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2020: General Discussion

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imanautie said:
A few hosts I've asked about that rule say it's for safety reasons.
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People aren't allowed on a roller coaster on their own in which they are secured in by a restraint while I can go on my own in Duel in which I could potentially jump and cause all sort of problems, then get run over by one of the trains. I'm not sure what I could actually physically do on Spinball that anyone would have to witness except vomit. But I'm not sure they would be able to see with their back to me. They let me on the cable cars myself...that's full of warning about what not to do. I could be up there all on my own shaking them away like nobodies business. Odd the rides where a single person could cause the least mischief as the ones with restrictions.
 
Orange Ribena said:
People aren't allowed on a roller coaster on their own in which they are secured in by a restraint while I can go on my own in Duel in which I could potentially jump and cause all sort of problems, then get run over by one of the trains. I'm not sure what I could actually physically do on Spinball that anyone would have to witness except vomit. But I'm not sure they would be able to see with their back to me. They let me on the cable cars myself...that's full of warning about what not to do. I could be up there all on my own shaking them away like nobodies business. Odd the rides where a single person could cause the least mischief as the ones with restrictions.
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Alton towers management everyone! (No it's not a merlin issue)
 
Ethan said:
But that's exactly what they did with me on the smiler. They just told me to leave a gap
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Fair point, but on Spinball, you are - or at least seem to be - closer together. Maybe there is no difference to The Smiler regarding distancing and Towers are simply erring on the side of caution because sticking a stranger next to a family/social group on Spinball looks like it's breaking distancing guidelines more than sitting in the same row on The Smiler leaving a gap.

Probably doing that to avoid the negative press generated if people saw it happen on Spinball.
 
pluk said:
If you leave a gap on spinball you'd be sitting outside of the ride vehicle. I imagine this would adversely affect your ride experience, what with you sitting in the station as the ride vehicle left.
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You don't need to leave a gap if it's a family/group of 2, you'd be sitting the opposite way
 
Ethan said:
But that's exactly what they did with me on the smiler. They just told me to leave a gap
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Ethan said:
You don't need to leave a gap if it's a family/group of 2, you'd be sitting the opposite way
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It was your suggestion!

If you sit back to back your heads are practically touching, probably less than a foot away let alone over a metre. If you both look the same way you are cheek to cheek, that's never going to be allowed.
 
pluk said:
It was your suggestion!

If you sit back to back your heads are practically touching, probably less than a foot away let alone over a metre. If you both look the same way you are cheek to cheek, that's never going to be allowed.
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But it’s allowed in germany on winjas and euro-mir (with face masks on) and in the Netherlands on dwervelwind. And there’s no difference sitting back to back on these models as on spinball.

Government mitigated regulations are sitting back to back and also wearing masks, so there’s no reason why this couldn’t work on spinball.

I don’t see it being a safety concern, I just see it being an Alton towers regulation, which I personally find a bit ridiculous. Not letting single riders on two attractions, when they’ve paid full price for a ticket, is just quite cheeky to be honest.

And if they really think it’s that much of a safety concern, they should let single riders have a whole vehicle to themselves and still let them on. That’s what they are doing on dragons fury at chessington.
 
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TPJames said:
But it’s allowed in germany on winjas and euro-mir (with face masks on) and in the Netherlands on dwervelwind. And there’s no difference sitting back to back on these models as on spinball.

Government mitigated regulations are sitting back to back and also wearing masks, so there’s no reason why this couldn’t work on spinball.

I don’t see it being a safety concern, I just see it being an Alton towers regulation, which I personally find a bit ridiculous. Not letting single riders on two attractions, when they’ve paid full price for a ticket, is just quite cheeky to be honest.

And if they really think it’s that much of a safety concern, they should let single riders have a whole vehicle to themselves and still let them on. That’s what they are doing on dragons fury at chessington.
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Well thankfully it's only spinball and rapids
 
TPJames said:
But it’s allowed in germany on winjas and euro-mir (with face masks on) and in the Netherlands on dwervelwind. And there’s no difference sitting back to back on these models as on spinball.

Government mitigated regulations are sitting back to back and also wearing masks, so there’s no reason why this couldn’t work on spinball.

I don’t see it being a safety concern, I just see it being an Alton towers regulation, which I personally find a bit ridiculous. Not letting single riders on two attractions, when they’ve paid full price for a ticket, is just quite cheeky to be honest.

And if they really think it’s that much of a safety concern, they should let single riders have a whole vehicle to themselves and still let them on. That’s what they are doing on dragons fury at chessington.
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What other countries are doing won't be particularly relevant to what's required to follow guidance here though, regardless of how sensible it may seem.

The guidance given for visitor attractions does not make reference to the way people are facing, it is simply 2m distance or 1m with mitigation as below.

Assess if rides cannot be run at full capacity due to social distancing You will need to ask people if they are from the same household/ group as per the government guidelines and would need to keep other people or groups at 2m or 1m with risk mitigation (where 2m is not viable) for example one family in a gondola, running rides at a lower capacity to enable distancing
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So less than 1m distance should be a flat no. The same guidance reminds operators that failure to comply may lead to operators being forced to close sites. It'd be one hell of a brave risk assessment to go against the guidelines so directly!

I imagine that in relatively short timeframes while the season progresses the guidance will change as the risk of infection rises and falls, hopefully anomalies like this will work their way out if the system.
 
@pluk no reason why they can’t let single riders in their own car then on spinball, they are doing it on dragons fury at chessington.

You may argue the wait times would be “too long”, but then the park should let less people in to accommodate for guest experience. I went to chessington on a Saturday 2 weeks ago and the max queue time (bar zufari) was 25 mins, and that’s with them letting single riders on dragons fury and rattlesnake... at towers the times are topping 2 hours on weekdays?

Either way I see it as merlin money-grabbing. Charging single riders full price and then not giving them the opportunity to experience as much of the park as would genuinely be possible, I just find it a complete con. And there’s no persuading me otherwise.

The rapids has different logistical issues, which I will agree to. And not many single riders would be interested in the rapids anyway, whereas I can imagine most would want to ride spinball
 
I don't see it as "Merlin money-grabbing" if it's allowed at Chessington. It's clearly a park specific policy.

Things like this do seem to be down the park rather than a group-wide decision. They presumably have their own health and safety advisors and legal teams who make the rules, maybe even guided by third-parties such as their insurers. They're not doing it just to annoy you.
 
I think it’s the same as how Alton Towers apparently doesn’t allow rerides, while Thorpe Park does.
 
TPJames said:
@pluk no reason why they can’t let single riders in their own car then on spinball, they are doing it on dragons fury at chessington.
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Oh, absolutely. My response was to someone struggling with the concept of social distancing on spinball Vs coasters with more than 2 seats across. No idea what the problem with a single rider could possibly be, unless there's a minimum weight issue? Doesn't seem a likely candidate for stalling though.
 
pluk said:
Oh, absolutely. My response was to someone struggling with the concept of social distancing on spinball Vs coasters with more than 2 seats across. No idea what the problem with a single rider could possibly be, unless there's a minimum weight issue? Doesn't seem a likely candidate for stalling though.
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If it was to do with stalling then Dragon's Fury would be a more obvious risk than Spinball (it has rolled back on several occasions, albeit always empty)
 
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D4n said:
If it was to do with stalling then Dragon's Firy would be a more obvious risk than Spinball (it has rolled back on several occasions, albeit always empty)
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That's what I was thinking, I can't think of any point on Spinball that a stall seems at all close?
 
pluk said:
Oh, absolutely. My response was to someone struggling with the concept of social distancing on spinball Vs coasters with more than 2 seats across. No idea what the problem with a single rider could possibly be, unless there's a minimum weight issue? Doesn't seem a likely candidate for stalling though.
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It's just a weird park policy that has no strong reasoning behind it but you can't just go and change health and safety policies without lots of paperwork which ordinarily isn't required.
 
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