AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
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ℹ️ Heads up...
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Cuts 2015: How the consistency of the product is being eroded.
- Thread starter Burbs
- Start date
jon81uk
TS Member
Runners up on that award were Drayton Manor & the National Memorial Aboretum
http://www.enjoystaffordshire.com/news/Enjoy-Staffs-Tourism-Award-Winners-2014.aspx
I would class large as filling over half a day. So the attractions classed as small (Gladstone Pottery Museum, Go Ape) only fill 1-3 hours.
Thing is though, it should be the aim of the park to reduce queue times for everyone, so everyone can enjoy a day getting on as many rides as possible.
The single rider queues did just that. However, I get the impression now that in order to do all the rides and have an enjoyable day, they want you to stay overnight and do a 2 day park visit. Let's face it, with the reduced capacity on some rides, shorter opening hours and staged opening, that's the only way to do it all, especially when it gets busier.
Maybe they just think, well, as long as a guest gets on a ride just the once then that's acceptable.
It should be, let's try and get our guests on ride after ride after ride on the shortest possible time so they really feel like they've got value for money and made the most of their day.
Jonathan
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Helix <3
And that is how you get people coming back year after year, maybe even multiple times a year. Make them feel like they've got good value for their money, and they're more likely to return and spend more money in the long term. Win-win situation!
Sam
TS Member
They'll be doing that because they want as many guests as possible to know about the cuts and complain about them. The park don't want a 20% cut in their operations budget from Merlin, and if they can prove that the guests don't like it either that strengthens their case.
In any conventional business these would be efficient cost cutting, cus that's what they are saying openly, they have followed customer trends, and think these measures will save money without effecting most people.
Obviously that's rubbish, you can't run a themepark like any other business. It just doesn't work. You really need to make the experience so amazing they return multiple times a year, one thing I think Towers struggles with (hence the low attendance figures). I for one only go to towers once, usually with free tickets. But if the experience is so amazing you want to buy more, and buy from the attraction you liked to have a memento of that day and moment.
This is what I think in General makes a successful park, all parks that follow that trend are having a success
Obviously that's rubbish, you can't run a themepark like any other business. It just doesn't work. You really need to make the experience so amazing they return multiple times a year, one thing I think Towers struggles with (hence the low attendance figures). I for one only go to towers once, usually with free tickets. But if the experience is so amazing you want to buy more, and buy from the attraction you liked to have a memento of that day and moment.
This is what I think in General makes a successful park, all parks that follow that trend are having a success
Rose Of Dawn
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Eejanaika (Fuji-Q Highland)
When I complained at guest services on Sunday, the assistant didn't attempt to hide that he, too, was unhappy with the state of things, and pretty much straight blamed Merlin.
I'll be taking it to Merlin head office after I've received my official response from Towers themselves.
I'll be taking it to Merlin head office after I've received my official response from Towers themselves.
Tom
TS Member
I can't remember if you were one of the people that said Alton Towers struggles against the wrath of the supressive Merlin beast, but you can't claim implementations like Sub Terra on merlin and then say the bosses at the park are against bad ideas.
Regardless of fault over Sub-Terra, that ride makes further investment justification even harder.
Dave
TS Founding Member
The trouble Merlin have (in my opinion) is no-one oversees any investment from a holistic point of view. I don't hold with the Wardley is a god idea, but when you had one person working on concept, overseeing design, and then working on queue management and operations you get a much better attraction (plus he understood how rides needed to work). Merlin farm each part out to different groups (for instance the Queue layout for Th13teen was formulated by the park not by studios). This leads to incoherence AND bad economics. There are a few good examples of this including Zufari's stupid station design and Octonauts silly station layout.
With Sub-Terra you have to ask yourself why no one clocked that a Medium level investment was going to require more staff than their major roller coasters, especially when you consider Hex, which has just as many pre-shows and a bigger ride needs only 4 staff to Sub-Terra's 10 (when you include actors 7 without).
Also these baggage holds, they are massively staff heavy, if you actually plan a ride with decent throughput's inherently, then station baggage is perfectly satisfactory.
And i wont even go into the farce that was The Smilers construction
Merlin need to start getting their projects managed by one or two experienced project leaders, rather than having variously people pitching in at different points.
With Sub-Terra you have to ask yourself why no one clocked that a Medium level investment was going to require more staff than their major roller coasters, especially when you consider Hex, which has just as many pre-shows and a bigger ride needs only 4 staff to Sub-Terra's 10 (when you include actors 7 without).
Also these baggage holds, they are massively staff heavy, if you actually plan a ride with decent throughput's inherently, then station baggage is perfectly satisfactory.
And i wont even go into the farce that was The Smilers construction
Merlin need to start getting their projects managed by one or two experienced project leaders, rather than having variously people pitching in at different points.
I don’t know what the senior management think of the cuts. Some of them might even get bonuses for cutting costs. I have no idea. But realistically the frontline staff aren't likely to be happy about it. There might be a few staff who are happy to have their hours cut if they live at home and don’t really need the money, or if they’re doing it for the UCAS form. But if you earn the minimum wage and that’s your job, it’s hard to make a living even if you get a full number of hours.
And if it feels like things are being squeezed with the guests, the odds are things are being squeezed even more behind the scenes. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes at Towers, but at other UK Merlin attractions things have included getting rid of incentive schemes, putting caps on how many rides staff are allowed to be trained on, and charging for condiments in the staff canteens. The effects of this can be quite extensive. For example if you keep cutting the training budgets so staff are trained on fewer rides, it makes it harder for staff to cover each other when they want time off.
In fact it's probably quite frustrating for the staff, who are having to deal with complaints about something that's had an effect on them as well.
I doubt many people are surprised that they’ve cut the actors in Sub Terra. Saw also had actors in the queue when it was new, but they didn’t last long. But to add some balance, Merlin are fairly ambitious with their support attractions, and I'd certainly rather have stuff like Sub Terra than a lot of fun fair rides. And for what it's worth, I do think Thirteen and The Smiler are decent coasters. In fact, aside from Europa Park, I'm struggling to think of another European theme park that has a better all round side of coasters. And that's why, depsite all the cuts, I'd find it hard to stop visiting. That, and the towers, the gardens and Hex.
And if it feels like things are being squeezed with the guests, the odds are things are being squeezed even more behind the scenes. I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes at Towers, but at other UK Merlin attractions things have included getting rid of incentive schemes, putting caps on how many rides staff are allowed to be trained on, and charging for condiments in the staff canteens. The effects of this can be quite extensive. For example if you keep cutting the training budgets so staff are trained on fewer rides, it makes it harder for staff to cover each other when they want time off.
In fact it's probably quite frustrating for the staff, who are having to deal with complaints about something that's had an effect on them as well.
I doubt many people are surprised that they’ve cut the actors in Sub Terra. Saw also had actors in the queue when it was new, but they didn’t last long. But to add some balance, Merlin are fairly ambitious with their support attractions, and I'd certainly rather have stuff like Sub Terra than a lot of fun fair rides. And for what it's worth, I do think Thirteen and The Smiler are decent coasters. In fact, aside from Europa Park, I'm struggling to think of another European theme park that has a better all round side of coasters. And that's why, depsite all the cuts, I'd find it hard to stop visiting. That, and the towers, the gardens and Hex.
jon81uk
TS Member
On the subject of baggage holds, I think there are some rides that they are needed on. Sub Terra would suffer as people (spoiler) panicking to leave when the sirens go off are likely to leave things behind. Also on-platform bag storage slows throughput, look at the issues when someone needs to cross the entire train to drop a bag and then go back across the entire train to their seat on Oblivion.
The only other option would be similar to Universal with lots more lockers, but then you need staff to stop people getting in the queue with bags, same as Universal and I just don't see the public attitude changing easily enough in UK parks. Staff levels wouldn't really be lower anyway as still need to staff the lockers then as well as staff the entrance to stop people getting on with bags. I think the bag hold rooms are an okay solution to the issues. But adding more lockers in addition at a reasonable cost would be even better.
The only other option would be similar to Universal with lots more lockers, but then you need staff to stop people getting in the queue with bags, same as Universal and I just don't see the public attitude changing easily enough in UK parks. Staff levels wouldn't really be lower anyway as still need to staff the lockers then as well as staff the entrance to stop people getting on with bags. I think the bag hold rooms are an okay solution to the issues. But adding more lockers in addition at a reasonable cost would be even better.
Dave
TS Founding Member
If you design you ride to have a high throughput with plenty of train static station time it works fine, All of Europa Parks rides (bar Arthur) use on platform baggage and they get 1800pph type throughputs!
jon81uk
TS Member
I've not been to Europa. How do they deal with people having to get out the airgates and over to the bag store and back again quickly?
Only other option is something like Rita where you drop everything in just before the platform and exit from other end collecting it.
Or go the Disney route and make you take everything on to the ride! But then Disney don't generally have the issue of things flying off the ride and hitting people as the queue lines are not close to the ride. Incidentally Universal have tightened up on people taking anything on rides after people were found to be throwing coins. Imagine what could happen from Rita if people were throwing towards the queue!
jon81uk
TS Member
Staffing would be about the same. Universal use two St the entrance to enforce the no bags rule and 1-2 at the lockers to deal with issues. Yes some rides at a Towers have staff at the entrance, but not all rides everyday as off-peak they don't need them at queue entrance. Bag hold room needs 1-3 staff so lockers don't really save on staffing. There are lockers next to Oblivion & Rita but I think they are a little too expensive and there are also lockers at the entrance for all day or larger items already. But if you have an issue you need to go to a shop or guest services.
When I went inn September the only ride with staff on was Gringotts, and the only reason they need staff on the lockers is because they are using fingerprint recognition system, which what I understand when talking to one off the attendance looking after the area struggles recognising sweaty thumbs, which I'd imagine is a problem in Orlando, but also people have the tendency to push hard making it hard to get a good scan. This could be solved with a pin system which is also a pretty common style electro locker.
Coaster
TS Member
Hearing about the way AT was run last weekend gives me little enthusiasm to make the effort to visit. Opening so many attractions late is just poor, there's no excuse for it and the removal of the SRQ for Nemesis takes away what I enjoyed most about the park. As for AT not liking their fanbase, that to me highlights how little they care about what people think about the park, aside from what makes them instant money.
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