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General Queue Times Discussion 2023
Not what I would consider clickbait at all...not that I support the paper.
People go to a leading national theme park for a fun day, but have to wait five hours for two rides...acceptable?
Very poor service for thousands of disappointed punters, caused by mismanagement and poor maintenance of rides...don't give me staffing, recruitment and retention issues...manage them with appropriate funding.
Then add in a shoddy monorail and non functioning skyride for those with limited mobility on top.
Not only a fair story, but legal, decent, honest and truthful.
A shitshow of dodgy operations being covered in the national press.
Seems a fair story to me...and maybe national press attention will get Merlin to pull their socks up a bit.
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You'd be dreaming. Merlin are as comfortable as a company in a market can be. There's no competition at all for them in this country. People will only not visit if there's better parks to go to, which operation wise and maintenance there will be but hardware absolutely not.
Connor98
TS Member
Merlin operate parks and attractions all across the globe so they are extremely experienced at what they do, and they do get a lot of things right at times but they seem to have made some really poor operational decisions in their major UK parks recently. I’d be curious to know wether it’s the same at their parks in other countries or if it’s just a UK issue.
Austin Towers
TS Member
Fully agree. We used to go every year and this is the second year in a row we won't be there and that's solely due to ride availability and queue times.
Danscott22
TS Member
I feel sorry for the staff having to put up with the (probable) rudeness of school kids towards them.
Alix
TS Member
When we were there last week there were loads of school kids and we didn’t see any rudeness towards staff. Obviously we weren’t everywhere all at once, but I don’t think your comment is deserved of the majority of school kids. And I’ve seen adults behave much worse tbh.
Danscott22
TS Member
Fair enough, but I've seen bad enough to warrant making the comment.
Alix
TS Member
But as a proportion of the number of school kids visiting? Everyone’s moaning there’s hundreds of them this time of year - are you suggesting the majority are rude to staff? Because your “probable” would suggest you are. And that is what I’m disagreeing with. Yes, there will always be some little scrotes, but the majority will just be excited to be there, and not trying to cause trouble. And that is the same for adults too. Most are fine, some are not.
From: https://twitter.com/sbagster/status/1680994414393425920?t=yaWYYTAKRxOqYyvKZiNFRw&s=19
If this is true then that is in no way acceptable. Queues for Smiler have been ludicrous recently. No idea how they resolve it but it has to stop
AT86
TS Member
Nemesis being closed will be having quite an impact on other thrill rides during school trip season.
It was pretty common for Nemesis to have a 90min queue during school trip weeks, so that’s around 2000 people in that queue most of the day. They have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is likely to be in other thrill ride queues due to the demographic of those guests. Smiler seems to be taking the brunt.
It was pretty common for Nemesis to have a 90min queue during school trip weeks, so that’s around 2000 people in that queue most of the day. They have to go somewhere, and that somewhere is likely to be in other thrill ride queues due to the demographic of those guests. Smiler seems to be taking the brunt.
Yes but queues shouldn't be more than 2 hours ideally.
Rob
TS Team
It might not have been, we all know how people like to exaggerate things, especially on social media.
The problem with school trip season though is that groups of kids will just join a queue without really taking much notice as to how long it is. Therefore the queue gets longer than it otherwise would.
shakey
TS Member
Queues shouldn't be more than 30 minutes !!
Who wants to go to a theme park and spend 8 hours queuing to go on 4 rides ?
It's the main reason I rarely visit Alton Towers.
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jon81uk
TS Member
In the last 25 years though on peak days they never have been 30 minutes on peak days, Nemesis, Oblivion, Air etc all could easily get two hour queues on peak days, its nothing new.
shakey
TS Member
Oh yes , it's always been the case but it doesn't make it acceptable.
Too many people let into the park for the amount of rides they have, too many fast track sales, and I may be criticised for saying this but too many people entitled to disabled access with too many carers per person.
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