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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Skyscraper said:
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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They haven’t, Rita opened on time, The Smiler tested continuously but opened very late. Staff were telling us there was a power cut over night, everything was down this morning when they came in
 
Was on park for the full day and yes the operations at the start weren't great however, for the majority of the day i really weren't queueing long at all.
Smiler - 4 trains + baggage hold, down to 3 trains from around 5/6pm
13 - 3 trains + baggage hold down to 2 trains and no baggage hold from around 5pm
Oblivion - 4 trains 1 station
Nemesis - 2 trains
Galactica - 2 trains 1 station
wicker man - 3 trains
Spinball - 6 cars
rita - 2 trains
I got 26 rides in so can't complain really!!
Was surprised seeing baggage holds open, and the 13 staff were complaining about the lack of baggage wristbands organisation that could have been sorted days prior. Anyway😂
 
Loui Richards said:
Smiler - 4 trains + baggage hold, down to 3 trains from around 5/6pm
13 - 3 trains + baggage hold down to 2 trains and no baggage hold from around 5pm
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You think they did this because it was quieter than they expected? Hope they’re both on max capacity today otherwise queues will be manic😭
 
I'd like to echo that the start yesterday was absolutely dreadful. Rita opened at 10 instead of 13, with Oblivion and Nemesis. Galactica and The Smiler didn't open at 10:30 as planned, The Smiler was over 2 hours late in fact. They announced over the tannoy that it was delayed and they didn't know when it'd be open, only to open the entrance 10 seconds later which just made everyone hang about. We were in the shop waiting for the lift (had a wheelchair) and the staff were saying there'd been a powercut overnight
 
Yesterday … it was thankful that the day was quiet otherwise the opening fiasco would’ve been a big problem.

We were told Wickerman was delayed due to power cut issues in the early morning. And 13 due to frost .
Wonder what today’s excuses are
 
10.45 and smiler still testing with no sign of life at Oblivion or Wicker man, with entrance hosts sending people away. Wicker man doesn’t even have trains on the track yet, with mechanics walking around infield.

Have to disagree with this being bad luck of ride availability, it stinks of CBA and utter contempt for guests
 
Even if all the rides opened at these new scheduled time it would be poor. Having scheduled staggered openings and then the majority of the coasters not even opening for those scheduled times is just a complete slap in the face to guests to be honest.
 
My report from yesterday. I went with my Dad & my Brother. I have to agree that it was slow in the morning but thankfully the park being quiet in the evening and general operations improving throughout the day meant I came away with 23 rides in total, which did include 2 breaks to grab a coffee and to eat the rest of packed lunch by the stage. The days of running around getting on as many as we can are long gone. Old age kicks in 😂

With the staggered opening the strategy I had was to start Wicker Man but in the morning we were turned away at the front from 9:40am saying that Wicker Man wouldn't be opening for 10am and nor Th13teen due to the cold weather. So in the end I started with Runaway Mine Train - not something I have ever done. 9:45am RMT opened early and we got a nice 3 lap first train of the day so we had already done 1 ride by the time it turned 10. This meant that we decided to go head up to Nemesis and tick off The Curse At Alton Manor on the way up - as I had no idea how busy the park would have been on the day. I had prepared for the worst as it was 1st day of Scarefest.

To cut to the chase, a slow morning not helped with being caught out with the technical delay on Rita at around 11:15am, so queued for 55 minutes on that one which I turned on a positive as it did allow The Smiler to open by the time we got off Rita and allowed us to get the whole of X-Sector & Spinball done in 1 go.

Operations on the Smiler were ace - queued 15 minutes on an advertised 30 minute queue which meant we re-joined the queue again for another 15 minutes.
Runaway Mine Train team were excellent and always in a good fun mood. They switched over Ops when we joined as it was still the same person as the morning which meant we got a 6 lap special thanks to lots of young kids screaming "AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN" which takes the record for the most laps I have done on RMT.

The enhancements on Hex were good (will do a separate reply in the Hex thread to highlight the things that weren't so good in my opinion). Nemesis was a walk on at 7pm for the first night ride thanks to 5 minutes of zig-zagging through the queue line and straight into the station on a train.

It was really weird walking at night from FV down to Mutiny Bay and seeing hardly anyone around. 1 thing I did notice was the lack of free-roaming actors and entertainers dressed up, considering it was scarefest. Didn't see anyone, not even outside The Curse. I wonder if it was because it was 1st Day of Scarefest and it was technically a "quiet day".

Overall, amazing day and came away very satisfied that the afternoon/evening was a lot better on the operations front. However, they need to get this staggered starts sorted. Imagine if they do this on a normal 10-4 day. You've lost half the day because most of your rollercoasters aren't operating and it causes specific areas to become busy.
 
What’s a good opening strategy now it’s a bit of a state? I’m going tomorrow so thought I’d check the queue times to see what’s it like and was disappointed to see this. Probably Forbidden Valley and Curse to start feels safest? Waiting outside Wicker Man for it to open at 10 feels too risky as does going to Dark Forest or X Sector for the one ride scheduled to open that may also be down.

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Ethan said:
They don’t seem to stick to the phased opening times so I still thinks it worth it arriving at 10. Rita has opened by 10:20 the last 4 days so they’ve clesrly gone back on opening that at 11
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Was told when we went that, as the temperature was too cold for 13, they swapped to get Rita open early, so could be that
 
They swapped 13 with Rita on Friday when I was there, that's for sure. Rita also opened with 13 one day because Oblivion didn't.
 
It's crazy to me that they wouldn't take the famous UK weather into account when designing the ride.... Either that or more cost-cutting - but I hope it isn't...
 
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One thing i forgot to mention about Friday, whilst we were waiting in The Smiler's shop for the lift just in case it opened, I asked the members of staff we were talking to why staggered openings had come in. One of them said they had no idea it was a thing until they got to work that morning, so they hadn't even been told, which I find utterly ridiculous. To not even tell your own staff that rides would be on staggered openings really gives off where we are currently at with Alton/Merlin
 
Danscott22 said:
One thing i forgot to mention about Friday, whilst we were waiting in The Smiler's shop for the lift just in case it opened, I asked the members of staff we were talking to why staggered openings had come in. One of them said they had no idea it was a thing until they got to work that morning, so they hadn't even been told, which I find utterly ridiculous. To not even tell your own staff that rides would be on staggered openings really gives off where we are currently at with Alton/Merlin
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Poor internal communication has been a skill at Alton Towers for 40 plus years- it’s certainly not unique to this period of Merlin ;)
 
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