Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

[Danscott22]

Yeah, maybe Alton won't make money from longer open hours, but their reputation will definitely be tainted with bad experience when it comes to long queues on a 6 hour park day. Will they really be wanting guests to leave at 4pm with less than glowing reviews? Maybe it won't make that much difference I don't know, but it's how I'd feel.

 

[AT86]

Yeah, maybe Alton won't make money from longer open hours, but their reputation will definitely be tainted with bad experience when it comes to long queues on a 6 hour park day. Will they really be wanting guests to leave at 4pm with less than glowing reviews? Maybe it won't make that much difference I don't know, but it's how I'd feel.

Case in point. A trip advisor review from today.

 

[Ethan]

Case in point. A trip advisor review from today.

The queues have gone from one extreme to another tbf. Last season they were stupidly overstated, whereas this season they seem to be understated a lot. Wicker man was 45 longer than stated when I did it last weekend. Smiler was advertised 60 and my mate waited 90, not very good!

 

[jon81uk]

The queues have gone from one extreme to another tbf. Last season they were stupidly overstated, whereas this season they seem to be understated a lot. Wicker man was 45 longer than stated when I did it last weekend. Smiler was advertised 60 and my mate waited 90, not very good!

They are selling fasttrack this year.

 

[AstroDan]

I don't think that they really know how long the queues are at the moment. RAP, Fastrack, Distancing levels in the queue lines and capacities on the rides means it's difficult for operators to properly assess the waiting times.

The park should be open later regardless, and especially on days where there are queues of 30 mins + on larger rides.

 

[Ethan]

I feel like I might help out the staff and do them a favour by telling them, based on experience, how long the queue is from certain points. That way they can estimate more accurately. Off course the variables such as distancing, fastrack, RAP and also trains apply. But at least it'll give the staff an idea of how long the queues are

 

[Stevie]

I'm sure in some Merlin attractions they used to give out a ticket to a random person at the start of the queue with the current time on it, and they'll give it to a host when they get to the station, and from that they can work out the queue time. I remember being given one when I went to the Dungeons in London a few years ago.

Maybe they should start doing that again?

 

[rob666]

I feel like I might help out the staff and do them a favour by telling them, based on experience, how long the queue is from certain points. That way they can estimate more accurately. Off course the variables such as distancing, fastrack, RAP and also trains apply. But at least it'll give the staff an idea of how long the queues are

Do you really think they will actually listen and care?
Can you rationalise the fasttrack and rap lines, that continually vary?
Not an exact science when you have three queues and running issues.

 

[Ethan]

Do you really think they will actually listen and care?
Can you rationalise the fasttrack and rap lines, that continually vary?
Not an exact science when you have three queues and running issues.

I think they really should care as it improves customer experience. Like me on Sunday, I join a queue which says 90 and it ends up being 135, am I going to impressed as a guest by that? More accurately predicted waits makes it easier for guests to know how to spend their time, as they may think a certain queue looks short, but it ends up being no shorter than any of the others

 

[Benjsh]

4pm closes on off peak days work fine as those are the days when I usually visit and often get in 20 rides. However what might be worth pointing out though is that with social distancing in place 20 rides is pretty much impossible now for a 4pm close day.

So I agree under Covid restrictions it should be 5pm at the earliest but when things go back to normal 4pm really is plenty of time. There's barely anyone on park on these days and when trains are allowed to be full there's no issue.

I haven't visited once yet since Covid happened. I'm waiting for all restrictions to be lifted after 21st June to get a nice off peak visit in.

 

[Danscott22]

It's the Fridays that are seemingly causing the most issue so it'd be a starting point just to address those, that's where most bad guest experience is going to come from on a 10-4 I think.

 

[pluk]

Whilst I am no fan of the 4pm closes I can understand that when the park is dead midweek (as it has been over the last couple of weeks) with pretty much walk on rides, that it could be difficult for the park to build a business case to justify increased costs for longer hours.

Chicken and egg. Would the park be so dead if they didn't have such short opening hours? If they have capacity issues peak days and poor visitor numbers off peak days surely the answer is to encourage off peak visits, not decrease the off peak proposition with atrocious opening hours?

 

[Ethan]

As has been said already, I don't have a problem personally with 10-4 weekdays if it is quiet and the queues are minimum. With short queues, you can easily have a good day out getting on plenty of rides, even with how short the day is. However, if the park is fairly busy like yesterday, then towers should extend opening until 5pm at least. Those queues yesterday were far too long for any visitors to have a good day out. 10-20 mins fine I think maybe 4pm is justified, but 45+ mins is unacceptable. The park should've extended it before the day even started as they're fully aware of how many guests they get each day, given that everyone has to pre book atm

 

[rob666]

Chicken and egg. Would the park be so dead if they didn't have such short opening hours? If they have capacity issues peak days and poor visitor numbers off peak days surely the answer is to encourage off peak visits, not decrease the off peak proposition with atrocious opening hours?

Yes!
It was for years in termtime midweek, absolute coaster heaven all walk on until 5, which was great because you missed the M6 rush hour.
Walk on rides 10 til 5 for about a decade, losing hundreds of thousands of pounds on staff instead of building new coasters!
Mondays and Fridays have always been busier than midweek, people tag a days leave onto the weekends, no brainer.

 

[Matt.GC]

Again, we're slipping back into claiming that loads of rides = a good day out. It does not. It will for some, it will for pass holders, it will for locals it will for many of us on this forum because we've been 100's times. It does not for irregular visitors who come from further afield.

The 4pm closes are due to financial constraints, pure and simple. What we've got this year is now effectively a 2 tier park experience. A theme park experience on weekends, loads and loads of rides and little else on week days. To echo @pluks point, if you take your local/passholder/enthusiast hat off, I think you'd be surprised how many people will not visit simply due to 4pm closures. You absolutely would if you live local or don't have to pay directly to get in, but would you chance it and drive all the way up/down to Staffordshire on a 4pm day ticket if you lived closer to Blackpool, Paultons or Thorpe for example?

Very Unpopular Option alert - mid week closures should return. If the park can't afford to offer a full day experience every single day due to demand, it shouldn't be open. This would limit the choice of day I myself in particular could go on, but it would make the remaining days busier and more cost effective to operate properly.

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[Benjsh]

Again, we're slipping back into claiming that loads of rides = a good day out. It does not. It will for some, it will for pass holders, it will for locals it will for many of us on this forum because we've been 100's times. It does not for irregular visitors who come from further afield.

The 4pm closes are due to financial constraints, pure and simple. What we've got this year is now effectively a 2 tier park experience. A theme park experience on weekends, loads and loads of rides and little else on week days. To echo @pluks point, if you take your local/passholder/enthusiast hat off, I think you'd be surprised how many people will not visit simply due to 4pm closures. You absolutely would if you live local or don't have to pay directly to get in, but would you chance it and drive all the way up/down to Staffordshire on a 4pm day ticket if you lived closer to Blackpool, Paultons or Thorpe for example?

Very Unpopular Option alert - mid week closures should return. If the park can't afford to offer a full day experience every single day due to demand, it shouldn't be open. This would limit the choice of day I myself in particular could go on, but it would make the remaining days busier and more cost effective to operate properly.

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Absolute non starter.

So your solution is to shut on more off peak days meaning peak days become even more busy? That's going to make feedback for those peak days even worse and then nobody wins.

4pm closures work fine in non Covid times. In 6 weeks time the park may be able to fill all rides and say goodbye to social distancing. Let's hope so anyway.

 

[Matt N]

Absolute non starter.

So your solution is to shut on more off peak days meaning peak days become even more busy? That's going to make feedback for those peak days even worse and then nobody wins.

4pm closures work fine in non Covid times. In 6 weeks time the park may be able to fill all rides and say goodbye to social distancing. Let's hope so anyway.

I reckon the park might well be able to scrap distancing from 21st June, you know. Apparently, guidance for distancing among family & friends is being scrapped from 17th May, meaning that family & friends from different households can have close contact with each other (e.g. hugging) again for the first time in over a year. So in that regard, I think it makes sense that businesses would be allowed to scrap it from 21st June.

If so, I think Towers and the other UK parks could have a very successful summer up ahead!

 

[Ethan]

I reckon the park might well be able to scrap distancing from 21st June, you know. Apparently, guidance for distancing among family & friends is being scrapped from 17th May, meaning that family & friends from different households can have close contact with each other (e.g. hugging) again for the first time in over a year. So in that regard, I think it makes sense that businesses would be allowed to scrap it from 21st June.

If so, I think Towers and the other UK parks could have a very successful summer up ahead!

Well it'd be a normal season once distancing is gone. It won't be a covid season anymore. Good thing about that is the smiler won't keep hitting capacity

 

[Matt.GC]

A measly 6 hours for 4, 5, 6, 7 or more hours in the car round trip is not fine. I don't see how it would make a significant difference to peak days, the likelihood is that someone who can visit midweek can visit on another midweek day. Not all, but a great deal many can. It doubt is would make much of dent on weekend demand.

Besides, we ARE still in Covid and weekend capacity is still restricted so this wouldn't make days that are already at capacity any busier.

If the park is so strapped for cash that they can't operate past 4pm then they shouldn't be open. They've tried to spread the crowds by opening on such days and it's clear that there's very little demand for a 6 hour day early season.

I suppose it all comes down to whether one's view is whether a park of Altons supposed stature should operate 6 hour days or not. I think it's brand damaging.

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[djtruefitt]

Maybe they are slightly listening. The park close was 5pm today and not 4pm. However they still haven’t made any amendments to park opening hours after this weekend.

So as it stands this weekend is 8pm close, weekdays are then 4pm and the rest of the weekends are 5pm. Even with Mardi Gras starting in a weeks time they haven’t announced any changes to the hours, which I would expect might put some people off from booking.