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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

I wanted to bring this topic back to life. Given everything that the pandemic is throwing at us, one thing the resort cannot be accused of in 2020 is cutting park hours. Indeed - they have extended them quite considerably.

August: 7pm for most of the month
September: Aside from one or two early closes, most weekdays are 6pm and Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays are 8pm!
October: Aside from one or two early closes, most days are 8pm for Oktoberfest or 9pm for Scarefest
November: 9pm for fireworks as usual

Many of these hours represent an increase on between 1 and 3 hours each day of operation through September, and of course maintained hours for Scarefest and Fireworks.

Great news and well done to whoever has instigated the Oktoberfest plan. I hope it works out.
 
It’s also great to see all of the closed days have been removed, with the park open every day til fireworks.

it’s odd they towers have now overtaken the likes of Thorpe And Chessie, who often had better hours, however this season have worse opening hours than towers.

I do wonder if towers will extend the season, as Blackpool have and today Chessie have announced it too. I would love to see the park stay open and continue in to Christmas, even if it’s just weekends or not everyday. And allow pass holders in as well as day guests if they pay for Christmas like a few years back.
 
djtruefitt said:
It’s also great to see all of the closed days have been removed, with the park open every day til fireworks.

it’s odd they towers have now overtaken the likes of Thorpe And Chessie, who often had better hours, however this season have worse opening hours than towers.

I do wonder if towers will extend the season, as Blackpool have and today Chessie have announced it too. I would love to see the park stay open and continue in to Christmas, even if it’s just weekends or not everyday. And allow pass holders in as well as day guests if they pay for Christmas like a few years back.
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Whilst we would like to see winter openings, I think Alton Towers has the most to lose in poor weather as the road network around Staffordshire is not as good as in London and Blackpool. Also, London is an urban heat island so will be hotter anyway. I still don't get why Legoland closed in 'the beast from the east' but Blackpool stayed open with a full lineup.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Whilst we would like to see winter openings, I think Alton Towers has the most to lose in poor weather as the road network around Staffordshire is not as good as in London and Blackpool. Also, London is an urban heat island so will be hotter anyway. I still don't get why Legoland closed in 'the beast from the east' but Blackpool stayed open with a full lineup.
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To be fair I was in Blackpool during Feb and there was no real storm or anything compared to the rest of the UK.
 
This could be a sign of things to come in all sorts of different areas, including opening times. After all, the parent company has just been taken off the stock market and no longer has to answer to shareholders. So budgets should not need to be squeezed as much, which in the sort term gives us good little results like this.
 
Alton is still down massively on visitors vs. normal. But I've been monitoring waiting times at the RTPs and those at Alton, aside from Th13teen, Hex and Congo, are now largely in line with typical waits at the end of August.

Main difference is they're giving us till 7pm!

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Meanwhile I would say queues at Thorpe are worse than ever, all coasters are generally at points 100+ mins.

Don’t know if towers have done anything or there are generally less people booking, but this week the queue times have been far less than the last few weeks.
Or maybe the staff are getting better at estimating the queue times now.
 
I'm at EP right now and never thought that back home AT would be closing at the same time!

I must say, me being one of the park opening hours fiercest critics over the past seasons, I have to applaud these hours. 7/8pm this time of year is about right and 8pm in September, speechless! If only Borris would let me, I'd love to shake the hand of whoever came up with this Oktoberfest idea.

AT still has significant issues with guest experience, but the biggest one for me was always those wretched 5pm and totally unacceptable 4pm closes. Imagine a September trip to Towers now. No military operation, get on all the rides you want, a leisurely stroll around the gardens, take time with lunch, a nice few pints in the Welcome Inn - basically a proper day out.

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Except from Tuesday the park goes back to 4pm closes in the week and 5pm at the weekend until Oktoberfest begins.
I hope with the reduction of 3 hours, there will be a very big reduction in guest numbers permitted.
 
djtruefitt said:
Except from Tuesday the park goes back to 4pm closes in the week and 5pm at the weekend until Oktoberfest begins.
I hope with the reduction of 3 hours, there will be a very big reduction in guest numbers permitted.
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although with most kids back to school there should be a reduction in the number of people wanting to visit weekdays.
 
Tuesday was originally a 4pm close that was extended earlier this week to 7pm.


Hopefully they will add more extensions if booking levels justify it.
 
Great to see the Horus extended, 4pm is far too early after being 7pm all week, especially as all pass tickets have now sold out.

Be interesting if the week after is extended, as we are then in to Oktoberfest.
 
Perhaps they've realised that by keeping people in the park longer, they buy more stuff. I've never understood why you'd want to get people with fistfuls of cash out of your grounds as quickly as possible. If I had a long day at Towers, I'd eat and drink more and have a few beers as well. Kick me out at 4 and I'd usually skip lunch and buy my tea somewhere else on the way home.

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Matt.GC said:
Perhaps they've realised that by keeping people in the park longer, they buy more stuff. I've never understood why you'd want to get people with fistfuls of cash out of your grounds as quickly as possible. If I had a long day at Towers, I'd eat and drink more and have a few beers as well. Kick me out at 4 and I'd usually skip lunch and buy my tea somewhere else on the way home.

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It's finally taken them THIS long to realise that keeping people in the park for longer encourages higher spending when we've been saying this exact thing for years? Have they finally taken notice of what TST has been talking about in this area?
 
Jonathan said:
It's finally taken them THIS long to realise that keeping people in the park for longer encourages higher spending when we've been saying this exact thing for years? Have they finally taken notice of what TST has been talking about in this area?
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It seems incredible if they ever thought otherwise. A lot of my week at EP was spent chilling out with Ice Cream, beer and hot food. On a typical Towers visit it's running from ride to ride before 4pm looms.

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It is a balancing act though, don't forget - for every hour extra you remain open, you have an hour's extra wages to pay for who knows how many staff (500+, surely?).

I'm not saying it's right to close early, or that staying open later doesn't result in people spending more, but it's not as simple as longer hours = more cash.
 
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