• 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.

Why weren't UK parks ready for the 2022 season?

Thameslink Rail

Thameslink Rail

TS Member
Favourite Ride
The Smiler
Disclaimer: This thread is not intended as a moan or a rant, it is simply a why.

The first few weeks of the theme park season have certainly been interesting to follow and a bit frustrating at the parks. In the Alton Towers 2022 discussion as well as the Thorpe Park, Chessington and Blackpool Pleasure Beach threads there have been lists of what hasn't been ready on opening weekend, annual pass days and buy-out days. But why this season are there so many rides shut at multiple parks?
I went to Thorpe Park on Saturday: Detonator, Vortex, Storm Surge, King Pig's Dodgems and High Striker were closed all day. Some of these rides did have signs explaining why they were closed: King Pig's Dodgems lost its roof in Storm Eunice, High Striker was not yet ready. We'll see what rides are on offer at opening day tomorrow.
Luckily by the time I got to Alton Towers on Monday a lot of the rides that were closed on buyout days had reopened however there was still no Battle Galleons, Hex, Enterprise and Spinjam and of course Wicker Man was on one train.
So what is the reason for this - I am not going to pretend I know the full answer because I don't but here are my thoughts:
I think it is reasonable to describe this as the combination of multiple factors, firstly Storm Eunice did come at a bad time for the parks and presumably maintenance staff had to fix fences and remove fallen trees as well as maintain rides.
I was talking to @Poisson last night and he said a lot of the problem is a lack of maintenance staff who will accept the low wages parks offer, are the low wages because Merlin don't want to pay more or because they can't?
Another possible factor is the current supply problems which most of the world faces as the economy gets back on its feet, anyone who has ordered in products from abroad will know just how difficult and expensive this can be currently.
It is a difficult time for theme parks at the moment, after the hit of Covid they are now dealing with an energy crisis that is increasing their operating costs while making it harder for people to afford to visit theme parks.
I would like to know what people think about why theme parks have struggled to get ready for this season and what can be done by the parks to solve the problem or possibly what the Government can do to make operations easier for the parks (although to be fair to them they probably don't have much more to give at this stage).
 
I think it's probably a combination of the factors you've mentioned @Thameslink Rail , I think the biggest will probably be the supply chain problems which are now long running. Not only do they have to order parts from manufactures but they also have to get them through the Brexit red tape and to the park. The manufactures will also be experiencing supply chain problems themselves which means they may not even have the materials to make the part to ship.

Towers obviously had quite a substantial ride offering at Christmas which might have played a part for them as they had less time to do the required work on there rides. But that's not really an excuse for the other parks. Spinjam is probably not open yet because it simply hasn't been or park very long. It might have been unavailable to a certain date or perhaps Towers didn't want to pay the extra cost to have it earlier, I really don't know.

Thorpe seems like an interesting one, perhaps the lack of rides was more like individual problems caused by some factors that kept there rides closed. King Pigs dodgems having it's roof blown off in the storm is something that the park couldn't really help although I would've thought they'd have got it on as soon as possible. So hopefully that'll be open soon. As for high-striker, I'm not sure why that's not ready, it's not like it's a particularly big ride to move and surely it doesn't require that much maintenance, I do wonder if they are waiting for a part for it too.

To finish I'd say that there is a multitude of reasons with COVID still played such a major factor and probably will continue to do so throughout the season but this time in a different way, particularly in supply chain problems. Brexit has also liked played a huge part with the storm having some effects too.
 
Alton Towers had to complete unexpected work on the rapids, which distracted technical services and consumed manpower.

This delayed other rides. In actual fact, Alton did pretty well to get all coasters running; the same cannot be said for many other UK parks - even if Wicker Man was on an unsightly single train till the middle of the week.
 
I don't think that this year is much different to any other.
There are usually slow openings and ride closures at the start of every season.
Blackpool never has a full offering at the start of the season now that PPR has gone.
Shorter closed winter, covid, brexit, and more technical ride systems means a faltering start to the slow low season.
 
It's because the parks reap what they sow in terms of maintainance and staffing. Yes, an exceptional occurance might cause a setback to an attraction or even whole park, but for years now the start of the season shambles is just a given.

I went to Paultons yesterday, a park that invests I people and maintainance heavily. Everything advertised as being open was open. The log flume, water playgrounds and Edge were closed for planned maintainance as had been advertised at the time of booking tickets weeks ago. All had visible preparation activity during the day and have opened as planned and advertised today, all having been repainted. Yes, they've even repainted the entirety of that old log flume and it looks great. Well, as good as that thing could!

The only downtime I saw all day was the carousel which went down around lunchtime and was actively being worked on until it reopened about 20 minutes before closing.

This is no coincidence.
 
Last edited:
Paultons not having to suffer all the red tape and tick box exercises that many of the other UK park operators have to go through, certainly saves them a lot of time and allows them to concentrate on really delivering an exceptional product for their guests.
 
Exactly the above.

Large corporations and groups have far more red tape attached to every little thing. It isn't necessarily that the folk on the ground don't want to do things, they just struggle.

That said, I do think Alton Towers generally looks better this season than for some time.
 
Towers really does look good, I even had non-enthusiast friends turn around and say the same (X-Sector excluded, half of it looks awful)

WRT my comments in Discord as above, the park is a hard sell in terms of middle of nowhere for not the greatest wage in the outdoors. It suits a select group, but many would prefer indoor work in a city for the same cash and an easier life.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top