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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

MattyH said:
I think the solution is Slow Shutdown from 4pm on Forbidden Valley, Dark Forest, Jex, X-sector, Cbeebies and duel, push people towards the entrance and leave Canyon, Wickerman, Mutiny Bay and Spinball open till half 4 or 5 if the park is particularly busy. Thus giving people a beter experience and not having to increase the operating costs too much.
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If Wicker Man were the last big roller coaster to close everyone will just get in line for it after the rest of the park closes leading to a really long queue after closing time
 
Flamingoland does something similar, except the park closes at the normal time and the rides from Cliffhanger to the entrance stay open for an extra hour. Sometimes.

Towers could maybe leave spinball and cbeebies open as people are leaving at the end of the day, giving their friends some extra free time conveniently close to Towers Trading
 
So, after the furious reaction to staggered openings (and thankful dropping) we're not advocating staggered closings?!
 
Surely the distinction here is that they were staggered later openings. If the park had said ‘all rides will open at 9am, with the Rapids opening at 10am’ I doubt there would have been many complaints.

If staggered closings meant the park as a whole remained open until the same equivalent time as now, but with certain areas extended by an hour, that wouldn’t be sniffed at?

It’s all academic though. Since I doubt it would really ever happen.
 
Yeah...nemesis and oblivion often have no queue by three o clock...shut em at two to make sure.
Then Rita and thirteen at three because everyone is heading towards the exit.
Then shut the monorail at four because it gets so congested around then.
Sorted.
 
rob666 said:
Yeah...nemesis and oblivion often have no queue by three o clock...shut em at two to make sure.
Then Rita and thirteen at three because everyone is heading towards the exit.
Then shut the monorail at four because it gets so congested around then.
Sorted.
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They can't be shutting rides any earlier than 4, let alone 2
 
I got back from 2 weeks in Florida this morning & had my worst 2 experiences at Universal Orlando ever in 18yrs of visiting.

Park hours were good - 9am-6pm, so you can't moan at that.

Hagrids Motorbike Adventure is a joke - it opens with a 120min queue due to Universal letting their hotel guests in early for ERT. It breaks very frequently - makes Air back in 2002 look reliable. And the icing on the cake is when Universal decide the ride has "reached capacity for the day", they close the queue so the staff don't have to work too late after park close. Unbelievable.

Even Towers say ride close time is actually "queue close" time. If you're in the queue by then, you should get to ride.

There were a good number of other issues with the Universal offering this time round, but I'll save these for the Universal / Comcast CEO.

Just to say that whilst Towers is not [or rather far] from perfect, the industry big-players can mess things up big-time too.
 
I think it’s better they closed the queue as I believe on opening day, they just closed the ride and turned everyone who were still waiting away.
 
Kraken27 said:
I got back from 2 weeks in Florida this morning & had my worst 2 experiences at Universal Orlando ever in 18yrs of visiting.

Park hours were good - 9am-6pm, so you can't moan at that.

Hagrids Motorbike Adventure is a joke - it opens with a 120min queue due to Universal letting their hotel guests in early for ERT. It breaks very frequently - makes Air back in 2002 look reliable. And the icing on the cake is when Universal decide the ride has "reached capacity for the day", they close the queue so the staff don't have to work too late after park close. Unbelievable.

Even Towers say ride close time is actually "queue close" time. If you're in the queue by then, you should get to ride.

There were a good number of other issues with the Universal offering this time round, but I'll save these for the Universal / Comcast CEO.

Just to say that whilst Towers is not [or rather far] from perfect, the industry big-players can mess things up big-time too.
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Phantasialand do something very similar and I agree it’s enfuriating. They close their restaurants earlier too.

In Taron’s case, one night in the summer the ride was actually completely tucked up for the night and all its staff had gone home 15 minutes before the park was due to even close.
 
I think Islands of Adventure had some companies hire out the full park in evenings recently. So if this was the case they have to clear the queue quickly to get all day guests out the park before the private hire starts.
But Hagrids coaster has a lot of issues from what I’ve read, I think it’s been said the Thirteen style drop isn’t working well.
 
Universal also rushed the opening of the ride, even though it wasn’t ready to open and issues ironed out, they wanted it open for Summer and before Galaxy edge and execs didn’t want to delay the opening. the same happened with Gringotts in 2014, which was also opened before it was ready to and had multiple issues causing large amounts of regular downtime.
 
ChessingtonSam said:
https://www.altontowers.com/plan-your-visit/before-you-visit/opening-times/

I guess this would go here? 2020 Opening Dates are up. 21st March for opening day, Friday 9th October for Scarefest, 6th, 7th and 8th November for Fireworks. Only closed on Wednesdays during March, April and May, unfortunately 4pm closes are still a thing. Closed on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in September and some of October.
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Absolutely pathetic terrible disgraceful opening times. Very disappointed and not happy at all
 
Ethan said:
Absolutely pathetic terrible disgraceful opening times. Very disappointed and not happy at all
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If the park doesn't cover it's operating costs on those very quiet 4pm days then it makes sense. I have done 4pm days before and can get on all the big rides at least once.

At the end of the day, if shorter hours on very quiet [term time weekdays] means more money for Scarefest and fireworks days, then I'm all for it.

Whether or not the money 'saved' gets diverted to these events is another matter of course...
 
Steve74 said:
If the park doesn't cover it's operating costs on those very quiet 4pm days then it makes sense. I have done 4pm days before and can get on all the big rides at least once.

At the end of the day, if shorter hours on very quiet [term time weekdays] means more money for Scarefest and fireworks days, then I'm all for it.

Whether or not the money 'saved' gets diverted to these events is another matter of course...
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looking like Scarefest days have been cut this year too.
 
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