• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

The Alton Towers Dungeon

I think Towers have calculated that many people with Merlin passes will still pay for it at the start of the season anyway instead of refusing to pay, as it's more important to them to tell their social media friends that they've been on it and it was 'Ace', rather than having some principles about them.

Is this the first official Merlin "What crap can we get away with before a potential U-turn" of the season, or have I missed one already?
 
yoursilentface said:
I renewed our map's on Sunday at a price of £556 for 2 adults and 2 children

I was in 2 minds as to carry on with premium or downgrade to standard as we don't live in london and we don't really use theme parks during August due to the queues

I assumed the dungeons would be included in the premium as it was included with the Alton towers premium so that swung me to keeping them.... mainly because my kids love the dungeons

Not happy at the monent I could have saved myself £160
Click to expand...

You could have saved yourself £556 :p
 
On Twitter MAP have posted 29 mins ago that nothing is confirmed regarding premium pass access to this, typical merlin communication.
 
Croftybaby said:
You could have saved yourself £556 :p
Click to expand...

Boom boom:D

In fairness we get good use out of them..2 or 3 visits to Blackpool a year....a London weekend for the theme parks and midways

A visit to Warwick castle and numerous vusits to Alton towers and York dungeons

But all of the above would've been fine with the standard pass....just parking to pay really

You live and learn... although I don't seem to:D
 
It's a bit poor that they took away a family boat ride (forgetting whether the CATCF theme was the best fit, as it could have been rethemed) under the TLC smokescreen, and then are now using this to run an up-charge attraction.

Terrible move to make after the success of Wicker Man, they're literally pushing the park backwards again after its recent found success.

Merlin aren't fit to run Alton Towers, nor do they deserve a park with so much potential.
 
Using Twitter to find out about operations and pricing is about as reliable as a blunt pencil. Merlins official Twitter pages are at best confusing and contradicting one another.
 
Although I don't want to pay, the capacity of a Dungeon is quite low. Given Alton Towers is one of the largest theme parks Merlin operate, there could easily be several thousand MAP holders on park at any one time.

If they all had free Dungeon access, it would cripple non passholders being able to get in at all.
 
AstroDan said:
Although I don't want to pay, the capacity of a Dungeon is quite low. Given Alton Towers is one of the largest theme parks Merlin operate, there could easily be several thousand MAP holders on park at any one time.

If they all had free Dungeon access, it would cripple non passholders being able to get in at all.
Click to expand...
That's a fair point, but it's a shame it's even come to this. Any other big European park would have creatively rethemed Charlie as soon as the contract ended. Then we would have a high capacity family boat ride to add value to the overall guest experience.
 
AstroDan said:
Although I don't want to pay, the capacity of a Dungeon is quite low. Given Alton Towers is one of the largest theme parks Merlin operate, there could easily be several thousand MAP holders on park at any one time.

If they all had free Dungeon access, it would cripple non passholders being able to get in at all.
Click to expand...

This is why Alton Dungeons was a bad idea from the start. The only way around this is to allocate 50% of the tickets to pass holders and 50% to paying guest with pre-booking highly recommended. There is nothing stopping all the MAP holders in addition to their MAP purchasing a premium season pass tomorrow tipping the balance the other way.

I personally wouldn't be interested in doing the Dungeons on a normal visit to the themepark as I won't want to be using up my precious ride time. For me, it's more of principle that they have shafted the LOYAL MAP holders in favour of the new premium Season pass holders.
 
RoyJess said:
This is why Alton Dungeons was a bad idea from the start. The only way around this is to allocate 50% of the tickets to pass holders and 50% to paying guest with pre-booking highly recommended. There is nothing stopping all the MAP holders in addition to their MAP purchasing a premium season pass tomorrow tipping the balance the other way.

I personally wouldn't be interested in doing the Dungeons on a normal visit to the themepark as I won't want to be using up my precious ride time. For me, it's more of principle that they have shafted the LOYAL MAP holders in favour of the new premium Season pass holders.
Click to expand...
Exactly! The fact that Dungeons is inside the park doesn't make sense to me either. In my head the Dungeons should be outside the park, open in the evening to add some much needed entertainment to turn Towers into a multi-day destination.

Once I'm in the park I don't plan to spend any more money... I actually spent nothing on my last visit. Hopefully most people aren't like me otherwise this Dungeon is going to fail.
 
Logistics on the boat element aside, I find it staggering the Dungeons are to be so far into the park. Would have made much more sense either where Sub-Terra was or in the vicinity, and then it could have at least opened to hotel guests in the evenings/out of hours

I realise that'd be a bit awkward with the amount of path space it opens up though, and places to wander
 
b2311e said:
Logistics on the boat element aside, I find it staggering the Dungeons are to be so far into the park. Would have made much more sense either where Sub-Terra was or in the vicinity, and then it could have at least opened to hotel guests in the evenings/out of hours

I realise that'd be a bit awkward with the amount of path space it opens up though, and places to wander
Click to expand...

Someone did suggest earlier in this discussion that if the Dungeon is popular they might built a purpose built building for it on the coach park or similar (so next to SeaLife maybe).

But for the short-term, reusing an existing building and ride system is far cheaper.

Also opening longer hours gets very expensive as would need a lot more staff. Current hours are covered with one or two shifts for the staff, plus some extras for break cover. Open into the evening and you would need 2-3 people playing each role in the Dungeon and this would significantly increase the cost. They probably won't get enough visitors in the evening to cover the cost of the actors & staff.
Better off focusing on decent waterpark hours for hotel guests. Or even just keeping the golf open to 9 or 10pm each day, that only needs 1-2 staff!
 
RoyJess said:
This is why Alton Dungeons was a bad idea from the start. The only way around this is to allocate 50% of the tickets to pass holders and 50% to paying guest with pre-booking highly recommended. There is nothing stopping all the MAP holders in addition to their MAP purchasing a premium season pass tomorrow tipping the balance the other way.

I personally wouldn't be interested in doing the Dungeons on a normal visit to the themepark as I won't want to be using up my precious ride time. For me, it's more of principle that they have shafted the LOYAL MAP holders in favour of the new premium Season pass holders.
Click to expand...
There very much is, it's all one system so RBO wouldn't issue them.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
MakoMania said:
If they were worried about MAP holders clogging the Dungeons up every day, they could've just given them one free go per season rather than one free go per day. Seems like a more reasonable compromise.
Click to expand...
Then they'd have even less footfall. ;):p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top