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2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

Gotcha. What's the driver for that, if not availability?

???? :confused:

Ride down time wouldn't be a problem if they didn't have staggered opening times (I know they are now gone, but rides are still not opening on time). Slow put through on rides. Removal of SRQ, Removal of bagging holds, bigger than usual queues, not filling rapids boats, F&B outlets closed. These are just a few little things that all add up which has a negative impact on the day.....

...plus being trolled on here ;):p

It seems worse to me.

It seems as though every time I queue for oblivion some idiot gets their phone out and refuses to hand it over when the poor guy has climbed all the stairs.

Also in one visit both smiler and Galactica got taken down to retireve personal property which I've never had happen before (bad luck maybe)?

It seems the procedures are having a big impact, causing more down time and taking longer to get a ride back up and running.

None of that is really Altons fault, but it does impact customers.

I've lost count how many times they stop Oblivion and other rides due to use of phones over the past few seasons, nothing new to this one.

Retrieving personal property seems like a new thing this season. As far as I'm concern, if you lost something on a ride, unless it's absolutely essential, then bad luck, it's your fault so come back at the end of the day to retrieve it.
 
Retrieving personal property and stopping the ride to do so has been happening for a couple of seasons now. Ever since some moron jumped a fence into a live ride area after staff told him he would have to wait until the end of the day as per the old process.

So one idiots behaviour has caused inconvenience to thousands of guests waiting for rides.
 
My friend's watch fell off on the Air brake run just outside the station about 5 years ago and they retrieved it, I'm not even sure they had to lock the ride off on that occasion, policy has clearly been tightened up since then.

I believe the current policy is that the ride will be stopped if the item is in an area where it is easily accessible and/or there's a risk of a guest entering a ride area. If they don't know where the offending item is or it's not likely the guest will hop over a fence to get it the policy is still to wait until the end of the day to attempt to retrieve it.
 
And yet in 2012 a guest had to be rescued after walking in the Oblivion tunnel, and that didn't result in a change of process. Guests have been going into ride areas since time began; it's nothing new.

The only difference now is Merlin are hypersensitive. Their latest policies seem to be about covering their backside rather than making proportionate changes.
 
Their latest policies seem to be about covering their backside rather than making proportionate changes.
And who can blame them? Ok there's an argument that they brought it on themselves with the Smiler incident, but that said, there is no need for the press to be as bad as they are towards the park 3 years on from it. You don't see them reporting every twitch and turn at Thorpe, Chessington, Drayton or Blackpool.
 
My Apple Watch fell off in the same place in 2016 (rip) and they went to retrieve it straight away.
And yet, countless millions of guests have managed to hold on to the wrist-timepieces with no issue in the last decade and a half...

Nothing personal, but tough titty. As a great man once said, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
 
Is it true that they are not filling the rapids boats anymore? I'm hearing about lots of boats going with just two or three people in them.
At a guess they think of the boats are full people might do stupid stuff. Again.

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But on the flip side, if it's a full boat, there is no opportunity to stand up and move seats to avoid getting splashed
But they may be thinking that with less empty boats people can shuffle not stay standing.

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Is it true that they are not filling the rapids boats anymore? I'm hearing about lots of boats going with just two or three people in them.

Yes, not only have I seen complaints and pics on social media about it, I've also seen it with my own eyes on every single visit this year, the queue is going all the way back right to the entrance to the ride. Normally if you are in the queue from where the last bridge is that before you reach the station, it would normally be a 10 to 15 minute wait, that has now been increased to 30 to 40 minutes wait. I dread to know what the waiting time would be from the ride entrance.
 
They used to have a sign on the monorail exit ramp saying which rides were closed that day as you entered the park... is it still there/in use?
 
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