2015: General Discussion

[Sm1lingAdvocate]

Could they be some of the actors/characters names?

 

[Leah]

Also noticed that all the names have times next to them.. No idea why.

 

[Burbs]

Also noticed that all the names have times next to them.. No idea why.

I am paranoid about this now!

 

[Leah]

I am paranoid about this now!

7/1...

that is all

 

[phildenholm]

They are betting slips and the numbers are odds

 

[delta79]

From what i can make out, the slips say
(Left slip)
' ENDGAME
10/1 Chealsea S
6/1 Charl S
(16:00)

2 bottle caps each '

(Middle Slip)
' Endgame!
4/1 Chris S
(13:00)
7/1 Tom B
(19:15)

2Caps '

(Right slip)
' Tom e J k
7/1
5 Caps'

The one thing that stands out to me is the times in brackets is this 24hr clock time or mins and seconds?

 

[Sku]

I have continued to monitor average queue times at Alton Towers, and peoples feeling that it's got a little busier towards the end of the summer holiday is correct... if only a very small amount.

Here is a weekly breakdown for just the 6 coasters, and an average queue time across all of them for the week:

The first week I monitored was school trip week, and a couple of the busy trip days pushed the posted wait up during that week a little. In the second week I recorded, the first full week of the summer holidays was completely dead with every single ride being a walk on almost everyday. After this things start to pick up a little week by week.

Nemesis and Oblivion continue to be virtually walk on all day everyday. Oblivion had 1 day at the end of August where a 40m wait was posted for most of the day, I assume there were either operating problems, or the wrong wait was posted on the ride times website, which causes that 6 minute average for the week.

Th13teen seems to have kept getting longer and longer waits as the weeks have gone by, making it often one of the longest waits in the park for the past couple of weeks. It has had extensive amounts of downtime as well, including 5 days in the second part of August where it was down nearly all day. It makes me wonder if there are technical difficulties reducing capacity, or a train has been removed, pushing those queue times up. I have not been to the park recently to verify what is going wrong, but the queue time is getting much longer relative to other rides, suggesting this isn't caused by a surge in popularity or guest numbers. Even on days without any downtime the queue is posting as getting very long compared to other rides.

Spinball usually attracts the longest wait in the park this summer. This is due to it's poor capacity, and the fact that most guests skip riding it on a busy day (usually keeping its queue lower than it would be). Since it's been quiet, a lot of guests are no longer skipping it as they have more time to fit it in. The queue often drops dramatically in the afternoon.

Air and Rita are posting very consistent waits, with Rita about 5-10mins and Air 10-15mins. The queuetime rarely spikes up much higher than this, and rarely becomes a walk on either.

The Average should be taken with a large grain of salt, but gives a rough idea of how busy the park has been week on week. It has been slightly pushed up by apparent operating issues and downtime at Th13teen in recent weeks, but the trend on other rides also suggests a very slight increase in visitors as the weeks went on, with bank holiday weekend Saturday being the busiest day I recorded so far.

I can post a more in depth daily chart as well if people are interested, but since I've been doing this for a while it is getting rather long, so I thought a weekly view was better. Additionally I can also provide analysis for the family rides, but the wait time statistics are not as interesting.

 

[bluesonichd]

Im glad it turns out not to be @Tom.B

Edit: probably needs moving to the scarefest section as its marketing for whatever they have planned

 

[Leah]

Th13teen seems to have kept getting longer and longer waits as the weeks have gone by, making it often one of the longest waits in the park for the past couple of weeks. It has had extensive amounts of downtime as well, including 5 days in the second part of August where it was down nearly all day. It makes me wonder if there are technical difficulties reducing capacity, or a train has been removed, pushing those queue times up. I have not been to the park recently to verify what is going wrong, but the queue time is getting much longer relative to other rides, suggesting this isn't caused by a surge in popularity or guest numbers. Even on days without any downtime the queue is posting as getting very long compared to other rides.

What I found with both my holiday trips is that they had 2 trains on the track, but we're only loading 1. That meant that they kept ringing one into the station, not opening the air gates, waiting a few minutes, then sending it empty.

 

[bluesonichd]

I have continued to monitor average queue times at Alton Towers, and peoples feeling that it's got a little busier towards the end of the summer holiday is correct... if only a very small amount.

Here is a weekly breakdown for just the 6 coasters, and an average queue time across all of them for the week:

The first week I monitored was school trip week, and a couple of the busy trip days pushed the posted wait up during that week a little. In the second week I recorded, the first full week of the summer holidays was completely dead with every single ride being a walk on almost everyday. After this things start to pick up a little week by week.

Nemesis and Oblivion continue to be virtually walk on all day everyday. Oblivion had 1 day at the end of August where a 40m wait was posted for most of the day, I assume there were either operating problems, or the wrong wait was posted on the ride times website, which causes that 6 minute average for the week.

Th13teen seems to have kept getting longer and longer waits as the weeks have gone by, making it often one of the longest waits in the park for the past couple of weeks. It has had extensive amounts of downtime as well, including 5 days in the second part of August where it was down nearly all day. It makes me wonder if there are technical difficulties reducing capacity, or a train has been removed, pushing those queue times up. I have not been to the park recently to verify what is going wrong, but the queue time is getting much longer relative to other rides, suggesting this isn't caused by a surge in popularity or guest numbers. Even on days without any downtime the queue is posting as getting very long compared to other rides.

Spinball usually attracts the longest wait in the park this summer. This is due to it's poor capacity, and the fact that most guests skip riding it on a busy day (usually keeping its queue lower than it would be). Since it's been quiet, a lot of guests are no longer skipping it as they have more time to fit it in. The queue often drops dramatically in the afternoon.

Air and Rita are posting very consistent waits, with Rita about 5-10mins and Air 10-15mins. The queuetime rarely spikes up much higher than this, and rarely becomes a walk on either.

The Average should be taken with a large grain of salt, but gives a rough idea of how busy the park has been week on week. It has been slightly pushed up by apparent operating issues and downtime at Th13teen in recent weeks, but the trend on other rides also suggests a very slight increase in visitors as the weeks went on, with bank holiday weekend Saturday being the busiest day I recorded so far.

I can post a more in depth daily chart as well if people are interested, but since I've been doing this for a while it is getting rather long, so I thought a weekly view was better. Additionally I can also provide analysis for the family rides, but the wait time statistics are not as interesting.

Yesterday they were only loading 8 people per train on Oblivion. Just the front row... Oh look theres a queue. Doh well there would be !

 

[Leah]

Yesterday they were only loading 8 people per train on Oblivion. Just the front row... Oh look theres a queue. Doh well there would be !

And when I went they were only loading one train at a time.

 

[bluesonichd]

And when I went they were only loading one train at a time.

Thats been normal and i can cope with. But with 4 tains on track and just a1/a2 loading.
17 sec of ride time and then 3 weeks sat on track waiting to get off.

 

[Leah]

Thats been normal and i can cope with. But with 4 tains on track and just a1/a2 loading.
17 sec of ride time and then 3 weeks sat on track waiting to get off.

I was waiting to get off for ages because one of the engineers was trying to fix a restraint on the car in front and they were only loading one train. Don't know weather that has anything to do with the "larger" person trying to get into that seat before and only just manage

 

[Scott]

What I found with both my holiday trips is that they had 2 trains on the track, but we're only loading 1. That meant that they kept ringing one into the station, not opening the air gates, waiting a few minutes, then sending it empty.

If the airgates aren't full they'll send an empty train as each train needs to have a certain amount of guests on it to be dispatched.

 

[Leah]

If the airgates aren't full they'll send an empty train as each train needs to have a certain amount of guests on it to be dispatched.

No, all the air gates were full and the queue was backing up to just past the baggage hold. I think it was just to raise the queue line, just like they were doing on nemesis and oblivion

 

[josht]

It's a fine afternoon here at towers suns out and smell of freshly cut grass is in the air

 

[Scott]

No, all the air gates were full and the queue was backing up to just past the baggage hold. I think it was just to raise the queue line, just like they were doing on nemesis and oblivion

There could have been a fault with the other train and were running it for testing purposes?

Towers have no reason to inflate queues (I'll wait for someone cynical to mention Fastrack) and especially not when the park is so quiet of late.

 

[delta79]

Queue inflation = Fastrack sales.

 

[Sku]

There could have been a fault with the other train and were running it for testing purposes?

Towers have no reason to inflate queues (I'll wait for someone cynical to mention Fastrack) and especially not when the park is so quiet of late.

I would hope they want to keep the queue times down as much as possible at the moment, they need every visitor to have a great experience right now! Net promoter scores and all that.

I doubt creating a 20m queue artificially will have much impact on fast track sales. The number 1 priority right now should be winning people back.

 

[Rick]

If you run (and fill) two trains, a queue up the baggage hold would disappear very quickly to nothing, it makes sense to retain some queue so you have a constant flow of people filling the trains.

It's usually against procedure to run a non-servicable train, even if it's empty, for obvious reasons.