AstroDan

The two in G-Force's queue at DMP have not worked in several years now.

Alton hit over 25,000 on Friday, 28,000 on Saturday and 23,000 on Sunday I believe.The parks capacity is around 33-35,000 if I am not mistaken.The weekend was absolutely HEAVING it has to be said.

Boiler House is getting mixed reviews. Personally for me - it's the best maze this year - if you're at the back 1/2 of the line too - it's absolute madness. In fact I would say it's the most non-stop horror maze I have been in. There are double the actors to 2009 and it's also considerably much longer, too. Some people seem to think it's poor, though.

No - because Th13teen does have actors there throughout the evening. When the actors arrive there is special audio that booms in the queueline. They perform strange rituals in special smoke and light filled clearnings near the ruined vehicle. There are also several other smoke machines in the queue area and the woods are lit up green and blue.Saw the Ride "comes alive" was nothing more than some actors on stilts. The Th13teen one is much more thought out, but sadly you are still liable to queue when the actors are on break.

The whole "Th13teen After Dark" thing is a bit hit and miss, sadly. The actors are not there solidly from 5-9pm, but there in bursts. There is some specially recorded queueline audio to make guests aware what they are doing. When they do appear it's really very mysterious - lots of lights and smoke, with bizzare rituals being peformed down near the abandoned van.

There must have been technical problems. There is not a chance in hell that Alton would not run rides with two trains if there was a queue of 1/2 hour.Without sounding big headed, from working there in the past, knowing many people who still work there and visiting very regularly - it simply would not happen unless there was a fault with one of the trains. If Rita had a 30 minute wait on 1 train, the queue would have been pretty much to the snack shop. The operator would simply not be allowed to run it on one train with such a queue. Nemesis on 1 train with 1/2 hour would also be past merge point!EDIT - have just spoken to a friend who worked on Nemesis until August this year - he said in all his time at the park the ride NEVER ran on one train, only on a couple of occasions when there was a fault. Even Theme Park Review had 2 train operation for their ERT with only 50 guests.Alton simply do not run rollercoasters on one train if there is a 30 minute wait.

Guys - Thorpe will never steal Alton Towers' crown as the UK's number one theme park for so long as Thorpe's strategy is for thrill only! The very best theme parks worldwide tend to suit all corners of the market.Thorpe - UK's most thrilling theme park it already is, but UK's number one - no, how can it be when it is only aiming to attract a specific segment of the market?When you discuss the likes of Disney, PortAventura, Phantasialand, Efteling, Europa-Park, Alton Towers - these are parks which aim to please ALL corners of the market. Very few parks actually only focus on thrill such as Thorpe hence why for me it will never be better than "all encompassing" parks. It doesn't mean Thorpe is poorer for it, it just means they're not going to be attracting such a wide number of people and therefore won't be #1.

My point really is that I believe theme parks should stand to offer the very best possible experience to guests each and every day. I have also stated that I believe that 5-10 minute waits on one train are acceptable. My issue is that on occasions you actually find it is much, much more than 10 minutes.

There's a difference between Silver Star running on 2 trains and still getting over 1,300 an hour and Colossus running 1 train and getting probably sub500!Anyway, I can see that several members here seem to like queues, and enjoy one train operation and for so long as that is the case, there really isn't much of a debate here. If you like high throughputs - ditch Thorpe and go to Alton Towers. Nuff said, really!

Out of interest, has anyone ever beento Europa-Park? 19 boats run on Poseidon? 6 on Atlantica? 9 on Euro-Mir? 7 on Eurosat? 5 on a Bobsleigh?Makes even Alton's efforts with Th13teen's throughput look shabby! EP's Wild Mouse does more than Colossus and that's even when Colossus is on two trains!May I also add I am shocked at the way some members appear to be posting in this thread? Petty insults and so forth generally don't belong on places like this.

Ah, I see what you are saying here. I can understand this logic, but I would only generally support it if that in a situation where the park did become busier than expected, that they would put the second vehicle on the track pronto. But I would presume if a seat was in bits, they couldn't just sort it within 1/2 hour.Personally, in anything more than a 10-15 minute wait, I believe the rides should run higher capacity. I still find it odd though that a park within the same group seems to treat such things so wildly differently. In fact, some of you seem to SUPPORT having queues and having one train. I would label said folk as "fan-boy".

Indeed. Although I must say, your idea of doing full train services in the season seems rather at odds with the purpose of the Closed Season. Unless parks have an excess of cars - such as Dragons Fury and Sonic Spinball, where they have more than they can run, it baffles me as to why a park would do that. Alton would never do that - Thorpe I cannot for the life of me see why they would do that either.There is always a risk they will get busy and having trains unavailable would only be poor from what is the most expensive theme park in Britain (at least, will be come Fright Nights!).

I can confirm that both arms on Submission do now work. However this is an exception to the rule at Alton Towers. For some reason, the park never has the budget within the ride team for both sides to operate.Submission had 40 minute queues in July and still only ran 1 arm. It's Alton's stupid point with throughputs, really!

I will add my two pence here.I used to work at Alton Towers on the former Team Rita. Unless there was literally a walk-on situation, then the ride would always run on two trains. If there was an inadequate number of people to fill both trains, then one train would run with front row availability only - so to keep the front row moving. As soon s the queue was more than about 2 trains wait, then the other train would be fully opened. They same tended to apply on Corkscrew unless the ride was literally walk on. Case in point - I visited Alton Towers on Sunday. It was VERY quiet - under 8,000 guests I would say which for Alton is dead. Nemesis had a 5 minute wait and was running 2 trains all day. Air had a 3-craft service with a 10 minute wait also. In fact it was almost walk on at one stage. Spinball operated 6 cars (could run up to 7) and Oblivion was also on double bay loading - although the ride still has a high capacity on one bayload. Th13teen was also running 3 trains with a 15 minute queue. These are all very short queues, but high throughputs were maintained to give guests the shortest queue time. It's also boring as HELL for staff on one train!Alton Towers are actually one of the best parks worldwide I have been to for running rides on good throughputs - it really is one of their strong points. When I went to Florida, many rides were running only 1 or 2 trains when they could have been running more. Thorpe have never seemed to place emphasis on such things.And "Annual Maintainence" on Stealth trains NOW? What?!

How has Thorpe got more to do when there's less rides than Alton, and it's a lot smaller?The only rides that, to my knowledge, have had complete days of downtime at AT this year are Hex, Th13teen and Ripsaw. Although for Alton this season has not been as good as the last - I think they've been a bit focussed on their new ride, sadly. But still, there hasn't been a day when I haven't been able to do the rides I have wanted.If you choose to go when the park is utterley "dead" then no matter where in the world you go, aside from the biggest US parks who have 15+ coasters, you'll be done by early afternoon unless you want to see shows. Using that theory, on a dead day at Thorpe - if you hit all the thrill rides with the log flume and rapids, you could easily be done by midday.

I'll be honest - it was pretty much the most depressing day I had ever had at Alton Towers on opening day, this year. I got off Th13teen and was really, really dissapointed with it. However, as time has passed at least I know what to expect now. In the scheme of rollercoasters, it's an average, mildly thrilling coaster. Pegasus at Europa-Park is better on the outdoor section but at least Th13teen has it's trick.Other major family coasters though, such as Expedition Everest or Colorado Adventure are much better.

How dare you slag the Sat! Haha!I love Eurosat - it's absolutely epic if you ask me and probably my second favourite coaster at Europa. Ok, maybe third but hey! RE: Silver Star, yes it's essentialy themeless (more styled in the queue/station) but really, it's tricky to theme a 240' coaster. The only way it could have all been within the park is if it had ploughed through loads of the themed areas, and I think it would have spoilt the atmosphere.Was it just one day at EP? Or did you have several? Did you see many shows?I am back at Europa-Park from the 22nd October, managed to get some ERT on Blue Fire so cannot wait really! Also doing Walygator just for the B&M, too.

Someone launched some coins from near the front of the Colossus train towards the rear, and it hit my friend hard on the head causing minor bleeding.I have also been threatened by a gang in the queue for Tidal Wave, if that counts.

At least this sort of low level marketing style with this kind of subject matter won't last forever.They'll have to try other things some day.

I agree that it sucks. And I totally hate that style for Alton, which is a quality attraction. However, nobody can argue the fact that the visitor figures are up massively this year - and it's all down to overblown PR, ads and the lot!

I visited on Saturday last weekend and waited 40 minutes, with about 80% of the queue full. There was nobody in Fastrack. Odd. Perhaps it's being trialled on certain days.

The ride does not have Fastrack and is unlikely to this season. However, reliability is now much better. A completely full queue to the entrance is now only 50 minutes and breakdowns are much less frequent and for a shorter time.I should think Th13teen will have fastrack from 2011.

The ride has been horrendous for breakdowns - although this is better now. As a result, people have been standing around for ages.I waited 45 minutes almost to the entrance on Saturday just, such was the throughput. If it's running well, the graffiti problem will be reduced as people aren't waiting around. Also, they should paint the fences black (like Air's queue) as this reduces graffiti.I know that they generally are meant to do clean ups like that on a daily basis.

Sounds like a naff day by Altons standards. They have cut their entertainments a lot since May, and now it's very limited. I think they blew a lot at the start of the season and are now having to save for Halloween. Merlin, not quite the saviours we'd all hoped for if they can't afford Wraiths anymore, for example...!As for graffiti - they aren't removing at the moment due to all the schools visiting to my knowledge - it's worse in Th13teen's queue than at any time I recall at AT ever. However, such is the number of antisocial visitors at the moment, they're leaving it till that's out of the way.

We should partly be grateful. Thorpe close at 8pm in August which is good. Alton Towers close rides at 7pm but it wasn't long ago when even they only closed at 6pm in August - and the park takes a good hour to empty, so you can actually still be loitering in Towers Street at 8pm. As for Chessington, I think 6pm is too early - 6.30pm or 7pm would be better in Summer.