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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Sooo.... The policy in recent years (at least on some occasions) is to extend park opening if the park is having a particularly busy day. With most people pre-booking, it surely they could try and make some decisions earlier. Could encourage more visitors.

Maybe with flexi ticket prices on the way. People will book more in advance which will help Merlin work out how many staff they need / opening times earlier. I suspect the nearer to opening = the worse price. Like a Premier Inn.

I know they are quite restricted in many ways due to the local area. Are they restricted on how many days per year or a certain time they can go up to?
 
There were some restrictions from the noise abatement order back in 2005ish but I think it mainly limited the number of nights of fireworks, not the number of late nights in general. Although I think that also killed off them doing concerts a bit too.
 
The problem with all this is you can get into a chicken and egg situation.
Book early...
What's the opening times???
We'll tell you nearer the time...
I'll book when you commit to decent hours then...

It's all very well extending for a busy day from an underlying decent opening time like EP do, but when they can spring a 5 or 6 hour day on you it is entirely prohibitive to me booking until the hours are confirmed.

What I believe they need to do is commit to decent base opening times first, and then encourage visitation on quieter days with dynamic pricing amd deals. Yes, the odd day will run at a loss, but you gain the trust of your visitors in that consistency, and that's of far greater value to the business as a whole.
 
pluk said:
The problem with all this is you can get into a chicken and egg situation.
Book early...
What's the opening times???
We'll tell you nearer the time...
I'll book when you commit to decent hours then...

It's all very well extending for a busy day from an underlying decent opening time like EP do, but when they can spring a 5 or 6 hour day on you it is entirely prohibitive to me booking until the hours are confirmed.

What I believe they need to do is commit to decent base opening times first, and then encourage visitation on quieter days with dynamic pricing amd deals. Yes, the odd day will run at a loss, but you gain the trust of your visitors in that consistency, and that's of far greater value to the business as a whole.
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As I think many people have said on here before, the minimum day should move to 10-5 weekdays and a few off-peak weekends, then 10-6 most weekends and school holidays, with extensions to 7pm if needed and maybe 8pm as standard for August Saturdays.

Would be better to have some closed days in September and early October if needed rather than the short hours every day. Four weekdays of 10-5 is better than five 10-4 days.
 
It just makes good business sense to build a strong relationship with your customers by letting them know what goods or services they are buying as accurately as possible before asking for their money.

My kids really wanted to go to Towers last Monday and they've been begging us for months. But my partner was hesitant to book based on a 10-4 stated opening. I was hesitant because I had little desire to go but that's another matter. I had to tell her that I thought it would end up as a 10-5 and I was right, but she still had to sit there tapping card details onto a website thinking it would be a 4pm close. She probably would have booked something else if she hadn't spoken to me.

I saw a brother at my father's funeral a few days before. We haven't seen each other in ages and they brought up the subject of a beano to Alton at some point. Without me mentioning anything at all, the conversation between my brother's moved on to "yeah but they only open for 6 hours most days and it's not really worth the money to stay overnight. Is it even worth traveling all that way up there for that?"

They will have historical data and will be able to forecast. Sometimes they'll get this wrong of course. But if they had acceptable base level opening hours to begin with then it would end the lottery and they may even be surprised by how many more people are prepared to book.
 
As much as I hate closed days. Thorpe and Chessie have these and have better opening hours all season than towers, which I imagine they manage because of these close days.

I wouldn’t want it to be as bad as it was the year after the smiler closed with loads of days shut all season, but you could easily get away with some weds/Thursday during the quietest of times.

And if by doing that it meant all season we got a minimum of 5pm could I would be happy. Weekends should definitely be 6pm minimum all season anyway.
 
They are open until 5:30 on all the days that were 5pm now. An extra 30 minutes to ride thrilliant, fantabulous attractions such as Hex - The Legend of The Towers and Twistatron!

Seriously though, it is good to see they’ve at least extended in advance, even if by just 30 minutes.
 
Danscott22 said:
They are open until 5:30 on all the days that were 5pm now. An extra 30 minutes to ride thrilliant, fantabulous attractions such as Hex - The Legend of The Towers and Twistatron!

Seriously though, it is good to see they’ve at least extended in advance, even if by just 30 minutes.
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5.30pm closes being advertised in advance were quite common in the early 2000’s, at some point in the last few years they moved to on the hour close times. Good to see extensions in advance as you say, must mean the prebook numbers are looking good.

It looks like there is an extra week of 6pm closes in July too, compared to the originally released hours for that month.
 
Park hours are lousy.

Even in previous years of poor hours, the very end of the school holidays has seen some extensions to 6.30/7pm. Currently, we're stuck at 6pm while Thorpe and Chessington are going to 7pm. Mind you, Legoland is only 6pm too - so it seems the more popular your RTP status is within the UK Merlin portfolio, the earlier you close.

I am hugely disappointed that the resort haven't pushed summer Saturdays, or indeed pushed a little later during this period. We see it at Blackpool and Drayyon.

Poor.

For now, Oktoberfest hours haven't been adjusted - let's hope for a glimmer of hope with those. The 'lofty' days of 8pm back in 2021 seem a distant memory now.
 
It does appear that visitor numbers are lower than the last couple of years so I suspect they don’t feel the need to extend hours and are trying to keep costs down to maintain margins.
 
AT86 said:
It does appear that visitor numbers are lower than the last couple of years so I suspect they don’t feel the need to extend hours and are trying to keep costs down to maintain margins.
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Maybe if they actually provided reasons for people to visit.

As it stands, we've no (publicised) event and several key rides closed.

I am well aware of the need to keep costs down/maintain margins, but they do not help themselves. 6pm for any 'major' theme park during summer is absolutely the weakest of the weak.
 
Are Alton Towers faring uniquely worse than the other Merlin parks this year, or does the downturn in guest figures appear to be chain-wide?

The well-publicised absence of Nemesis during 2023 may have put people off. With the ride returning in 2024, people may not have wanted to visit while one of the park's big coasters is down.
 
Matt N said:
Are Alton Towers faring uniquely worse than the other Merlin parks this year, or does the downturn in guest figures appear to be chain-wide?

The well-publicised absence of Nemesis during 2023 may have put people off. With the ride returning in 2024, people may not have wanted to visit while one of the park's big coasters is down.
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I’d put it more down to the cost of living putting a chokehold on peoples coffers. But there definitely will be an impact by Nemesis’ retrack, however I’d also bet there’s a vast majority of the public who may not even know about it being closed.
 
Have there been any sit-ins on the lawn this year? That was the only strong evidence I've ever seen for there being significant demand after 6pm.

The real issue is that the park is not a credible offering as a resort, despite its branding. You need huge numbers of families that are happy to be taking children out of the park after 7pm for longer openings to be justified - that doesn't seen too likely if there is an hour or more's travel to be had. It would be more likely if you had thousands of families staying in the hotels - but you need to make it more appealing for that.
 
Matt N said:
Are Alton Towers faring uniquely worse than the other Merlin parks this year, or does the downturn in guest figures appear to be chain-wide?

The well-publicised absence of Nemesis during 2023 may have put people off. With the ride returning in 2024, people may not have wanted to visit while one of the park's big coasters is down.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's specifically Towers or even Merlin. The weather really hasn't helped matters, with it being incredibly wet in the UK and obscenely hot in European parks too. Even EP, while by no means dead was quieter than expected.

Of course cost of living doesn't help either, just seems to be an unfortunate recipe for lower attendance this year.
 
One thing that does appear to be holding up this summer is the Trip Advisor reviews, they are very good infact, suggesting the opening hours aren’t impacting guest experience too much.

Compare the reviews to Chessington, who are open until 7pm and it’s night and day.

Don’t get me wrong I am usually the one pushing for longer opening hours at Towers, I am just saying I can understand the logic this year specifically with the lower attendance across the board. The online ticket price is £39pp this summer versus £44pp last year. So lower revenue per guest, with less people visiting and you can see why they aren’t keen to have an extra hours wage bill every day.
 
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