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2018: General Discussion

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Stuie said:
@Matt N ... ever the optimist!
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Thank you! I'm only presuming this because the whole reason the cutbacks were first introduced was due to the incident in June 2015. I'm sure Merlin do care about their parks and want them to thrive, so now the company has more money, the cuts will likely disappear. There have been far more 6pm closes this year than there were last year, so that's a good sign!
 
Lets get the correct facts

Matt N said:
I'm sure they will now that the punters are returning to Alton in force!

As for attendance as a metric and the TEA report, I personally find it very interesting reading when it comes out each year! Also, the TEA report is currently the best idea we have for quite a few theme parks.
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From what I've been told is that the TEA report is not accurate, just a guesstimate

Matt N said:
Thank you! I'm only presuming this because the whole reason the cutbacks were first introduced was due to the incident in June 2015.
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No, the cuts were first introduced with staggered opening times before the 2015 incident, the staggered opening times were very unpopular and was quickly reversed.

Before then, there was that year that they tried to cut the Scarefest festival by sneakily reducing the closing time from 9pm to 7pm for the first week of scarefest (Scottish school holiday week). Once the public got wind of that and the misleading information on their website advertising that you could ride the rides in the dark, again that was very quickly reversed before the event took place.

So stop blaming the Smiler incident for the cuts, these cuts were around before the incident. Blame Merlin and it share holders!
 
RoyJess said:
So stop blaming the Smiler incident for the cuts, these cuts were around before the incident. Blame Merlin and it share holders!
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And Merlin and their shareholders aren't exactly going to go away overnight. So this is a problem that's not going away any time soon. But I struggle to see how things could be cut even further next year than they have been this year. There literally isn't anything left that they can cut... like, there's genuinely nothing left – it's all already been cut. So at least things can't get any worse... or at least, we hope...
 
Robert.W said:
And Merlin and their shareholders aren't exactly going to go away overnight. So this is a problem that's not going away any time soon. But I struggle to see how things could be cut even further next year than they have been this year. There literally isn't anything left that they can cut... like, there's genuinely nothing left – it's all already been cut. So at least things can't get any worse... or at least, we hope...
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That's usually the point a company is put on the market or KPMG is called in.
 
WallisDan said:
I'm going to Alton Towers tomorrow now. How have ride operations been this week? How busy has the park been? Iv'e has been before but not since Wickerman. Any tips on which rides to do when?
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busy busy busy, but queue times haven't been too bad overall. there's been the usual daily Wickerman down times so cross your fingers there. I also noticed Galactica, Rita and Oblivion have had a little bit of down time too but not too bad.

I've managed 13 rides today, granted 8 of those were re-rides on Nemesis which has been really quiet.
 
Matt N said:
Thank you! I'm only presuming this because the whole reason the cutbacks were first introduced was due to the incident in June 2015. I'm sure Merlin do care about their parks and want them to thrive, so now the company has more money, the cuts will likely disappear. There have been far more 6pm closes this year than there were last year, so that's a good sign!
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Oh honey...
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Rick said:
Save us the "Shareholders are evil" debate. If you have a pension, chances are the future of Merlin is important to your retirement pot whether you like it or not.
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A very very small part ;)

Of course Merlin want the parks to "thrive", as in continue to make money. It's just that their priorities don't line up with ours.
 
speedy said:
A very very small part ;)

Of course Merlin want the parks to "thrive", as in continue to make money. It's just that their priorities don't line up with ours.
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Small or not, my point stands.

And once again, if your priorities are in sync with the masses, it is in Merlin's best interests to conform because they will make more money. If they are not the same, sucks to be you.
 
Rick said:
Small or not, my point stands.

And once again, if your priorities are in sync with the masses, it is Merlin's best interests to conform because they will make more money. If they are not the same, sucks to be you.
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I'm sure (hope) someone at Merlin has worked out that this is best for the long run. Obviously I'd prefer longer openings, bag holds, single rider lines etc but sometimes enthusiasts have to suck it up and hopefully increased profits will lead to better investment in the future!
 
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It's not just the Theme Parks suffering.

Our local sealife and was one of our favourite has gone down hill this season, some of the aquarium tanks are so old, they are cracking, so the displays have been removed. The sealife is now looking a bit bare and not much to see for your money. Merlin budget won't stretch to replace them. One tank has been replaced with a bench. They won't even provide a budget to install aircon in the building, Merlin excuse is that the building is too small for aircon to work, despite aircon works perfectly in larger supermarkets.
 
RoyJess said:
It's not just the Theme Parks suffering.

Our local sealife and was one of our favourite has gone down hill this season, some of the aquarium tanks are so old, they are cracking, so the displays have been removed. The sealife is now looking a bit bare and not much to see for your money. Merlin budget won't stretch to replace them. One tank has been replaced with a bench. They won't even provide a budget to install aircon in the building, Merlin excuse is that the building is too small for aircon to work, despite aircon works perfectly in larger supermarkets.
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They seriously saying the building is too small for air conditioning? Do Merlin live on the same planet as the rest of us because every car built since about the year 2010 has air conditioning and I'd say that's a small spaces and it works just fine in them.
 
Too small by volume/capacity/attendance or too small in terms of revenue to justify the expense of a large HVAC project?
 
IanSR said:
They seriously saying the building is too small for air conditioning? Do Merlin live on the same planet as the rest of us because every car built since about the year 2010 has air conditioning and I'd say that's a small spaces and it works just fine in them.
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Sorry my mistake, just a typo, it should have read "too big for aircon to work" :oops:

I just had it in my mind that it's only a small building as I was typing it :oops:
 
RoyJess said:
Sorry my mistake, just a typo, it should have read "too big for aircon to work" :oops:

I just had it in my mind that it's only a small building as I was typing it :oops:
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It says something that people didn't automatically assume they had said too large and you had just made a typo...

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
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