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Ride Availability/Operations 2022-25

Blackrock said:
Random question but I haven’t worked there for years and/or been in a situation where a ride has broken down with me queuing for years. Do they not give out the little cards which allow you to go down the fastrack queue for an equivalent ride anymore if the ride breakdown?
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These got removed a few years back.

You get nothing now if you get kicked out of a queue at Towers, wherever you been queueing 5 minutes or 5 hours. Which I do think really does annoy a lot of guests.

I think the issue they had was the cards you got would be abused, I mean I have a massive stack in my room from times when staff didn’t take them off you, or you just collected more and never used them, they were also undated so many people saved them for busier days like fireworks etc.

You then have the issue that if you clear a 90 min queue from galactica and give everyone a card, 99% of people then just go to nemesis to use it, meaning the fastrack queue for they becomes massive.

I personally do think you should get something when cleared out of a queue especially if it’s been a long queue. But it should be better controller and possibly dated for that day only.
 
At thorpe they are (or were) doing this, last year we got evades out of the queue for stealth, (I was in the station at the time, disappointed my frend didn't get to experience it, as it went down the whole day) but they got out this bag filled with the fast pass tickets and started handing them out, as people left through the gate between onload and offload.

Still got the tickets as we didn't use them the rest of the day
 
djtruefitt said:
These got removed a few years back.

You get nothing now if you get kicked out of a queue at Towers, wherever you been queueing 5 minutes or 5 hours. Which I do think really does annoy a lot of guests.

I think the issue they had was the cards you got would be abused, I mean I have a massive stack in my room from times when staff didn’t take them off you, or you just collected more and never used them, they were also undated so many people saved them for busier days like fireworks etc.

You then have the issue that if you clear a 90 min queue from galactica and give everyone a card, 99% of people then just go to nemesis to use it, meaning the fastrack queue for they becomes massive.

I personally do think you should get something when cleared out of a queue especially if it’s been a long queue. But it should be better controller and possibly dated for that day only.
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Ahh never knew! Yeah something should be provided, surely it saves guest services a potential job in the long run.
 
Secret Weapon said:
This was my main thought; they probably don't want to set a precedent for compensating people with free Fastrack passes whenever a ride breaks down, given how often it seems to happen - plus the added headache of deciding how long you need to have been in a queue before qualifying for said pass.
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It's all about guest experinece really isn't it.

I was in the Hagrids queue at Universal when it broke down, we left rather than were evacuated and I went to guest services to ask for a fasttrack. They said fasttracks are only offered when there's an evacuation, not when you voluntarily leave however on this specific occasion they would give us a fasttrack - you then leave that encounter feeling grateful and less focussed on the frustration of missing the ride (which did later evacuate anyway).

If I'd queued an hour for Nemesis and then didn't get to ride I'm not sure the (technically true) line of 'you're not guaranteed a ride' would really wash, in fact I know it wouldn't as holding customers to strict Ts and Cs is a fairly easy way to cause ill feeling.

As for the point that it isn't possible to guarantee that you were even queuing for the ride, there's a simple solution to that, just tell people in advance to take a photo of the interior of the queueline with their phone which will be date and time stamped, they then show that photo to GS and there's your evidence. Yes I realise it isn't infallible and that some people don't have smart phones but it will at least deal with the bulk of it.
 
If they were to bring back fastracks for evac situations then they need to be only valid for the ride being evacuated and valid for 12 months. That way they are mitigating flooding fastrack queues by restricting it to only the ride in question and allowing guests the time to use it.
 
As I've said before, even vouchers would be fine as compensation. This also benefits Towers. Guests are appeased with a voucher giving them money off food/drink/merch, Alton Towers gets extra money from these guests' extra spending.
 
The problem is, how do you determine who gets a fast track ticket. Should someone who waited 5 minutes get one or should there be a point in the queue where they do, of course this would cause frustrations to the ones closest to this point who miss out.

Obviously it's incredible frustrating when you are pretty much in the ride station and a ride closes after waiting a long amount of time. Maybe if the queues where better controlled such as closing queue lines when they get beyond 45 minutes to limit the amount of people in a queue limiting the amount of fast tracks needed to be given could be an option. Towers biggest problem again is that every ride has these sort of queues throughout any weekend or school holiday so there is not a lot of alternative.

I think if you were able to walk onto another ride after a queue evacuation you wouldn't really be too fussed about it. It's the sheer length of the queues that causes guest frustration knowing you are now about to join another 1hour+ queue after being removed from one a similar length.
 
MrTowers said:
The problem is, how do you determine who gets a fast track ticket. Should someone who waited 5 minutes get one or should there be a point in the queue where they do, of course this would cause frustrations to the ones closest to this point who miss out.
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I would probably make it so if the ride has been down for x mins, then start giving them out.

I think vouchers are a good idea, but I would want it to be free X as if it is £10 off a chicken meal people will just see that as an attempt to get money. But free chicken strips from just chicken or so.ething is much better. It would also prevent the issue of over crowding the fast track, when disney was free fast pass if a ride went down you would have an enormous queue for fast track when it re opened as all of the people who were booked for that time had to wait.
 
James said:
As I've said before, even vouchers would be fine as compensation. This also benefits Towers. Guests are appeased with a voucher giving them money off food/drink/merch, Alton Towers gets extra money from these guests' extra spending.
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The solution needs to tackle the problem, if I’d been waiting an hour to ride Toxicator and didn’t get on the problem is frustration at having not ridden the ride and lost time in the park, free food helps with neither especially if it happens after I’ve already eaten.

The answer is simple, if you’ve been in the queue a certain amount of time you get a fast track for an attraction, that’s what Disney/ Universal do. Merlin won’t because the fast track is already over subscribed which is the issue.
 
Josh555 said:
The solution needs to tackle the problem, if I’d been waiting an hour to ride Toxicator and didn’t get on the problem is frustration at having not ridden the ride and lost time in the park, free food helps with neither especially if it happens after I’ve already eaten.

The answer is simple, if you’ve been in the queue a certain amount of time you get a fast track for an attraction, that’s what Disney/ Universal do. Merlin won’t because the fast track is already over subscribed which is the issue.
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So they should do what I suggested a few posts back...the fastrack would be only for ride in question and is valid from the date of "issue". No point making it just for the same day because what if the ride went down 5 mins to closing time? And should be 12 months, not just for the current season, because again, what if the ride goes down on the last day of the season? Wouldn't cost Towers anything either really, other than printing costs. Of course this is assuming the ride going down is rare rather than the norm!
 
The main issue is the park don't seem to have enough tech services/they can't get round quick enough. That's why they have the pile up effect of rides closing.
 
Josh555 said:
that’s what Disney/ Universal do. Merlin won’t because the fast track is already over subscribed which is the issue.
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trust me, in comparison to Disney merlin fast track is far under subscribed, at Disney the fast track is literally the normal queue, the crew are told to send between like 10-100 people of fast track per person sent from the normal queue, you would know if merlin were operating like this (at its best (the 1:10 ratio) it makes big thunder mountain (about 3000pph) have about half the capacity of mamba strike!)

edit: this is a good part to merlin, I much prefer for this level (if not less) of fast track
 
TBH ride avalibility look pretty good today, looking online the only rides with more than an hour of down time was TCAAM, Neme and gal.

which for an 10 hour day isn't too bad (although TCAAM was down for about half the day)
 
There is no y in Alton, no s in Manor, so your abbreviation is far from correct.
You don't shorten by adding letters.

Alma would be a far better contraction, and a real name to boot..."feeds the soul" or "lifts the spirits".
 
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I’ve not posted on here in a VERY long time, but now seems as good a time as ever.

Does anybody know if Rita has returned to two trains yet?

I’ll be visiting tomorrow and trying to work out if it’s worth heading there first to get it ticked off before it gets crazy.

Naturally my heart wants first ride of the season to be Nemmy!
 
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