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2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

Robert.W said:
I know TH13TEEN is pretty temperamental during the heat, I'm not sure if that is also the case with Rita too? I don't think it would have effected the other coasters as much unless it was extremely hot. Sounds like the weather just being used as an easy excuse for all the problems... typical.
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Rita wasn't down for long. Thirteen down for rest of the day as well as oblivion. Wicker man and Galactica back up again pretty quick. But we had already spent the day traipsing round the park trying find a ride open
 
Sunday afternoon was pretty bad for reliability TBH, with both Dark Forest coasters closed most of the afternoon (Rita opened at around 5.40, though ridetimes wasn't updated so very few people realised). The loss of DF seemed to have a real knock-on effect in X-sector, the Smiler queue doubled in length whilst we were in it and it moved very slowly, possibly due to there being a large number of guests with exit passes from DF.
 
GaryH said:
Can you blame them when its £55 to get in and another £6 to park?
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Whether you paid £55 to get in or whether you manage to get free Sun tickets to visit, for the average person to take time off work, to travel several hours to get to a theme park, to spend the whole day queuing and only to get on a half of the rides let alone only a couple of the rides due to poor ride operations is not acceptable.

It's not just about the money, its also about people precious time wasted. Money can be replaced/refunded, but your free time can't be ever replaced.

The park operations should have never had got so bad. I just don't know what Merlin/Alton were thinking off when they came up with the idea of cutting the budget/ride operation. It was a disaster waiting to happen and even I could have foreseen that even before the season even had started
 
Oh dont get me wrong, I totally agree, for myself, it involves a 4.5 hour drive and a day off work (usually 2 days), £70 in fuel costs, plus additional costs (food, drink, wear and tear on the car) etc. Yes - totally agree with you RoyJess
 
GaryH said:
Oh dont get me wrong, I totally agree, for myself, it involves a 4.5 hour drive and a day off work (usually 2 days), £70 in fuel costs, plus additional costs (food, drink, wear and tear on the car) etc. Yes - totally agree with you RoyJess
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No, not at all have I got you wrong, not at all, whether you paid the gate prices, got 2-4-1 deals, Free Sun tickets, MAP pass holders, I think guess have every right to rant on social media, I don't blame them at all. For me as a pass holder, if I was to travel all that way to only get on a small handful of rides, I would be very well peeved too
 
Robert.W said:
I know TH13TEEN is pretty temperamental during the heat, I'm not sure if that is also the case with Rita too? I don't think it would have effected the other coasters as much unless it was extremely hot. Sounds like the weather just being used as an easy excuse for all the problems... typical.
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Yeah I have heard this before. I wonder how the drop mechanism - if that is what is temperamental - will cope in the constant Florida heat on the new Harry Potter coaster at Universal (if rumours are true that there is a Th13teen-style drop in it)
 
Steve74 said:
Yeah I have heard this before. I wonder how the drop mechanism - if that is what is temperamental - will cope in the constant Florida heat on the new Harry Potter coaster at Universal (if rumours are true that there is a Th13teen-style drop in it)
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I'm guessing it's inside so will be air conditioned :)
 
GaryH said:
Oh dont get me wrong, I totally agree, for myself, it involves a 4.5 hour drive and a day off work (usually 2 days), £70 in fuel costs, plus additional costs (food, drink, wear and tear on the car) etc. Yes - totally agree with you RoyJess
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Absolutely. Flights, car hire and accommodation for us. And it's not just about the money. We only get one shot at going every year and we want to have a great time. It's a theme park, surely that's not a big ask or is it really a case of whatevers open is better than nothing.

Also handing out fast passes when a ride has went down only causes problems elsewhere. I'm not sure what other way they should compensate but fast passes are not the answer.
 
@RoyJess When you suggest that the excessive downtime that we are seeing on some days is caused by budget cuts, are you suggesting that preventative maintenance isn't been done to the required standards or that rides are going down and there isn't sufficient resource in technical services to fix them in a timely fashion?

Or, something else? Also, how much do you attribute to budget vs operational procedures in a post-Smiler world?
 
I think the down time is a combination of everything. Cuts were being made just before the Smiler crash. Rides are not being open on time as well as down time due to less maintenance staff. We also have these wind detectors in place so now rides won't operate above certain wind speed, which was never a issue before the Smiler crash.

At the end of the day, I don't know much about Merlin finances. If I can remember, at the start of this year, they were claiming that last year they had made record breaking profits. Any business is down to supply and demand. There is clearly a demand for these rides, but Alton are not meeting the demand of the capacity of the guest numbers, it's a bit like me organising a BBQ for 100 guest and only purchasing one pack of burgers, one pack of burger buns and a six pack of beer to share between all the guest.

I don't think Alton are meeting guest expectations this year. Even the positive reviews on TripAdvisor have briefly mentioned the dismay at the staggered opening times along with early closing times.

As far as I can see, it's all been down hill since Merlin floated on the stock market.

But then again, this is just the way I see it and I could be wrong :)
 
As a first time experience it was awful. I've been following coaster forums for many years and assembling a bucket list of coasters for when finances got better and I could afford to go. At AT wicker man and thirteen were those bucket list coasters. I chose to go because my son had just finished his A level exams and it was a treat. Instead it was a total nightmare. I got my money back but can never get those hours back.
 
Snagglemama said:
As a first time experience it was awful.
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That is awful. Goes to show how these cuts are really damaging to the park reputation.

Alton is a great place, I love it there, but this years operations have ruined it all for me. Hopefully you will be able to come back another time when the operations are at their full potential and I would try and avoid any peak days visits where possible.
 
It's a shame because experiences like that mean in the future, when you have a choice to go back to Alton Towers or to go somewhere else, you will probably go elsewhere. Merlin ought to remember they are not the only theme park operator and it's unwise to upset their customers.
 
RoyJess said:
That is awful. Goes to show how these cuts are really damaging to the park reputation.

Alton is a great place, I love it there, but this years operations have ruined it all for me. Hopefully you will be able to come back another time when the operations are at their full potential and I would try and avoid any peak days visits where possible.
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That's why we went in June to avoid school holidays etc. Didn't know it was a school inset day to be fair. Maybe we will come back I don't know
 
Alsty said:
It's a shame because experiences like that mean in the future, when you have a choice to go back to Alton Towers or to go somewhere else, you will probably go elsewhere. Merlin ought to remember they are not the only theme park operator and it's unwise to upset their customers.
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Have been watching Vlogs from some smaller parks may save my money for going to some of them
 
The Trip Advisor reviews really are bad. The odd good one but take a look at the amount of one star reviews, they are coming thick and fast.

Poor ride availability, long queues, short opening hours, understaffing causing 30min waits for drinks etc. The park should be ashamed.

I’ve said it before but it’s almost heartbreaking to read, the place is going to the dogs. Gate figures may be up this season but a lot of those people won’t be coming back. I would be interested to know how secondary spend is going, unhappy customers don’t want to spend money.
 
RoyJess said:
I think the down time is a combination of everything. Cuts were being made just before the Smiler crash. Rides are not being open on time as well as down time due to less maintenance staff. We also have these wind detectors in place so now rides won't operate above certain wind speed, which was never a issue before the Smiler crash.
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Are you saying you'd prefer the rides to be run during high winds? You do realise a main factor that caused the smiler to stall was the high winds that day?

Your point about the late openings of rides due to less maintenance staff I agree with though, they're constantly advertising to hire more engineers
 
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