• 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.

General Queue Times Discussion

Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Matt N said:
Ah, that makes a lot of sense; thanks for the explanation, guys!

If Towers wouldn’t entertain the prospect of keeping staffed baggage holds, would it be possible to convert the baggage holds into double-sided lockers, kind of like what VelociCoaster at Universal Orlando has? That would have all the same benefits as a baggage hold, but without the extra staff!
Click to expand...
I hope not!
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, though; why is it that baggage holds make the queue move more quickly? I know that they increase the throughput of the coaster due to shorter dispatch times in the station itself, but surely baggage holds just move that time delay caused by storing bags into the queue itself as opposed to in the station, making little difference to the queue time of riders prior to the baggage hold?
Click to expand...
Irrespective of the reason, less capacity/fewer dispatches make a queue move more slowly.
 
Danscott22 said:
I hope not!
Click to expand...
I should clarify that these would be lockers in the same place in the queue as where the baggage holds are now. They wouldn’t mean that you can’t take things into the queue full stop, like with a lot of Universal attractions, but they would simply store bags in the same place where the baggage holds are now without needing the extra staff. So you could still have entertainment (i.e. phones) with you in the queue if you so desired, but it would still have the benefits of having no bags/loose articles in the station.
 
Matt N said:
I should clarify that these would be lockers in the same place in the queue as where the baggage holds are now. They wouldn’t mean that you can’t take things into the queue full stop, like with a lot of Universal attractions, but they would simply store bags in the same place where the baggage holds are now without needing the extra staff. So you could still have entertainment (i.e. phones) with you in the queue if you so desired, but it would still have the benefits of having no bags/loose articles in the station.
Click to expand...
I was more thinking along the lines if the lockers weren't big enough to fit peoples bags in, they'd think they could make people pay for bigger lockers outside the attractions as then bags wouldn't be permitted in the station area. Not a fan of the way Universal do that, I'd rather cages in the station than that.
 
Or just only open the baggage holds on peak days. Smiler and Thirteen could definitely have benefited from them pretty much all this season, but when they return to BAU operation it'd be a waste of cash to have a staff member or 2 dedicated to shaving a few minutes off of an already short queue.
 
It's fair to say the increased throughput on Th13teen is really helping with queues. Doesn't seem like long ago when it was constantly reaching 2 hours
 
Danscott22 said:
I was more thinking along the lines if the lockers weren't big enough to fit peoples bags in, they'd think they could make people pay for bigger lockers outside the attractions as then bags wouldn't be permitted in the station area. Not a fan of the way Universal do that, I'd rather cages in the station than that.
Click to expand...
Ah, fair enough!

I guess they could make jumbo lockers free around the park, and . They don’t have to charge for lockers, and I don’t think Towers charges for lockers now, as far as I’m aware.

Controversially, I personally think that lockers are quite under-utilised within theme parks as a method of bag storage. If utilised properly, I think they can have the benefits of a baggage hold-style system without needing the extra staff.
Matt.GC said:
Or just only open the baggage holds on peak days. Smiler and Thirteen could definitely have benefited from them pretty much all this season, but when they return to BAU operation it'd be a waste of cash to have a staff member or 2 dedicated to shaving a few minutes off of an already short queue.
Click to expand...
That would be a fair thing to do if they wanted to, I think. Baggage holds are/were probably only needed on peak days outside of COVID times.
 
You do have to pay for lockers at towers, they are currently only located at the park entrance, outside Oblivion, Dark Forest and Galactica
 
Replacing baggage holds with lockers doesn’t necessarily reduce the staff you need, as staff will still be required to deal with issues and help guests who can’t get in to the locker/forget the number etc. It’s probably no more economical for the park to install lockers when you consider having to pay for them to be installed in the first place.
 
Matt N said:
Ah, that makes a lot of sense; thanks for the explanation, guys!

If Towers wouldn’t entertain the prospect of keeping staffed baggage holds, would it be possible to convert the baggage holds into double-sided lockers, kind of like what VelociCoaster at Universal Orlando has? That would have all the same benefits as a baggage hold, but without the extra staff!
Click to expand...
Lockers may not reduce the amount of staff needed as someone still needs to be there to help with forgotten/lost codes or other issues.
Although they can deal with more guests at once as the staff are only needed for exceptions not for every guest.
The other big difference at Universal is that on several rides guests must empty their pockets as they had issues with coins deliberately being thrown from rides. So they need a large number of small lockers to hold those small items.
AT doesn’t force people to check in smaller things so its only those with bags who need to use somewhere to store it anyway.
 
Only ride I’ve known it in Europe is Valkyria at Liseberg where you are not allowed bags in the queue. They have free lockers under the station at the shop, you scan your ticket I think and then get a free locker for so long.

I guess the reason for that is the design of the station and lack of room for any kind of baggage system. It would also slow the ride down a lot if there was baggage cages on the other side of the platform. They do however have little boxes where you can leave your phone, cap, etc in the station when you get on the ride.
It does work quite well as you haven’t got that faff in the station with people trying to put bags away or collect them, and I guess you don’t have the issue of there being a hold up with baggage points mid way in the queue like you sometimes get.
 
the current baggage storage system can really affect the queues depending largely on who's in the park, on a week day where a lot of school students are at the park,there is more faff. e.g. the smiler would usually on a standard weekend have 1 or 2 groups per row meaning 2 or 3 people will most likely drop the bags off, whereas when there is 16 students boarding all with their own bag, they are distracted and therefore all will put their own bag down and wont rush to do it either. (unless an enthusiast and has some awareness to why the queues are so long). If you look on the alton towers queue times website that records the parks busyness and queue times, you will see that July gets the biggest queues except OCT and NOV, this is due to school kids, and also the park removing trains if needed to set them up in order to keep them in operation for the whole of the 6-week holidays, IMPOSSIBLE i know but you get what i mean! I must say, in 2019 i went every month of the year(always on a peak day) and only at Scarefest would i have suggested the old baggage system was needed, other than that the queues really werent too bad!
 
I went to Alton today. In terms of a basic summary of the advertised queue time and actual queue time for each ride I did, I’d say it was as follows:
  • Smiler: Substantially underestimated, although in fairness, the queue board was broken. Estimated queue time was 0 minutes. We waited 60 minutes from just after the bottom of the steps into the pit.
  • Oblivion: N/A; the ride was listed as closed in spite of the fact that people were going round on it and people were entering the queue (?). We waited 15-20 minutes from the end of the tunnel where the Lord of Darkness talks about the psychological effects of riding Oblivion (the one directly underneath the station).
  • Wicker Man: Overestimated in all cases, and quite substantially overestimated in some! On our first ride, the queue was advertised at 45 minutes, and we waited a mere 20 minutes from the bit of queue exiting the first turnaround. On our second ride, the queue was advertised at 35 minutes, and we waited 30 minutes from the start of the switchbacks within the first turnaround. On our third ride, the queue was advertised at 40 minutes, and we waited 20 minutes from a little before the section of queue exiting the first turnaround.
  • Runaway Mine Train: Marginally underestimated. Advertised at 5 minutes, waited around 10-15 minutes from the middle of the loop around the scenery.
  • Nemesis: Slightly overestimated, or perhaps roughly on par. Advertised at 30 minutes, waited 25-30 minutes from towards the end of the extended queue line.
  • Gangsta Granny: Underestimated. Advertised 45 minutes, waited 60 minutes from a little bit through the uncovered switchbacks.
I did also log a couple of throughputs. The ones I did were:
  • Smiler: From an average of 10 dispatches, throughput was 765 riders per hour, with an average dispatch time of 1 minute 15 seconds.
  • Runaway Mine Train: From an average of 2 dispatches, throughput was 613 riders per hour, with an average dispatch time of 4 minutes 30 seconds.
  • Wicker Man: From an average of 4 dispatches, throughput was 1,048 riders per hour, with an average dispatch time of 1 minute 22 seconds.
I was hoping to do more, but my phone’s erratic battery was playing up, meaning I could only do those 3. I didn’t really have time to do more than 2 dispatches on RMT due to the short queue, and I used a slightly more crude method on Wicker Man (used the lapping timer on my mum’s iPhone, and then did some number crunching).

In terms of how queues were moving today; they were generally moving quite quickly. The standout was Wicker Man; we were barely stood still, and I’m staggered that the throughput wasn’t higher than 1,048pph! Oblivion and Nemesis also moved quite quickly.

In terms of the other end of the spectrum; Gangsta Granny moved at what felt like a glacial pace. The current policy of one group per car is really hampering throughput; we were moving forward one chevron every 2 minutes or so, so a queue that didn’t look too long from outside ended up taking 60 minutes. I didn’t time the throughput, but I’d be surprised if it was hitting above 500pph; I’d probably even guess lower than 500pph given the current loading policy. I think this ride will really benefit once step 4 of the roadmap goes ahead and distancing is scrapped.
 
Ethan said:
You queued around the whole queue? Or did you mean from the start of the extension up the steps
Click to expand...
Ah, apologies! I should clarify; I meant the start of the extension queue! We walked around the vast majority of the extended queue, and it was only really the ending stretch before entering the main queue that we waited in.
 
So pretty much at the main entrance? I'd expect the queue from there to be no more than 25 minutes in normal circumstances, people must have been pretty packed in for it to be that long from there currently.
 
John said:
So pretty much at the main entrance? I'd expect the queue from there to be no more than 25 minutes in normal circumstances, people must have been pretty packed in for it to be that long from there currently.
Click to expand...
I’d say it was just a little past the main entrance; up the steps leading into the extended queue line and maybe a little along from there? We certainly weren’t waiting through much of Nemesis’ extended queue line.
 
The queue at the turnaround leading into the second Wicker Man pass through was 25 minutes the other day, a few switchbacks from the main entrance.
 
Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Top