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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Ethan said:
6pm is not the bare minimum. That's long hours. 4 is fine for the quiet days and 5 for the busier days. It should only be 6-7 imo if its a busy busy day
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When is 4pm ever "fine" for a large theme park day out? What other park of Alton's size or level of patronage do you know that frequently has such an early closing time? How long would you, with kids in tow, be willing to travel to a theme park such as Towers for a day that potentially ends at 4 in the afternoon?
 
Matt.GC said:
When is 4pm ever "fine" for a large theme park day out? What other park of Alton's size or level of patronage do you know that frequently has such an early closing time? How long would you, with kids in tow, be willing to travel to a theme park such as Towers for a day that potentially ends at 4 in the afternoon?
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If the park is quiet and you get on plenty of rides then I don't see the problem. You can get on more rides on a 4pm close than a 5/6 close most the time so I don't see the issue. They won't open longer for the sake of it
 
D4n said:
Highlight of my day at Towers is often a meal and a pint at Woodcutters.

I'd hardly feel comfortable sitting there for an hour and a half knowing I was eating into my lousy 6 hours of ride time.
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I mean if your highlight is genuinely having a meal then more ride time won't matter to you as you can't care about the rides that much if going on them isn't a highlight
 
Islander said:
What an incredibly short-sighted comment lol. You're aware that people do often visit theme parks to do more than just ride rides?
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This is sadly an increasingly common perspective among those who haven't been to any half decent resorts. If your only experience of parks is in the UK post-2010ish then you're unlikely to have developed any sense of what a truly well run theme park experience is like (in terms of entertainment, F&B, high quality theming and atmosphere etc). And it's even worse the closer one's experience is to the present day. 🥲
 
Matt.GC said:
When is 4pm ever "fine" for a large theme park day out? What other park of Alton's size or level of patronage do you know that frequently has such an early closing time? How long would you, with kids in tow, be willing to travel to a theme park such as Towers for a day that potentially ends at 4 in the afternoon?
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This comment hits the nail on the head for me. We live over 2 hours from the park and a 4pm close just isn't worth it for us for a day trip, considering the unreliability of the operations, unpredictability of the weather chuck in possible delays on the roads. I get why some might say the parks so dead it doesn't justify longer hours but until they can constantly operate with reliable longer operating hours nothing will change. It's no good changing hours the week or day before as a lot of people may have looked at the opening hours way in advance and been put off already.
 
Can we move on from the tedious discussion about people’s own personal preferences for their theme park trip. Time and time again there’s endless posts arguing about this point. The fact is, people have different ways of enjoying their time at a theme park. The mere presence of things such as sit down eateries and the like at theme parks clearly shows there is demand for it.

So can we stop going round in circles with the same posts when there’s absolutely zero benefit to be gained from it.
 
I think it’s more of a case that some of us, including me, like to sit down and enjoy a lunch with a couple of drinks as opposed to grabbing a burger and scoffing it on the Skyride or while running to the next ride.

It’s not unreasonable to expect to have time to enjoy a meal, but each to their own 😀
 
s_g_k said:
I think it’s more of a case that some of us, including me, like to sit down and enjoy a lunch with a couple of drinks as opposed to grabbing a burger and scoffing it on the Skyride or while running to the next ride.

It’s not unreasonable to expect to have time to enjoy a meal, but each to their own 😀
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Yeah I personally like to get as many rides done as I can, so I either take a packed lunch or eat at a quick-service restaurant (or both on a long Scarefest day). However I know that others like to have a long sit-down meal as part of their day, and I respect that. Everyone does things differently, and that's normal. 🙂
 
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