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General Queue Times Discussion

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Tommy85 said:
I know Thirteen’s throughput isn’t great at the minute, and this solution would hardly help in that regard, but rather than close the attraction altogether why don’t they just wait until the despatched train has cleared the lift hill before bringing the next one in to offload? That way if the one dispatched does roll back it won’t collide with anything. Then if/when the rain stops they can go back to operating it normally. I know the wait time would be horrendous but at least some people would get to ride it each day rather than none at all.
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Throughput is everything. People will disagree but in my eyes if a ride isnt operating at full capacity then why is it running. Why does Oblivion always run on 1 station even when it gets a queue. It takes ages and you sit on the brake run more than necessary. To me unless it's really quiet it should be on 2. Forget this staffing issue rubbish this is the uks biggest theme park and they shouldn't have a problem with recruiting compared to other parks. Thorpe very rarely run their rides on reduced capacity so quite why Oblivion even on fairly busy days has to be running on 1 station
 
Ethan said:
Throughput is everything. People will disagree but in my eyes if a ride isnt operating at full capacity then why is it running. Why does Oblivion always run on 1 station even when it gets a queue. It takes ages and you sit on the brake run more than necessary. To me unless it's really quiet it should be on 2. Forget this staffing issue rubbish this is the uks biggest theme park and they shouldn't have a problem with recruiting compared to other parks. Thorpe very rarely run their rides on reduced capacity so quite why Oblivion even on fairly busy days has to be running on 1 station
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High capacity is preferable to a ride not opening altogether? Well that's pretty much every park you've ever known shut for most of the year then. Not a single park in the world doesn't reduce ride capacity when it's not needed, mainly because they have the important issue of staying in business to worry about.

Staffing issues aren't excuses or "rubbish" they're very real right across the economy, I'm combatting them every day. If we can't get people to drive lorries and rigids for good money on permanent contracts, what makes you think that AT can get people to work in the middle of nowhere on seasonal contracts easily just because they're the UK's biggest park and what does that even have to do with anything anyway? I don't see your point as to why this would somehow make them immune to recruitment problems?

As for Thorpe "very rarely" running their rides on reduced capacity - well you're surely trying to pull everyone's leg with this one aren't you? You have been to Thorpe right?
 
Matt.GC said:
Not a single park in the world doesn't reduce ride capacity when it's not needed
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Oblivion is operated so badly on 1 station that a huge queue is normally formed, meaning they have a justified reason to run it on 2 given that Oblivion always ends up with the biggest queue midweek.
Matt.GC said:
As for Thorpe "very rarely" running their rides on reduced capacity - well you're surely trying to pull everyone's leg with this one aren't you? You have been to Thorpe right?
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Only ride I've seen on reduced capacity is colossus. Maybe I've caught the park at good times
 
Thorpe used to run all their coasters on 1 train during off-peak times regardless of demand. This extended to removing trains towards the end of the day if they ran off the queue, usually resulting in the queue building up again.
 
s_g_k said:
I assume there’s storms in the area with 5 SWs currently down?
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Correct;

Screenshot_20211020-101800.png
 
If the smiler doesn't open today then it's the 10th day it's been shut. That's actually quite impressive I've not seen a ride down that long in ages. Nemesis and WM have been down for a few days but this is the longest downtime period I've seen in a while. Shame given that this year the ride has been one of the most reliable and was rarely down
 
John said:
Thorpe used to run all their coasters on 1 train during off-peak times regardless of demand. This extended to removing trains towards the end of the day if they ran off the queue, usually resulting in the queue building up again.
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I can recall a busy Fright Nights not long ago with most queues over an hour because they'd opened most of their coasters on 1 train. They then spent the afternoon desperately adding trains at great expense to those already in the queue lines and by this point the park was so busy queues had built up everywhere.

I've seen the Swarm, Inferno and Colossus on 1 train more than I've seen them on 2. I thought it was common knowledge that Thorpe was like this, clearly I was wrong.

But I can't believe we're even discussing that it would be better to close rides like Thirteen altogether rather than on reduced capacity. I'd like to know where these worldwide parks are that run almost all of their attractions at full capacity at all times or close them instead. If you could find one for me @Ethan I'd like to pour over their finances and find out how they're still in business.
 
Matt.GC said:
I can recall a busy Fright Nights not long ago with most queues over an hour because they'd opened most of their coasters on 1 train. They then spent the afternoon desperately adding trains at great expense to those already in the queue lines and by this point the park was so busy queues had built up everywhere.

I've seen the Swarm, Inferno and Colossus on 1 train more than I've seen them on 2. I thought it was common knowledge that Thorpe was like this, clearly I was wrong.

But I can't believe we're even discussing that it would be better to close rides like Thirteen altogether rather than on reduced capacity. I'd like to know where these worldwide parks are that run almost all of their attractions at full capacity at all times or close them instead. If you could find one for me @Ethan I'd like to pour over their finances and find out how they're still in business.
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It's to save wasting the time of their customers. Who wants to wait an hour for Oblivion because it has terrible operations on 1 Station, for the sake of a ride that you spend longer on the brake run. Longer queues increases the likelihood of disappointment and frustration of guests. I'd rather just not wait than get in a really slow moving queue for a 2 second drop
 
Ethan said:
It's to save wasting the time of their customers. Who wants to wait an hour for Oblivion because it has terrible operations on 1 Station, for the sake of a ride that you spend longer on the brake run. Longer queues increases the likelihood of disappointment and frustration of guests. I'd rather just not wait than get in a really slow moving queue for a 2 second drop
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Well in that case if you see Oblivion on a 60 minute queue then how about you just don’t join it? Problem solved.

Guests who do want to wait an hour for Oblivion can then join the queue if that’s what they want to do. Not everyone visits three times a week. Maybe they would happily wait an hour because it will be their only chance for a couple of years.
 
AT86 said:
Guests who do want to wait an hour for Oblivion can then join the queue if that’s what they want to do. Not everyone visits three times a week. Maybe they would happily wait an hour because it will be their only chance for a couple of years.
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I'm not saying there's a problem with waiting I'm saying everyone who I've heard after a long wait for Oblivion always tend to say 'is that it'
 
Ethan said:
It's to save wasting the time of their customers. Who wants to wait an hour for Oblivion because it has terrible operations on 1 Station, for the sake of a ride that you spend longer on the brake run. Longer queues increases the likelihood of disappointment and frustration of guests. I'd rather just not wait than get in a really slow moving queue for a 2 second drop
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But there is a balance between guest satisfaction and costs. Yes guests waiting a shorter time may be happier, but if there aren't many guests entering and paying admission that day then its not worth spending on staff and coaster wheels to run more trains/stations.
 
Ethan said:
I'm not saying there's a problem with waiting I'm saying everyone who I've heard after a long wait for Oblivion always tend to say 'is that it'
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What about the people that come off pumping with adrenalin? The ones who think it was great? The ones who have been too terrified to do it before and finally have plucked up the courage to do it, and feel a sense of achievement for overcoming their genuine fear?

Plenty of us will have ridden Oblivion into the triple or quadruple figures, having lost count. Regardless of the length of time queued, it is absolutely guaranteed that people around us still enjoy it, be it their first ride or not.

You may not be listening out for them, but they exist; as with Thirteen and every other ride at the resort irrelevant of queue times.
 
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