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2025: General Discussion

Ash said:
Indeed, the turnaround now required, I think at Alton more than any other Merlin park is huge.

The lack of long term planning for ride investments combined with bad decisions (a Bluey coaster nobody asked for being the latest)

They’ve made a lot of staff redundant across marketing, events, MMM etc recently.

Up charge to get into the Towers, the woeful state of F&B, the second rate offering at the hotels, consistent inability to keep rides open (I’m still refusing to go back until Spinball, NST, Skyride and Rita are all open) and the national disgrace that is the state of the gardens.

It’s a big ship to turn around.

They built a business model around MAP and then events to encourage repeat spend, then scrapped most of the events.

Serves them right.
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All good points in my view. Especially the staff redundancies of people who would have been well known by all levels of staff for many years. That can have a very negative impact on the morale of those remaining.
 
Ash said:
Indeed, the turnaround now required, I think at Alton more than any other Merlin park is huge.

The lack of long term planning for ride investments combined with bad decisions (a Bluey coaster nobody asked for being the latest)

They’ve made a lot of staff redundant across marketing, events, MMM etc recently.

Up charge to get into the Towers, the woeful state of F&B, the second rate offering at the hotels, consistent inability to keep rides open (I’m still refusing to go back until Spinball, NST, Skyride and Rita are all open) and the national disgrace that is the state of the gardens.

It’s a big ship to turn around.

They built a business model around MAP and then events to encourage repeat spend, then scrapped most of the events.

Serves them right.
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I feel a lot of this is exaggerated.
they may have long term plans with CBeebies area (for example perhaps they want to replace other sections of CBeebies and their plan is to shuffle rides around replacing one at a time till they get it in a position they want to prevent having to close the whole land) this ride hasn't had its footers poured yet, let alone have we seen any public reaction from it

They also have GDO's so may have plans for flat rides to be installed for next year, in addition they may have plans they are waiting to submit for instance Galactica rethemes, again I feel like it is too early in the season to criticize their lack of future plans.

the towers and garden tour is apparently well priced, and I would be interested in the number of non enthusiasts who are bothered by it (also wasn't it speculated that historical England wanted that)

ride availability and food is still a problem, however they are improving it, availability is much better compared to last year and the new food outlets are apparently quite good (courtyard and the FV chicken place)

I would argue they are turning the ship round making the branding more clear, cleaning up a lot of theming the process is slow and it will probably be similar for the next few years, however they are making progress
 
Problem is with a lot of these "possible" plans is that they're a possibility rather than set in stone.

They could do a lot of things, or they might not. Currently there's very little belief in the community that something worthwhile or an improvement to the park's flaws will happen though.

Holding out on hope is a dangerous game.
 
I'm wondering if they are waiting to see what happens with Universal's planning application before committing to anything long term. There is a potential that the application could get snarled up in delays and "NIMBYISM" (even though the project appears to have a lot of local support). Also they seem to be doing a lot of work behind the scenes on reorganising the business, so might be waiting for some stability.
 
Benzin said:
Problem is with a lot of these "possible" plans is that they're a possibility rather than set in stone.

They could do a lot of things, or they might not. Currently there's very little belief in the community that something worthwhile or an improvement to the park's flaws will happen though.

Holding out on hope is a dangerous game.
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I am not holding out hope, I just think it is way too early to criticize for lack of long term planning when we haven't even seen it finished.

a year or two down the line it is fine to criticize the long term plans as you have seen the whole development but we don't even know how the type of ride let alone how it will turn out.
 
I guess the problem with plans is that they’re completely at the whim of circumstances.

There was plans to retheme Galactica, shelved due to budget cuts. There were plans to have started building Horizon by now, and even the usual gossips haven’t heard as much as a whisper.

Finances can change, upper management can change, global circumstances can change, a ride could become a bigger problem (eg Rita this year), there’s so many factors at play that having a decent long term plan is one thing, but being able to turn it into reality is something completely different, and much harder.
 
MattBTP said:
I'm wondering if they are waiting to see what happens with Universal's planning application before committing to anything long term. There is a potential that the application could get snarled up in delays and "NIMBYISM" (even though the project appears to have a lot of local support). Also they seem to be doing a lot of work behind the scenes on reorganising the business, so might be waiting for some stability.
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Given Universal are building on a former brickworks, what makes you think it will have significant opposition? The only major complaint would be around traffic but it does sound like there are plans to minimise those issues.
 
jon81uk said:
Given Universal are building on a former brickworks, what makes you think it will have significant opposition? The only major complaint would be around traffic but it does sound like there are plans to minimise those issues.
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Nothing springs to mind as of yet, however I'm being mindful of how long some of these large projects backed by government seem to take (e.g. new runway at Heathrow, also saw the new tunnel they want to put in to cross the Thames has been stuck in planning for 16 years!). Also I'm thinking more of opposition from government bodies such as the EA for example. I wouldn't have thought there would be a major issue, however projects of this size do tend to have complex planning requirements that can mean issues arise.
 
jon81uk said:
Given Universal are building on a former brickworks, what makes you think it will have significant opposition? The only major complaint would be around traffic but it does sound like there are plans to minimise those issues.
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The brickworks closed in 2008, so there has been 17 years of near silence on the site I'd imagine! I think a lot of local people currently in favour of the Universal plans may change their minds when it opens and there will be the noise (and daily fireworks maybe?), traffic and lots of people in the area pretty much 365 days a year!
 
flyingguitar said:
I am not holding out hope, I just think it is way too early to criticize for lack of long term planning when we haven't even seen it finished.

a year or two down the line it is fine to criticize the long term plans as you have seen the whole development but we don't even know how the type of ride let alone how it will turn out.
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The problem is that a lot of the current issues throughout the park are down to a complete lack of long term planning from the park management at the time.

CBeebies is one of the few areas that doesn't need things chopping and changing round. Removing a car ride for a new coaster feels very much like trying to quickly add in something Bluey related whilst the iron is still hot. Rather than something a bit more considered.
 
Joel3 said:
Definitely in school trip season now. Park is very busy today!

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Well we managed to have a decent day even with the long queues.

Rita and Sub terra were closed all day as expected, and TH13TEEN opened at 4 so didn’t have enough time to ride it.

Unfortunately our debit card got stolen whilst at the park today and £150 was spent, possibly on Nemesis or The Smiler, so that put a bit of a downer on the day, hopefully tomorrow will be better!
 
Just saw an advert on Facebook for an Alton Towers Seasonal pass for 3 months from £59

Weirdly though it mentions it on their website but when you click the buy link there is nothing to be found

They must be really struggling for visitor numbers this year. Sandbrooke did a vlog on Sunday and he couldn’t get over how quiet it was there.
 

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