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The Hotels: A Journey

I know off topic but as a comparison, Chessington make use of the confrence rooms for evening family activities, so we stayed last week and we had rangers club between 6-9pm.

From arts and craft, character meet and greets, mini discos etc.

The area also included a staffed bar/ snack option which seemed quite popular.. I'm sure the resort could use the conference facilities when not booked for similar and keep the bar area over 13’s or similar
 
I'd burn the Stargazing Pods and replace them with a proper eatery/play area. Make it big, make it a buffet, make it the cheapest option on Resort side. Inside and outside seating. Get a play area built in half of it on 2 levels and a outside part. Remove the childrens "ents" from the ship and make it a very adult atmosphere. Keep Flambos more relaxed but change it to a menu rather than buffet. Open the waterpark 13:00 - 21:00 rather than from 10:00 if they are desperate to keep it a 1 shift operation.
 
It is true to say that EVERY common area of the hotels is currently a kids club.

All the entertainment is pretty much directed at preteens.

There is nowhere, at all, to escape the noise/busy-ness unless you retire to your room (which we did in the end).
 
What is amazing when you look at Tripadvisor is that the sheds are actually getting better reviews than the hotels!!!!
 
What's the obsession all of sudden with Alton farming out their accommodation to a 3rd party?

Merlin is a company that has an obsession itself with offering poor standard products with very expensive accommodation (that makes the real money) attached. They practically give away passes and day entry to their parks on the back of chocolate bar wrappers in the hope that you will stay the night at extortionate prices. The fact that they've now become as crap at running hotels as they have at running theme parks should be of no surprise to anyone.

If Merlin contracted out every part of their business that they were crap at running, they'd no longer run anything. Perhaps that would be for the best if they were to be the overseers and not the operator's? Who knows. But where does the contracting out end?

They can't grill a few burgers and fry a few chips. Contract it out? They can't fluff a few pillows and serve a few pints. Contract it out?

All their parks are rotting. Their accommodation seems like it's now following suit. It's a natural progression.

The main problem isn't the fact they've not palmed enough responsibility on to expensive third parties. It's the fact that this business is simply not fit to run Theme Park Resorts.
 
Matt.GC said:
What's the obsession all of sudden with Alton farming out their accommodation to a 3rd party?

Merlin is a company that has an obsession itself with offering poor standard products with very expensive accommodation (that makes the real money) attached. They practically give away passes and day entry to their parks on the back of chocolate bar wrappers in the hope that you will stay the night at extortionate prices. The fact that they've now become as crap at running hotels as they have at running theme parks should be of no surprise to anyone.

If Merlin contracted out every part of their business that they were crap at running, they'd no longer run anything. Perhaps that would be for the best if they were to be the overseers and not the operator's? Who knows. But where does the contracting out end?

They can't grill a few burgers and fry a few chips. Contract it out? They can't fluff a few pillows and serve a few pints. Contract it out?

All their parks are rotting. Their accommodation seems like it's now following suit. It's a natural progression.

The main problem isn't the fact they've not palmed enough responsibility on to expensive third parties. It's the fact that this business is simply not fit to run Theme Park Resorts.
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To be fair there's only been a couple of people who have seriously suggested that Merlin contract the hotels out, I wouldn't say it's an obsession. There's been a lot of people comparing the services offered by some chains to be substantially better, and on the face of it for some aspects of the hotel that's true. It's a fair comparison to make that lower budget hotels offer better breakfasts for example, or it's fair to point out others have a better offering in terms of late check outs, or comfier beds despite being a quarter of the price. However, most of these chains do not do anything in terms of substantial entertainment or a proper themed experience. It's a standardised product, basic but done well. So it's a solution that would fix some aspects, but probably further damage others. After all, there's a reason IHG no longer run Chessington's hotels after initially opening under their management/franchise agreement.

But you are right, they can't deal with running the hotels correctly at present, and I think those suggesting alternative operators are mainly doing so out of sheer exasperation from this current situation - "It can't get any worse". Until they really start to put some investment into them, get a very experienced management team in to tackle the issues and properly carry out a full review of every aspect of them, they'll continue to decline.
 
"It can't get any worse"...It often does though!
Decline feeds off decline.
Senior management looks down..."Well they coped with all those punters with so few staff...nobody died...keep it up. The punters keep coming."
 
jon81uk said:
Also Extraordinary Golf really should be open late (last entry 9pm) on these longer summer days. That way people can go play golf after dinner.
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Just looking at the opening hours and Golf is due to be open 9am-9pm throughout the summer holidays which should certainly help spread the evening crowds around.

In previous years they have used the conference centre during the summer as a restaurant, but considering they can’t get enough staff to run the restaurants they already have, this might not be possible this year.

I think they have also used this space as a cinema style set up in previous times, perhaps that would be an easy win for the summer that will give people something else to do in the evening and wouldn’t cost much or require any/many extra staff.

To help with short term food capacity a couple of food vans like they have had for Mardi Gras set up at the Pods could well take some pressure off the restaurants of an evening during the summer.
 
AT86 said:
Just looking at the opening hours and Golf is due to be open 9am-9pm throughout the summer holidays which should certainly help spread the evening crowds around.
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I will admit I hadn't checked this years hours, just assumed it wasn't open long hours yet again. They need to communicate that with guests better too, as I'm sure there will be some people who would want to leave the park at 6ish, have dinner and then play mini golf at 8 or 9pm.

AT86 said:
To help with short term food capacity a couple of food vans like they have had for Mardi Gras set up at the Pods could well take some pressure off the restaurants of an evening during the summer.
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Thats a great idea and I think the vans on-park are contracted out so might be easier just to get that company to run something on the pod site for the summer holidays.
 
AT86 said:
I think they have also used this space as a cinema style set up in previous times, perhaps that would be an easy win for the summer that will give people something else to do in the evening and wouldn’t cost much or require any/many extra staff.
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You'd be surprised how much the licensing to show films is
 
AT86 said:
Indeed, but they have certainly done this before, it was a suggestion based on the assumption that they already have the licensing in place to show films anyway.57F0F58A-FBFE-4FB7-900F-BFB3E33B4C09.jpeg
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The licensing would be on a per-film basis with each studio. Also at Christmas the guests are there for a package including so the costs are built into the whole event.
 
I don't actually see much of an issue with the variety of entertainment that's there, the kids do seem to enjoy it and the vocalists aren't that bad either. As mentioned, the issue is that there's no separation between what's there for kids and what's there for everyone else.

You go from a song set which is fine (volume and speaker setup aside), then 10/15 minutes later you've got screaming kids from a magic show. With pretty much the same thing going on in both bars and no quieter space away, that's the issue rather than the entertainment itself.
 
Presumably the vocal sets are all by the same person(s) and they were too embarrassed to write it down?
 
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