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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

NuttySquirrel said:
Not regretting my decision to swap Scarefest for Fright Nights this year ... at least Thorpe can get most of their coasters ready for park opening. There doesn't seem any point getting to the park for ride opening anymore.
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That hasn't been the case for any of my five visits to Thorpe this year, with Nemesis Inferno and Rumba Rapids not opening before 12pm on each occasion. Let's also not forget that Hyperia consistently opens late and, throughout Fright Nights, Ghost Train won't open until 3pm!

Counter to the budget related rhetoric. Could it not be working time related instead? With how, allegedly, the park is stretched for staff, they will have fewer team members covering longer operational and opening hours. Could this have anything to do with it? It could, of course, be a compendium of issues.
 
Absolute shambles of a place at the moment. I have been once this year in April to ride Nemesis, and I have no desire to visit for the rest of this year. When will people learn that Bianca is not the saviour they think she is? It is diabolical.

Thorpe Park is so far ahead it’s unbelievable, roll on Fright Nights next week.
 
It’s evidently been a very difficult season for Merlin as a whole, not just Alton Towers. Everything we’ve seen and heard, including from Merlin themselves halfway through the season, indicates that attendance this season has been at best mediocre given the level of group-wide investment, for reasons no one can really agree on.

I don’t think it’s entirely exclusive to Alton Towers. As much as Towers seems to be suffering more than some of the other UK Merlin parks in some ways, Thorpe Park and the like have hardly been free of difficulties. Thorpe has had staggered openings, maintenance closures and some issues with ride availability at times, Legoland has had quite a few maintenance closures in recent weeks, and Chessington has certainly had plenty of staggered openings, maintenance closures and ride availability issues during the season.

Money (or more specifically OPEX) is clearly tight within the RTPs at present. Following the summer holidays in particular, they really seem to have battened down the hatches in terms of OPEX. Some of the closures and difficulties may not be entirely budget related, I concede, but I think budget is at least a contributing factor in a number of them.
 
First year I don’t think I’ll bother with scarefest since 2012. I don’t even have confidence they will have the staggered rides open in time. One new maze, and the ones already in place are pretty lacklustre or repetitive. They have some major problems behind the scenes. I understand the park is in an obscure location, but offering a competitive wage for tech staff would be a half decent start. Such a shame to see what was the UK’s flagship park go this way. What hurts more is the fact we all had so much optimism about the future with new management, privatised Merlin and Nemesis reborn. It all seemed on the up, yet how wrong we were. I don’t think this lies at the feet of Bianca, but at the top brass above who haven’t changed one iota. Merlin will be Merlin, Short term gain for long term pain. How bad is it when the best days to visit are 4pm close days, the days we all wish would end. Bring on Universal. The magic was lost from Alton Towers a long time ago, but it is now well and truly out of reach without new ownership. Am I overreacting, I don’t think so.
 
Well this is disappointing! I think the most frustrating thing for me is that only a few weeks ago there were back running ERT- showing that they can open rides from 9am!

Getting major flashbacks to the DIC era 🤢

I understand there’s a shortage of engineers but I don’t think they need to future proof it more. They run that foundation degree with staffs uni- make Alton towers an engineering placement or do a year in industry at Alton towers. They could even partner up with Keele uni. I know Towers do the engineering apprenticeship scheme, but getting uni placement students could help to bulk out the team and add capacity - just like they do with the degree programme.
 
Call_um said:
What a joke.

Glad i'm not bothering with Scarefest this year.

Imagine all the confused guests finding all these closed rides in the morning. They really aren't helping themselves are they.
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Not that I want to support the place in this, but...
The writing has been on the wall since summer. there aren't very many punters in the park during the first hour, and many guests, especially those in the first hour, know how the park runs...we have been having late opening of individual rides all season.
Now they are just making it "official".
Dark Forest not opening until 11 next year, betya.
 
RIPCorky said:
Don't buy into this "it's not budget related" They can employ the tech services to start an hour earlier each day and get everything open at 10. There really is no excuse.

What an awful end to a diabolical season at Alton Towers. No chance Skyride opens next season

Not sure why they bother running Scarefect in the week? Be better to advertise it as a night ride event, open everything and just run Scarefest at the weekends/Friday and maybe monday
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I suspect it’s a bit of of both but to be honest I don’t really care whether it is budget related or because they can’t get the staff (tech or ops) either was this is disgusting.

Suspect Bianca will be avoiding any vlogger interviews this closed season.
 
Why are Towers not happy with their attendance this year? From what I’ve seen it’s been a busier year than 2023 so what are their expectations exactly? Making cuts to cater for less money coming in actually just makes the situation worse as people have even less reason to visit. Towers also need to consider that Scsrefest is typically the most popular time in their season and letting that go stale could have huge financial repercussions. Why do we only have 1 new thrill maze this year? Compound is a small start but tbh they should’ve got rid of all 4 mazes from 2023 (Attic Altonville Darkest depths Daz games). We should have 4 new mazes this year because last years lineup wasn’t good enough. But Towers think they can introduce 1 new maze, a family attraction and then leave the rest of the lineup the same as we’ve seen before. If you’re gonna stick with what you’ve got then you have to ensure that what you’ve got is high quality, i.e Stitches, which Towers don’t have. Off course there’s always the rides in the dark but we’ve not had a new ride since Wicker so that feels a bit stale now too. Time to splash the cash and invest Towers.
 
Due to the ridiculously priced cheap season tickets, there is no longer a direct correlation between attendance and income.
Busier no longer means more income, just busier.
There are an awful lot of cheap pass holders out there, what do you really expect for eighty quid a year...decent ops and service???
"Get in the queue that is open, we got your money months ago, you are no longer any interest to us..."
 
Ethan said:
Why are Towers not happy with their attendance this year? From what I’ve seen it’s been a busier year than 2023 so what are their expectations exactly? Making cuts to cater for less money coming in actually just makes the situation worse as people have even less reason to visit. Towers also need to consider that Scsrefest is typically the most popular time in their season and letting that go stale could have huge financial repercussions. Why do we only have 1 new thrill maze this year? Compound is a small start but tbh they should’ve got rid of all 4 mazes from 2023 (Attic Altonville Darkest depths Daz games). We should have 4 new mazes this year because last years lineup wasn’t good enough. But Towers think they can introduce 1 new maze, a family attraction and then leave the rest of the lineup the same as we’ve seen before. If you’re gonna stick with what you’ve got then you have to ensure that what you’ve got is high quality, i.e Stitches, which Towers don’t have. Off course there’s always the rides in the dark but we’ve not had a new ride since Wicker so that feels a bit stale now too. Time to splash the cash and invest Towers.
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Attendance is not everything. Guest spend is more important than attendance, and I believe that has been an issue this year. Hardly a surprise when everything in the park costs so much.

These new cuts, or whatever you want to call them, are a shambles. I'd imagine it is partly down to how stretched tech services are, but your average guest could not care less about that. And it is a problem entirely of their own making that they have not been able to address over a number of years.

If you are on the right hand side of the park then you only have Oblivion and Thirteen open from 10am, wow. Scarefest is one of the busiest times for Alton Towers yet the park seems to be limping in to it.

Very glad that I'm not returning until fireworks.
 
Three brief looks around the shops, and I purchased...er...a kebab.

Nice plain grey hyperia very long tee shirt...thirty five quid for cheap cotton.
 
Rob said:
Attendance is not everything. Guest spend is more important than attendance, and I believe that has been an issue this year. Hardly a surprise when everything in the park costs so much.

These new cuts, or whatever you want to call them, are a shambles. I'd imagine it is partly down to how stretched tech services are, but your average guest could not care less about that. And it is a problem entirely of their own making that they have not been able to address over a number of years.

If you are on the right hand side of the park then you only have Oblivion and Thirteen open from 10am, wow. Scarefest is one of the busiest times for Alton Towers yet the park seems to be limping in to it.

Very glad that I'm not returning until fireworks.
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I stopped spending in the park this season for the reasons I’m not impressed with the way the place is being run.

Gold pass, no car park, no merchandise, no food, nothing. Not until I start seeing investment. It works both ways.

The Aramark decision would have hit them hard and they are likely paying for that as well as other shortcomings.
 
Matt N said:
It’s evidently been a very difficult season for Merlin as a whole, not just Alton Towers. Everything we’ve seen and heard, including from Merlin themselves halfway through the season, indicates that attendance this season has been at best mediocre given the level of group-wide investment, for reasons no one can really agree on.

I don’t think it’s entirely exclusive to Alton Towers. As much as Towers seems to be suffering more than some of the other UK Merlin parks in some ways, Thorpe Park and the like have hardly been free of difficulties. Thorpe has had staggered openings, maintenance closures and some issues with ride availability at times, Legoland has had quite a few maintenance closures in recent weeks, and Chessington has certainly had plenty of staggered openings, maintenance closures and ride availability issues during the season.

Money (or more specifically OPEX) is clearly tight within the RTPs at present. Following the summer holidays in particular, they really seem to have battened down the hatches in terms of OPEX. Some of the closures and difficulties may not be entirely budget related, I concede, but I think budget is at least a contributing factor in a number of them.
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It's only a difficult season by their own decision making.

If you have a good product it will draw crowds but this year's product has been mediocre due to constant outages and maintenance and so on.

Plus the prices for food and drink have reached what I consider a tipping point, there is no value for money in the products; they are charging Disney prices for food and drink and delivering Netto quality.
 
The place is an absolute joke. Just arrived and there's a massive queue for the monorail. Tannoy announcement about it running on reduced capacity. Telling people they can walk to the entrance for 20 minutes if they want to. How about you offer a full service for one of your flagship events you absolute toads and stop showing an absolute disregard for your customers.
 
BarryZola said:
The place is an absolute joke. Just arrived and there's a massive queue for the monorail. Tannoy announcement about it running on reduced capacity. Telling people they can walk to the entrance for 20 minutes if they want to. How about you offer a full service for one of your flagship events you absolute toads and stop showing an absolute disregard for your customers.
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Common sense would dictate that in the event of monorail reduced capacity or issues they would open the Galactica entrance. Or just have that open at all times anyway rather than forcing people to make the 20 minute trek around the car park.

They shouldn't gatekeep a gate just to funnel everyone through the other end of the park when they have a perfectly serviceable entrance right there in my opinion.
 
rob666 said:
Mid morning and four of the coasters not open?
Things not improving then, including my ridetimes habit.
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You could however be spending your time lapping Battle Galleons, perfect ride to be on for a 5-10C day.

Wonder how many technical staff they having hanging around Hex "just in case" so they can't be out fixing the coasters as normal.
 
dave___ said:
Common sense would dictate that in the event of monorail reduced capacity or issues they would open the Galactica entrance. Or just have that open at all times anyway rather than forcing people to make the 20 minute trek around the car park.

They shouldn't gatekeep a gate just to funnel everyone through the other end of the park when they have a perfectly serviceable entrance right there in my opinion.
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The entrance is absolutely tiny. You would not be able to quickly security check and scan people through efficiently, and the queue would be horrendous. You'd be able, at a push, to do two people / groups at a time. Seeing as it's right by the car park, you'd end up with everyone queuing to use the Galactica entrance, rather than using the monorail or walking to the main entrance. The latter of which is built to cope with large crowds. Crowd mindset would kick in, it wouldn't automatically balance itself.

It would be worse than trying to get into Thorpe Park.
 
Sounds like they've sacrificed getting Smiler and Rita open in order to get Hex open, would assume teck services will be permanently on-site watching the vault like hawks.
 
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