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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Excalibur said:
Not sure what she means by park wide CCTV? I know each individual ride has its own CCTV from working there, and they’re not all linked they are all individual? Hard to imagine ALL CCCTV knocked out? ..
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The CCTV was upgraded a few years back and it is now a wider linked solution by Avigilon I think it is. It must have been a pretty serious issue, but there's no way they'll operate without that system up and running perfectly after The Smiler.
 
Craig said:
The CCTV was upgraded a few years back and it is now a wider linked solution by Avigilon I think it is. It must have been a pretty serious issue, but there's no way they'll operate without that system up and running perfectly after The Smiler.
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Am I right in thinking then that management or whenever are able to tap into any ride they want to then and view it as such?
 
Excalibur said:
Am I right in thinking then that management or whenever are able to tap into any ride they want to then and view it as such?
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Yup, it's all remotely accessible. If the recording was down as a result of the outage then they'd likely not be able to run attractions as a result.
 
AT86 said:
According to this tweet the CCTV network went down across the park closing all the rides. Not sure how true that is but there we go.

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Sorry to break it to you Sharon, but there was no park-wide CCTV outage today.

It’s possible they briefly lost a couple of attractions next to eachother which I guess is enough evidence needed for the average punter to craft a rage tweet, but she certainly wasn’t wandering the park with nothing to do for an hour, at any point.
 
tech said:
Sorry to break it to you Sharon, but there was no park-wide CCTV outage today.

It’s possible they briefly lost a couple of attractions next to eachother which I guess is enough evidence needed for the average punter to craft a rage tweet, but she certainly wasn’t wandering the park with nothing to do for an hour, at any point.
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So how come all 8 thrill coasters and pretty much all of CBeebies Land, and the Rapids were all closed at the same time?
 
Danscott22 said:
So how come all 8 thrill coasters and pretty much all of CBeebies Land, and the Rapids were all closed at the same time?
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Do you know roughly what time this was, and how long they were down for? I’m wondering how I’d miss something so major 😄
 
Danscott22 said:
I'm not sure, but every coaster was down at the same time. If the CCTV was wiped park ride then I'm not surprised they were all closed.
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Looking at Twitter, a few people posted app screenshots around 11:45. I can only assume that queue lines weren’t cleared and that the downtime was brief as I didn’t spot any empty queues, hosts on entrance positions or angry mobs around this time :)

All I spotted today is that Skyride opened late, Wicker Man seemed to struggle with the weather, and the vault still sadly remains sealed.
 
AstroDan said:
On park today.

It's such a shame that after 8pm 2020, 7pm 2021 - we're back to old habits.

:(

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
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Don't be sad they're over be happy they happened, nah it is definitely ashame, I think they could atleast open till later on days that warrants it but seems like they just wanna take any profit they can.

I loved going on the late openings on a hot day, it was brilliant times.
 
I hate to sound like a broken record but these shorter opening hours are probably due to lack of staff: recruitment issues, staff sickness and staff holidays. 2020, the country was recovering from Covid lockdowns people were probably glad to get out and get a job/return to their job. 2021 Covid still around but lack of staff in the hospitality industry was beginning to bite. 2022, all that plus cost of living has meant even less people willing to work at Towers for the money they offer, distance to travel etc.

The company I work for is struggling to recruit staff at all skill levels and until it can offer a higher wage, it'll probably be like that for months and will probably only get worse with the energy prices increasing soon. I'm sure Towers is in a very similar situation.

Of course it's not ideal and partly self-inflicted if Towers can't/won't increase wages, but if they haven't got enough staff they can't extend opening hours.
 
Steve74 said:
I hate to sound like a broken record but these shorter opening hours are probably due to lack of staff: recruitment issues, staff sickness and staff holidays. 2020, the country was recovering from Covid lockdowns people were probably glad to get out and get a job/return to their job. 2021 Covid still around but lack of staff in the hospitality industry was beginning to bite. 2022, all that plus cost of living has meant even less people willing to work at Towers for the money they offer, distance to travel etc.

The company I work for is struggling to recruit staff at all skill levels and until it can offer a higher wage, it'll probably be like that for months and will probably only get worse with the energy prices increasing soon. I'm sure Towers is in a very similar situation.

Of course it's not ideal and partly self-inflicted if Towers can't/won't increase wages, but if they haven't got enough staff they can't extend opening hours.
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Lack of staff won't lead to a 1-2h reduction in park opening hours, it would lead to decreased ride or outlet availability.

As frontline staff are hourly paid, they'd work on park whether it's a 6pm, 7pm or 8pm close, and just get paid for 9h, 10h or 11h of work (assuming a 9am start for a 10am open).

Reducing park hours simply reduces variable wage costs.
 
Be interesting to see what happens next year with the crazy increase in energy costs as well. Something is gonna have to give. Either with entry price, park hours (not that they can get much shorter) or multiple off peak closed days.
 
Islander said:
Lack of staff won't lead to a 1-2h reduction in park opening hours, it would lead to decreased ride or outlet availability.
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I'm just going to say, the 8pm closes last year caused absolute uproar amongst staff. I've said it before, but there was near mutiny in some departments. Also bare in mind, a large number of staff are under 18 so they can't work longer than eight hours. So if you haven't got enough staff to begin with, and the only staff you have can only work a certain amount of hours, it can make rotas an absolute pain before you even factor in illnesses and holidays. Working at the park just isn't appealing for anyone above, lets say, uni leaving age.
 
Islander said:
Lack of staff won't lead to a 1-2h reduction in park opening hours, it would lead to decreased ride or outlet availability.

As frontline staff are hourly paid, they'd work on park whether it's a 6pm, 7pm or 8pm close, and just get paid for 9h, 10h or 11h of work (assuming a 9am start for a 10am open).

Reducing park hours simply reduces variable wage costs.
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As @Burner has said, yes it would lead to reduction in hours (or not extending them day by day) because of the overage age of the workforce and their legal requirement to not work more than 8hrs.

I believe staff start at 8am for 10am start, so they've already done an 8hr day by 5pm if you take off an hour for lunch and breaks. Even if they did start at 9am, 8 hours are done by 6pm. And just to add to this, generally under 18s have to have a daily 12hr rest between shifts and 48hrs off each week according to gov.uk.

Take all that into account (and things we probably haven't even thought of) and it does become clearer why they probably aren't extending the hours.
 
Steve74 said:
As @Burner has said, yes it would lead to reduction in hours (or not extending them day by day) because of the overage age of the workforce and their legal requirement to not work more than 8hrs.

I believe staff start at 8am for 10am start, so they've already done an 8hr day by 5pm if you take off an hour for lunch and breaks. Even if they did start at 9am, 8 hours are done by 6pm. And just to add to this, generally under 18s have to have a daily 12hr rest between shifts and 48hrs off each week according to gov.uk.

Take all that into account (and things we probably haven't even thought of) and it does become clearer why they probably aren't extending the hours.
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The majority of staff will be over 18, probably around the 18-24ish bracket. There are of course young workers (16-18), but they'll be a (not-tiny) minority, and mostly not in Rides.

Those over 18 will likely have opted out of the working time directive as part of their contract.
 
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