• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

4:00pm ride closes scrapped!

Re: Advance Notice: Park Hours Cut to 4:00pm

AHA! I has good news!

We have been informed that the 4:00pm ride closes should actually have been altered on the official website. They no longer exist, and the park is closing at 5:00pm throughout.

:)
 
Ah, excellent. Still not good enough for what should be the UK's best theme park, though.
 
Very surprised they changed from my point of view they haven't had an overly busy summer but happy its open till 5 though
 
At the time of writing this I have only just got back to my hotel after a day at Europa Park. We were let in at 8:30am and I got my last ride at 8:40pm (Silver Star at night FTW). That was plenty of time to even go back to the pool for a swim and still have a full day. Reading this news is a sad reminder of how small our opening hours are, even if it has been reversed.
 
Good news that they have been scrapped, and I'm not actually surprised. I think they realised earlier in the year that the 4pm closes were somewhat ridiculous but never got round to updating it on the website for dates later in the year for whatever reason.

:)
 
Re: Advance Notice: Park Hours Cut to 4:00pm

DiogoJ42 said:
Actually, since my MAP has run out, I am now boycotting everything M£rlin till they sort their act out.
Click to expand...

After mine expires the weekend after SW7 opens I think I'll be joining you mate...

This is the first I've heard of the latest M£rlin price hike, £45 is a stupid amount for 6 hours at any theme park, let alone on with as many faults as Alton Towers has nowadays. And I'm not even going to moan about the pathetic opening hours, I've done it often enough since these money grabbers M£rlin have been in charge of the park...
 
And so it should, Merlin seriously need to take a long look in the mirror if they thought that 6 hours for the best part of £50 is acceptable, from a company who believe they are second to Disney?
 
I'm not trying to defend Merlin here as 7 hours is still too short but... The whole 'second to Disney' thing is used far too much. I don't recollect them ever shouting about it in terms of experience or satisfaction but in terms of customer numbers, yes.
 
In general the opening hours are too short especially during the summer. However I think 5pm on the sept and oct dates is acceptable. On these dates the park is dead with some of the quietest days of the season and most rides have little to no wait and most guests in the past would leave around 5pm. Also many parks in the uk close on weekdays in sept/oct as not cost effective to open.

I do think we should see longer hours during june, July & aug. I know later openings in summer haven't always worked that well as many guests still leave between 5 and 6pm. The park need some kind of event to keep people in the park. They did try the summer spectacular stunt show in 1999 and 2000 with the park open late maybe something similar would work again.
 
Summer = 11PM - 1AM closing would be my attitude. People having their evening meal on park and doing the park at a more leisurely pace so they can take in the themeing more. You see a hell of a lot more when you're not rushing. Also this means that when the coaches leave at 5-6 PM the park will be quieter so people have a higher percieved value for money as more rides can be done. Autumn would have 8:30PM closures and Scarefest/Fireworks would be a 1AM closure. Feb H/T would close at 6PM and March to the start of June would be on the 8:30PM closures.

Park entry would be £20 Adult Price and Parking would be free. AT Annual Passes would be £45 and Merlin Annual Passes would be £60. More Hours + Better Value For Money = Happy Guests :)
 
Except those hours and prices wouldn't work at Alton and they would loose money. Due the location you won't get guests staying until 1am and certainly not 8pm during off peak times in sept and oct (not enough to cover costs). Plus the locals would never allow it. I think bing realistic minimum close should be 6pm, then 7pm week days in June, 8pm at weekends. Then July 8pm weekdays and 9pm during the school holidays and July weekends.

With pricing we know that most people don't pay full price and use bog of or web prices which is one reason the one gate price is so expensive I wish though that there were less offers and they charged less ie £30, but people are so used to Bogof they prob won't go unless they have them, after 12+ years of heavily pushing this method it's hard to change people's perceptions. Not sure how hey would do this now.
 
Sorry Dan, but what is the original post reporting? I thought we alreday knew about these 4pm closures and talked about them months ago (albiet in 'the other place')?

The edit at the top, you're syaing they're now 5pm closures instead of 4pm? I just find it a confusing read, and it doesn't say 5pm on these dates on their website?
 
Tom said:
Sorry Dan, but what is the original post reporting? I thought we alreday knew about these 4pm closures and talked about them months ago (albiet in 'the other place')?

The edit at the top, you're syaing they're now 5pm closures instead of 4pm? I just find it a confusing read, and it doesn't say 5pm on these dates on their website?
Click to expand...

A few months ago Alton Towers did decide to have 4pm closures towards the end of the season. A few days after we revealed this on TT, Alton Towers has informed us that this was a mistake and the times were changed back to 5pm closures. So all was the same as usual and the times were changed on the website.

Then this week the 5pm closures changed again on the website back to 4pm, just like they did a few months ago. Again, we have been informed that the website has been updated wrongly and the times have been changed back to 5pm.

In other words: Alton Towers have repeated the same this week as what happened months ago. Clearly someone has been editing the website and there's some wrong information spreading around.
 
Based on how many people stay after 5pm its not actually a bad closing time per-say. The likes of Europa Park decide their closing on the day and that park does close as early as 5.30pm on quiet days.

I actually think though that the park should open fully at 9am with a 30min ERT at 8.30. People prefer to get to places like Towers early especially on a Sunday. Then they should move to 7pm closes on larger days with maybe more on the day opening extensions when its busy like EP do.
 
Re: Re: 4:00pm ride closes scrapped!

Tom said:
Sorry Dan, but what is the original post reporting? I thought we alreday knew about these 4pm closures and talked about them months ago (albiet in 'the other place')?

The edit at the top, you're syaing they're now 5pm closures instead of 4pm? I just find it a confusing read, and it doesn't say 5pm on these dates on their website?
Click to expand...

The post was merely a 'heads up' I.e. a reminder that the park would be closing at 4.00pm on certain dates, as it had been months since their discussion and that had not been on this forum.

As for the ridiculous suggestion of 11pm closing in summer - no, just no. Not in a million years would that be viable! The only parks that do this are those in very hot countries. Even the Orlando parks don't all open that late.

That said, next year I would like the park to return to 7.00pm in August, as it has been the past few years.

The park have totally wiped out on the day extensions this year and have moved the goalposts for what constitutes a small, medium, large and extra large day. Asia result, the park has closed earlier than the past few years on many, many occasions this year.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 
Also, I'd love to hear the opinion of local residents (who are usually very supportive of the park) on having, say, Spinball and Oblivion's lifts and Nemmy's music blasting until 11pm every night for a month, followed by a month of 9pm closings, followed by Fireworks!
 
One thing I would love though... an annual big event where park does open very late . Sort of what EP do at end of July. Problem is, they would be too wary to commit in the first place and, like a football club, would want instant success and not give it time.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk
 
Dave said:
I actually think though that the park should open fully at 9am with a 30min ERT at 8.30. People prefer to get to places like Towers early especially on a Sunday. Then they should move to 7pm closes on larger days with maybe more on the day opening extensions when its busy like EP do.
Click to expand...
I think the park should open fully at 930, with the first half hour being ERT for guests.

Sundays are the worst example for people arriving early - there's never queues on sunday mornings compared to other days. Sunday is usually the quietest day over holidays as well!

I personally feel that they should open late over summer, 8pm ride close. Make the park much more of a resort. To save costs, they could very very easily drop staff down to minimal once the queues are non-existant. Drop down to minimum trains and staffing once the queues hit 0mins after 5-6pm (depending on when in summer it is).

5pm is fine for off-peak days, 530 should be minimum weekends. 6pm all other holidays really.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top