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2018: Park Operations & Ride Availability

Matt N said:
Encouraging to hear! I can see the cuts disappearing entirely next season if this season's crowd levels are anything to go by; the profit margins must be huge!
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In an ideal world, absolutely.

This is the real world however; regardless of how much better that may be on visitor numbers on the final count at the end of the year, there will still be cuts next year. It's in Merlin's business model to cut to excuses and make cuts.
 
MakoMania said:
Nick Varney did say a few years ago in a conference call that when Alton Towers starts to recover, operational budget would start to be increased.

Visitor numbers were up in 2017, budget was cut for 2018. Tells you all you need to know really.
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The thing is, though; I don't think they'd quite "recovered" in 2017. This year, however, I would definitely say they've "recovered"!
 
Less visible had been going on for years prior to the Smiler crash. Things may be slightly better next year, but don't expect any major changes.
 
Saw on ride times that the Rita queue is 25 minutes so headed over only to find it is closed and the queueline completely evacuated :rolleyes:. It still says 25 minutes now (15 mins later). Thirteen says 20 minutes so headed there instead but the ride operator just announced over the PA that it's 80 minutes... o_O

They really need to be more accurate with their times or it's not worth bothering.
 
Yep, noticed they didn't seem to change all day. Here is a 5 minute Nemesis queue :confused:

at_nemesis5min.jpg


Are these queue times set by the ride operators or they now controlled centrally? Was a bit frustrating to go to rides expecting a certain size queue and finding it completely different.

On the plus side though, must admit the operations were good today. Didn't see any downtime apart from Rita. Oblivion was on two stations. Smiler and Wicker Man getting good throughputs too with trains being dispatched quickly.
 
Alsty said:
Yep, noticed they didn't seem to change all day. Here is a 5 minute Nemesis queue :confused:

at_nemesis5min.jpg


Are these queue times set by the ride operators or they now controlled centrally? Was a bit frustrating to go to rides expecting a certain size queue and finding it completely different.

On the plus side though, must admit the operations were good today. Didn't see any downtime apart from Rita. Oblivion was on two stations. Smiler and Wicker Man getting good throughputs too with trains being dispatched quickly.
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Queue times are controlled by hosts (not ops) via an website (attractions.io) on an iPad.
Some rides have ble beacons (black boxes cabled tied to fences) all the way round, the Alton towers app on people's phones detects these beacons, report them and the system auto calculates a queue time however this auto queue time can be overridden by hosts.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
Alsty said:
That's better than misleading information tbh. I wonder what they'll display on the park queue signs though as it's all the same system?
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Whilst they are both fed from the same system they could disable each component separately.
It's up now, in wondering if it no longer shows anything out of park hours.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
But zero minutes for Wicker Man? I don't trust that somehow... :laughing:

Edit: seems to be ok now, 1 hour queue in the rain for some poor souls.
 
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Matt N said:
Towers must have been busy yesterday; according to TPW, cars were parked on the grass yesterday!
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Yes, when I arrived there were cattle grazing in the grass car parks. When I went back to the car in the evening the cows had gone and there were loads of cars in there instead.

One thing I'm unsure about is closing the courtyard for Scarefest. Where are you meant to sit and have your pint? Yesterday it wasn't too bad as there were still seats out the front of the Welcom-inn... but during Scarefest, isn't seating going to be a problem?
 
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