2025: General Discussion

[Matt N]

I do think it might now be time to get rid of the 10am-4pm openings.

When they were first introduced post-Smiler crash, these days were quiet days where queues were deathly low, so there was at least some degree of a trade off to warrant 10am-4pm openings.

But today, we’re seeing multiple rides with 60+ minute queues. Admittedly, this may not be an overly usual 10am-4pm opening day, but in general, I don’t think Alton is quiet enough on weekdays anymore to justify only opening for 6 hours. With weekday crowds now being like they are, my view is that 10am-5pm should now be the minimum.

 

[rob666]

The queues now, mid afternoon, are all around half an hour.
That'll do.
All those cheap pass holders out in well forecast sunny weather.
Give them nothing more than they paid for.

 

[Blackrock]

A few 45 minute waits yesterday and without the sky ride a lot of walking which easily eats up time, it doesn’t really leave you with a lot of time to play with when they’re only open for 6 hours.

It’s a shame the rapids wasn’t open this week as well with the weather being the way it has been, but I suppose they can’t predict the weather. But it would have helped.

10-5 should be the minimum, I’m surprised they didn’t extend it yesterday tbh, they used to be far more open to extending ride closures years ago. It’s not like the weather has been miserable either, it’s stunning round this way atm.

Nice to see it’s busy though I guess.

 

[Maelstrom]

I'm surprised next week is only 10-5, all the schools where I live break up at the end of this week for Easter holidays

They generally go off Staffordshire and they don’t break up until Friday 11th
In most cases. Obviously lots of others in Alton’s catchment are off next week like Derbyshire which means will still be busy next week.

 

[djransome]

I find it crazy that over the last few days, Alton Towers has been busier than Thorpe Park (according to queue times calendar and just general queue length observations) yet Alton Towers is on a shorter opening. I do agree that Alton Towers needs to align themselves like Thorpe Park with a 5pm close. That extra hour can make a big difference.

I wonder if operations are just quicker at Thorpe Park compared to Alton Towers. For me, you look at how fast they get Stealth loaded/unloaded and it becomes a queue muncher. Compare that to Rita and you always find it's a lot slower. Yes Rita is a slightly longer ride but you want to aim for similar throughput speeds.

 

[rob666]

Rita carries 20 punters per train, to Swarms 28.

 

[Blackrock]

Alton towers is huge though isn’t it, far bigger than Thorpe. Without the skyride you can easily spend an hour if not more walking from area to area.

That leaves 5 hours left out of 6 hours day, take off lunch for 30 minutes and you have 4 and a half hours to play with when queues are 45-60 mins.

A joke really.

Also yesterday the ride op for Rita was telling everyone at 3:10 ish over the tannoy the queue was 45 mins for those at the back. A fair few left the queue and it ended up being a 30 minute wait for myself at the back

 

[Matt N]

Rita carries 20 punters per train, to Swarms 28.

Rita and Stealth (the most directly comparable ride at Thorpe) carry the same number of riders per train, don't they?

I have noticed that Stealth oddly gets a noticeably higher throughput than Rita, for some reason. I wouldn't have said Thorpe's operations were faster than Towers' as a general rule, but they do seem to get a higher throughput out of Stealth than Alton does out of Rita. I know Rita is longer, but given that both rides are pretty short, I don't really see that it makes much difference.

 

[shaun3]

I do think it might now be time to get rid of the 10am-4pm openings.

Had towers been open during the midweek in March, you'd have seen the park very quiet. I don't know why people are pretending like it's always busy there. When the kids are at school and it isn't school trip season, it's usually quiet, and will be in the midweek after Easter.

All this is is some funky stuff going on with school holidays.

Crowd calendar on queuetimes.com has days in May last year where average queue time on rides at 10 minutes.

 

[Ethan]

All this is is some funky stuff going on with school holidays.

Ye the point is Towers should know about it. From what I’ve seen most schools are back after the bank holiday on the 21st. Yes Stoke nearby are off that week 21st-25th but pretty much all other areas are back so why have that week a 6pm close and this week 4 when there’s just as many schools off now

 

[rob666]

Maybe, just maybe, they know better than us about expected coach/school trips in the coming months.
Large numbers of schools now refuse to follow the education guidance for holidays, because they aren't required to do so under restructuring.
Now I know Merlin could phone every school to work out their term dates...

 

[Benzin]

Probably with the cuts to everything as well having extended holiday hours (10-6) for 4 weeks wouldn't be considered "viable".

Blame the schools/counties for deciding to do ridiculous dates for Easter.

 

[Dave]

This is by no means justifying the opening times but the problem Towers will have is they have a strict operating budget, that is based on the previous years performance, and there is very little wiggle room to react to the current situation.

Basically they will have distributed their operating hours across the year, and have nothing left to spend to extend on unanticipated busy days. Thorpe is the same but they all are able to spend their budget as they choose, Towers has a slightly longer operating season.

Now if they have a good early season they might get a boost mid-season but until that happens they won’t really have room for manoeuvre.

It’s a stupid system from a dimwitted Merlin but that’s the ecosystem Towers works in, gone are the days where the parks director could take a decision to risk an extra few hours to boost spend sadly.