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2017: General Discussion

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10.30 opening times, I'm lost for words :eek: OK we have only lost 30mins, but that extra 30mins in the morning for us early birds is the difference between getting in a good few rides before the influx of guest arrives. Ques tend to peak around lunch time. I remember a few years ago when they tried the staggered opening times, the ques were horrendous.
 
Thankfully I only live 30 mins away so the traveling isnt much of an issue. But it's a bit of a kick in the face to open that late
 
Those are opening times I expect from some tiny middle of nowhere park in Europe that gets about 5 people in a day and even some of them have better opening hours than Towers now...

Embarrassing really...
 
Merlin have no interest in ensuring that Towers is a top European theme park. They are only interested in reducding the scale of the park in every aspect to make it more manageable for themselves. Less rides, less F&B, less shops, shorter opening hours, shorter events and reduced capacity of certain things that are open. With guest numbers as they are this makes total sense to them, why bother to operate a park to cater for more guests than it actually gets? There is no real ambition to ever get the park back towards 3 million guests. At least I hope there is not as if those numbers turn up again the park simply will not cope.

That's why I don't care about these 10.30am openings. Maybe this is a selfish point of view but there will still be more than enough time to get done what I want to when I visit the park, plus I get an extra 30 minutes in bed (or more time to enjoy breakfast en route)!

:)
 
I wold be very surprised if Merlin's goal was to actually reduce the number of people visiting the park! I think its more a case of cutting costs to increase profit margins more than anything else.

As for the 10:30 opening - yeah fine, if the closing time was sensible, but when people are paying in excess of £50 to get in (+£6 to park), 6 hours of rides (minus queuing, minus walking time between rides, minus time for food and drink) seems poor value for money to me.
 
If they are going to reduce opening hours, then I hope that they get all the rides up and running on time (unlike last year on some of our visits where rides were still not signed off up to an hour and a half after ERT opening and Oblivion wasn't signed off up to 30mins late on many occasions). I also hope that the ride down time is not going to be as bad as last year.

I would also hate to be waiting by the turnstile on a busy day when the space between the turnstile and the mono rail reaches full capacity just before the gates open :eek:
 
Thats a point actually.... what time will the monorail start running so people can get into the park immediately the moment it opens.

What time will the ticket booths and pre-booked ticket booths open so people can queue and get their tickets ready for the moment the gates open?

If people are queuing for ages to just get in and find its already midday, they wont be happy.
 
On my first visit last season, the only coaster open for ERT was Octonaughts, and there was a queue...of mainly adults!
Strange to think that the opening hours at Blackpool Pleasure Beach will be better than Alton this year, both peak and off peak, and several 10pm closes with fireworks. It also opens for the season six weeks earlier than the Towers as well.
Looks like I will be getting good value with my £80 season ticket.
Just a shame they won't be building up the new ride as well during the season.
Like many others, I just can't understand why Merlin are reducing the fireworks again after being so crowded last year.
The downward spiral continues, I really hope the new woodie at Alton turns things around for them.
 
Glad Towers are taking the right approach to their park by reducing the hours, offerings and magic yet increasing the price by another £1.20.

The way the parks being run, you'd think they were running thousands into the red, not a multimillion corporation. Towers is now a regional park with hotels & bits attached, not a world class park in any shape or form currently I'm afraid.

One day, they'll probably do 10-4 openings and weekends and close Forbidden Valley an hour late and open X-Sector an hour early.
 
If you dive deep enough into the new booking system, there are lots of errors. For example, you can book fastrack timeslots from 10am even though the park won't open until 10:30am o_O
 
Yes the information via all the links at the moment is a complete mess, I'm trying to plan some tips and resort stays, and the booking diaries don't all tally with the opening times.

For example the website is showing the park closed on the following days 9th 10th 11th October, but yet I can purchase park tickets for these days except for the 11th on the tickets purchase link :confused:

Do they have a scoobydoo with whats going on? Because I haven't :confused:
 
Closing the monorail off peak, what a sneaky Merlin cost cut, as...
It is not a closure in the actual theme park, it saves staff in the stations and drivers, they will make a bomb on express parking, and they can claim they are making healthier customers with all that exercise.
I imagine they will shift the general parking up to the exit gates instead of the monorail station.
They will presumably open the Galactica exit at close to make things a bit easier for the poor punters, though as they don't seem to give a sh!t about their customer base they probably won't bother.
I usually use the express parking, though on 2 visits last year even that was closed except for pre bookers, so we just dumped the car at the top of the coach park.
 
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