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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Operations were excellent yesterday except on Spinball. Can’t understand when they can operate with 3 in a car they don’t offer it to all guests in the queue who are willing to be split up. The bloke at the front of the station said he was sorry about the long wait and I told him about the single rider queue it use to operate and he also thought it was an excellent idea.
Think also with the cost of living I didn’t see many guests using the fast track line. Which meant the main queue moved so quickly.
 
Also found operations great today. Wickerman and Thirteen in particular were on top form.

Availability was hit and miss however. With Galactica, Rita, The Smiler and Thirteen all having significant chunks of downtime throughout the day. CRR seemed to be having issues but did open at around 11:30/45ish and seemed fine after that.

At one point Rita and Thirteen were both closed which isn’t great for that end of the park. Thirteen broke down whilst we were near the front of the queue so we decided to wait and it did reopen after around 25mins. I’m pretty sure they had to remove a train but can’t be 100%, it then broke down again shortly after our ride so was glad to have got on it when we did. Galactica and Smiler both seemed to be the biggest offenders for downtime today.
 
Kraken27 said:
Have read Bianca's update - she - or whoever wrote it for her certainly like exclamation marks!
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I'm glad they're finally adding availability onto their website. Bianca looks like she's done her research on what people want towers to work on. Having a ride availability page is a positive step so hopefully this is the start of towers being more open with their communication.
 
Morgan Price said:
It’s a shame but hopefully this means Hex can be properly sorted, rather than a bodge job that leaves it inevitably closing again for most of next season.
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I really hope so, I can't see them getting rid of hex it's an incredible attraction and could they even use that space for another ride? But I think it's needing a big money injection which Merlin have likely been trying to keep it going on as little as possible, let's hope Hex's future is looking up.
 
George W said:
I really hope so, I can't see them getting rid of hex it's an incredible attraction and could they even use that space for another ride? But I think it's needing a big money injection which Merlin have likely been trying to keep it going on as little as possible, let's hope Hex's future is looking up.
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Exactly, and I’m not sure how much was spent on it when it was closed for Towers Loving Care, but a lot of work was put into it then to bring it up to scratch. Surely they’re not going to close it after putting that effort in.
 
It’s pretty inexcusable that Hex has been closed for so long already without a “proper” refurbishment happening. I’m pretty sure it’s now been closed more often that it’s been open since the infamous TLC closure that did nothing to improve the experience (or seemingly the ride’s reliability).

There are clearly some systemic failures of the resort’s management for these attractions to be left in their current state. An appalling reflection on Merlin’s management.
 
I totally agree that it is good to see Bianca & Towers being up-front with guests about the closures.

That said, the loss of Skyride for the remainder of the season will be bad news for any guests in wheelchairs. Whilst much of the Towers resort is relatively flat, the hill up from the bottom of X-Sector by the Smiler exit to the top by the Guest Services Hub / Toilets is long and steep. The path between Katanga Canyon & Alton Manner has some gradients on. Then Forbidden Valley is a long, albeit gradual downward slope towards the Hotel Guest Entrance.

Can only guess this will lead to more non-ambulant guests who have mobility scooters bringing them along. Just hope it does not get to be like the parks in Orlando where you are over-run with guests in mobility scooters - and the Orlando parks are all basically as flat as a pancake.
 
I think it might be worth asking D&G buses (the employee bus operators) if they could run some shuttle services between Towers Street (preferably through a building into an employee car park to avoid the turnstiles), Forbidden Valley and David Walliams using the exterior roads as a stop-gap.
I know it's a terrible solution but it's better than nothing.
 
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