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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

It sounds as though the wheels have really fallen off in terms of ride availability in the last few days. If I’m being frank, I don’t think I’ve ever known a park with such dire ride availability as some of the reports from Alton Towers over the last few days would suggest.

I went to the park on 23rd March for the second day of Alton After Dark and experienced quite weak ride availability that day (weak enough that the park gave us a free return ticket that I redeemed in July), but I felt that the weather was at least partially responsible for the availability issues that day and it was unfair to solely blame the park. To an extent, I stand by that.

With that being said, my experience in March seems to have been replicated on a number of days this year, and in many cases, including some over the last few days, there has been no similar weather related mitigating circumstance to blame. I also had my eyes opened somewhat by visiting PortAventura in September, which made me believe that the issues in March may not have been entirely weather-related. My last day at that park had some very windy weather, probably windier than at Alton Towers back in March, and other than Shambhala and Dragon Khan opening slightly late and running on reduced capacity due to the windy weather, most things still opened normally and there wasn’t tons of downtime (there was a bit, but not absolutely loads). I get that them being in a different country may mean that regulations on wind and such are different, but on the surface, it seemed like the park was coping a lot better with the windy weather than Alton Towers did.

Don’t get me wrong, I know bad days happen at parks, and I have some sympathy for them in that sense. Occasional bad days happen, and are not always the park’s fault. But these bad days are evidently happening far too often now at Alton Towers, and I think the last few days in particular show that things have reached a point where something has to change in terms of ride availability. This cannot go on.
 
Matt N said:
Don’t get me wrong, I know bad days happen at parks, and I have some sympathy for them in that sense. Occasional bad days happen, and are not always the park’s fault. But these bad days are evidently happening far too often now at Alton Towers, and I think the last few days in particular show that things have reached a point where something has to change in terms of ride availability. This cannot go on.
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Bad days happen, and people can accept this but really it's now in a trend of bad weeks . Shame the press aren't onto it as if there was an article in the Sun or Daily Mail with a couple of Compoface type stories it might light a firework under Merlin's backside.
 
I think the size of the resort really works against them and just helps to compound any potential staffing issues or shortages as TS spend more time getting to an attraction than they do fixing it sometimes.

To give an example, I visited a few months back on a 5pm close day, very front of the queue for Spinball at 4:20 and it went down. I got offered a choice to either leave the queue or wait, I decided to wait at least while they got hold of someone.

The response at least from the ride host was “just spoken to TS, they’re on Nemesis at the min, so by the time they’re done there and get back here they probably won’t have time”

Could have been a simple issue, quick reset and test, but the fact that the guys were the other side of the park meant that Spinball closed at 4:20 that day.
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
Wickerman has been shut more this season than any other I believe?
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If we include the period it was shut to repair the ride after the fire, yes. If we exclude it, then I think it may be fairly closely tied with Nemesis Reborn. Rita, with the most recent repairs, probably comes next. Spinball Whizzer is likely after, along with Octonauts, for the midseason work carried out on them too.

Outside of the coasters, Congo River Rapids has its fair share of being closed at the start of the season. Curse at Alton Manor has also had significant off days.
 
tech said:
I think the size of the resort really works against them and just helps to compound any potential staffing issues or shortages as TS spend more time getting to an attraction than they do fixing it sometimes.

To give an example, I visited a few months back on a 5pm close day, very front of the queue for Spinball at 4:20 and it went down. I got offered a choice to either leave the queue or wait, I decided to wait at least while they got hold of someone.

The response at least from the ride host was “just spoken to TS, they’re on Nemesis at the min, so by the time they’re done there and get back here they probably won’t have time”

Could have been a simple issue, quick reset and test, but the fact that the guys were the other side of the park meant that Spinball closed at 4:20 that day.
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Shame they couldn't just zip over on the skyride...
 
Mick said:
TPW’s video today from yesterday shows just how truly dire it was. The Dark Forest in particular had dozens of customers just sitting round looking miserable. There’ll be people who’ve attended in recent days who’ll have left and said they’ll never come back.
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They will be looking as miserable in there today...no rides open by lunch.
 
dave___ said:
Bad days happen, and people can accept this but really it's now in a trend of bad weeks . Shame the press aren't onto it as if there was an article in the Sun or Daily Mail with a couple of Compoface type stories it might light a firework under Merlin's backside.
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Was thinking the exact thing earlier, I'm surprised the press haven't got hold of this yet. They absolutely have to prioritise ride maintenance and availability next season. If that means scrapping some events or whatever then so be it. The park cannot continue to operate like this.

There's been too many dodgy decisions within the park over the last few years and it's catching up with them now.
 
RIPCorky said:
Was thinking the exact thing earlier, I'm surprised the press haven't got hold of this yet. They absolutely have to prioritise ride maintenance and availability next season. If that means scrapping some events or whatever then so be it. The park cannot continue to operate like this.

There's been too many dodgy decisions within the park over the last few years and it's catching up with them now.
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There’s no human element to it at the moment which is why they won’t have an interest. That or no one has bothered contacting them so they won’t necessarily know there’s a story to run as I doubt they have someone hanging around watching Theme Park Twitter like the soaps and celebrity ones.

Remember when Hyperia broke though, that made front page news on the BBC News website and was all over the press so they are more than happy to twist the knife when it’s a juicy story.
 
Matt N said:
To be fair, what do you expect her to say? A large part of her role is to be a PR hype woman for the park; she’s hardly going to say “it’s been dreadful” or even “it’s been a difficult season” or something along those lines.

Her role requires her to hype things up and put out a positive spin, which is also why I think people read too much into her describing this season as “the best ever” at the beginning of the season. She is always going to say good things, because her role is to encourage people to visit and put out a positive message. If she said “it’s been dreadful”, or “it’s going to be a mediocre year”, she wouldn’t be encouraging too many people to visit.
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Bad managers will pretend everything is rosy while their staff and customers are having or are about to have a terrible time.

Good managers will correctly set expectations, take mitigating actions and communicate what's going to change.

Ms. Sammut absolutely deserves flack for being invisible having set completely unrealistic expectations.
 
On an equal day of scarefest last season (half term Tuesday) the longest queue time per ride per day:

Thirteen 60 minutes is now 160
Wickerman 70 is now 120
Oblivion 50 is now 110
Smiler 90 was 110 before closing
Spinball 60 is now 120
Air 70 is now 95 or was when open
Nemesis closed is now 170!!!
RMT 55 is now 70
Sub Terra 50 to 90


This is beyond any comprehension and downright unfair on those who have paid to visit.
 
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Blackhole_Sun said:
On an equal day of scarefest last season (half term Tuesday) the longest queue time per ride per day:

Thirteen 60 minutes is now 160
Wickerman 70 is now 120
Oblivion 50 is now 110
Smiler 90 was 110 before closing
Spinball 60 is now 120
Air 70 is now 95 or was when open
Nemesis closed is now 170!!!

This is beyond any comprehension and downright unfair on those who have paid to visit.
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RMT 70 minutes.....
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
On an equal day of scarefest last season (half term Tuesday) the longest queue time per ride per day:

Thirteen 60 minutes is now 160
Wickerman 70 is now 120
Oblivion 50 is now 110
Smiler 90 was 110 before closing
Spinball 60 is now 120
Air 70 is now 95 or was when open
Nemesis closed is now 170!!!

This is beyond any comprehension and downright unfair on those who have paid to visit.
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It would be interesting to see how much the increase in RAP and FT contributes to the extended queue times. I was fortunate that I went on the first day of Scarefest on the 11th October. That seems such a distant memory when I see all the negativity on ride operations and queue times.
 
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