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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Thrill coasters are naturally high capacity because for the most part Merlin have bought from quality manufacturers, for lack of other options. I’m sure if a cheaper manufacturer offered a wing or wood coaster they’d have gone for it. Thirteen is its own case and has to have lots of block sections for the gimmick to work .
 
On the other hand, Merlin don't seem to ensure that capacity is designed into their ride hardware in the way that Tussauds did. When Oblivion was built it was clearly felt that single loading a 16 seat train wasn't going to give sufficient capacity. Four 4 years later they went to huge expense to build Air with 2 stations and a 3rd train. I just don't get the impression Merlin would have bothered, they'd have just stuck in a bag store (for the first few years at least) and called it a day.
 
Rides-per-day is a massive key-performance indicator for Merlin now as it attracts huge complaints when low, and is the topic of many an angry social media post or TripAdvisor review.

However this tends to manifest itself in a larger number of cheaper rides. Refer to Alton (and Chessington) for details.
 
I agree that capacity isn’t that big a consideration with Merlin parks when they plan new attractions.

But to say that this is a deliberate move to sell more Fastrack simply isn’t true.

As has been mentioned, rides-per-head is a key performance metric which Merlin parks are measured on, and when fastrack only accounts for a small percentage of your overall riders, working your entire business model around them would be a pretty daft move.
 
Fastrack doesn't affect ride per head at all - it's just total ride throughput divided by the number of people in the park - that number doesn't change if some people are able to do 30 rides in a day whilst others are doing 4.
 
Fasttrack is free money for Merlin , of course they want to sell out of them every day . If they invested in high capacity attractions people would stop feeling the only way to get on more than a handful of rides is by paying through the nose for the privilege
 
tayspru said:
Fasttrack is free money for Merlin , of course they want to sell out of them every day . If they invested in high capacity attractions people would stop feeling the only way to get on more than a handful of rides is by paying through the nose for the privilege
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Absolutely.

There's definitely something in this. Croc Drop and now this proposed coaster are going to bring in plenty of fast track sales.

Anyone thinking this isn't part of the consideration process is incredibly naive. It's about maximising profits not fun.
 
Benjsh said:
Absolutely.

There's definitely something in this. Croc Drop and now this proposed coaster are going to bring in plenty of fast track sales.

Anyone thinking this isn't part of the consideration process is incredibly naive. It's about maximising profits not fun.
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It’s endemic across all the parks ! Let’s look at all the recent additions under Merlin all with woeful capacity -

Chessington has Croc Drop, the Rainforest area, and now this proposed coaster.

Thorpe have got DBGT, Black Mirror, Storm Surge, Dodgems

Towers have Gangsta Granny, CBeebies land which is full of low capacity rides not suitable for it being essentially advertised as its own attraction, and some temporary fairground rides because capacity is that low in the park

LEGOLAND has Duplo Dino Coaster, Laser Raiders, Mias Riding Adventure and a lot of small low cap fillers
 
I don't think they are directly trying to sell fast track by adding low capacity attractions, I just think they aren't looking at the bigger long-term picture in the same way Tussauds used to.

In the early 2000s when Tussauds were expanding Thorpe Park out they added three flat rides in one season, they were adding full size coaster such as Colossus and Inferno.

Recent additions at Thorpe and Chessington have all just been very short-term thinking, no consideration to how this will affect guests in five years time even.
Alton Towers feels a bit more joined up with their thinking, at least.
 
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jon81uk said:
I don't think they are directly trying to sell fast track by adding low capacity attractions, I just think they aren't looking at the bigger long-term picture in the same way Tussauds used to.

In the early 2000s when Tussauds were expanding Thorpe Park out they added three flat rides in one season, they were adding full size coaster such as Colossus and Inferno.

Recent additions at Thorpe and Chessington have all just been very short-term thinking, no consideration to how this will effect guests in five years time even.
Alton Towers feels a bit more joined up with their thinking, at least.
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Short-term thinking is the key thing here. The top tier parks want you to have the best on park experience possible because then people are far more likely to return regularly.

Merlin seem content with getting people in and emptying their pockets whilst offering a below par service.
 
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