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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

I'm sure NST closed part way through the day, in which case it was almost certainly not a pre-planned closure. Hopefully they take this opportunity to sort out the moving floor(s) though.

Ride availability has been pretty dreadful the past 2 years and makes the park feel significantly busier than it is, as crowds are forced to chase the open rides round the park.
 
Danscott22 said:
I was just coming to post this, advertised or not, that is 6!!! rides closed all day. It’s ridiculous
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Crazy! Think that's the worst its been this season for all day closures. Obviously none of these rides were pre-planned (other than Skyride) but with the flat rides nearly gone these rides are essential to be open. What's going on Alton?!
John said:
I'm sure NST closed part way through the day, in which case it was almost certainly not a pre-planned closure. Hopefully they take this opportunity to sort out the moving floor(s) though.

Ride availability has been pretty dreadful the past 2 years and makes the park feel significantly busier than it is, as crowds are forced to chase the open rides round the park.
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Yeah clearly not planned, but with Congo also down I'd rather them open it even if the lift floors aren't working! They need every ride they can get right now.
 
Perhaps (although they were tacky and extremely out of place) the Retro Squad might’ve come in handy for an extra year. At least the ones in X Sector anyway, whilst allowing for project ocean to still be built. I wanted them gone by the end, but they definitely would be helping right now
 
Danscott22 said:
Perhaps (although they were tacky and extremely out of place) the Retro Squad might’ve come in handy for an extra year. At least the ones in X Sector anyway, whilst allowing for project ocean to still be built. I wanted them gone by the end, but they definitely would be helping right now
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I agree, as much as they were out of place, they should have stayed this year until flat rides come down to X-Sector.

Similar ride availablility to yesterday as well, Congo, Runaway minetrain and Sub-Terra all still unavailable ☹️
 
It does seem as though Towers has possibly the weakest ride availability of any of the Merlin parks at the moment.

I was at Legoland and Thorpe Park on Sunday and Monday, respectively, and neither of those parks seemed to particularly suffer. Availability and uptime was pretty good at Legoland, with nothing closed all day to my knowledge and breakdowns kept to a minimum, and at Thorpe, the only thing closed all day aside from Hyperia was Detonator and aside from one or two small stoppages, the number of breakdowns seemed to be kept to a reasonable minimum.

With Thorpe in particular, people have often moaned about how poor their operations and ride availability are, but I would personally argue that on my recent visits to both, Thorpe has had better overall uptime and ride availability than Towers.
 
Danscott22 said:
Perhaps (although they were tacky and extremely out of place) the Retro Squad might’ve come in handy for an extra year. At least the ones in X Sector anyway, whilst allowing for project ocean to still be built. I wanted them gone by the end, but they definitely would be helping right now
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The grass is always greener.

Retro Squad served a valuable purpose and those chickens are coming home to roost right now. I’m definitely not getting value out of my annual pass at the moment because I won’t go while everything is so up and down.

Definitely preferred retrosquad to some ludicrously priced Fish and chips and they could have easily relocated the one in FV to elsewhere to make room for all the new stuff.
 
So at 1pm today:

Thirteen has not opened so far today
Hex shut
Sub Terra shut
Rapids shut
RMT shut
Raj BBB not opened today
Battle Galleons has been down for the best part of an hour.
Skyride shut all season.

Oh, and despite RMT being closed for the past few days, they are still flogging fastrack for it:

IMG_6906.jpeg
 
I’m generally on the glass half full side of things, but despite having Nemesis back the overall offerings do seem worse than last year, and it’s a daily lottery on which rides will be open/late/closed etc.

Though I had a fairly unsatisfactory recent trip to Thorpe with rides also opening late, extended closures, being kicked out of queue lines so imo it’s unfair to say AT has fallen far behind. Although that’s hardly a glowing endorsement.
 
AT86 said:
So at 1pm today:

Thirteen has not opened so far today
Hex shut
Sub Terra shut
Rapids shut
RMT shut
Raj BBB not opened today
Battle Galleons has been down for the best part of an hour.
Skyride shut all season.

Oh, and despite RMT being closed for the past few days, they are still flogging fastrack for it:
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5 of them for the 1.2m crowd, yes there probably won't be many of them around today but that's still a rum do for anyone who happens to be there.

What does that leave, Wicker Man, Spinball and Curse?
 
I’ve said it for a long time, but the place desperately needs 3 or 4 “good to great” reliable rides and even shows

Ripsaws Revenge
Hex
Dungeons Replacement
New Large Indoor Theatre next to mini golf
1 x sector flat ride
Skyride working
Towers reopen
Fountain theatre reopened

Would absolutely transform the park with not a massive amount of CapEx
 
It feels like a perfect storm this season of two main factors:

- Historical neglect and lack of maintenance meaning issues have escalated (Hex and Skyride in particular but others seem to be creeping up)

- Lack of skilled technicians/engineers to get things open on time and keep them running. It took well over a month of the season for most coasters to have all their trains available.

It’s unacceptable and it’s a legacy problem that current management have been lumbered with. I don’t doubt the current management’s intentions to improve things, but sadly I don’t see any quick fixes to the above two issues.
 
Feel quite fortunate to have Legoland, CWOA, Paultons and Adventure Island (and technically TP though we don't go) all in day trip distance. Combined with the RAP issues there's no way i'd be renewing our MAP if AT was our main park and can't see us visiting again this year.

There's still 5/6 weeks till summer holidays so i suppose there's a chance they get their act together but it's not looking likely. And if Drayton can get "Gold Nugget" open that's going to be the far more appealing prospect.

It's a shame, love visiting AT, especially when the weather is better (if it ever gets better) but when you have to factor in an overnight trip it's too much of a risk at present.
 
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