• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

February Half Term - why isn't the park prepared?

M

Mike

TS Contributor
After visiting on Saturday (and having similar issues a couple of years back), I just want to raise my concerns as to why the park doesn't seem to be ready for even a moderate number of guests on park in February Half Term.

The first issue is that food & drink outlets were ridiculously understaffed. For example, only having one or two people serving in Courtyard BBQ, with a queue stretching half the length of the courtyard, and only one person serving the food in Towers Family Restaurant is just madness on the first weekend the park is open in 2013. From what I gather, it's not even as if the park weren't expecting it - they had several thousand prebooked tickets.... surely, even with a week or two's notice, they could get more staff (even just on a temporary basis or agency staff as per Scarefest) to help with the queues.

From a ride point of view (and I realise this is much more difficult to sort due to the training required so am more sympathetic here :) ) the park was easily busy enough to run 2 stations on Air and perhaps even open Th13teen and/or Rita to stem the queues elsewhere somewhat, but they did not have the staff available to do so - I think that for next year, Towers need to consider opening one more major coaster, as the event is now busy enough to warrant it :) (Oblivion & Air maybe, rather than just one or the other?)

To their credit, the staff that were there were top-notch as usual, there just weren't enough of them.

My other major gripe this weekend was the publicity of the ride selection, from the perception of members of the public who perhaps don't visit often. Several times during the day, we overheard complaints as to the lack of open. The fact that this wasn't just overheard once or twice presumably means that the limited ride selection wasn't promoted clearly at the point they heard about the event.

I just think Alton Towers need to realise that it's not the quiet event it was 2-3 years ago, and put the effort into it that it deserves, especially now they've started attaching an IP to the week. :)
 
The issue is it was a quiet event last year, never has FHT pulled the numbers in that was seen over the weekend and I think it completely caught them off guard. On the Sunday they opened more food outlets and there where less queues so that was better, though the park was still very busy.

I think what they need to take from this is that the event when marketed with an IP can be very popular (though weather is a gamble). So in future they need a better offering of rides, and more food outlets open.

I have no sympathy with the teens I heard complaining, the event has only ever been advertised on park and on-line and its very clear that only a few rides are open and the website has the full list. I would make one exception to that and its the Facebook and Twitter status's that although linked to the website often didn't make clear it was a limited opening.

So its a bit mixed, they needed to replace Oblivion really with Th13teen AND really they should have opened sub-terra. And next year they need to see the potential and open everything they possibly can. But as said (and I love a good moan about Towers) experience has always said FHT is very quiet so I can understand the crowds taking them by surprise.
 
Blivvy would have been open if it wasn't for Smiler being built...

Maybe next year, both will be open?

Defo as well should try and get Charlie and Terra open next year as well, though I understand that Charlie is catching up on it's winter work...

Thirteen and Rita are always a bit off with the hydraulics in cold weather, depends if Towers think they can keep them open consistenly over a potentially cold week...

Least they're doing better than Thorpe's attempts...
 
I remember someone saying Air's third craft wasn't ready.......

A big shame was the amount of failed gas struts on Nemesis.....it has just been closed season, why is it broke?
 
A major gripe of mine was the state of some of the ride areas, particularly around FV. The hutch shop's facade in the Air queue line was coming to pieces. I nudged it with my foot and the whole lower front of it fell off. Also, Air's break run really needs a clean up. The amount of dried spit and chewing gun down there isn't the nicest thing to look at whilst you're waiting.

Having said this though, it was a minor gripe compared to Nemesis, specifically the pool area. The litter in the Nemesis pool and around the surrounding edges was embarrassing. It literally looked like a land fill site in there and must have put such an awful impression on people who don't visit that often.

I know that perhaps staff had only been on park for a couple of days before the event, but surely you could have got something as large and visual as Nemesis's pool at least half tidy, perhaps even just after the season ended last year.
 
Air can't run two stations as the third craft is still in pieces, and Rita & th13teen are still having their maintenance done. So no more major rides could be open really apart from Oblivion. This week really shouldn't be advertised with such a big IP, as the park doesn't have enough to offer with this amount of guests on park.
 
I can only praise Towers for this years event, not criticise. I think they have pulled off a brilliant event. It would have been nice if a few more rides were open but based on all previous FHT events there was enough open

I do not think Towers were expecting the amount of guests that did visit over the weekend. There were more than double the epxected number of guests on park on Saturday and Sunday was pretty much the same. It would definitely have helped if say Thirteen had been open to help ease the queues but I fully understand why it wasn't, despite it apparently being ready to open (ie winter maintenance complete).

Considering that this event very nearly didn't happen at all I deem it as a huge success for Towers. It shows that if you get a big IP in, and Moshi Monsters is clearly big despite the fact I'd never heard of it before, guests will visit. And the Moshi Monters event was done incredibly well. If they do a similar style event next year then there will probably be a few more rides open to cope with the crowds. The weather over the weekend probably helped them as well actually, it was like the middle of summer compared to the same weekend last year.

My only gripe was the gardens not being open. They have been in previous years and I don't really see why they shouldn't have been this year.

:)
 
I don't think it was too bad. Sunday was better, also (the litter in the Nemesis pit was removed).

The only gripe is that Oblivion has not been replaced by Th13teen to compensate. There are less major rides open this year than last and, given how busy the park was, they should have made up for this shortfall.

A few entertainments staff around on the streets (pirates etc.) and the event would have been complete. Park still feels a bit lifeless though.
 
As already mentioned, the park cannot really increase ride throughput as half the rides are still in bits across the floor. Its all very down to the wire to get things ready. LTCi, the company that inspect the rides, have to be 100% sure everything is fine before they will sign a ride over and when they have the entire park to do, this takes some time. They cannot just open it as and when they choose.

I do agree though that they need more staff in and the staff they get in need to have been working with the ride for a few weeks prior to Feb half term. The food staff need to be brought in and trained up and fully know what to expect a week or so in advance. This is all things the park can do, but seem to always leave out. This results in new staff, that are not fully up to speed, getting thrown in at the deep end. Rides and venues still have issues that need to be ironed out and the park always has this "its not finished yet" feel to it at the start of every season.
 
I have to say on all my past few visits it has been the food staff and food outlets that have really let the park down and are often the main issues I have when I post on here!

I can understand the park wasnt expecting quite so many people, but surely its better to get a few too many staff than not have enough. I went to Towers family restaurant for dinner, there was one person serving food and one person on the till, which meant you waited ages for food, and then just as long to pay, resulting in your food getting cold while you wait to pay. And that isnt the first time. When I went at Christmas it was the same, one person serving food and one on the tills, with most of the food sold out. And at Christmas its a prebook only event, therefore they know how many people will be on park, so why run out of food? and why have such low staff?

The same can be said for all their food outlets, its very rare even in the hight of the season to see every till open in the courtyard or fresh fish and chips.

Finally towers trading at the end of the day was just a complete fail for them, They have the lovely new bank of tills at the top end of the shop, yet at ride close they only had three tills open, which meant the queue stretched right through the whole shop. Certainly not the best end to peoples day.


Lets hope next year if the event returns, they hire more staff and are more prepared!
 
Firstly, I'm judging entirely on Sunday, so maybe I'm missing something, but I think unprepared's excessively harsh. I've had very mixed appearances with February openings at... various Merlin parks since 2007, and, without thinking about it much, I'd say yesterday was the best of them, hands down.

All rides promised on the website were available, both major coasters were running two trains meaning I never waited more than 10 minutes for either and (with one grinning exception) nothing looked especially rushed, half-baked, half-finished etc. If anyone had problems with crowds, it was probably young families, since small children seemed to outnumber thrill seekers for a change!

In fact, and this is quite unusual for me, I'm struggling to find a critical word to say! However, if the park was perhaps busier than we were expecting (and surely that's good news if we want to see February on the calendar again next year!) leaving skeleton staff ill-equipped to meet demand then there's obvious explanations. Alright, so it's a British cliche, but first and foremost blame the weather. Last weekend was the first time Stoke had seen the sun in weeks, hence the crowds; unexpected crowds, given that, compared with the horrendous weather we'd seen in the previous week, Alton had perhaps expected another washout. Mix the delightful sunshine in with cheaper entry tickets and the unnerving combination of excitable seven year olds and Moshi Monsters (whatever they may be!)

The gardens being closed was a little disappointing, as was the monorail being unavailable - both meant doing more walking than I wanted to do. Signs on barriers again blamed the British weather, and based on a couple of Wintery days the week before half-term, I'm inclined to believe them. Any disappointments were minor - to put it bluntly, Alton are charging half their normal entry price, for more than half the park - and as pass holders, we're not even giving them that. Perhaps I'm repeating myself, but anyone else able to compare last weekend with the first days of Thorpe's 2008 & 2009 seasons can perhaps see where I'm coming from!! :)
 
I'm sorry, but I cannot accept the excuse that more people attended than what Alton had planned for. You pay the same price no matter how many people are there and they are very glad to accept your money.

On Saturday we experienced a catalogue of issues; -

Woodcutters was not serving food, but we were only told this after we had gone to order
Card machines at the Courtyard BBQ failed to work, leading to a lot of unhappy people who had stood in the queue having to be turned away.
Two rows on one of Nemesis' trains were out of use, when they have had all winter to rectify.
The queue for Squirell Nutty topped an hour and when we looked there were at least two acorns not on track.
Queues for Moshi-related stuff were massive and stretched right cross pathways on Towers Street and Cloud Cuckoo Land. There were no queue barriers set up.
Staffing at food outlets in general was poor, leading to outrageously long queues across the park. At different times of the day we saw queues of at least fifty people at Courtyard BBQ, Explorers, Fresh Fish and Chips and Eastern Express.
Spinball breaking down on numerous occasions.

All-in-all not the best start to the season, but we did get to stand with some of the Smiler track, so I was content. The frustrating thing is this is not the first time this has happened, but nobody seems to learn the lessons of the past. What does employing a few extra staff costs compared to lost revenue from people not returning due to a bad experience or not buying food/drink due to massive queues?
 
Nemesis was down 2 rows due to technical difficulties, which happen from time to time. They can't be avoided.

I'd rather avoid thinking about the negatives and mention the positives of lots of painting down in Cloud Cuckoo Land, Hex sounding amazing (although a few improvements need to be made) and you could even mention that the Nemesis pit was cleaned on Saturday night after complaints were made due to the rubbish in it.
 
I don't buy the Th13teen/Rita maintenance thing. If they really wanted either ride to be open, it could have been done.
 
^
Compared to Nemesis, Air (and usually Oblivion) those are rides that, for whatever reason, struggle more in lower temperatures. More people are going to complain if a ride expected to be open, is unavailable than if the whole area is out of action as expected, so, whilst Rita would have soaked up the crowds well on Saturday and the weather ended up not being an issue, I'd still argue this was a sensible decision in order to avoid disappointment. And from what I could gather, the half-term event was predominantly aimed at families, so Rita, and to a lesser extent, Thirteen wouldn't have been high on the agenda.
Though I may be biased because I'm not a Rita fan, and only really rate Thirteen at Halloween...

I did notice Nemesis' back row was closed off from time to time, but put that down to exit passes or disabled or whatever - again, annoying but nothing to make a fuss about. And yes, Hex was brilliant as ever, the tidying up inside there was very noticeable, if we're pointing out positives :)

Lessons will be learned, and surely it's better to get the teething issues out of the way with a practise run in February, rather than them surfacing in March (or May, as the case may be!) - besides the obvious, I've always assumed that's half the point of the February openings :)
 
I really did think it was by far the best FHT event they have put on so I do find some of the complaints rather bemusing. But I suppose it is in our (our being humans not people here) nature to focus on negatives before positives. I think they did try to rectify some of Saturday's problems ready for Sunday which was good. Sure it was busy, but let's be honest, the park has been absolutely dead for the last few years at FHT. I'm over the mood it was busy, if the event had failed and it was dead there's no way it would return in 2014.

There doesn't seem to have been much mention of the Moshi event, which I thought was done extremely well. It was brilliant for the kids and the quest was really good fun even for us!

:)
 
The trouble is I would guess at there being 9,000 on park Saturday and I would bet they never got more than 3,000 on park at any previous event. I think its unreasonable to expect them to deal with a 3 fold increase in guest numbers smoothly and certainly on Sunday they had sorted all the major problems that they could.

It's just unprecedented numbers for the event based on past experience and I can see why they struggled on the first day. Don't forget you are taking equipment that has been idle for 3 months and new staff so problems do occur. If anything it may have shown a few weaknesses (card machines ect) before the pressures of full season.

I just know when my work place gets a 3 fold increase in expected demand we struggle to cope so I have a little sympathy with the park on this one. Though they should have replaced at least Oblivion and I think this proves that the park can up the offering for future years.

On a positive the Nemesis Crew where absolutely amazing with trains dispatching before the previous train had even reached the final breaks... Well deserved credit is due to them I feel.
 
Rob... how on earth was it "by far the best FHT event they have put on"? It was identical to last year but with one major ride less (and longer queues for food)... :S

Confused about what was better than last year's...
 
Sam said:
Rob... how on earth was it "by far the best FHT event they have put on"? It was identical to last year but with one major ride less (and longer queues for food)... :S

Confused about what was better than last year's...
Click to expand...

The whole event was much better than last year. By this I include all the Moshi Monsters related stuff, which it could be argued was the main focus of the event going by the marketing. The Moshi stuff was brilliant fun. It looks like the kids loved it. So in that respect, the whole event was much better.

:)
 
Ahh. All I noticed was some different music on Towers Street, a few staff giving away flashing keyrings and a park mostly full of adults. Not quite as good for me as a 180ft £12m B&M Dive Machine but each to their own I guess. :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top