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2018: General Discussion

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Alsty said:
Self-service order points at restaurants will be here soon, closely followed by the entrance plaza I'm sure. Self-service checkouts in the shops and for onride photos will be here soon too I reckon.
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Merlin already have self service order points at Chessington, at Thorpe Picsolve have self service photo points which are not yet digipass enabled .

themeparkfan said:
I'm preparing my application. Here goes :

1) charge £2.00 fare per person over 3 for the monorail or walk free of charge. If poor uptake on use we can close it.

2) All entry is book online with QR code ticket (s) sent to phone and scan at the turnstiles. This allows to remove staff from ticket booths etc.

3) Use of self service vending machines to buy fast track first come first served.

4) Close all the food outlets. Most people bring their own food. Just have the vending machines to allow snack purchases and drink . Water fountains available for tap water.

5) Use AI robotics to operate the rides. With turnstiles to count the number of people to be batched on to the airgates.

6) Switch off the effects on thirteen, oblivion and wickerman. Lets be honest people have seen them now.

Hope that works.

S**t I've just realised I will be sacked after one year because I can't cut anything else the year after. I should have staggered it over 3 years, so at least I would have got 3 years work!

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The first bit of #2 actually seems like a good idea.

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As a partially sighted person ordering via a machine is much easier than a person, purely because in fast food restaurants I can't read the menu, so the cashier has to tell me what they have. Being vegetarian doesn't help either
 
ihaveaspergers said:
Merlin already have self service order points at Chessington, at Thorpe Picsolve have self service photo points which are not yet digipass enabled .
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Yep, I'm sure they're just ironing out the technology before rolling it out across all their parks.

The last time I was at Chessington it was actually quicker to go to a normal counter to get your food. Everyone was using the self-service machines to order but then had to join a single massive queue to collect their grub.

Danny said:
We thought the cutting of the ride line up was bad, now it appears there will be no staff left to run the place either.
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Well Nick Varney will be happy as they're seemingly an inconvenience to his business.
 
Heres an idea. Thomas Cook recently starting charging extra to select your own sun bed by the pool. Alton could charge people to select their own seat on the rides! £5 perhaps to ensure you have the very back seat on Wickerman?
 
themeparkfan said:
5) Use AI robotics to operate the rides. With turnstiles to count the number of people to be batched on to the airgates.
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I'm actually quite curious about how technology could be used to assist batching and queue management. Fast track and single rider merge would be another point of interest which I think could be automated.

I was very impressed by the ingenuity of the Icon bag hold, and thought that it renoved faff and allowed people to feel safe leaving their valuables rather than risking them on ride.

Of course you can have as much tech as you want but people are distructive and innovation usually takes a few iterations to not be terribly flaky. Perhaps an area of investment rather than cost cutting, but something I'd be very interested in.

Ride hardware so advanced and yet an automatic bag hold is unfathomable, stick two staff in a cupboard... 2 sided lockers with NFC wrist bands?

Very curious to see technology helping efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, walking a screen on something and reducing staff numbers is not always the answer, and it is nice to see some humans around, especially to help people phased by this kind of thing.
 
Regarding tech to batch people, the Italian parks seem to use that, with a turnstile and counter system at Garda, Mira and Rainbow Magicland...

However, more often than not they needed a staff member to check/reset it, but for most part groups would call forward themselves if the number went down below their group...
 
^wasn't the fine based on Merlin's turnover? So if Merlin wasn't around, they wouldn't have had such a huge amount to pay (and try to claw back through tax shenanigans)
 
Dar said:
^wasn't the fine based on Merlin's turnover? So if Merlin wasn't around, they wouldn't have had such a huge amount to pay (and try to claw back through tax shenanigans)
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The fine could have been, I don't know. But what about the payouts for injuries and compensation? I'll admit I know nothing about compensation laws - are the amounts to pay set by the company's turnover as well?
 
Hopefully this means a few more boats are now in use, they've been down for ages.

Bit late in the season to make a major impact though, they've completely missed summer.
 
Lurker said:
I'm actually quite curious about how technology could be used to assist batching and queue management. Fast track and single rider merge would be another point of interest which I think could be automated.

I was very impressed by the ingenuity of the Icon bag hold, and thought that it renoved faff and allowed people to feel safe leaving their valuables rather than risking them on ride.

Of course you can have as much tech as you want but people are distructive and innovation usually takes a few iterations to not be terribly flaky. Perhaps an area of investment rather than cost cutting, but something I'd be very interested in.

Ride hardware so advanced and yet an automatic bag hold is unfathomable, stick two staff in a cupboard... 2 sided lockers with NFC wrist bands?

Very curious to see technology helping efficiency.

Don't get me wrong, walking a screen on something and reducing staff numbers is not always the answer, and it is nice to see some humans around, especially to help people phased by this kind of thing.
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That sort of tech is good until you have someone like me turn up and spot a flaw in how it works.

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