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Marc

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Posts posted by Marc

  1. Stealth was down all of the day, technical problems, just because it don’t look like a ride is being worked on it don’t mean it isn’t, especially when you consider the vast majority of stealths workings are hidden away in a bunker....

     

    Not sure on Ghost Train, last week it was advertised as closing at 8 I think but tonight it said 10 on the board, possibly a technical issue too?

     

    Zombie hunt and Living Nightmare close at 6, think I’m a celeb does too. 

  2. I can see both sides too it really, certainly as a guest to close the entire park 2 hours earlier than advertised is quite poor, but at the same time for a park which in recent times has struggled to turn a profit staying open running at a loss probably isn’t the best thing for them to do.

     

    I think the biggest problem is the wording on their site, you shouldn’t advertise a “minimum ride close” and close earlier than that, especially 2 hours, which lets face it is a fairly significant amount of time.

  3. For me the issues with Ghost Train are not so much it’s theme / Story but it’s the reliability of the entire experience. That said i get what you mean with the Victorian to Modern tube train mix.

     

    When you go through and get everything working as it should, IMO it’s an impressive ride, you only need to have one ear poking out of your headset to hear the reaction of people around you, when it works properly the VR can totally immerse you into the experience.

     

    Im not a huge fan of the new middle section, when the train effect worked as it should it was good, and more often than not it would catch people off guard and you’d see people trying to get out of the way, the addition of an actor behind also worked well. The new middle section feels

    abit pointless now, I’d love to see them try do something more with this keeping it more consistent.

     

    The shop is still great, especially now the floor is working as it should!

  4. 99% of leisure attractions charge for car parking, if you think £10 is a lot try some of the American theme parks!

     

    I like the idea of charging more at the barrier, people paying at the barriers slow things down massively anything to try deter people from doing this is good. 

     

    Its sill £7 online too, wonder if it’s just not updated yet or they want people to buy online.

  5. Really enjoyed Blackpool, Icon was alot better than I was expecting after the many mixed reviews I had read, really quite enjoyed it, thought it rode best at the back personally.

     

    Rest of the park was looking good and running well, do miss Wild Mouse though!

  6. 39 minutes ago, Coaster said:

    Maybe the rides department don't consciously run them slower (though in that case, why are they being run slower than a snail's pace?) but I can imagine a conversation in the marketing department going something along the lines of;

     

    "We're getting a lot of complaints about queue times"

     

    "Oh excellent, let's launch a £400 fastrack pass and make money out of the situation"

    I’m not sure it’s quite like you make out - you complain about queue times and I get the impression your not going to be going to buy a Fastrack Pass!

     

     

  7. 1 minute ago, Coaster said:

    They're using their terrible operations to upsell terrible products like this, if Thorpe's operations where anywhere near where they should be then there would be no need for it, just one fast moving queue.  If you don't visit very often you won't get value for money, and if you do visit often, why do you need fast pass for rides you will have already ridden numerous times?

     

    I have never seen ride staff look so disinterested, slow and generally careless at Thorpe than on my most recent visit; I don't think there was one instance where a train was dispatched before the other one was back, parked and waiting for at least a minute.  Colossus's operations were outrageously bad, with dispatches taking around 7 minutes every single time... how can they have been allowed to slack that much?!  They are neglecting their ride lineup, operations, park appearance; all in favour of IP's and quick cash-grabs such as the above.

     

     

    I get your point re if you visit frequently then why do you need fastrack but I guess it depends on what kind of visit you look for, personally I visit often and I’m fairly laid back, if I don’t get on something because the queues too long then I’ll just do it next time, but I can totally see others who are keen on doing as many rides as possible each visit.

     

    Operations and fastrack are 2 totally different things, they are not using poor ops to sell fastrack, again the IP’s are totally separate, the money for new things will be a complete differnt pot to the Money for staffing levels on rides.

  8. If you visit twice a year then of course it’s a bad deal -if your somone who visits 15/20 + a season it’s good value. Even if you visit often you still might not like queuing.

     

    I agree it’s hard for fastrack to offer consistent value, they have introduced off peak / peak prices what will obviously help with that, but that’s a problem any park who sells fastrack have.

  9. 15 minutes ago, cmangi said:

    So this happened on 10/07/2018. A stoppage at the top of Tidal Wave. Had my camera with me and got a photo. Was quite surprised that it doesnt look like the staff member had any type of harness on, happy to be proven wrong tho!

    TP-23.jpg

    Not all the rides require a harness to walk up the lift hills / or at  least some way up them.

  10. 43 minutes ago, Project LC said:

    Please don't give them ideas. There will be 2 tiers of fastrack before you know it. Fastrack and fastrack: the fast and the furious 8 or FTFTF8 as it will be called by the forum. Instant access to any ride all day for £1000. 

    Oops now I've given them details for the idea...

    Haha don't worry, I think we are safe from that ?

     

    Don't get me wrong, i get why people dislike fastrack, but i dont think its as bad at the Merlin parks as made out, this new £400 fatrack pass, sure sounds alot of money on the face of it, but the equivalent on the day price is £50 or £90 depending when you visit, it wouldn't take many trips as an Annual Pass holder to start becoming worth it. 

  11. It’s not a rip off if people are happy to pay it, which they clearly are. What you class as a rip off for fastrack as a frequent visitor is totally different to what somone visiting once a year or less would.

     

    It’s pretty easy as a consumer to say something should be cheaper than it is! 

     

    Thorpes fastrack pricing is probably at the levels it should be, it’s a premium product and should be priced as such. As for the platform 15 fastrack queue, was it long? yes was it significantly shorter than the main queue? Yes, Thorpe never promise instant access with fastrack, quite rightly too!

  12. Much like the VIP annual pass, the numbers of these which are sold will make virtually no difference to how long fastrack queues are, the price is nice and high which will make sure of this. Infact I’ve noticed fastrack is a lot better this year with the new higher pricing which hasn’t been introduced across all the packages.

  13. 59 minutes ago, Benin said:

    Least they didn't do a Gardaland and have it actually affordable for everyone, just the idiots with more money than sense...

     

    When did MAP holders stop realising that missing out on a ride isn't the end because you can revisit?

    How much was Gardaland's out of interest?

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