Glitch
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Posts posted by Glitch
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20 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:
In all fairness, I myself am also highly fed up with M£rlin
Still don't get this, money grabbing argument. An Annual pass for any of the theme parks will cost you £50-£80, so overall admission has been getting cheaper especially now with the pay monthly scheme.
Look at any other park season pass Blackpool (£100), Paultons (£125), Drayton Manor (£110) and you would see the value of both the Merlin pass and theme park passes have exceptional value.
Once in the parks, customers are literally taking hotdogs in flasks to save money but yet are expecting Wickerman style projects of investment into the parks on a yearly basis and still are saying everything's overpriced, even with all there discounts applied.
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11 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:
Having now done all the UK dungeon attractions aswell as Amsterdam and being somebody who is actually quite a big fan of the dungeons, I can quite categorically say that this is easily the worst of the dungeons by a mile. First off I will start with the positives and say the acting quality was strong as was the final scene with the haunting. HOWEVER and without given much away,I find the amount of black walls and blank corridors between the scenes to be absolutely horrendous. Half the joy of the other dungeons in the UK (which gentle reminder, premium pass holders get FOR FREE!!) is the level of detail and immersion that guests get. This dungeon however I can honestly say that when it comes to detail, it makes Charlie and the chocolate factory look like Pirates of the carribean and I am not even close to joking. In terms of the whole “it’s not finished” malarkey I have heard, well if it’s not finished then don’t have the cheek to open it unfinished and then have the nerve to charge extra for what frankly is a very half heartedly executed experience. Again I reiterate that there ARE positives with the acting ability on display as well as the finale. However that does not save an otherwise lacklustre and needless addition to Alton Towers.
Honestly I know I could say “it’s better than nothing”, but in this instance I genuinely think I would prefer literally nothing.
9Very strange. I would expect it to be one of the worst of the Dungeons brand considering that it is not standalone. However, going into an attraction with the mindset of looking for every blackwall possible, rather than where the show lights want you to focus, to slate the attraction is not the mindset of a regular guest rather one just looking to find every negative in an attraction they don't want to like from the outset. All reviews I have seen from day guests have been quite positive so far.
The attraction itself is not needless, it adds to the Alton Towers RESORT portfolio, of things for hotel guests to do whilst enjoying their short break, also have you considered that extra ticketing revenue could be used to develop future projects?
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On monster houses warehouse are we considering it from a kid perspective maybe the warehouse is not as viewable from their line of sight?
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2 hours ago, StevenVig said:
It doesn't take a genius, it's to save money obviously. It might be a free day for the guest, but it still costs money to open and run the park.
That said, it seems silly to merge them, the expectation of a friends and family guest would be not to see several thousand entitled MAP holders brandishing their bright yellow lanyards everywhere.
I have no problem with it. At the end of the day it's a preview day, perhaps this year they have taken the option of renting the park out for a day instead.
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17 hours ago, Ivsetti said:
What is this friends and family day and how would that even work do they just get the workers to man the rides whilst they watch their smiling friends go round and round on the rides because that is the definition of torture.
Realistically though, low temperatures and high wind speeds will shut most of the big rides (I think/ hope not) next week if the weather forecast stays the same till next weekend.
1People do work in other parts of the business. Not every cleaner or back office staff is a trained ride operator.
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I think Discord would be a good option.
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23 minutes ago, Marhelorpe said:
I go to Merlin attractions still because despite all the criticisms I make on here, (shocker to all the readers), I still actually enjoy visiting them. Yeah, weird right isn't it?
But seriously, just because I visit their attractions does not automatically mean I should love and adore every little thing they do and not utter a single piece of criticism in the process.
If I see a flaw or something silly, I will point it out when I feel it is right to do so. In this case, commenting on the absolutely revolting entrance to the Alton Towers Dungeon by simply hiding Charlie's theming with planks of wood, and mocking the delusional mindset of Merlin in the process.
If you look at my comments on things like Wicker Man and Gruffaloworks, you will see I have praised them very highly at times, so I'm not a Merlin hater and will give credit when I see it. It's just with the Alton Towers Dungeon, I'm finding very few reasons to praise this right now.
I simply just expect better from this company. Simples.
Is it not too early to judge? Let's all wait till we've experienced the attraction first rather than going off the design before the official park opening.
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So much negativity on these forums nowadays it's just getting stale boring and old.
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18 hours ago, Marhelorpe said:
I'm sorry, but if they're gonna continue to use a statement that bold, they've gotta be held up to those standards in a lot of areas other than finance, especially from a customer's perspective who visit these parks for the experience and don't give two hoots about attendance figures frankly. Using a statement like that is as misleading as Nick Varney saying Merlin "lead the world in themed accommodation and do it better than anybody else" when we all know that's complete and utter tripe.
Are you therefore saying when someone for example forks out £200 for 1 night at the CBeebies Land Hotel they should not expect anything better out there because Mr. Varney said so in a YouTube video?
I personally think it's quite ignorant and ill-informed to tell paying customers to expect anything less after being promised things like this, similar to being told DBGT was the "future for theme parks across the world".Merlin are delusional, nothing more, nothing less.
Yet you still go to Merlin attractions more than once a month on average. Seems strange don't see you hopping over to Disney every other week
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19 hours ago, Mattgwise said:
"well our policy and belief is we should never actually put our prices up unless we're giving our customers something in return."
- Umm I am pretty sure most years ticket prices have a tiny increase half way through.
- Pizza Pasta definitely went up in price a couple of times during the season (It then had no bbq base pizza in my last two visits in October)
- The car park at Thorpe went up twice!
Hmmmm!
Yet £50 for a LAP, I think you will find overall the price went down.
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42 minutes ago, Stuntman707 said:
I just think they're covering themselves though by being able to say "We objected" if new residents do move in next door and complain about noise.
Yep. Spot on, just think of Towers local residents and these future lot won't be bribed by free tickets. TBF Thorpe is quite loud, if the winds heading in the correct direction, I can hear the screams of joy!
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Looks straight out of RCT 3 Campaign......
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How could they knock off 13 like this.
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On 2/1/2019 at 6:35 PM, Coaster said:
Another thing, I find it really naff that you see guests getting off the train carriage before/whilst you board, ideally the offload should have been on the other side surely?
It'd be really nice if Thorpe arranged a behind the scenes tour for TPM, the same way that PBE members (myself included) have had tours round the interior of Valhalla.
I wonder if that would make Coaster finally come to a TPM meet lol.
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Stupid me, I thought this was next week. As Guildford's very out of my way I won't be able to attend. :(
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14 hours ago, Coaster said:
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.
I think you have just forgotten the existence of the family area Cbeebies land, which guess what..... has a family boat ride... and many other rides all the family can enjoy together.
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33 minutes ago, Marhelorpe said:
And given it's at the furthest point in the park, it wouldn't surprise me if it opens at midday on weekdays and closes at 3:30pm too. It's simply the wrong type of attraction at the wrong time for this park.
On an off-peak day that gives you 3h:30mins to enjoy the attraction, if you plan accordingly that's certainly enough time to fit in the experience.
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Sounds good.
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12 hours ago, Cedar Creek said:
Looks like Tivoli Gardens have a ‘surprisingly’ big year ahead of them for 2019. Source-Blooloop Article On Tivoli.
Basically they are spending a lot of money on replacing and updating ride hardware which includes their kiddie and Mack powered coasters amongst others.
I will be visiting the park in late April, so it remains difficult to see what will or will not be open in that time, but one will see.
It would be good if they could also invest in some queue lines for the busy days on park.
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41 minutes ago, JoshC. said:
Some fabulous insight from Efteling on how they're planning on reducing queueing and waiting times... https://www.efteling.com/nl/blog/backstage/20190114-kortere-wachtrijen
Highlights:
-Longer opening times
-Better flow at main entrance and car park
-New system on Vogel Rok to allow 3 trains to run
-Purchasing of a 5th train for Joris in case one requires maintenance
-Introduction of SRQ on Flying Dutchman, following successful introductions on Bob, Baron, Symbolica, Joris and Python
-New version of the app that notifies you when a queue reaches a certain length
-Since last year, they've adopted the UK way of closing queue lines (IE at park close, not closing them so the ride stops running at park close). This isn't as common in Europe as you'd expect
+More
The park are still preserving with their version of Reserve n Ride, making further adjustments. I've yet to use the system (visiting only on extremely quiet days since it's introduction), but it was experienced some problems during its time. It's nice to see them learning and trying with it, but I wonder if they're clinging onto false hope trying to get it to work.
Ah, a backstage blog..... Sounds familiar.
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Most important Wild Mouse's 60th
- Mattgwise and Marhelorpe
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2
TPM TP Opening Weekend Meet - Sat 30th March
in TPM 2019 Meets
Posted
Only disappointment for me was the rollovers restaurant. Firstly discribed as a subway style pick your toppings ending up being here have some nacho cheese sauce over everything. Plus the chilli one didn’t even use real chilli con carne just a sauce?!?