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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

Any updates on Enterprise? It looked exactly the same last week as it did in April, but does anyone know if it's planned to go permanently, or if it's also waiting on parts or something.
 
Skyscraper said:
Ahem, within the first hour of Smiler opening on it's first day, the queue was over 3 hours long! 😉
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rob666 said:
Both did, early on, scarefest, and lots of peak days.
Fasttrack, RAP abuse, and failure to follow the rap policy on timings, has a lot to answer for.
The trick with big new rides is to enjoy all the other ride walk on's first.
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D4n said:
I queued 3 hours for Smiler a few times in its opening year, including twice on opening day.

The throughput on that thing has never been great though.
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rob666 said:
Haha, just been going through the old Wickerman topics...
Three hours common first weekend, after snowy weekday soft opening walk ons.
With breakdowns, some were in the queue for five whole hours for those precious early day rides.
And as with pretty much all new rides, constant breakdowns and queue clearances for those who had waited for two or three hours as well.
I remember air being very bad.
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Stevie said:
Yeah, was about to say I distinctly remember entering the queue just after five on opening day, and not coming off well after eight. So I've definitely queued more than three hours for The Smiler. Never done since mind.
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Danscott22 said:
The Smiler 100% did in 2013 - frequently between 150-180 minutes iirc. Wicker Man also hit 3 hours a fair amount in 2018.
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I stand corrected!

I guess it might help that I never went to Smiler during its initial months, so don’t remember its opening day and such. And even though I myself admittedly waited 3 hours for Wicker Man on the opening weekend (which I had conveniently forgotten yesterday…), 2 hours of that was waiting for the ride to open; the actual time spent in the open queue was only about an hour.
 
You also have to take into account that Oblivion and Air* were both true world's first coasters - they both were doing something genuinely unique, which was also something that could generate real interest from the wider public.

It is easy to get lost in the word soup that is Merlin's gimmicky version of 'world firsts', but in 1998 there was literally nowhere else in the world where you could experience a vertical drop rollercoaster*, and the world knew that. To this day, there is a solid wedge of the population who discuss Oblivion in terms of what it does, rather than what it is called (the "do they still have that rollercoaster that drops you straight at the ground?" crowd) - that is a token of the impact the ride's launch had on the general public. And in turn why it could generate the queues it did.

Oblivion was also part of a much smaller market of modern thrill coasters, both at Alton Towers and across the rest of the UK - Thorpe Park didn't exist in its current form yet and across the rest of the country there were only a handful of new headlining coasters (the main competition at the time was limited to PMBO, Shockwave, Megafobia and Vampire). All the other coasters being installed during the 90s were of more traditional designs, so weren't changing the industry in the way that a ride like Oblivion was.

Even within Alton Towers, this was still very much the age of the Schwarzkopf/Vekoma - where, other than Nemesis, the park's other main coasters were from the 1980s, and they were certainly a lot of fun but maybe not the draw they once were. So you could easily see how the park's big new ride could generate extremely long queues. Even more so than today, where a new coaster is being inserted into a line-up where it is competing with four or five other coasters that can effectively absorb the crowds and pull guests away from the big new ride.

*I'm aware that Air wasn't actually the first flying coaster and Oblivion wasn't technically vertical, but they were both close enough to the claim that this is how the public saw them.
 
And what Squiggs says is still apparent today in terms of crowd absorption and queue length. When Nemesis closes for its retrack, watch how more of the park suffers, or as mentioned see how the Retrosquad, despite being a bit rubbish in places, help reduce queues. Hex is missed in this regard as that has capacity as well.
 
Matt N said:
I stand corrected!

I guess it might help that I never went to Smiler during its initial months, so don’t remember its opening day and such. And even though I myself admittedly waited 3 hours for Wicker Man on the opening weekend (which I had conveniently forgotten yesterday…), 2 hours of that was waiting for the ride to open; the actual time spent in the open queue was only about an hour.
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In the summer of 2013 The Smiler frequently had a queue which crossed the X Sector entrance path and switched back up towards the Towers (where the Altonville Mine Tours queue has been most recently). Definitely waited 3 hours at least a few times - never again, on anything I hope!
 
Alastair said:
In the summer of 2013 The Smiler frequently had a queue which crossed the X Sector entrance path and switched back up towards the Towers (where the Altonville Mine Tours queue has been most recently). Definitely waited 3 hours at least a few times - never again, on anything I hope!
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I remember it going in front of the Towers as well! They'd have a member of staff at the entrance to X Sector controlling the queue letting people who were waiting at AMT/in front of the towers into it once it had cleared enough. We also have to remember the queueline outside the entrance did not exist in 2013 as well.
 
I remember the first time I went to Alton towers was in July 2013, I was 13 years old and I went straight to smiler which had a 3 hour queue and was queueing all the way up past the x sector entrance sign.

I only go on off peak these days but still queue up to an hour time to time.
 
Danscott22 said:
Any updates on Enterprise? It looked exactly the same last week as it did in April, but does anyone know if it's planned to go permanently, or if it's also waiting on parts or something.
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Still not on the app, so I don't think it's coming back any time soon.
 
Alrightyyy. Spent most my time between rides monitoring the operations of the coasters today. So I'll go through operations and the amount of dispatches per hour based on multiple readings and an average of those to determine a typical dispatch time.
Smiler- 3 trains (48 per hour, 768pph)
Oblivion- 5 shuttles (60 ph, 960pph)
Rita- 2 trains (36 ph, 720pph)
Th13teen- 3 trains (53 ph, 1060pph)
Galactica- 3 craft (40 ph, 1120pph)
Nemesis- 2 trains (38ph, 1216pph)
Wicker man- 3 trains (42 ph, 1008pph)
 
Does any know if Hex is open?
I'm heading to Alton tomorrow, and even though I've been several times in my life. The sodding thing has never been open. I really want to go on it!

If it's not open, does anyone know why?
 
Have we actually heard any reports that it is a major issue?

I was under the impression it was just a missing part, which is being held up by the current economic situation.
 
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