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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

The number of people in the park isn't really the issue, sure long queues aren't fun but it's tolerable if the rides stay open long enough for it to be worth risking joining a queue of more than 20 minutes.

When you have 4 major coasters down simultaneously (at the time of writing) and another on low capacity a few extra flat rides dotted about can only help so much
 
John said:
The number of people in the park isn't really the issue, sure long queues aren't fun but it's tolerable if the rides stay open long enough for it to be worth risking joining a queue of more than 20 minutes.

When you have 4 major coasters down simultaneously (at the time of writing) and another on low capacity a few extra flat rides dotted about can only help so much
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You say that but 800 odd for Ripsaw per hour? Enterprise was over 1000 I'm sure? Wave Swinger around the same? That's actually a massive increase in capacity for rides with hardy any footprint or running costs. Also less of a height restriction so more people can actually go on them.
 
Throughput of flat rides generally isn't great - many years ago Rush had a sign in the op cabin stating a target of 630 and that's with about the shortest ride cycle of anything and an efficient pre-boarding setup. Most other rides would get less than this. Enterprise with it's single operator and manual locking/opening of every car took ages to load and combined with lots of people refusing to share made for a very low capacity ride.

Retrosquad didn't help with capacity very much as they were all hamstrung by extremely inefficient loading procedures.
 
MaxPower said:
I do feel sorry for all those families who have unwittingly spent their hard earned cash to visit on days like today.

The park really is on it's arse.
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I won’t be back until it’s sorted. Something is rotten somewhere and it needs cutting out, and until that happens my cash will be spent elsewhere.

Do any parks, at all, in Europe have such woeful reliability where 5/7 of their headline attractions are out of action at the same time and so frequently? I think the only time I’ve ever seen such outages is the forced afternoon thunderstorm ones in Florida.
 
If I had paid to be there today I'd be demanding a refund, not just a free ticket. Abysmal is indeed the right word. Maybe the previous park hierarchy were on to something with the retrosquad. They knew they couldn't attract techies with their paltry budget, so just hired the rides in and got those guys to run and look after them.
 
Just dawned on me that nemesis is the only proper thrill coaster that has operated in the past few hours, as the other 3 are basically family coasters. Rita, smiler, and oblivion + sub terra being closed has essentially turned AT into a family park today with its offering
 
Dhev123 said:
Just dawned on me that nemesis is the only proper thrill coaster that has operated in the past few hours, as the other 3 are basically family coasters. Rita, smiler, and oblivion + sub terra being closed has essentially turned AT into a family park today with its offering
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Nemesis has always carried that park on it's back. To think some people out there questioned why they re-tracked it....
 
RIPCorky said:
Nemesis has always carried that park on it's back. To think some people out there questioned why they re-tracked it....
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Nemesis pre-retrack never operated for extended periods on one train though, neither did it frequently have queues of an hour or more.

I know it had to be done at some point, but in terms of reliability and operations I really haven't seen an improvement.
 
ThemeParkOwen said:
Something really needs to change or else guests just aren't going to come back.

Towers really needs more high capacity dark rides or a show building.
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Been saying it for a long, long, long time.

This park needs at least
- 2 more flats in x sector (one indoors)
- Rita to be replaced with better throughput coaster
- Indoor flat ride in dark forest
- Project Horizon
- Dungeons building re-used in some form (boat ride or trackless dark ride)
- 4D cinema reopening

Just to stand still as to where it was 10 years ago.

It was the variety and size of the park that give Alton its capacity. Not the throughput of the attractions really. The only queue eating machines they have is TCAAM and Nemesis Reborn. They barely have enough eating venues.

Oblivion has been neutered, Smiler struggles and there’s little else to help.

High capacity omnimovers, boat rides (with 16 seater boats) trackless dark rides, coasters or a dual screened flying theatre . 1000pph minimum would make a huge difference to people’s enjoyment. Or more rides overall. At the moment they have the worst of both worlds.

Less rides with less throughput
 
Ash said:
Been saying it for a long, long, long time.

This park needs at least
- 2 more flats in x sector (one indoors)
- Rita to be replaced with better throughput coaster
- Indoor flat ride in dark forest
- Project Horizon
- Dungeons building re-used in some form (boat ride or trackless dark ride)
- 4D cinema reopening

Just to stand still as to where it was 10 years ago.

It was the variety and size of the park that give Alton its capacity. Not the throughput of the attractions really. The only queue eating machines they have is TCAAM and Nemesis Reborn. They barely have enough eating venues.

Oblivion has been neutered, Smiler struggles and there’s little else to help.

High capacity omnimovers, boat rides (with 16 seater boats) trackless dark rides, coasters or a dual screened flying theatre . 1000pph minimum would make a huge difference to people’s enjoyment. Or more rides overall. At the moment they have the worst of both worlds.

Less rides with less throughput
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The Flying Theatre built on the MMM car park, behind Mutiny Bay, didn't make an appearance. I am disappointed!
 
s_g_k said:
X Sector and Dark Forest have no attractions open and Cuckoo Driving school is on 40 minutes. CBeebies Land is closed as well but it’s ok kids, because a sizzler that you rode in the local field last week is only on a 35 minute queue.

What an absolute disgrace. I’d never thought I’d say this but is honestly rather them cancel all new CAPEX projects over the next 2 years and reinvest the money in recruiting more engineers with better pay and overhauling these ageing machines to ensure they can actually do a day’s work for once.
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Won’t help canceling capex, they have a constant advert for tech staff and have increased the wage. Clearly they haven’t increased it enough however.
 
Ash said:
a dual screened flying theatre
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Do dual screened flying theatres exist? Is that basically just building two of the same ride so double the expense? If so that sounds very expensive.

The only one i've been on is SkyLion at Legoland but the operations on that tend to be abysmal for undetermined reasons. Probably 10 minutes per cycle on a good day so with a maximum of 84 passengers that's a best case of 504pph. Obviously a theoretical double screen would be better but Alton Towers spending perhaps upwards of £30m on such a thing seems unlikely.

Also i've potentially overestimated the throughput as i'm working off each of the 7 benches being 12 passengers but potentially some are shorter...
 
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