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Do they ever want Alton Towers to recover?

Of course they want Towers to "recover". What they want to recover to is a different debate.

I'm not going to pretend that the crash hasn't lost the best part of a third of the parks patronage since 2015, but that and it's associated media coverage gets blamed far too much on here for the parks woes, it certainly get's blamed WAY too much on the parks fortunes since.

The fact is, the park was stagnating at best before the crash. The roof wasn't fixed when the sun was shining. The parks famous reputation kept it on the level whilst standards and operations declined in the pursuit of maximising returns, maybe to gain similar margins achieved in other Merlin parks.

This left the park vulnerable and when something unimaginable happened, it found itself with little meat left on the bone so the bone was hacked at as well. Goodness knows how bad it would have been were it not for Cbeebies!

That all said, having spent 3 days in Chessington and Thorpe last weekend, I do think AT deserves some credit for the way it's handled some of the vicious cuts it's been dealt. The other 3 seem to be run as photo op and fast track fueled cash farms with miserable staff. AT feels different than that and I always get the feeling there is genuine passion and effort being put in to making guest experiences pleasurable.
 
PeteB said:
Nope. All "insider info" from people who have connections at the park and therefore know abosolutely nothing lol
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Always the way, isn't it?
Hopefully one day the plans will find their way out. I love imagining a parallel universe AT with a cross valley woody, self racing Schwartzkopf, Intamin pipeline, suspended broomstick coaster etc, etc....
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Always the way, isn't it?
Hopefully one day the plans will find their way out. I love imagining a parallel universe AT with a cross valley woody, self racing Schwartzkopf, Intamin pipeline, suspended broomstick coaster etc, etc....
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What a beautiful place.....
 
PeteB said:
Nope. All "insider info" from people who have connections at the park and therefore know abosolutely nothing lol
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I'm trying to work out exactly what you mean by this and who it is aimed at, I guess it doesn't really matter.

All the info I'm going off is what we were told at a TT event talk at the park in 2016. We were told the ride would have spanned almost the whole of FV and was shelved due to budget, but other than that I know nothing else :)
 
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I assume he's refering to the way that a lot of "unofficial" gossip is passed through word of mouth between friends, rather than on the forum where Merlin might see it?

*Waves to Merlin's legal team*
 
I think Merlin have too much trust in the name. It feels as if they have had a board meeting and gone "how can we revive Alton towers" and then have decided that the parks previous rep as the best in the UK should see it through.

Fair play to them they have invested in the TLC program and in a new rollercoaster which in the past may have been enough but even the general public can see when they are being blind sided by everything looking clean and then in the other hand them taking rides.

I think they do want it to be revived but I think they are on the wrong track of how to do it
 
@Tibble I think the approach that they're taking is extremely measured and has a longer term view than many people would like, but it is sensible.

There was always going to be a period of low trading following that incident, irrespective of what they did, so they did some very important and strategically sensible things on the back of that.
  • Adjusted the cost base to bring it in line with the reduced revenue
  • Continued with some low-cost development (Galactica, improvements to CBeebies etc)
  • Built for the long term with things like Cbeebies & SW8 as the picture continues to improve
I don't think there was a quick fix to be found. People were going to be down on Alton Towers for a while - Drayton is suffering a similar fate this year, as did Dreamworld after their rapids accident, Kentucky Kingdom did after Superman, M&Ds did after Tsunami, Galaxyland after Mindbender - it's nothing new, it's happened countless times before and very unfortunately, it will happen again.

Reacting to a tragic and difficult situation by continuing as normal or worse, trying to quickly fix the serious reputational harm was never going to be a winner.
 
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Yes understand that, but on a busy summer day today the operations are poor still no RMT and Galactica queue abysmal a further point do they ever enforce these queue jumping rules I'm sick of people pushing through!

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themeparkfan said:
Yes understand that, but on a busy summer day today the operations are poor still no RMT and Galactica queue abysmal a further point do they ever enforce these queue jumping rules I'm sick of people pushing through!

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If you highlight queue jumpers to staff then they do normally do something about it. Needless to say they do not employ people just to deal with queue jumpers.

No idea how busy it actually is today but looking at ridetimes it appears operations are okay with Nemesis, Oblivion and The Smiler all having short queues. Thirteen on two trains with a 30 minute queue isn't too bad either. It's not ideal that RMT is down for a prolonged period of time however I believe the issue is fairly major and not a quick fix.

:)
 
I'm in th13een queue which said 35 minutes and it's more like 60. The place really lacks any filler rides. In short today the park hasn't enough rides to keep the crowds entertained. Hence the vibe I get is that a lot won't come back. Which really helps the recovery!

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themeparkfan said:
I'm in th13een queue which said 35 minutes and it's more like 60. The place really lacks any filler rides. In short today the park hasn't enough rides to keep the crowds entertained. Hence the vibe I get is that a lot won't come back. Which really helps the recovery!

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Nail on the head it's either coasters or spending money on games / food / shops
 
It wasn't just ride times but entrance sign times inaccurate. Nemesis said 15 mins more 30 galactica 30 mins more like 70 thirteen 35 mins more like 90 I was in single rider queue for smiler for 30 mins. Not good it's so and good cutting this cost base but when it leaves the guests nothing to do but just wait it's a joke ! I heard a lass say on thirteen that she thought it was a joke she waited 90 mins for a glorified catapilar ride. I don't think she will visit again. They better sort it out for scarefeast otherwise people numbers will be down next year due to cost cutting, operations and poor guest experience and nothing and NOT the smiler crash! ! Which will have been 3 years ago next year . I know SW8 should be open but other stuff will be needed as that may have teething trouble.

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Well it's been down for what must be 2 weeks now which suggests something fairly major, and the train is not in the station. I've not idea what the exact issue is but think it may relate to the train.

:)
 
The queue times are getting a joke now tbh especially Galactica, smiler and thirteen and Rita seeming random fast track allocation doesn't help. Whist the queues are not as bad as Disneyland Paris its still wastes most of your day standing in line. The fact that Nemasis and Oblivion can handle queues quickly and efficiently gives a real hodge podge feel of the park.
In all honisty the best times I've been were after the smiler incident were the masses kept away and queue times were short and you could get on at acceptable times. Just not enough attractions to spread the crowds.
 
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