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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

Interestingly, Thorpe don’t seem to have downgraded hours quite like some of the others. They appear to be holding relatively strong at 7pm closes throughout the summer.

Perhaps Hyperia has given them a bit of a boost compared to the other parks?
 
When your opening hours are considerably worse than BPB, there must be problems!
An hour earlier weekdays, and late opening this weekend.
 
Dave said:
I’d suggests that’s making excuses for the same shoddy opening times as every other UK park.
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Spin it the other way. If the queues at Alton Towers were all 10-20 minutes then it’s perhaps more understandable (if not excusable) that they were closing earlier.

Ignoring that Towers and Paultons are poles apart in terms of queue times, ride lineup, demographic etc just isn’t realistic.
 
pluk said:
One thing is for sure, they won't be selling you a ticket stating one set of opening hours then actually deliver fewer. That's shoddy.
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I’m not saying what Towers are doing isn’t shoddy; I’m pointing out that from an opening hours perspective pretty much the entire UK industry is on the pathetic side. With the exception of Thorpe Park they are all closing around the 5pm mark in the summer holidays.

I absolutely agree that if you pre-sell tickets with a promise to open until a certain time you should honour that promise.

venny said:
Spin it the other way. If the queues at Alton Towers were all 10-20 minutes then it’s perhaps more understandable (if not excusable) that they were closing earlier.

Ignoring that Towers and Paultons are poles apart in terms of queue times, ride lineup, demographic etc just isn’t realistic.
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You really will tie yourself in knots to justify Paultons mediocre opening hours won’t you.

It has a good chunk of hotel accommodation nearby, has plenty of rides and attractions to offer. I’m not saying it should open until 8pm but 6pm on a school holiday is not out of their grasp, and as they have lower queue times to run off than Towers that would still cost them less.
 
Matt N said:
Interestingly, Thorpe don’t seem to have downgraded hours quite like some of the others. They appear to be holding relatively strong at 7pm closes throughout the summer.

Perhaps Hyperia has given them a bit of a boost compared to the other parks?
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I suspect Thorpe have been given the budget to stay open later because of Hyperia, regardless of ticket sales.
 
Dave said:
With the exception of Thorpe Park they are all closing around the 5pm mark in the summer holidays.
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LEGOLAND and Chessington are both 6pm but I think the point is that a 530pm close at Paultons is more than ample time to experience the entire park whereas you’d be lucky to get on 5 or 6 major attractions at AT by 5pm.

Paultons also has a younger demographic who will leave earlier regardless.
 
Bowser said:
LEGOLAND and Chessington are both 6pm but I think the point is that a 530pm close at Paultons is more than ample time to experience the entire park whereas you’d be lucky to get on 5 or 6 major attractions at AT by 5pm.

Paultons also has a younger demographic who will leave earlier regardless.
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God forbid anyone casts a critical eye over Paultons eh 😂

I think I will just stick with mainland Europe who in general have better opening times even when the parks have younger demographic and have fewer visitor numbers……
 
Dave said:
God forbid anyone casts a critical eye over Paultons eh 😂
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I see you. I feel your pain. I've been there.
Dave said:
I think I will just stick with mainland Europe who in general have better opening times even when the parks have younger demographic and have fewer visitor numbers……
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Even Paulton's (now) competitor Drayton Manor Park and Zoo (Draty Mans), is managing extended opening hours over the summer.

Paulton's Park doesn't really have much of an excuse for shorter opening hours. It's small enough that operationally it wouldn't be much more of a financial burden, they could even open select areas for evening ride time only (they did this during the Super Fans Event). They have the seated food and beverage options to encourage people to stay longer. The park is easily accessible and next to a major city, which makes it much easier for staff to commute than it does at somewhere like Alton Towers.

Paulton's is generally considered to be a very well run ship. If any park COULD do extended opening hours or late summer hours, and do them well, it's Paulton's. There are far more operational reasons which make it more difficult for Alton Towers to operate longer, but they regularly get chastised for it.
 
Interestingly, I’m not sure ailing ticket sales are the reason for these opening hour cuts. People who’ve been within the last couple of days say that it’s very, very busy, more so than expected for the time of year, and I think the advertised queue times would corroborate that view.
 
Dave said:
God forbid anyone casts a critical eye over Paultons eh 😂
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Its possible to state that 5.30pm seems fine for Paulton and it not just be mindless fan-boy talk. Generally at Alton Towers its a large park where it can take time just to walk between areas, also queue times are generally long as its popular therefore a longer day is helpful to see everything. Paulton has a smaller footprint with shorter wait times, I doubt it would be significantly busy if open longer. If Chessington was running rides with better operations so their wait times were lower then the shorter day would be less of an issue there too as its also a small footprint park.

Generally I think most parks should do 6pm in the summer, but if Paultons have found 5.30 works for them, I don't think that half hour makes a huge difference, whereas at Alton Towers it would, because it gives time to move across the park to another ride.

But the bigger issue is in general in the UK parks are not busy after 5.30 or 6pm unless there is a reason to stay like Oktoberfest, Scarefest or another ability to ride in the dark. Even Europa doesn't advertise normally being open past 6pm.

GooseOnTheLoose said:
Even Paulton's (now) competitor Drayton Manor Park and Zoo (Draty Mans), is managing extended opening hours over the summer.
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But Drayton are open 10.30 to 5pm, Paulton is 10am to 5.30pm, a whole hour longer?
 
Dave said:
God forbid anyone casts a critical eye over Paultons eh 😂

I think I will just stick with mainland Europe who in general have better opening times even when the parks have younger demographic and have fewer visitor numbers……
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There are plenty of valid criticisms of Paultons but in relation to the thread subject, to me a parks opening hours should reasonably allow visitors to experience as many attractions as possible. Paultons achieve this, AT do not.

The park in the UK with the most distance between rides (not to mention several years without its transport system) and arguably the longest queue times having the shortest opening hours is ridiculous.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Drayton Manor Park and Zoo is open until 7pm every Saturday for the rest of summer.
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But Paultons are open for an extra hour compared to Drayton every day for summer. Its swings and roundabouts, do you want an extra two hours on Saturdays only, or an extra hour every day?
Alton Towers are doing 10-6pm pretty much every day in August (unless it changes again) so they are offering 30 minutes more than Paultons do each day.
(It seems the standard hours are Drayton 1030-5, Paultons 10-5.30 and Alton 10-6).

For the Saturdays Drayton also has extra entertainment on to encourage people to stay later, but Alton do this in September for Oktoberfest instead.
 
For anyone interested, the opening hours of the Merlin parks this summer are currently:
  • Alton Towers: 10am-5pm midweek until 1st August, 10am-6pm on weekends and for the entire rest of the summer holidays after 1st August.
  • Thorpe Park: 10am-6pm today and tomorrow, 10am-7pm for the entire rest of the summer holidays after Saturday.
  • Chessington World of Adventures: 10am-6pm for the entire summer holidays.
  • Legoland Windsor: 10am-6pm for the entire summer holidays.
It does appear as though Alton Towers is the only park notably cutting hours at the moment… is Alton doing worse than the other parks, perhaps?

Thorpe Park’s hours in particular look very good indeed!
 
Matt N said:
Thorpe Park’s hours in particular look very good indeed!
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I think Thorpe Park in general go slightly longer as they don't get as many under 12s visiting who will have earlier bedtime. Also the good bus connection to Staines station makes getting back to the cityeasier , or the simple access to the motorway compared to Alton where most people have a long drive home.
 
There really isn't any justification from a guest perspective for these terrible summer hours. Paultons, Thorpe and Drayton are all far smaller to get around, and Towers doesn't even have it's Sky Ride or a functional monorail to help out with that. It may be the case that guest numbers are lower across the board, but these decisions are clearly budgetary and ignorant of guest experience. Shutting at 5 when you have queues of an hour or more is just crap. Made even crappier by the fact that some of those who pre-booked probably did so on the basis that they thought they were going to be getting a good 8 hours in the park. You never know what you're buying in advance with this place.

No wonder people leave early. You've hiked all the way from the car parks because they can't run the monorail properly. Then hike around a massive hilly park because the Sky Ride is closed looking for a ride that is actually open and has a queue of less than 45 mins. You try and buy some food and realise it's eye wateringly priced garbage. You can't even enjoy the Towers anymore without them charging you. By 3 or 4 in the afternoon you're going to be tired and pretty miserable and they're chucking you out soon anyway. Hardly good conditions to flog punters an evening meal and some merch. But like Rob said, they have your cheap annual pass money already.

"Best season ever". What a mess. Another season in the top 5 worst I've known out of the 35 years I've been going.
 
Matt.GC said:
Hardly good conditions to flog punters an evening meal
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No park closing at 6pm or earlier will be selling evening meals to guests, even if they did fix all the other things you raise. This is why parks do special events or similar when opening to 7pm or later. The only people eating on-site even with a 6pm close will be those staying on-site (or maybe nearby).
 
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