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2025: General Discussion

Blackrock said:
Well the breakfast at a premier inn is far better than anything they serve you for breakfast atm.

I don’t understand why food across the park is outsourced, surely they can find a team or really good chefs to come up with food concepts across the park, themed/named to slot into their specific areas then just scale it up.

Refresh every so often.
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I think the issue isn't so much that it's outsourced with the food in terms of Aramuck.

It's that the food is abysmal 😱😱😱
 
Apologies if this has already been posted, but I haven't seen it mentioned.

But for anyone waiting for official confirmation regarding events, the Alton Towers Events page has been updated at some point this week, confirming basically everything that we'd picked up from the opening times calendar earlier in the week, including changing the blurb to remove Oktoberfest.
 
Not sure if this is worth mentioning (but I’ll mention it anyway😂) but it looks like the API feed for Toxicator’s queue is ready to go on the Queue-times.com site.

What’s more interesting is the two thrill rides that are currently shown as numbers. We saw this in the months leading up to Sub Terra opening - the API link is there but the ride name just wasn’t updated in the front end until just before Sub Terra reopened.

Could we be seeing further additions throughout the 2025 season?

IMG_5754.jpeg
 
s_g_k said:
two thrill rides that are currently shown as numbers. We saw this in the months leading up to Sub Terra opening - the API link is there but the ride name just wasn’t updated in the front end until just before Sub Terra reopened.
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not 2 necessarily thrill rides, they are in no categories (the same is with the sky ride)

here is a picture of the api for queue times for the unnamed rides: vs the other rides (note the have no "land" category)
1739624840999.png1739624884900.png

edit: the "id" variable is just that used by queuetimes.com to identify each ride (starting from 1, 2 etc) it means you don't need to rely on the name as the name of anything can change (for instance when submit to the spin becomes its name if I wrote code that relies on using the name "submit to the spin" to identify the ride to get the queue time my code would break, but I can track the ride id.

last_updated is just when the last update from towers for the queue times were received, it doesn't relate to anything else
 
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Dave said:
Ironically outsourcing can be beneficial and I think the hotels are the one area it would work for Merlin. If you outsource because you think an external partner has the expertise you lack then it can be win win. It’s possible this could be the same with entertainment (I doubt however Merlin will have a contract that is anything other than cost management). The food outsourcing baffles me, sure it’s fine if you want someone to do something very specific (such as eastern express), but the type of food Aramark can provide is nothing different to in house and adds a layer of extra profit generation.
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But they can run a hotel?

They ran ATH and Splash for decades.

The sad part is, they ran it better than they do now.

The difference is Merlin haven’t invested, or where they have they’ve invested badly (Room refurbs etc)

They can’t even keep the secret garden looking “clean” on a day to day basis. That’s how bad it is. (Based on my last visit opening day last season)
This is the level of “fantastical excellence” we’re dealing with.

It’s crap, until they have decent management that know what they’re doing with standards this is road they are on.
 
Operationally, the hotels run fine. Apart from a potential refurbishment, I don't see what outsourcing to a chain like Premier Inn would achieve for the customer. The hotels suffer from the lack of experience they provided previously and degraded entertainment. If they outsourced, that would not change.
 
I guess the quality of outsourcing would depend on the operator they chose. Someone like Travelodge would likely offer a very different sort of service to someone like Holiday Inn, for example.

If the hotels were outsourced to a chain, one concern I’d have is that they’d be “gentrified” somewhat to fit said chain’s typical room designs and such. The hotels have lots of quirky and fun design features, and I wonder if bringing in a hotel chain would see some of those get lost.
 
Just got my resident tickets and in the email it still states they can only be used for Friday and the Sunday for the fireworks events. Probably out of date and they haven’t changed it but who knows.
 
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Blackrock said:
Just got my resident tickets and in the email it still states they can only be used for Friday and the Saturday for the fireworks events. Probably out of date and they haven’t changed it but who knows.
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You would hope this information would all be accurate particularly with updating their website pages now with exact dates and after we have now cancelled and rebooked to now make it work for the sat. !
 
Ash said:
But they can run a hotel?

They ran ATH and Splash for decades.

The sad part is, they ran it better than they do now.

The difference is Merlin haven’t invested, or where they have they’ve invested badly (Room refurbs etc)

They can’t even keep the secret garden looking “clean” on a day to day basis. That’s how bad it is. (Based on my last visit opening day last season)
This is the level of “fantastical excellence” we’re dealing with.

It’s crap, until they have decent management that know what they’re doing with standards this is road they are on.
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I wasn’t suggesting Towers should outsource the Hotels, I was pointing out how outsourcing can be theoretically beneficial (and also explain why Chessie Hotel was originally outsourced.)
 
I recommend Travelodge park hill, Sheffield

Maybe outsourcing some different areas could work out ok so that the park can focus more on ride operation, upkeep, customer care etc
 
The place is such a disaster these days, it doesn't surprise me that they're outsourcing more and more. They can't run anything it seems.

If whacking a Henry Hoover round a hotel room, shoving a burger in a bun, and actually having rides open is too much for them to handle, then it should come as no surprise that they struggle to run an entertainment operation

Can't they just outsource the entire park to someone else? At this stage, even contracting out their park operations to Mr Bean will do.
 
James said:
Operationally, the hotels run fine. Apart from a potential refurbishment, I don't see what outsourcing to a chain like Premier Inn would achieve for the customer. The hotels suffer from the lack of experience they provided previously and degraded entertainment. If they outsourced, that would not change.
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Whilst I understand the point, I’m not sure I concur on your definition of fine operational running. The hotels would certainly benefit from a refocus on the themed experience, rather than the perpetual dilution of it, from entertainment, to food, room accessories and even uniforms.

With all that said, and on the assumption Merlin aren’t going to improve on any of those points, one would expect outsourcing would at least address the poor levels of cleanliness and substandard food offering (yes, I know Aramark are already the outsource, but as has been said even Premier Inn manage a better breakfast).
 
As a regular Premier Inn goer, I would partially disagree with breakfast. During my visit last year, I found the breakfast in ATH decent enough and on par with a Premier Inn breakfast in terms of food quality. Alton Towers' only downfall is the lack of options (no lattes/mochas/other coffee drinks, no variety of egg options), so I would agree with that as an area of improvement.

Cleanliness: The communal areas in ATH appeared clean, and our room was clean apart from the build-up of dust on the theming features, which I guess are not part of the routine/daily cleaning but seem to have been forgotten about.

I'm not praising the hotels, but I don't think they are as horrific as they are sometimes made out to be. They certainly need a full refurbishment and feel overpriced for what you get.
 
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