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General Queue Times Discussion

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I think wicker man must be back on 3 trains now as its been around 60-80 for a while whereas previously it was getting upto 150
 
Queue times have been very reasonable today by the looks of it , looks like you could fit in 3 or 4 “big” rides between now and 8pm and still have time to join a queue at 8pm. Battle Galleons seems to have been on 0 minutes for much of the day, which is odd considering the weather !
 
s_g_k said:
Queue times have been very reasonable today by the looks of it , looks like you could fit in 3 or 4 “big” rides between now and 8pm and still have time to join a queue at 8pm. Battle Galleons seems to have been on 0 minutes for much of the day, which is odd considering the weather !
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The weather hasn't been great where I am, I can only assume it was the same story at Alton Towers, significantly chillier, not really weather fit for Battle Galleons.
 
What’s the deal with the high queue times on a term time Monday? Perhaps people who were there for the weekend opting to stay for Monday also?
 
Inset days.

The fact is, the UK sector is seeing a massive visit spike at the moment.

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Financially, do we reckon Alton Towers and the other UK theme parks have done well so far this season, or do we think that they still aren’t getting enough visitors to turn a profit or even break even?

Admittedly, I’m not hugely clued up on theme park economics, but I’d personally be very surprised if the parks aren’t making profits with the way they’ve been lately. They’ve seemed very busy, and the capacity of Alton, at least, has been broadly on par with what they achieved in a typical pre-COVID weekend (excluding properly peak times e.g. Fireworks).

For some reason, this season seems much busier than last season. Could factors such as the vaccine be boosting public confidence in going out? Could people’s fatigue with staying inside have grown since last year? Or am I simply misjudging how busy last season was?
 
I imagine they are doing quite well. The parks are clearly busy. Potentially busier than this time in a non covid year due to the good weather and lack of overseas holidays - plus the pent up demand from people who want to get out and about.

Ticket prices and hotel stays have all increased in price, with very little discounting because of the high demand. Add in the business rates relief and lower VAT which means they hang on to more of the money they take in and hopefully it will mean they are turning a good profit.
 
Queues seem ok to me. First time I've looked today so not sure how it was an hour or so ago but it doesn't seem any busier than the weekend. Given that it's an inset day for many in the area the queues don't seem unmanageable
 
Matt N said:
Financially, do we reckon Alton Towers and the other UK theme parks have done well so far this season, or do we think that they still aren’t getting enough visitors to turn a profit or even break even?

Admittedly, I’m not hugely clued up on theme park economics, but I’d personally be very surprised if the parks aren’t making profits with the way they’ve been lately. They’ve seemed very busy, and the capacity of Alton, at least, has been broadly on par with what they achieved in a typical pre-COVID weekend (excluding properly peak times e.g. Fireworks).

For some reason, this season seems much busier than last season. Could factors such as the vaccine be boosting public confidence in going out? Could people’s fatigue with staying inside have grown since last year? Or am I simply misjudging how busy last season was?
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They'll certainly be doing ok at the moment. However, coupled with the late season start, we've just come out of pretty much a solid month of awful weather, which along with the hotels and the indoor food outlets being closed will have affected the resort massively. So I don't think they're anywhere near rolling in it across the season just yet. As busy as the place is, it's not a patch on when the place was running at full pelt during a heatwave a few years back. Social distancing, Covid rules and lack of staff/inexperience of staff is what's causing things to feel as busy at the moment. You only have to look at the number of cars in the car parks to see it's substantially lower,

The problem will be at the moment is whilst they have a short term gain from capacity crowds (at least at Covid restriction levels), guest satisfaction might be taking a bit of a hit. With that comes compensation such as return tickets, partial refunds and guests having a reluctance to return again. Guest satisfaction is essential in the medium-long term for the resort. You want a day guest to have a good time, tell their friends and maybe come along and stay on resort next time round. That's a hard sell with the current state of some elements of the resort.
 
Ethan said:
Queues seem ok to me. First time I've looked today so not sure how it was an hour or so ago but it doesn't seem any busier than the weekend. Given that it's an inset day for many in the area the queues don't seem unmanageable
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They looked horrendous at about midday. Even Enterprise was 85 minutes at one point.
 
Ethan said:
Well so is Galacticas queue but that still ends up being stupid long
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Air's queue is huge, I waited for hours in it back in 2003.
The full queue goes up the top of the hill to the left a long way, comes back and then to the back towards the car park.
 
s_g_k said:
Yeah Enterprise is on 85 minutes! No idea how though, isn’t it’s queue line fairly tiny?
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With the extension open you can fit that in there yeah. Bearing in mind its slow loading and unloading with the doors having to be locked and unlocked manually one by one so that isn't as many people as you'd think.

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