Ride Availability/Operations 2022-24

[Tom]

Think they picked the wrong Saturday to encourage people not to go.

 

[Bowser]

Easily the worst day we've ever had at AT.

Appreciate the weather is out of their hands and retrospectively i wish i'd followed my instinct when i saw the forecast at the start of the week but this was also our only chance to ride in the dark so decided to persevere. Sadly it was not achieved as my son was so distraught we had to leave the park early.

Regardless of force majeure, a day at a major theme park resulting in just 3 rides and a family leaving devastated is not a good impression and ultimately a failure from AT. Plenty of the operational issues were unrelated to the weather but lesson learned, they simply aren't ready to host customers expecting the majority of rides to be open until later in the year.

 

[DistortAMG]

Easily the worst day we've ever had at AT.

Appreciate the weather is out of their hands and retrospectively i wish i'd followed my instinct when i saw the forecast at the start of the week but this was also our only chance to ride in the dark so decided to persevere. Sadly it was not achieved as my son was so distraught we had to leave the park early.

Regardless of force majeure, a day at a major theme park resulting in just 3 rides and a family leaving devastated is not a good impression and ultimately a failure from AT. Plenty of the operational issues were unrelated to the weather but lesson learned, they simply aren't ready to host customers expecting the majority of rides to be open until later in the year.

Can I ask what the reasons were for your son being distraught?

 

[Bowser]

Can I ask what the reasons were for your son being distraught?

He's profoundly autistic so he didn't understand why he had to keep leaving the queues for the rides, why he couldn't go on the ones he wanted to and why we were waiting around for long periods doing nothing.

 

[Alastair]

Echoing some other thoughts in here. Got to the park around 12 and the moment I saw the biblical Guest Services queue I knew it was going to be grim.

Majority of rides closed all day up until 5pm (around) except for Nemesis, Spinball & Rita - each with ungodly queues for most of the day. Granted it's somewhat out of the park's control, but the severe lack of supporting rides shows in instances like this. X Sector was a ghost town for most of the day with just a few people hopefully hanging around in spite of the constant announcements to leave the area. The forlorn game stall still being manned next to The Smiler exit, in front of the barren fenced off empty area made me laugh.

Didn't really try to do rides as also went last weekend, but did achieve my objective to get on Nemesis in the dark eventually. Have to credit them there - operations were incredible and the entire area was beyond atmospheric. Advertised 90 minute queue took 50 mins and at a near-constant moving pace. The one saving grace of a very poor day!

 

[Quantum]

The lack of supporting rides is really hurting the park. If a ride goes down then a good flat ride can take some slack and keep people in the area

 

[RIPCorky]

The lack of supporting rides is really hurting the park. If a ride goes down then a good flat ride can take some slack and keep people in the area

Yep what makes matters worse is that in building these "world first" coasters they seem to have made overcomplicated unreliable ones too....

 

[Ben]

I’ve enjoyed the chaos from afar and seeing that two of the parks most maligned attractions were propping the entire place up: well done spinball and scattle galleons

 

[Ash]

Same experience, but there was literally nothing the park could have done differently today to prevent that. They cannot run rides in unsafe weather. They had rides running as soon as they were able to get them up again.

Your blue sky thinking is great, but realistically would take years to implement. With the lineup the park had today, and the weather the park had today, I'm struggling to see how it could have operated better.

I'm not angry with the park, I'm disappointed with the weather. I'm also appalled at how staff have been treated today, usually by people with lanyards around their necks.

If there's a blizzard and my plane can't take off, I'm angry with the weather, not with the airline; provided the airline did all they could to get me on the next available flight and apologised. Alton Towers have done exactly that today and have initiated VAFF.

Extend park hours? Add capacity to existing rides? Offer FCFWS access to dungeons?

If they had any flexibility in filler attractions or shows this wouldn’t be so bad, but it’s just awful as it stands.

God help them come the summer. I can honestly see project Ocean going in sooner rather than later

 

[StajBeetle]

It wasn't great today. Think in the end we managed Nemesis x3, Curse once and Wicker Man once. Even Curse had a long stretch with no effects and we stopped twice. Nemesis being reliable as ever and basically propping the park up despite opening back up a week ago is funny. I get that some of the rides had issues with the wind which is unfortunate, we managed to get on all the night rides we wanted and Nemesis is amazing, so if we get a lot done tomorrow I'll be more willing to forgive and forget. But yeah, not a sparkling day by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

Easily the worst day we've ever had at AT.

Appreciate the weather is out of their hands and retrospectively i wish i'd followed my instinct when i saw the forecast at the start of the week but this was also our only chance to ride in the dark so decided to persevere. Sadly it was not achieved as my son was so distraught we had to leave the park early.

Regardless of force majeure, a day at a major theme park resulting in just 3 rides and a family leaving devastated is not a good impression and ultimately a failure from AT. Plenty of the operational issues were unrelated to the weather but lesson learned, they simply aren't ready to host customers expecting the majority of rides to be open until later in the year.

Sorry to hear that @Bowser, sounds like a frustrating day. I'm a bit disappointed not to have managed a night ride on Nemesis last weekend either due to the queue evac fiasco.

Feels like it's been a shaky start to the new Alton After Dark event. It carried a lot of promise but seems to have been scuppered by reliability issues and basically the park not being properly ready for season start, horrendous weather (not unpredictable at this time of year!) as well as the RAP booking fiasco which has led them to U-turn on the capacity cap.

I don't think people would mind as much if night-riding wasn't such a rare opportunity at the park - anyone who misses out this month will realistically have to wait until October to do rides after dark.

I'm thinking the park needs to rethink their strategy for after dark events in general, and plan them later in the year for better weather, better ride-readiness and maybe run them more regularly than three one-off Saturdays.

 

[jmc]

Sorry to hear that @Bowser, sounds like a frustrating day. I'm a bit disappointed not to have managed a night ride on Nemesis last weekend either due to the queue evac fiasco.

Feels like it's been a shaky start to the new Alton After Dark event. It carried a lot of promise but seems to have been scuppered by reliability issues and basically the park not being properly ready for season start, horrendous weather (not unpredictable at this time of year!) as well as the RAP booking fiasco which has led them to U-turn on the capacity cap.

I don't think people would mind as much if night-riding wasn't such a rare opportunity at the park - anyone who misses out this month will realistically have to wait until October to do rides after dark.

I'm thinking the park needs to rethink their strategy for after dark events in general, and plan them later in the year for better weather, better ride-readiness and maybe run them more regularly than three one-off Saturdays.

The problem with your last point is, after next Saturday (when the clock change), there really would be no opportunity for them to have after dark events until around Scarefest time.


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[BarryZola]

The forlorn game stall still being manned next to The Smiler exit, in front of the barren fenced off empty area made me laugh.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

The problem with your last point is, after next Saturday (when the clock change), there really would be no opportunity for them to have after dark events until around Scarefest time.


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Really? The parks I visited in Madrid earlier this month are routinely open until midnight, or up to 9pm on off-peak days. There are plenty of dark hours the park could use, if they could shift their heads out of the "5pm and home for tea" model!

 

[Burks]

Friend says it’s windy but not excessive. They really gotta fix this

What do you suggest?, a dome like on the simpsons movie?

It might not be excessive at ground level, but top of oblivion is 60ft-ish off the ground. . And the wind will be stronger up there.

X-sectors topography seems to be by far the worst area affected by wind at towers.

 

[Ethan]

Really? The parks I visited in Madrid earlier this month are routinely open until midnight, or up to 9pm on off-peak days. There are plenty of dark hours the park could use, if they could shift their heads out of the "5pm and home for tea" model!

I’ve seen Cedar point do 6pm-midnight days before. Boy would I love something similar at Towers

 

[ThemeParkOwen]

Pretty windy again here this morning so it looks like it might be a repeat of yesterday.

The main thing that bugged me off yesterday was that understandablly they can't control the wind, but having a few shows to go watch, more indoor attractions and more staff out communicating what the downtime was about would of helped.

I didn't see one member of management walk that guest services queue. I'm assuming most members of the general public don't have the app and therefore didn't know about the return for free offer.

 

[Bowser]

I'm assuming most members of the general public don't have the app and therefore didn't know about the return for free offer.

There’s also no compensation for MAP visitors. It’s taken for granted we can visit anytime whereas for us it was probably our only visit for the year and we paid for accommodation.

 

[rob666]

Regardless of force majeure,

Nope, no hurricanes or tornadoes, just a windy, rainy day.
We have had a hundred such days in the last six months...after a dozen named storms, yesterday's weather didn't even get a storm name.
Towers need to get their park in order, with more non coaster attractions, and more use of the well unused indoor spaces that they already have!
Hex would have been handy today, as well as doom and sons and that unused water ride up there, hiding away as an underused, extra money attraction.
Even the dancing fountains of decades ago would have been packed.
If you open early and late in the season, make sure you have enough attractions to cope with the inclement weather.
Not bloody rocket science, just dodgy management overall.
Sorry to all the punters there yesterday, Towers could, and should do better.
But for most, they have already got your money haven't they...and another free day doesn't cost them anything really does it.
Just more fasttrack sales on the second visit.

 

[ThemeParkOwen]

There’s also no compensation for MAP visitors. It’s taken for granted we can visit anytime whereas for us it was probably our only visit for the year and we paid for accommodation.

I've been told to send an email when I return home - might get some magic money or something - doubt it though