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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Weather not looking great for my only trip of the year on Friday.

The temperature is favourable, but that's pretty much it! Met Office forecasting rain throughout the day and gusts of 28-32 mph during park hours.
 
It did not stop raining for a solitary second during park hours today and I still got a heck of a lot done so kudos to the park for the operations.

Looking at the forecast on the way to the park (especially the wind gust forecast) I wasn't expecting The Smiler to open up before 3pm and they managed to get it open at 1:30pm and I think it was only then down for about an hour for the rest of the day. Oblivion was a bit more temperamental but I lucked out and got it not just open but on a 15 minute queue (which was 10 at a push) after getting a dusk ride on Smiler.

Queue times were pretty hefty in the period X-Sector was shut but I think everything was below 40 mins once it had opened up.

Wicker Man had an issue with one of the trains, with me literally the last person in the station pre-pen queue, which took it down for a couple of hours, But they had it open and getting the remaining two trains going for the final two and half hours of the day so I got my long anticipating night ride which very lived up to the hype.

TH13TEEN's issues with the rain are very much a thing of the past as it remained open throughout one of the wettest days it'll have ever operated in until 45 minutes or so from ride close, again with me just about getting onto the next train. Luckily I'd already done it in the morning and by that point Rita was on a five minute queue so I wasn't too disheartened.

Galactica was the only ride I missed out on entirely as we'd already done Sub-Terra by the time it eventually opened and were in X-Sector. Yes I probably could have walked across the park but sorry Galactica, I just don't like you that much!

Long story short, Alton Towers would have had a perfectly understandable reason for pretty shoddy operations today and all things considered (with a hell of a lot of those completely out of their control) I thought they instead knocked it out of the park.
 
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Just want to talk about the reliability of Galactica this past week. It seems that every time I've looked Galactica has been shut. The reliability of the ride has been absolutely dreadful this week. Its not lengthy downtime, its the up and down up and down like a yoyo. I've never seen it this bad
 
Oblivion hasn't opened at all today either. Seems to be a regular occurrence a ride not opening at all recently.
Digging on Twitter/X, appears it didn't open yesterday either.
 
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Oblivion was running Wednesday , yet not yesterday or today. Galatica was very hit and miss last 3 days.

Today at one point a huge que.

Pic pass holders Facebook group.
 

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So apparently according to a member of staff they’ve really been having issues with Oblivion this week- couple of issues started when they were shutting it down on Wednesday night and they haven’t managed to sort it. Staff keep being told to tell guests to keep an eye on the app and it could open at 7pm - which as I said is a pretty mad time to aim for a ride opening!
Ride availability already looking poor this morning - Galactica, Wickerman,Smiler and Oblivion not open at 10.
Got to put it down to staff- arrived at wickerman queue at 9:10 and they said that it was unlikely it would be open for 10- fair play for the pre warning!
Can definitely tell it’s near the end to the season!
 
Not usual for one of the B&Ms to give up at the end of the season, but really not ideal having Oblivion down whilst Nemesis and Hex are also closed.

Something has to be done about ride availability for 2024, as it has been a farce at times this year. Meanwhile when at Europa-Park and Phantasialand last week, not once did we walk up to a ride and have to go elsewhere because it was closed (River Quest (as isssss clearly buggered) and WuzeBall (when is it ever open these days) excluded).
 
Rob said:
Not usual for one of the B&Ms to give up at the end of the season, but really not ideal having Oblivion down whilst Nemesis and Hex are also closed.

Something has to be done about ride availability for 2024, as it has been a farce at times this year. Meanwhile when at Europa-Park and Phantasialand last week, not once did we walk up to a ride and have to go elsewhere because it was closed (River Quest (as isssss clearly buggered) and WuzeBall (when is it ever open these days) excluded).
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It’s pretty mad this morning- at 10:20 Th13teen was on 90 mins because it was one of the only rides open!
As many others have said Nemmy being shut has really hit ride availability! And it seems like most people’s response to long queues and broken rides is to buy fastrack :banghead:
 
I wouldn’t say it’s due to being end of season, all year and to be fair, a lot of last year the rides were not opening at 10am. I can only assume it’s a shortage of engineers to sign the rides off on time.
 
GaryH said:
I wouldn’t say it’s due to being end of season, all year and to be fair, a lot of last year the rides were not opening at 10am. I can only assume it’s a shortage of engineers to sign the rides off on time.
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I can imagine the cold, wet, being run at full capacity for longer and some probably due some winter loving care doesn’t help!
Yeah definitely think there’s a shortage of tech services !
 
Im here today, smiler and oblivion are all that is left to open. Everything else has terrible queues, luckily I’m here with the kids so other than runaway mine train nothing has a big queue for us…

Lots of angry faces walking around though
 
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