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Little Changes: What would you do?

AstroDan

AstroDan

TS Team
Favourite Ride
Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
If you could make some subtle changes to the way Alton Towers operate, what would you do? This could be things that irritate you, or just things you fancy being done to improve something in the resort. Here's my two:

  • Return Early Ride time to 9:00am, as the change to 9:30am this season did not change the arrival flow of people and it created a bit of a crush at the entrance
  • Return baggage stores on Th13teen and Smiler. Their removal has cut throughput by 10%, resulting in longer waits and is not in the interest of the guest experience. Queues matter and this season at ATR they have been long.
:)
 
AstroDan said:
If you could make some subtle changes to the way Alton Towers operate, what would you do? Here's my two:

  • Return Early Ride time to 9:00am, as the change to 9:30am this season did not change the arrival flow of people and it created a bit of a crush at the entrance
  • Return baggage stores on Th13teen and Smiler. Their removal has cut throughput by 10%, resulting in longer waits and is not in the interest of the guest experience. Queues matter and this season at ATR they have been long.
:)
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Have contactless accepted everywhere, it would save so much time in replacing drinks capsules.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
AstroDan said:
If you could make some subtle changes to the way Alton Towers operate, what would you do? This could be things that irritate you, or just things you fancy being done to improve something in the resort. Here's my two:

  • Return Early Ride time to 9:00am, as the change to 9:30am this season did not change the arrival flow of people and it created a bit of a crush at the entrance
  • Return baggage stores on Th13teen and Smiler. Their removal has cut throughput by 10%, resulting in longer waits and is not in the interest of the guest experience. Queues matter and this season at ATR they have been long.
:)
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bluesonichd said:
Return the Rapids to full working order. Waterfalls and all wave machines.

Bring back the pirate show and courtyard bbq
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TPC said:
Easy. Just reopen single rider lines
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MakoMania said:
My 4 would be:

1) Single Rider Queues on at least a handful of attractions that would benefit from them
2) Baggage holds on The Smiler & Th13teen
3) 9am ERT
4) Serious look at how fastrack/RAP are offered
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All the above......

....and ensure that all rides are up and running on time when the gates open.

I don't think that we are all asking for too much
 
Reopen some of the closed F&B locations, so you don’t end up with crazy queues to grab a drink or some lunch.

Clean the place. Most locations are disgustingly dirty. See monorail, Rapids boats, paving in several locations, toilets, queuelines, Smiler generally.

Real ale at the bars.
 
A lot of jet washing. The countryside is damp over the winter and things get green stuff covering them. A lot of little cleaning jobs would go a long way.

At least trial late night summer opening maybe Friday and Saturday evenings only like Thorpe Park did. Maybe just some of the park, so general ride close at 7pm and then Wickerman Nemesis, Galactica and Duel at 9pm along with Rollercoaster Restaurant and the exit open on that side of the park.

Lots of simple food and beverage improvements. Better quality ingredients, good queue management, the right food outlets open on the right days for the crowd levels.

Also a family dark ride to properly replace Charlie and Choc factory. Something more grown up than CBeebies but not high speed so suitable to all. Could even be slightly thrilling similar to Spider-Man at Universal. But just something that doesn’t spin or go upside down!
 
- Ban A4 laminates, duct tape and spelling errors across the park.
- Re-open the Courtyard BBQ as a smokehouse.
- Talking static entertainment, ie the fountain in Fountain Square or even the frogs on Towers Street.
- Re-open Towers Street Bar and Grill.
- Reinstate full visibility on the Monorail windows.
- New lay out for The Smiler queue. Full jet wash of ride plaza and station building.
- More free lockers across the park, particularly for the coasters to eliminate the need for staffed baggage holds.
- Goose IPA on tap on park.
- Increase the price of fast track and severely limit its usage.
- Sort the overuse of RAP.
- Evening water show on the lak...pond outside ATH.
- Single rider queues.
 
There’s plenty of big things that could be done but in terms of simple changes at a minimum...

- restore the baggage holds
- restore SRQ
- open more F&B outlets across the park
- sort out the rapids
- give the monorail some TLC
- reopen sub terra
- scrap staggered openings and have an hour of ERT
 
Build a huge RMC on the car park behind Air...!

Oh, little changes. Erm; single rider queues back, baggage holds back and a better variety of F&B options.
 
  • Treat people like adults and allow them to wait in the bays for a monorail train
  • Open some of the closed F&B units including courtyard bbq
  • Run the Mutiny Bay pirate show (ideally the park needs more proper shows but this is better than nothing)
  • More entertainers and actors around the park to give it atmosphere
  • Make sure the park stays open to sensible times
  • No staggered openings
  • Improved beer selection across the resort
I'm sure there's loads more I could think of.
 
Thinking of realistic changes and bearing in mind cost effectiveness that will improve guest experience:

1. Minimum opening hours of 10:30 - 18:00.
2. Return ERT to an hour and include Cbeebies, Wickerman and the Smiler.
3. Opening hours of at least 10:00 - 19:00 on busier days.
4. Reinstate baggage holds on peak days.
5. Reinstate SRQ's.
6. Variable entrance pricing, similar to how they do it with hotels. Raise the cost of visiting during peak times and Scarefest and make it dirt cheap to visit off peak, thus filling the park with volume on quieter days and making more money out of guests on busier days so a better experience can be offered.
7. Raise the price of a season pass.
8. A better cleaning routine to ensure that green sludge isn't covering everything. Surely it wouldn't be too hard or cost much to have a routine schedule of works every season? 1 geezer with a Sponge, bucket, jet wash and a ladder would probably suffice. To include things like monorail trains, theming objects, signage etc.
9. To save on labour costs, on really quiet days, run attractions on skeleton crews an lower throughputs that will be cancelled out by longer opening hours anyway.
10. Reopen Towers Street Bar and Grill for all day breakfast from 9:00. Pub grub menu in the afternoon and evenings on peak days.
11. Fix the smoke on Oblivion.
12. Clean the Smiler queue.
13. Clean the Oblivion queue.
14. At least advertise that something is coming soon to CCL to make it look less embarrassing.
15. Add what ever modifications are needed to the rapids boats to get all the water features and guns back and tunnel lighting off!
16. Add light theming around the rapids and station as it looks so plain these days. Do something about the ghastly site of breeze blocks by the RMT entrance into the tunnel. Cover it with something.
17. Do whatever it takes to the lighting in Duel to make the walls and all mechanisms invisible once more at the very least.
18. Reopen FV BK at peak times.
19. Sort out something with Galactica. It can't continue to operate like it is.
 
If baggage holds are too costly, lockers could work. Each station only needs one employee (for people like me who forget which locker they used :D). One block of lockers could serve X-Sector, one for Rita and Thirteen, one for Nemesis and Air. Encourage people to use the lockers (though no metal detectors please) and throughout of the rides will increase with fewer people messing about with bags.

Also as previously mentioned the queues for Galactica and Smiler are looking worse for wear, these could do with a clean plus replacement of broken/vandalised theming elements (that wall with the names scratched into it in Galactica's queue line needs to go).

More water fountains.

Finally longer opening hours (10:00 to 18:00 please), along with this the park should focus more on evening entertainment (though no longer a "little thing").
 
Rob said:
No, please not lockers! Although it would not surprise me to see Merlin take the Cedar Fair and SeaWorld approach.
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But why not, I'm not asking for metal detectors! Just no bags, you can still keep your phone in your zipped pocket :)

Ideally we'd have bag drop but I understand they're trying to reduce costs
 
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