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2021: General Discussion

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TheAverageNerd said:
Really good day on park today despite some iffy weather. Was just about to board Thirteen past park close when they had to close it due to the rain, so our party were escorted for a ride on Rita which was a nice gesture.
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John said:
Wait, Thirteen closes in the rain now? How long has that been a thing?
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Galactica does as well apparently. I heard that riders got evac'd and given complimentary hot drinks, which is great of Towers. :)
 
The rain wasn't particularly heavy so I'm not entirely sure what happened to be honest. Two trains were stacked on the brake run with guests on-board and had to be evacuated.

There seemed to be a few reliability issues across the park today to be fair, Spinball was down for a while and appeared to have a couple of carts with guests on-board stuck on various block brakes for quite some time and Oblivion was down for the majority of the morning if I'm not mistaken. Still, the weather was a bit temperamental today and the the staff were very helpful and friendly with informing us what was happening and how long the downtime was expected to last.
 
TheAverageNerd said:
The rain wasn't particularly heavy so I'm not entirely sure what happened to be honest. Two trains were stacked on the brake run with guests on-board and had to be evacuated.

There seemed to be a few reliability issues across the park today to be fair, Spinball was down for a while and appeared to have a couple of carts with guests on-board stuck on various block brakes for quite some time and Oblivion was down for the majority of the morning if I'm not mistaken. Still, the weather was a bit temperamental today and the the staff were very helpful and friendly with informing us what was happening and how long the downtime was expected to last.
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Seems the smiler and wicker man are leading the way this season for the most reliable rides!
 
Monorail was down today.

Assumed it was because of low temperatures in the morning, but noticed two engineers inspecting the track near the Galactica portal at lunchtime, they were there for quite a while.
 
John said:
Wait, Thirteen closes in the rain now? How long has that been a thing?
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spinba11 said:
And why.
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Might be coincidental and for all I know it doesn't have to shut in the rain, but it wouldn't be too surprising if rain lubing up the track caused more overspeed issues that result in shutdowns like those that originally necessitated the trims on the first drop.
 
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With the news that Disney and Universal are both set to phase out temperature checks after the CDC found them to be a “waste of resources” I wonder if Merlin will follow suit . They’ve been a complete waste of time as many Covid patients never run a temperature, and they take a lot of staff too. It would be another step towards normality returning which I think even the most staunch supporters of Covid measures would concede is sensible
 
tayspru said:
With the news that Disney and Universal are both set to phase out temperature checks after the CDC found them to be a “waste of resources” I wonder if Merlin will follow suit . They’ve been a complete waste of time as many Covid patients never run a temperature, and they take a lot of staff too. It would be another step towards normality returning which I think even the most staunch supporters of Covid measures would concede is sensible
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I'd be surprised if they've turned a single person away.

Purely for show.
 
I heard it said in the early days of the pandemic that temperature checks are more for “health theatre” to make people feel safer, like how bag checks were introduced as “security theatre” post-9/11, as opposed to a genuinely important safety feature, although they obviously do help to an extent. With asymptomatic transmission being as prolific as it is, though, they’re certainly not as useful as precautions like social distancing and face masks.
 
Matt N said:
With asymptomatic transmission being as prolific as it is, though, they’re certainly not as useful as precautions like social distancing and face masks.
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Which most the guests inside the park don't seem to follow anyway! No social distancing in queues as such this season and people always pulling their masks down on rides! Don't get me wrong we had some of this last season but generally people followed the rules much better in 2020. Now there's a vaccine, the attitude towards social distancing from many has gone downhill
 
Ethan said:
Which most the guests inside the park don't seem to follow anyway! No social distancing in queues as such this season and people always pulling their masks down on rides! Don't get me wrong we had some of this last season but generally people followed the rules much better in 2020. Now there's a vaccine, the attitude towards social distancing from many has gone downhill
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Social distancing was still generally pretty well followed last time I was on park (April 2021), as well as mask rules. Also, the prevalence is fairly low at the moment and still decreasing, so there is perhaps a little more leeway than if the prevalence were higher.

Though as I said, rule compliance still seemed fine last time I was on park.
 
Matt N said:
Social distancing was still generally pretty well followed last time I was on park (April 2021), as well as mask rules. Also, the prevalence is fairly low at the moment and still decreasing, so there is perhaps a little more leeway than if the prevalence were higher.

Though as I said, rule compliance still seemed fine last time I was on park.
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Depends what your definition of fine is. Was every group standing 2m apart on a chevron and only moving onto the next chevron once the one in front had cleared? That's proper social distancing and has been seen a rare few times when I've been to the park during covid. Social distancing was really good on the smiler last year, however now its arguably one of the worst, that being shown by the much longer waits
 
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Craig said:
I would probably also add that whilst we don't see anything like the Customer Council of old, there's likely still plenty of targeted research that still goes on in the background that we don't see, just not necessarily as publicly as that was.
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I’m not sure there are enough Bourbon Biscuits in Staffordshire to run a new Customer Council at Alton Towers.
 
Ethan said:
Depends what your definition of fine is. Was every group standing 2m apart on a chevron and only moving onto the next chevron once the one in front had cleared? That's proper social distancing and has been seen a rare few times when I've been to the park during covid. Social distancing was really good on the smiler last year, however now its arguably one of the worst, that being shown by the much longer waits
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From memory, yes. At least, the vast majority were, anyway.
 
Operations not great on park today, understandable though given the weather conditions. Long queues in the rain certainly isn't my cup of tea!
 
Yet they are my favourite times!
Only getting to play out on Tuesday because it is forecast rain.
No excuse for not running properly simply because of rain and mildly windy times.
It is a weekend, the weather was expected, this isn't Blackpool, the rides are designed to run in the wet.
 
rob666 said:
Yet they are my favourite times!
Only getting to play out on Tuesday because it is forecast rain.
No excuse for not running properly simply because of rain and mildly windy times.
It is a weekend, the weather was expected, this isn't Blackpool, the rides are designed to run in the wet.
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Th13teen clearly isn't!
 
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