos of teenage school trips?
Yes loads of little queue skipping brats at the resort. Having read the past weeks reports they didn't give any indication that the resort was busy, so it was surprising to see oblivion with a 45 minute queue as early as 10.50.
Combine a mass of kids with 6 ride closures and you have trouble
I haven't been for 2 years and understand there have been budget cuts. However most rides don't have queue dispatchers (if that's what you call them, the people guiding people to correct numbered row). For example the air single rider queue was flowing willy nilly in to the main queue whilst older kids were pushing through the younger ones and filling up the front row queue directly from the single rider. The only guidance being the person in charge of securing the guests (therefore tied up in a task and therefore unable to see or stop this happening).
Kids trying to push through queues to reach there mates, to which I singled out and shouted a staff member over, who reluctantly removed them from the queue.
Tens of brats joining single rider and straight up refusing to board as single riders with staff showing no authority to stop them.
With smiler closed I would have expected more staff dispatching on other rides, but this doesn't seem to be the case. On the other hand some rides seem to have far too many operators (blade, twirling toadstools, ice age etc...) where there just isn't the requirement. Too many staff just used to stand around, 1 or 2 for each closed ride, 2 at the entrance to Cbeebies for example. Would be much better to have a dedicated screen per ride (like the dot matrix) where they could inform guests of closures with tying up staff.
The amount of mums and dads, gramps and grans with little ones is insane, clearly Cbeebies is a major success and is accounting for some serious revenue (most of the enchanted area was swarming with them, the room service clearly caters for families with young ones). Cbeebies seems to be a focus point, lots of entertainers and staff, unfortunately rest of park is suffering especially the condition of the ride trains. Each ride could do with a small investment to improve the quality.
Hopefully more rides open tomorrow.
