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Cuts 2015: How the consistency of the product is being eroded.

I agree with Dave. I know that budgets are things which you inherit and which you have no choice but to follow. You get measured on them and if you over spend, or indeed under spend, people want to know why and they want to know quickly.
 
In regards to Nemesis' single rider queue, I have seen on Facebook that someone contacted Towers and got the following response:
Alton Towers said:
In relation to the Nemesis single rider queue line, it is response to guest feedback we have removed the single rider option from this ride. Research indicated that this was under utilised. The ride staff can now focus on loading the trains quicker for more frequent dispatch. This change has also allowed Fastrack guests to gain entry direct to the ride station.
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"Research indicates that guests do not like the yet to be built SW8 rollercoaster, so we are not actually going to ever build it."

Fed up with these lame excuses. I highly doubt Towers got much specific feedback last season relating to Nemesis' single rider queue. And the fastrack thing adds insult to injury.

:)
 
So has merge been scrapped then? I didn't notice that at the weekend, though the queue was never long enough for it to be an issue. Presumably this also means back row is now hardly ever going to be available for the main queue.
 
lol, what a crock of brown smelly stuff. Its almost as good as the Merlin comment when they removed the free hot drinks in the afternoon for MAP holders due to "customer feedback". The SRQ was always busy on Nemesis and worked pretty well if they had the right staff.

Basically, reading between the lines, the queue was scrapped so they could push fasttrack more and get the VIP's directly into the station area.
 
What a load of rubbish, lots of people used the SRQ on busy days, and if they close row 8 off for Fastrack then I will not be happy at all! Im starting to question whether Alton Towers' "research" actually exists.
 
And using the old SRQ stoleps for fasttrack means even slower throughput. Nemesis actually had one of the more sensible merge points.
 
Nemmy SRQ being under-used? That's ridiculous. I remember seeing it at the bottom of the steps on many occasions, with the queue for it sometimes going way past it!
 
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they have put a yellow strip on the exit ramp of nemesis. and pushing Fastrack and RA users together, I can see this causing issues when VIP holders start using the entrance
 
So the single rider queues on both Nemesis and Rita have effectively been removed to improve the experience for/aim to reduce waiting times for Fastrack holders? I can see the Nemesis ramp getting extremely crowded if Fastrack is actually supposed to be using the exit on a permanent basis.
 
Rob said:
The ride staff can now focus on loading the trains quicker for more frequent dispatch. This change has also allowed Fastrack guests to gain entry direct to the ride station.
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To me, this benefit far outweighs having a SRQ. I HATE the stupid Fastrack merge points in queues, especially on Nemesis. Maybe they can reopen the old section of the queueline now.
 
At least with a merge point the final section of the queue moves faster, and merging fastrack into the main queue before the station is much more efficient than fastrack users boarding from the wrong side.
 
PeteB said:
To me, this benefit far outweighs having a SRQ. I HATE the stupid Fastrack merge points in queues, especially on Nemesis. Maybe they can reopen the old section of the queueline now.
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As a technical point that fenced off bit of queue by the stall turn will never be used as it falls into Air's ride area.

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The fastrack merge point may have been an irritant when it stops the queue moving for a length of time but now rather than merging them into the queue we will simply see rows of seats, maybe even whole trains, shut off to be filled exclusively by Fastrack.

Basically reducing the Fastrack wait time to 0 whilst possibly dramatically increasing the standby time.
 
Mind, on the subject of loading, operations are no where near the level of efficiency that they used to be - and I'm only talking as recent as 5 years ago not the magical 90's.
 
I wonder how badly ride access users (free system) are going to be affected by this change for the good of fastrack
 
So it all becomes a little bit clearer. Rita and Nemesis single rider queues have been removed to make them into fastrack to stop a member of staff standing at the merge points filtering fastrack into the main queue. Hence why SRQ's are still in force on Smiler, Oblivion and Thirteen as they take you directly up to the station.

Why don't they just get rid of the bag drops as well? The only parks I know which have manned bag drop areas are Merlin.

Wonder if we will see AIRs SRQ removed to become fastrack then?
 
Whether the fasttrack or FastPass is paid for or inclusive I still think Disney have it right with merge points. Basically,
don't let anyone enter from the exit side,
make at least the standby or FastPass line wide and not snakey so wheelchairs can use it (therefore only people with autism etc need to use the return time system, wheelchairs can wait in the standby or use FastPass),
make the two queues merge close but not quite at the station,
where possible add single rider but make it arrive on the same side of queue as the airgates so you can batch the singles in with everyone else before the car/train arrives.

Oblivion is one of the better rides for single rider merge as they have the space for batching two trains worth so can plan ahead. Nemesis couldn't add singles until almost ready to despatch so it slowed throughput slightly.
As others have also said, adding fasttrack from the exit side of station will result in needing to close rows off (same as Vampire at CWoA), which isn't an efficient way of batching really.
 
The idea of them replacing the Rita SRQ with Fastrack makes sense, as it just moves the merge point onto the platform...

The idea of replacing Nemmie's SRQ with Fastrack is utterly stupid it's not even worth discussing...
 
Nemesis Single Rider was never going to work as the main q was never designed to incorporate a SRQ unlike all rides built since.
and as i write this I see jon81uk has just said the same thing :)
No need to carry on
 
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