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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Even by car, Alton Towers isn't incredibly easy to get to. As seen over the hospitality sector, generally, guests are returning home earlier and not going out as much in the evening. This appears to be a mix of a generational shift, and a hangover from COVID. Many of the pubs around me are empty by 7 pm at the latest. No amount of events, food offers, incentives or quizzes tend to get people through the door.

I don't drive, but my other half does. We live around an hour and a half away from Towers and he dreads the drive, even though he's a petrol head, because he says it can be quite tiring with a lot of clutch work and gear shifting. Compared to other parks, Alton Towers doesn't really have a thriving metropolis at its doorstep. The same could be said for Blackpool, which is also closing earlier and earlier than it did in the 90s.

The park is cost cutting, by reducing staff hours, but they're only doing so because people are leaving at around 4 / 5 pm anyway. On Wednesday the park, open until 6 pm, was dead by about 4 pm. School trips had left and the little adults there were, listening to people around the park, wanted to get home for one thing or another.

@Ethan mentioned on another thread how he couldn't understand why the park was getting queues for rides of 70 mins and then closing early, it's because people are leaving. They're not leaving because they can't get on anything, or there's nothing to do, they're leaving because they have or want to get home. There's just not really the want to stay for longer, not with the drive. This could possibly be slightly eased by better public transport links, but the time it takes to get there and back will still be a factor.
 
I disagree somewhat. Yes it’s empty early but that’s because almost all the attendance in school trips that need to go early.

It’s a shame that the few “regular” guests don’t get a few hours to ride what they want now though
 
AT86 said:
Give people a reason to stay later and they do.

Scarefest, Alton After Dark and Oktoberfest are evidence of this.
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The events you've listed all specialise in night rides, something which isn't really possible in the the Summer until the end of September.

On a personal note, the Alton After Dark visit for me was the worst I've ever had at Towers. We got rained and frozen out and left at 5 pm (they activated VAFF), although did pop into the hotel to try and have a quiet drink... That was a mistake. Hell on earth, with what I can only describe as Working Club / Butlins entertainment, sugared up kids climbing up the walls, whilst their eyes were spinning and sticky surfaces everywhere.
 
People have always left early. They used to do this in the summer in the 90's when the park was open until 7pm. Although I find the drive exhausting personally, I don't think that's a factor as that's always been the case, but in the 90's that drive was achieved in far less comfortable cars. I also think the pub thing is separate, that is a cultural shift as people are genuinely drinking less (quite a phenomenon actually, booze sales have tanked this year), plus drinking in a pub is now incredibly unaffordable.

Alton close earlier because wages and energy costs are more now, and less people visit. That's quite shocking when you think about it. Whilst foreign parks have grown their patronage over the years, Alton has overall shrunk. In 1994 Alton welcomed around 3 million visitors, and the UK population was 58 million. It's now 68 million and 2.5 million visits is considered a good year. That's a terrible performance, and indicative of how they've been running the place. No wonder Universal see potential.
 
Matt.GC said:
People have always left early. They used to do this in the summer in the 90's when the park was open until 7pm. Although I find the drive exhausting personally, I don't think that's a factor as that's always been the case, but in the 90's that drive was achieved in far less comfortable cars. I also think the pub thing is separate, that is a cultural shift as people are genuinely drinking less (quite a phenomenon actually, booze sales have tanked this year), plus drinking in a pub is now incredibly unaffordable.

Alton close earlier because wages and energy costs are more now, and less people visit. That's quite shocking when you think about it. Whilst foreign parks have grown their patronage over the years, Alton has overall shrunk. In 1994 Alton welcomed around 3 million visitors, and the UK population was 58 million. It's now 68 million and 2.5 million visits is considered a good year. That's a terrible performance, and indicative of how they've been running the place. No wonder Universal see potential.
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I don’t think visitor numbers are a good measure of profitability. To be honest the best business model is to make more money off a smaller number of guests and quite a few park operators including Disney and Universal have been pushing that model. Universal UK won’t likely be any different.

The reason they don’t open late is because they don’t measure profitability on the micro level (it’s sunny so if we open later today we make more money), they measure on a pre-set budget and income target set months before the park is actually operating.

Even if I have some hope for Merlin (not tons) future they still run that model and it annoys me.
 
Visitor numbers are a very poor measure of profitability when you sell passes for the vast majority of the season at ridiculously cheap prices.
This means they do not have the resources any more to run the park at a decent level, with a good standard of operations, for reasonable hours each day.
Crap experience overall, blame your pass that costs the same for a whole year as a good meal out for two.
Cheap tickets, many punters, few profits, cut corners, cut ops, cut opening hours.
Great times.

The six flags race to the bottom, quality wise.
 
Going back to the waterpark hours …. I read on Facebook someone who attended to m the recent charity event said the outdoor slides are closed until at least September. Anyone know of this is true or not? Maintenance apparently.
 
Visitor numbers in 1994 were achieved before any onsite accommodation was built, and before bargain basement passes were a thing. So this probably makes the attendance situation even worse!

They've been practically giving away entrance tickets with annual passes and overnight stays (albeit, extremely expensive a few years ago). There's also now a free second gate for staying over in the form of Extraordinary Golf. They couldn't keep Treetop Quest and the Spa open, and their waterpark is slashing opening hours.

What a sad state of affairs. They've downgraded their main product so much, they can't open their waterpark for reasonable hours, they close their main park at 4 or 5pm, they can't keep a spa and High Ropes open, and no sod turns up if they don't discount entry on cereal boxes or sell cheap passes. The whole place needs an investor led financial bailout to innovate, not 4pm closes, inedible food, and purple paint.
 
Matt.GC said:
Visitor numbers in 1994 were achieved before any onsite accommodation was built, and before bargain basement passes were a thing. So this probably makes the attendance situation even worse!

They've been practically giving away entrance tickets with annual passes and overnight stays (albeit, extremely expensive a few years ago). There's also now a free second gate for staying over in the form of Extraordinary Golf. They couldn't keep Treetop Quest and the Spa open, and their waterpark is slashing opening hours.

What a sad state of affairs. They've downgraded their main product so much, they can't open their waterpark for reasonable hours, they close their main park at 4 or 5pm, they can't keep a spa and High Ropes open, and no sod turns up if they don't discount entry on cereal boxes or sell cheap passes. The whole place needs an investor led financial bailout to innovate, not 4pm closes, inedible food, and purple paint.
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You won’t get an investor led financial bailout beyond that which Kirkby are planning. Plus you are making demands on a management team who all started a year ago.

And again you are comparing completely different scenarios when comparing 1994 with 2024.

As already mentioned many times the food situation was locked in by Varney 2 years ago, the high ropes where always a stupid idea as there was no multi-day strategy to compete with the likes of centreparcs. For that they needed to make the resort truly multifaceted but old Merlin thought sticking a crazy golf and high ropes course onto basic rooms designed for single night stays at a theme park would achieve miracles.

The main product has been massively downgraded but this was all by the previous management of Merlin, not the current. You need to watch and wait to see what they are doing as 2025 is the first season where their decision making is the only influence on the company.

I’m genuinely not saying it will be any better, I have no idea, I’m just saying your solution is the equivalent of a patient giving up on the antibiotics after day 1 rather than seeing if the whole course will fix things.
 
I don’t buy the content excusing of current management because they’re “new”. They’ve been in post for a considerable amount of time now and they’re the decision makers who have removed the flat rides that were adding much needed capacity and not replaced them, that have overseen extended delays to Hex and Skyride, cuts to park opening hours, cuts to waterpark opening hours, cuts to popular events.

Yes, there are residual issues from before their tenure, but it’s not all someone else’s fault. They’re accountable for the current lacklustre season, no matter how many shiny PR videos they put out.
 
I'd also argue that "extended delays to Hex and Skyride" is not necessarily the new management's fault either. In both cases, there was simply more to do than originally forecast.
 
Poisson said:
The Retrosquad were on a fixed contract, they've not removed them.
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This might have been before new management arrived, but Enterprise’s closure was another flat ride closure without replacement in the second year of the retro squad. This seems to be forgotten much of the time… shame it hasn’t yet been replaced. It was much needed for X-Sector.
 
Looks like they're working towards a proper replacement, rather than temporary rides.
 
Matt N said:
I'd also argue that "extended delays to Hex and Skyride" is not necessarily the new management's fault either. In both cases, there was simply more to do than originally forecast.
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In both cases, better initial assessments of work required should have been done at the outset...there should be no "forecast".
Not the new managements problem, but questionable running overall.
Either sloppy management, or deliberate tardy timing of repairs to save on running costs.
 
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