Dave
TS Founding Member
Try going direct to Merlin:
[email protected]
You need to include the case number you got from Towers.
[email protected]
You need to include the case number you got from Towers.
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ℹ️ Heads up...
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Customer service
- Thread starter GaryH
- Start date
Left it with guest services to kick upstairs after another "hopefully next year" response, which I politely advised didn't answer the majority of my questions, or resolve any of my attendance problems.
But cheers for the link.
Funnily enough, my clear rehab goal, after 12 months of 2 different injuries to my right foot, with doctors, burn nurses, physio, friends, family and occy health, has been to get back to the Beach (managed very infrequently), and the ultimate goal of a full day at the Towers with my good lady wife, like most years for forty odd years.
There is only one thing stopping me now, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Bloody skyride, which I have relied upon for a decade.
Please don't make me do 'mingo.
But cheers for the link.
Funnily enough, my clear rehab goal, after 12 months of 2 different injuries to my right foot, with doctors, burn nurses, physio, friends, family and occy health, has been to get back to the Beach (managed very infrequently), and the ultimate goal of a full day at the Towers with my good lady wife, like most years for forty odd years.
There is only one thing stopping me now, and there is nothing I can do about it.
Bloody skyride, which I have relied upon for a decade.
Please don't make me do 'mingo.
Sorry to hear about your troubles Rob and hope you manage that full day at Towers soon.
As for the skyride questions…. I understand your frustration, I wonder if the guest services or social media teams would have that information though. I think as Dave said it might need an answer from higher up if you are able to get one.
As for the skyride questions…. I understand your frustration, I wonder if the guest services or social media teams would have that information though. I think as Dave said it might need an answer from higher up if you are able to get one.
BarryZola
TS Member
Do I believe that if they really really wanted the skyride and Hex to be open at the moment that they could be? Yes. Do I believe that they were such a priority that they wanted to throw a decent budget at them being open by now? No. It's hardly like they've wanted to run the skyride in recent years anyway. Always seemed to be closed until about mid-day when they could even be bothered to open it. Less staffing and electricity costs with it being out of action.
Dave
TS Founding Member
They definitely do want both open and I don’t think budget is the issue.
Like a lot of things with Merlin there is a legacy of neglect that is going to take a lot of time for Kirkby and the new management team to work through.
Dave
TS Founding Member
They both opened in the same year (1987), though the trains for the monorail had been used at a previous expo.
DistortAMG
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- POTC Disneyland Paris
I believe it is among the older operating ropeways on the planet. Nothing wrong with that. But they seem to get replaced every 30 years or so on mountains. Sorry wrong topic without off topic.
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Going to have to go this route, I'm afraid, questions unanswered and feel distinctly fobbed off after six months of polite enquiries... I have exhausted my complaint with the Towers.
They "aim" or "hope" to get the skyride open for next season, not very assuring, and are still using routine maintenance as an excuse for a full year closure of essential mobility transport...without warning, notice or reopening date. Nothing on the accessibility pages either.
As I don't want or need to use a scooter or wheelchair, it is tough and goodbye until next year, and an additional method of assistance with access will be "put forward" to management by guest services...
Their final response said nothing new, so upstairs we go.
Top of the accessibility statement page.
"The Alton Towers Resort strives to make sure that the Theme Park ...etc...easily accessible to all our guests".
Except when it doesn't.
Dave
TS Founding Member
It’s a shame the messaging has been that bad. I don’t have any direct knowledge but I am given to understand the fact it’s closed this season isn’t because they haven’t tried, but due to bigger issues with the ride that need prolonged downtime. That said because the Skyride is an essential transport for people with mobility issues I think Towers should have been more honest about that and had a plan for people with mobility issues.
Exactly what I said, repeatedly...over what is now half a year.
No warning of any closure.
No chance of planning for a season long closure...I didn't know...I couldn't plan my usual visit, or a special visit for an ex care client's 40th...because Towers have been crap at accessibility, and giving fair warning...just look the other way and pretend it isn't a problem.
Not told until mid season that it was a full season closure.
Zero assurance, and lots of weasel words "aim to reopen"..."hopefully next season" regarding reopening.
I still don't accept hiding behind "bigger issues"...no mention to me, and I still think, after a full closed season, then another six months on, they would have some idea of a reopening date...even with bigger issues, not routine maintenance then as I was informed.
Disabled discrimination in my eyes, having many years of experience "in the trade", before having my own basic mobility issues.
Never used a scooter, never used a wheelchair, but on my last group park visit three of us had basic mobility issues that we could easily work around...zero chance of that at the Towers.
No warning of any closure.
No chance of planning for a season long closure...I didn't know...I couldn't plan my usual visit, or a special visit for an ex care client's 40th...because Towers have been crap at accessibility, and giving fair warning...just look the other way and pretend it isn't a problem.
Not told until mid season that it was a full season closure.
Zero assurance, and lots of weasel words "aim to reopen"..."hopefully next season" regarding reopening.
I still don't accept hiding behind "bigger issues"...no mention to me, and I still think, after a full closed season, then another six months on, they would have some idea of a reopening date...even with bigger issues, not routine maintenance then as I was informed.
Disabled discrimination in my eyes, having many years of experience "in the trade", before having my own basic mobility issues.
Never used a scooter, never used a wheelchair, but on my last group park visit three of us had basic mobility issues that we could easily work around...zero chance of that at the Towers.
Matt.GC
TS Member
I thought I'd post this here to keep the forum tidy as 564351 new threads seem to be created every day at the moment.
I had no intention of visiting the park again this year with things the way they are, and many of you will know, I certainly don't normally do parks at weekends as I find them unbearable. But my daughter has finally hit 1.4 with a decent soled shoe on Friday and I couldn't make her wait until the spring to ride things she's been staring at for years. I've lowered my patronage enough as it is these past few years, my MAP went many years ago, the ATAP went a couple of years ago as well, and our twice yearly overnight stays don't happen any more. I couldn't let my pride and views on the direction of the park get in the way of my daughter enjoying herself, this week the weather looks terrible, and a quick look on the website seems to show that prices for hotels are back to far more reasonable levels than the laughable prices they've been asking for recently. So a spur of the moment trip was booked late Friday night seeing the good weather forecast for Sat and Sun.
Big mistake. Very big mistake.
All the onsite accommodation was fully booked, so we knew the place would be packed and horrible, but we didn't get a bad deal on the AT website for the Hilton East Midlands airport and 2 days worth of tickets. The plan was, for me to finish work at 1 on Saturday, get to the park for tea time and make use of the shorter queues in the evenings on both days (when the suckers decide to do the completely indoor mazes for reasons unbeknownst to me) and the first hour of the following day. We would then chill out, do short queued attractions, have something to eat and do mazes in the middle of the day whilst the queues are intolerable.
We arrived at the gate around 17:45 Saturday night. I loaded up my booked confirmation email and logged in (where everything was confirmed as booked) to find there were no tickets available to be downloaded. I went to entrance gates and was ushered off to a closed ticket point where the lady and her supervisor scratched their heads with my phone in their hand wondering why they have no evidence of the tickets existing even though I'd clearly paid and had a booking number and they were. About 10 mins of lost ride time later, they just printed me paper tickets and let us in. The evening was fine on park and as expected so we had a decent 3 hours, left the park to get some food (of course) on our way to Derby to check in to our hotel.
We arrived just before midnight. 2 tired kids and me extremely tired as I'd been up since 5:30am and done a full work shift before a 3 hour drive up, 3 hours on park and a reasonable drive to the hotel. Went to check in and we found that Holiday Extras hadn't bothered booking our hotel either. There was no record, 2 people came to look at it and the booking was just not made. It was suggested that we try to call someone to sort it out. Guess what? Despite being happy to take your money 24/7 365 days per year for an industry that predominantly operates on weekends, the staff work 9-5 Monday -Friday. Nice work if you can get it. Maybe I should suggest this to my boss? We'll carry on taking people's money all weekend, but won't give them anything in return because I quite fancy having them off.
Then tried calling Merlin HQ. Office closed. AT switchboard. No answer. Chatbot - useless. Finally I managed to get hold of someone at ATH reception. She was very pleasant, looked into it for me, came to the same conclusion that we all had that there had been a monumental *#&@* up but couldn't even give me a room back at the resort as they were fully booked.
The only solution was to get the credit card out and pay top dollar for 2 rooms (no family rooms left) at 1am, with no breakfast included (was paid for with my original booking though), kip in a cold family saloon or face a 2.5 hour drive home. We did this and went to bed with the intention of sorting this out on resort the next morning.
Owing to how tired we all were having been panicking in a hotel reception for over an hour, we went to check out around 8:30. Another hotel manager had arrived for the morning shift, knew what had happened the night before and said she had refunded the entire amount as they were confident they would get their payment back off of Merlin for the cock up. She then offered is breakfast as it was included, but we got up late on the understanding that there wasn't any and I'm well aware at this point that if I'm not at the park entrance by 9:30 latest then I can kiss goodbye to actually getting on many rides that day. So we left for the park, the kids and my partner tired and hungry, me seething with anger and clutching the steering wheel aggressively. I was so angry that I'd given them so much of my money for a stay that so far had been ruined, I drive straight to ATH to see if someone, anyone, could do something as a consolation.
The extremely friendly doorman could see that the situation was unacceptable and called a manager out to sort things out. After waiting nearly half an hour for one, someone finally arrived. Can I have my money back? We don't do that here, Holiday Extras deal with that I'm afraid. The park is open now, I've missed the short queues, can I have some fast tracks? Can't be done here. The queue for the monorail will be horrendous no and we're tired, can I use the Galactica entrance? No, no without your tickets. Well can I at least have some tickets for today until I get a chance to write a complaint email when I get home? No, we can't print them from here, you'll have to go all the way to the main entrance and queue.
So after absolutely nothing was resolved, at around 11am we walked the horrid journey to the park entrance so I could join another half hour queue, for the privilege of explaining again, for the fourth time, to another person what happened just to be let into the park despite the fact I had paid. Watching the kids tired and miserable on the other side of the queue barriers, I asked my partner to see if someone with seniority would come and see us. No we were told, that's guest services which is inside the park. So, despite paying for a service I didn't really receive, I was now in a queue to get tickets that I should already have, so that I could queue to go through security, for the privilege of queueing again at guest services to speak to someone. When I got to the ticket booth, thankfully I didn't have to tell the fourth person the whole story as she said "yeah, for some reason there's been a lot of people with that problem this morning".
Once inside the park, the latest I've probably ever entered, I took a quick glance at the Guest Services queue full of people waiting and decided that all this has wasted enough time already. No one was likely to give a damn anyway and I'd probably be trying to get blood out of a stone. We had to try and make something of this disastrous trip, not that you really can when faced with a 200 min Smiler queue because you've entered the park so late through very little fault of your own.
I'm absolutely furious about the whole thing. A very pleasant lady called me later in the day to apologise and ensure Hilton were refunding my money, but at this stage I knew that I wasn't getting anywhere with this as it's clear that the people I've been speaking with only have a certain ebel of authority. I just thanked her and decided I was going to try and do everything I could to ensure we had at least some fun and deal with the whole thing when I get home.
Not sure who to email, but I'll be sending one tomorrow. I'm really not sorry for saying that I couldn't care less if it's Holiday Extras or not who are to blame and all this "not my department" stuff, I went on an Alton Towers branded website, gave over my money, and didn't receive the service I paid for in return. I wouldn't have any idea who Holiday Extras were and that the contract with Merlin is being binned soon if I wasn't a member of this forum and frankly, that's not my problem. It's not acceptable, has ruined my little getaway and has further damaged my already declining opinion of this company and the way it operates. We've all been used to paying more for a declining quality of service for years with Merlin on a 'sold as seen' basis, but this is a new low.
I had no intention of visiting the park again this year with things the way they are, and many of you will know, I certainly don't normally do parks at weekends as I find them unbearable. But my daughter has finally hit 1.4 with a decent soled shoe on Friday and I couldn't make her wait until the spring to ride things she's been staring at for years. I've lowered my patronage enough as it is these past few years, my MAP went many years ago, the ATAP went a couple of years ago as well, and our twice yearly overnight stays don't happen any more. I couldn't let my pride and views on the direction of the park get in the way of my daughter enjoying herself, this week the weather looks terrible, and a quick look on the website seems to show that prices for hotels are back to far more reasonable levels than the laughable prices they've been asking for recently. So a spur of the moment trip was booked late Friday night seeing the good weather forecast for Sat and Sun.
Big mistake. Very big mistake.
All the onsite accommodation was fully booked, so we knew the place would be packed and horrible, but we didn't get a bad deal on the AT website for the Hilton East Midlands airport and 2 days worth of tickets. The plan was, for me to finish work at 1 on Saturday, get to the park for tea time and make use of the shorter queues in the evenings on both days (when the suckers decide to do the completely indoor mazes for reasons unbeknownst to me) and the first hour of the following day. We would then chill out, do short queued attractions, have something to eat and do mazes in the middle of the day whilst the queues are intolerable.
We arrived at the gate around 17:45 Saturday night. I loaded up my booked confirmation email and logged in (where everything was confirmed as booked) to find there were no tickets available to be downloaded. I went to entrance gates and was ushered off to a closed ticket point where the lady and her supervisor scratched their heads with my phone in their hand wondering why they have no evidence of the tickets existing even though I'd clearly paid and had a booking number and they were. About 10 mins of lost ride time later, they just printed me paper tickets and let us in. The evening was fine on park and as expected so we had a decent 3 hours, left the park to get some food (of course) on our way to Derby to check in to our hotel.
We arrived just before midnight. 2 tired kids and me extremely tired as I'd been up since 5:30am and done a full work shift before a 3 hour drive up, 3 hours on park and a reasonable drive to the hotel. Went to check in and we found that Holiday Extras hadn't bothered booking our hotel either. There was no record, 2 people came to look at it and the booking was just not made. It was suggested that we try to call someone to sort it out. Guess what? Despite being happy to take your money 24/7 365 days per year for an industry that predominantly operates on weekends, the staff work 9-5 Monday -Friday. Nice work if you can get it. Maybe I should suggest this to my boss? We'll carry on taking people's money all weekend, but won't give them anything in return because I quite fancy having them off.
Then tried calling Merlin HQ. Office closed. AT switchboard. No answer. Chatbot - useless. Finally I managed to get hold of someone at ATH reception. She was very pleasant, looked into it for me, came to the same conclusion that we all had that there had been a monumental *#&@* up but couldn't even give me a room back at the resort as they were fully booked.
The only solution was to get the credit card out and pay top dollar for 2 rooms (no family rooms left) at 1am, with no breakfast included (was paid for with my original booking though), kip in a cold family saloon or face a 2.5 hour drive home. We did this and went to bed with the intention of sorting this out on resort the next morning.
Owing to how tired we all were having been panicking in a hotel reception for over an hour, we went to check out around 8:30. Another hotel manager had arrived for the morning shift, knew what had happened the night before and said she had refunded the entire amount as they were confident they would get their payment back off of Merlin for the cock up. She then offered is breakfast as it was included, but we got up late on the understanding that there wasn't any and I'm well aware at this point that if I'm not at the park entrance by 9:30 latest then I can kiss goodbye to actually getting on many rides that day. So we left for the park, the kids and my partner tired and hungry, me seething with anger and clutching the steering wheel aggressively. I was so angry that I'd given them so much of my money for a stay that so far had been ruined, I drive straight to ATH to see if someone, anyone, could do something as a consolation.
The extremely friendly doorman could see that the situation was unacceptable and called a manager out to sort things out. After waiting nearly half an hour for one, someone finally arrived. Can I have my money back? We don't do that here, Holiday Extras deal with that I'm afraid. The park is open now, I've missed the short queues, can I have some fast tracks? Can't be done here. The queue for the monorail will be horrendous no and we're tired, can I use the Galactica entrance? No, no without your tickets. Well can I at least have some tickets for today until I get a chance to write a complaint email when I get home? No, we can't print them from here, you'll have to go all the way to the main entrance and queue.
So after absolutely nothing was resolved, at around 11am we walked the horrid journey to the park entrance so I could join another half hour queue, for the privilege of explaining again, for the fourth time, to another person what happened just to be let into the park despite the fact I had paid. Watching the kids tired and miserable on the other side of the queue barriers, I asked my partner to see if someone with seniority would come and see us. No we were told, that's guest services which is inside the park. So, despite paying for a service I didn't really receive, I was now in a queue to get tickets that I should already have, so that I could queue to go through security, for the privilege of queueing again at guest services to speak to someone. When I got to the ticket booth, thankfully I didn't have to tell the fourth person the whole story as she said "yeah, for some reason there's been a lot of people with that problem this morning".
Once inside the park, the latest I've probably ever entered, I took a quick glance at the Guest Services queue full of people waiting and decided that all this has wasted enough time already. No one was likely to give a damn anyway and I'd probably be trying to get blood out of a stone. We had to try and make something of this disastrous trip, not that you really can when faced with a 200 min Smiler queue because you've entered the park so late through very little fault of your own.
I'm absolutely furious about the whole thing. A very pleasant lady called me later in the day to apologise and ensure Hilton were refunding my money, but at this stage I knew that I wasn't getting anywhere with this as it's clear that the people I've been speaking with only have a certain ebel of authority. I just thanked her and decided I was going to try and do everything I could to ensure we had at least some fun and deal with the whole thing when I get home.
Not sure who to email, but I'll be sending one tomorrow. I'm really not sorry for saying that I couldn't care less if it's Holiday Extras or not who are to blame and all this "not my department" stuff, I went on an Alton Towers branded website, gave over my money, and didn't receive the service I paid for in return. I wouldn't have any idea who Holiday Extras were and that the contract with Merlin is being binned soon if I wasn't a member of this forum and frankly, that's not my problem. It's not acceptable, has ruined my little getaway and has further damaged my already declining opinion of this company and the way it operates. We've all been used to paying more for a declining quality of service for years with Merlin on a 'sold as seen' basis, but this is a new low.
together 
richr87
TS Member
That's absolutely disgusting but not at all surprising. We took the kids to stay at the hotel a few years ago at splash landings and had a torrid time. Like your self was passed around a million staff and got no where. We happened to fill the survey on the tablet in the hotel out of frustration. They actually contacted us and refunded our stay and gave us 50% off our next stay ( including water park and free park tickets) as compensation. So if u manage to get that angry email sent of there maybe a little light at the end of the tunnel. Sorry to hear u had such a bad time tho
Dave
TS Founding Member
This is the infuriating thing when companies outsource key parts of a service. When things go wrong (such as a computer fault like this) the customer ends up stuck between two arguing organisations.
Still Merlin chose to use this so it’s their brand that is ultimately responsible, suspect issues like this are why they are bringing it back in house though.
Still Merlin chose to use this so it’s their brand that is ultimately responsible, suspect issues like this are why they are bringing it back in house though.
Two words
Trip
Advisor
Make sure you include an email for someone from the shit show to get in touch
Having been through similar things I’d be seething and want to burn the place to the ground. You want to go out of your way to make them feel as utterly terrible as you have, yet you have no recompense to do it.
Fundamentally those responsible are at somewhere in Poole with horrendous job titles, failing to run a theme park resort.
Matt.GC
TS Member
Using the advice that 2 kind members have given me today, I have lodged a complaint this afternoon to Merlin directly. As a middle man charged with dealing with complaints as result of the mistakes my employer makes myself, I can't say that Towers has handled it brilliantly either, but I also understand that they are dealing with headaches bestowed on them by greater powers and I had the feeling when talking to them that they really didn't understand what was going on either. The same with the Hilton staff really. All following orders with limited autonomy, which I know from personal experience is a hallmark of the way modern businesses operate.
But it still shouldn't be my problem. They took my money happily enough through an automated system in the darkness of the night, but didn't provide me with the service I paid for in return so that the folk at Holiday Extras could ensure they could clock out at 5pm Friday night, not to return until Monday. Whoever the blame lies with, my contract was with Alton Towers/Merlin Entertainments. It's their choice who they contract parts of their business out to. You can log on to their websites and give them money on Christmas Day if you like, but if you're happy to take the money then you need to provide the product the customer paid for in return.
The worrying thing was that on the second day, the lady at the ticket kiosk indicated this is a wider problem as a lot of people that morning didn't have the tickets they had paid for. Who else has this happened to? We were very lucky we accidentally brought a credit card along and could afford to use it. Had it been the only trip away this year for a struggling family, I dread to think what options they would have had?
I made clear to them that I didn't see this as a staff problem at Alton Towers as I'm not in the business of making people feel crap when they have limited authority to sort people's problems out. I remember this poor guy at Thorpe a few years ago being wheeled out to be a verbal punching bag to an angry mob of customers who were left trapped in Ghost Train until the end of ride close and the poor guy was still in his 20's, it was clearly affecting him and I've been on the receiving end of that kind of stuff myself.
But it's the processes of the organisation. Not only should they never have been able to take money without actually booking anything, but if you shield senior managers from guests then you need to give the public facing colleagues the autonomy to sort things out. It was approaching 1am, hours away from home on a cold Autumn night and there's no one to call, no channels to explore. The poor lady I did manage to get hold of at Towers felt gutted that she couldn't do anything to help, even the Hilton staff were scrambling around trying to do something but also suffered from not being authorised to give us rooms without payment. Meanwhile, those who signed off on those processes were tucked up in bed whilst their businesses continued to trade.
I don't want any kind of vengeance or anything like that. I just didn't get what I paid for. It would have been more enjoyable and less stressful just to stay at home watching the telly for free. At least I would be assured of a bed to sleep in that night. I know I'm apathetic towards this company and the way it operates at the best of times, but now I don't even feel I can trust them with my money any more. I've always felt that they didn't care about park maintenance, food quality, attraction quality etc but always felt that someone cares at least enough about guest experience not let something like this happen.
But it still shouldn't be my problem. They took my money happily enough through an automated system in the darkness of the night, but didn't provide me with the service I paid for in return so that the folk at Holiday Extras could ensure they could clock out at 5pm Friday night, not to return until Monday. Whoever the blame lies with, my contract was with Alton Towers/Merlin Entertainments. It's their choice who they contract parts of their business out to. You can log on to their websites and give them money on Christmas Day if you like, but if you're happy to take the money then you need to provide the product the customer paid for in return.
The worrying thing was that on the second day, the lady at the ticket kiosk indicated this is a wider problem as a lot of people that morning didn't have the tickets they had paid for. Who else has this happened to? We were very lucky we accidentally brought a credit card along and could afford to use it. Had it been the only trip away this year for a struggling family, I dread to think what options they would have had?
I made clear to them that I didn't see this as a staff problem at Alton Towers as I'm not in the business of making people feel crap when they have limited authority to sort people's problems out. I remember this poor guy at Thorpe a few years ago being wheeled out to be a verbal punching bag to an angry mob of customers who were left trapped in Ghost Train until the end of ride close and the poor guy was still in his 20's, it was clearly affecting him and I've been on the receiving end of that kind of stuff myself.
But it's the processes of the organisation. Not only should they never have been able to take money without actually booking anything, but if you shield senior managers from guests then you need to give the public facing colleagues the autonomy to sort things out. It was approaching 1am, hours away from home on a cold Autumn night and there's no one to call, no channels to explore. The poor lady I did manage to get hold of at Towers felt gutted that she couldn't do anything to help, even the Hilton staff were scrambling around trying to do something but also suffered from not being authorised to give us rooms without payment. Meanwhile, those who signed off on those processes were tucked up in bed whilst their businesses continued to trade.
I don't want any kind of vengeance or anything like that. I just didn't get what I paid for. It would have been more enjoyable and less stressful just to stay at home watching the telly for free. At least I would be assured of a bed to sleep in that night. I know I'm apathetic towards this company and the way it operates at the best of times, but now I don't even feel I can trust them with my money any more. I've always felt that they didn't care about park maintenance, food quality, attraction quality etc but always felt that someone cares at least enough about guest experience not let something like this happen.
