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Drayton Manor Park

Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Loki really needs to have two people working in it. Given the nature of the ride and how it has to load at the bottom, rotate around in to place to bring the ones at the top down, and then load up again at the bottom before a cycle can start it’s an incredibly long time between cycles with just one person operating it and having to do two lots of restraint checks.

It’s taking nearly 9 minutes between cycles which makes for a very long wait.
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I agree with it needing 2 people.

I think Thor does 2. Thor had empty seats because they were letting people pick where to sit so you got spaces between groups. They need a second operator sending people to the next available seats to fill all the gaps.

Turnaround time for Thor was about 8 minutes which is quite slow even if the ride does hold 40 people.
 
remlap said:
I agree with it needing 2 people.

I think Thor does 2. Thor had empty seats because they were letting people pick where to sit so you got spaces between groups. They need a second operator sending people to the next available seats to fill all the gaps.

Turnaround time for Thor was about 8 minutes which is quite slow even if the ride does hold 40 people.
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That’s a crazy turnaround time for a Zamperla Disk’O. I haven’t gone on it yet because I just looked at the queue and it seemed extremely long for the ride it is. Ride availability hasn’t been great this morning with Loki and Thor both late opening, Slepnir unavailable for a little bit, and Accelerator being down. And some poor guy threw up over himself on Loki which meant that it took some extra time between one of the cycles but that’s not the parks fault at all of course. One good thing though is that Shockwave has been almost walk on, same as the Rapids and Storm Force 10 so this corner of the park isn’t getting the queues.


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One thing to support this is that on the soft opening on Friday, they were doing staff training, and they were training it for 2 staff ops on Thor, I.E. op + attendant, with a 3rd op supervising, so this may be implemented as and when staff can be trained up to allow for this, however they avoid staff training on peak days like holidays as it can slow ops even more.
 
Yeah Loki and Thor both had about 30 min queue each.
With just Stormforce 10 outside the Vikings area to have a queue. Everything else was walk on or maybe 1 circle wait.
Did anyone else see the ground drilling taking place around the top by the old fish and chip restaurant?
8CE4D886-5797-4C6C-8D23-ADB0CF0CE8FF.jpeg
I also like that the looping group have brought back the sandwich meal boxes for the kids.
Sad to see Apocalypse slowly dying as it on just 1 sit down again and that didn’t even have a queue.
51C95DCB-9CF2-4F1F-BA21-FD1750FE28A3.jpeg
Was speaking to staff and they worry with still 5 months left of the season it may not last to the end of October.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Yeah Loki and Thor both had about 30 min queue each.
With just Stormforce 10 outside the Vikings area to have a queue. Everything else was walk on or maybe 1 circle wait.
Did anyone else see the ground drilling taking place around the top by the old fish and chip restaurant?
8CE4D886-5797-4C6C-8D23-ADB0CF0CE8FF.jpeg
I also like that the looping group have brought back the sandwich meal boxes for the kids.
Sad to see Apocalypse slowly dying as it on just 1 sit down again and that didn’t even have a queue.
51C95DCB-9CF2-4F1F-BA21-FD1750FE28A3.jpeg
Was speaking to staff and they worry with still 5 months left of the season it may not last to the end of October
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Real shame but I guess everything has to go eventually.
 
As sad as it is that Apocalypse will be leaving the park at the end of the season, I accept that the park is in a very different position to where it was in 2000 when it first opened. The park used to have a solid balance of thrill and family (I'd argue slightly more thrill mid-00s?), but today the offer and direction is unequivocally family, and Apocalypse has no place in the lineup. I question the longevity of Shockwave...!

Having visited Tripsdrill recently, I would really love to see a new-gen Vekoma suspended thrill coaster make it's way to the park (RCDB: Hals-über-Kopf) - smooth, thrilling, and family friendly.

Whilst we as enthusiasts might be saddened at the loss of thrill, this is a good move for the park's sustainability. Let Alton Towers take the thrill audience, and Drayton can capture the families (Towers' offering for families is very limited if children are >Cbeebies but <thrill seekers!).
 
I hope they decide to get a another smaller sit down drop tower in this big project plans. Even if they decide to move Venom from the Safari park or Jolly Roger from pleasure wood hills. They would go down well with a new coaster
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
Yeah Loki and Thor both had about 30 min queue each.
With just Stormforce 10 outside the Vikings area to have a queue. Everything else was walk on or maybe 1 circle wait.
Did anyone else see the ground drilling taking place around the top by the old fish and chip restaurant?
8CE4D886-5797-4C6C-8D23-ADB0CF0CE8FF.jpeg
I also like that the looping group have brought back the sandwich meal boxes for the kids.
Sad to see Apocalypse slowly dying as it on just 1 sit down again and that didn’t even have a queue.
51C95DCB-9CF2-4F1F-BA21-FD1750FE28A3.jpeg
Was speaking to staff and they worry with still 5 months left of the season it may not last to the end of October.
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Was stand-up floorless operating?
 
Skyscraper said:
Was stand-up floorless operating?
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It was working 3 weeks ago when I last went before yesterday but from the look of things it’s been out of action for at least a week as Shawn also reported this in his vlog yesterday.
With all maintenance staff working and trying to keep the rest of the park going with minimum downtime I can’t see this been repaired for a while.
 
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Themeparksandy1981 said:
It was working 3 weeks ago when I last went before yesterday but from the look of things it’s been out of action for at least a week as Shawn also reported this in his vlog yesterday.
With all maintenance staff working and trying to keep the rest of going with minimum downtime I can’t see this been repaired for a while.
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Ah I see. Fingers crossed it'll reopen by the time I'm able to visit, as I've not done that section before. Very high chance that it could have conked out completely though as I heard that it was the mostly likely section to go first.
 
I’m sad to be seeing Apocalypse go, as I did think it was a really good ride, but I’ll admit I didn’t think it entirely lived up to the hype. It was perfectly great in its own right, but even within the UK, I’ve ridden towers I liked more. I certainly like the Fabbri duo (Venom & Detonator, particularly Venom) more, from memory, and I’d also put HangOver at Hyde Park Winter Wonderland higher, even though that isn’t really a UK tower (that had the perfect storm of being both huge and forceful!).

My last and only ride was in 2018, though, and I am riding it again next week, so that might well change!

It will be missed, but I understand why it’s going. To be honest, I look forward to seeing what’s replacing it, particularly given the high likelihood of it being a coaster! I think it could be something really awesome, myself!
 
Apocalypse must be costing a fortune to maintain too so I get why they are getting rid of it, I think Drayton would be silly not to try and capture at least some of the thrill audience, I think if a new coaster is coming something family thrill is perfect. I do think eventually adding a few more low end thrill rides would suite the park. We will just have to see what direction Looping take the park in the next few years.
 
Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Nope, it was only one sit down side running yesterday and there was almost zero queue for the ride all day which which was sad to see. Personally I wouldn’t be shocked if the the stand up has already seen its last ride.
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So it would appear that Apocalypse’s removal is probably the right decision, then. If a ride that major is not getting a queue, then something’s clearly up with its popularity, and it will be nothing aside from a money pit for the park long term.

With only one sit down tower operating, I don’t think you can explain away its short queue time by saying it has a high throughput, either; clearly, it genuinely isn’t very popular.

Sad times…
 
Matt N said:
So it would appear that Apocalypse’s removal is probably the right decision, then. If a ride that major is not getting a queue, then something’s clearly up with its popularity, and it will be nothing aside from a money pit for the park long term.

With only one sit down tower operating, I don’t think you can explain away its short queue time by saying it has a high throughput, either; clearly, it genuinely isn’t very popular.

Sad times…
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This still is not how queues work.

Queue times indicate how long you will wait for a ride at the point it was posted (and even then it's not always a good way to establish that). On its own, this piece of data is next to useless for trying to identify anything else about a ride.
 
Lots of downtimes today. Loki seemed to be non-operational for more time than it was.

Thor had a couple of outtages too. One was brief, the emptied the ride and then conducted a test which seemed to be around the "saddles" that clamp you into position. (got numbers 11&12, 28&29). I did time the entrance and exitting of the ride follwoing an earlier comment on this thread. It took 3:55 from the first (non easy access) patrons going through the gate before the ride set off. Just less than half of this was rearranging folks who had left spaces. To the time that the next first non-easy access patrons were invited onto the ride was 9:03 after the first time. Our second trip was after witnessing another empty test run. Not sure how long it had been out for.

It has struck me that there are a lot of easy access patrons (or are they fast passes) since Vikings opened. Not too much of an issue on Thor. But more of one on Loki, and I haven't yet seen the queue for YoMomma be small enough for me to try it but it would be more of an issue here. Have fast passes been issued?

Biggest concern today though for me was Stormforce 10. Tried to go on around 12.30. It was shut. Boats seemed to cycle for most of the next couple of hours but on a trip on Polperro Express just before a cloudburst at 3:30 ish the ride had been emptied and there was a gaggle of DMP staff looking concerned whilst looking into the trough.

On a seperate point, went into the 4D cinema for the first time today. Thoroughly enjoyed it too.
 
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