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2025: General Discussion

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.
 
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.
 
Lewis232 said:
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
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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.
 
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.
 
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
 
rob666 said:
Rita carries 20 punters per train, to Swarms 28.
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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.
 
Matt N said:
I do think it might now be time to get rid of the 10am-4pm openings.
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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.
 
shaun3 said:
All this is is some funky stuff going on with school holidays.
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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
 
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...
 
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.
 
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.
 
Ethan said:
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
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Most midland schools are off the week 21st-25th April. This includes Birmingham, Stoke, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Coventry, Dudley and Wolverhampton. I think they have 5pm closures next week and then 6pm closures for the following 2 weeks. They probably should have gone with 6pm closures for 3 weeks but they have aligned the park opening hours to the local school holidays and made some provision for non-local schools.

As for this week, it's a mystery. Maybe the good weather combined with not opening mid-week last week and a few schools going against the local authority guidance for holidays has created the perfect storm.

I do wish the 4pm closures would go. Maybe a 10.30am till 5pm would be a better option for off-peak days.
 
Schools in my area are off after today. Really does seem like the holidays have been spread out more than ever this year. Probably why they're going to be busy until the end of the month at a guess
 
shaun3 said:
Crowd calendar on queuetimes.com has days in May last year where average queue time on rides at 10 minutes.
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Can we all admit now that it's never exactly been the most reliable at predicting crowds? It doesn't help that Easter is a moveable feast, leading to inaccurate data for previous years, etc.
Benzin said:
Blame the schools/counties for deciding to do ridiculous dates for Easter.
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As far as I'm aware the schools/counties do not control the lunar cycle, and thus aren't responsible for the date on which Easter falls. For that, along with many other things, the blame lays with the Catholic church and the initial desire to have Easter align with passover.

Schools terms are typically 12/13 weeks, with a break every 6/7 weeks. Easter is late this year, which makes it difficult to include within the typical holiday range.
 
Scottish schools (at least here on the East Coast where I am) will have Easter holidays starting from next week so likely more than a few will make the trip south to Towers.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Can we all admit now that it's never exactly been the most reliable at predicting crowds? It doesn't help that Easter is a moveable feast, leading to inaccurate data for previous years, etc.

As far as I'm aware the schools/counties do not control the lunar cycle, and thus aren't responsible for the date on which Easter falls. For that, along with many other things, the blame lays with the Catholic church and the initial desire to have Easter align with passover.

Schools terms are typically 12/13 weeks, with a break every 6/7 weeks. Easter is late this year, which makes it difficult to include within the typical holiday range.
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Saved my breath goosey well done!
Every time we have a late Easter, which is down to the pope and full bloody moons, we have a spread set of holidays, confusion with bloody half term, then, follows the...
"Oh wow, incredible, four bank holidays in a bunch together...why can't we spread them all out properly..." conversations.

Early season used to be so easy, weekends and bank holidays only until Whitsun, then open every day until September.
Then pay one bloody price turned up, and tourism went tits up dates wise eveywhere.
I blame that decimal currency, everything went wrong when we lost the shilling.

Sorry, wrong topic.

Easter holidays this year are spread over four weeks, two local catholic schools do not break up until Maundy Thursday, by which time some Tyke school will have been back for four days!
 
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