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Park Hours: Updates and Discussion

jon81uk said:
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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Have to disagree here - having an evening meal before tackling the journey home is fairly common.
 
Islander said:
Have to disagree here - having an evening meal before tackling the journey home is fairly common.
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Really, might just be me, but its not something I've ever noticed. I've seen people want to get donuts or snacks, but are there actually that many people buying full meals inside the park after 5pm? I thought far more people stop at McDonalds or similar on the way home, not inside the park.
 
jon81uk said:
Really, might just be me, but its not something I've ever noticed. I've seen people want to get donuts or snacks, but are there actually that many people buying full meals inside the park after 5pm? I thought far more people stop at McDonalds or similar on the way home, not inside the park.
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I've seen it a lot at the southern parks (Chessie and Lego at least), don't have as much experience at Towers. Maybe the more family-focused market?
 
Islander said:
I've seen it a lot at the southern parks (Chessie and Lego at least), don't have as much experience at Towers. Maybe the more family-focused market?
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Also the smaller park, you don't then have quite such a hike from the restaurant to the gate and then to the car afterwards?
 
Wasn't busy at all last weekend - quietest I've ever seen it for a July weekend. Was open until 6 but we had pretty much done all we wanted to by 5pm. Popped into Splash Saturday evening around 8pm and that wasn't very busy either. Flambos in particular was pretty much empty. I think perhaps the cost of visiting is now putting people off. Even though we stayed in the Chained Oak, with food, drinks, tickets, fuel etc we probably spent £500 over the weekend. And that's taking a packed lunch and no fast track!
 
Poor ride availability, shocking food at high prices, no shows outside CBeebies, the closure of the Retrosquad without replacement, high hotel prices with declining standards, unreliable and short opening hours, closed Sky Ride and Hex, cuts to events…

Is it any surprise that the chickens are coming home to roost.
 
It sounds like Alton Towers is in the middle of an awkward transition period and still trying to climb out of 10+ years of mistakes - there's two massive flagship rides dramatically revamped and the Dungeons/Toyland Tours area seeing very heavy re-development, with the park's negative "soft" factors (that people here love to complain about) still the bane of Merlin's budget allocation.
 
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For me and my group of friends it's the price of food and lack of anything new. The park does look less grubby but untill they invest seriously in making a day magical then I will keep my money for DLP. I love the coasters at thorpe but the hours make the park feel like a half day park and not worth the expense or hassle.
 
Danscott22 said:
went to check that October 11th was the correct time to pre-book my Scarefest visit and noticed the reduced hours to 8pm on certain days. Not good at all imo
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That is frankly disgusting. Basically penalising guests that are able to visit in term time. That's one less hour of night riding for us 😡🤦‍♂️
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
Going to be a while yet, but something needs to happen.

Their attendance will continue to fall at this rate. Without Nemesis returning this is worse than last year and it’s not even close.
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Can’t disagree with that sadly, only been twice this year, once in March and once in June. I expect I’ll get another trip in before the end of the season, but normally after a couple of months I’m itching to get back, but not so currently.
 
Even in the dark age between 2016 and Covid, when we saw scaled back Scarefest dates, the introduction of widespread 4pm closes throughout the season, and staggered openings of a hollowed out lineup, 9pm Scarefest closes remained intact. I'm appreciative that there are a few extra days of the event this year, but the following week is 8pm close between Mon and Thurs as well. That's never happened before to my knowledge.

The attraction lineup is so thin, that even the most off peak of days generates large ride queues now. Chuck Scarefest crowds and time in mazes on top of this, and you won't even have that last 1-2 hours at the end of the day when queues die off to get stuff done that you couldn't do earlier in the day. Plus it's darker later before the clocks go back so not much in terms of night rides.

This may just be a mistake of course on the website, but it does nothing to take away my emerging view that this is quite possibly the worst season ever.
 
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