2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

[RoyJess]

On average, the guest will usually sort themselves out. Not everyone whats to be sat at the front, just as many will be prepared to sit at the back, and most can't be bothered to wait, so will take up the next best seat either towards the front or back.

Only on really busy days that a dispatching op will be useful to ensure that the queue-lines are kept to a minimum.

 

[John]

All coasters at Towers with the exception of Nemesis and WM now need batching hosts to function properly anyway, all others have their merge points at the batching position.

That said, Nemesis has had a batching host on most of my visits this year too. I guess it helps to ensure groups of 2 pair up but other than that it doesn't seem to be particularly useful, given that it rarely has a significant queue anyway (unless it's on 1 train).

 

[Graham73]

It appears 4pm ride close has now made its way to July weekdays with the first week in the month being a 4pm close week. Wow.

That is absolutely shocking when there are bound to be quite a few school trips at that time of year.

Meanwhile that week Blackpool Pleasure Beach is operating 10:00-18:00 midweek and that's a park that you get off 9necride and only takes a few strides to go on another.

Very sad to see what Alton Towers has become in 2018.

 

[IanSR]

If Chessie and Thorpe are anything to go by, most school trips leave to return to the school around 3, down here you can virtually guarantee most rides will be walk on from 4pm.

 

[spinba11]

If the ride batcher on wickerman spots a red wristband then it always the back row. Which is inline with all the other coasters, except RMT that places them at the front.

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On oblivion they sit at the front.

 

[Rick]

Woodland Walk is 'exit only' on less busy days.

 

[AT86]

Due to high winds Oblivion, Enterprise and The Smiler are closed at present. Due to staggered openings this means only Wickerman and Spinball (plus CBeebies) are open until 11am.

 

[imanautie]

On oblivion they sit at the front.

And Galactica where they either don't care about rap seating or use the rear most non vr row for rap guests who don't want to wear vr

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[Rob]

Due to high winds Oblivion, Enterprise and The Smiler are closed at present. Due to staggered openings this means only Wickerman and Spinball (plus CBeebies) are open until 11am.

Pretty poor, you would have thought they might try to get some other rides open earlier to compensate.

 

[AT86]

Pretty poor, you would have thought they might try to get some other rides open earlier to compensate.

Indeed, it shows another downside of staggered openings as it leaves them wide open to issues like this. I assume they can’t get the rides open earlier as staff aren’t available since that’s the whole reason rides open at 11am in the first place.

 

[Rob]

Indeed, it shows another downside of staggered openings as it leaves them wide open to issues like this. I assume they can’t get the rides open earlier as staff aren’t available since that’s the whole reason rides open at 11am in the first place.

I suspect that is the reason. However they could have taken a look at the weather forecast in advance and ask staff to come in early! Unless this 'storm' has come out of the blue?

 

[AT86]

In the interest of balance it appears all rides have been open this afternoon and they have extended ride close until 5pm. Fair play.

 

[Alsty]

I prefer rides that don't have batching hosts. I like to choose where I like to sit. I find it frustrating when you have guest wanting to sit near the front only to be put near the back, and on the same train that you get guest wanting to sit near the back only to be put near the front.

I've found there are two types of bayloader - one which is quite active and tells you which row to go to, the other just lets people get on with it and only intervenes when required (e.g. to call out for any twos, merging pairs together to make fours, etc). I prefer the latter, plus it's easier for the host to manage as most of the time people can work it out for themselves, but it seems some staff like to take an authoritative approach.

And Galactica where they either don't care about rap seating or use the rear most non vr row for rap guests who don't want to wear vr

Back in the Tussauds / Air days we used to load RAP to the front row only

 

[John]

Some operational changes on Galactica that I don't think have been mentioned yet: the old fastrack entrance and merge point are back in use rather than sending all fastrack guests down the old SRQ. Merge hosts now seem to be minimising the post-merge queue to no more than a 2-3 train wait.

This means the queue now moves faster and there's no more waiting on the bridge for 45 minutes, the only problem is that the non-vr rows seemed far less popular than the vr rows yesterday, and they were sending several empty rows at times.

 

[imanautie]

Some operational changes on Galactica that I don't think have been mentioned yet: the old fastrack entrance and merge point are back in use rather than sending all fastrack guests down the old SRQ. Merge hosts now seem to be minimising the post-merge queue to no more than a 2-3 train wait.

This means the queue now moves faster and there's no more waiting on the bridge for 45 minutes, the only problem is that the non-vr rows seemed far less popular than the vr rows yesterday, and they were sending several empty rows at times.

A move that has turned out to be unpopular for fastrack guests

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[speedy]

When did they get rid of the VR from the rest of the train? Why can't they just have one queue and if someone doesn't want to use it they leave the VR in the pouch?

This was the only sour point of my day: waiting in a slow moving line for the VR while trains are sent out with empty rows.

 

[ringo]

Funny how VR is popular now that it’s limited rows / exclusive, who’d of thought that

 

[Robert.W]

What they should have done is gone down a similar route that Europa are doing with Eurosat – CanCan Coaster and Eurosat – Coastiality. Both Air and Galactica could have existed simultaneously, with one of the stations hosting Galactica and the other Air. They could even market is as two attractions!

 

[imanautie]

What they should have done is gone down a similar route that Europa are doing with Eurosat – CanCan Coaster and Eurosat – Coastiality. Both Air and Galactica could have existed simultaneously, with one of the stations hosting Galactica and the other Air. They could even market is as two attractions!

Wouldn't they still need vr on all crafts?

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[Robert.W]

Possibly... I guess it would depend on wether they loaded each train in the same station every time. I don't know what impact that would have on throughput though.