Inferno

Oh interesting. I guess it would make sense for any spares to be used rather than scrapped since they aren’t making parts anymore All this has got my thinking - could Stealth’s days be numbered? These hydraulic launch coasters are dropping like flies

It all feels very bizarre that it just closed out of the blue like it did. I remember watching those “worlds wildest rides” shows (or whatever they were) on TV years and years ago and being in awe of it back then! What a shame. I wonder what the reason was for closure? I assume cost to run and maintain? Makes me wonder realistically how much longer Stealth has - these hydraulic launch coasters are dropping like flies aren’t they.

Considering I haven’t really gone out of my way to research it, I’ve read & watched a few things this week that has made me realise how much trouble Merlin seem to actually be in. With a large restructure going on across the business in the coming months, redundancies in Merlin Magic Making which is confirmed to be shutting down soon, the closure of Bear Grills, new projects shelved, 2 brand new Legoland parks having devastating low attendances, the operational cuts we have seen in the UK this season, and multiple midway attractions closing their doors around the world, Merlin seems to have found itself in some trouble. Clearly I am absolutely not a business expert of any sort - but honestly I have to say I am not surprised in the slightest that it’s come to this. Many years of short term decisions, lack of sensible large scale preventative maintenance, and mad decisions to benefit the figures in the immediate short term seem to have left the company in quite a mess. For me one of the biggest and most obvious cock ups has been outsourcing the food to Aramark. Merlin themselves, for years, have boasted that their profit doesn’t come from admission, but instead comes from additional customer spend - things like fastrack, merch and food… But it seems they have made a bit of a mess of the food part. It’s just become far too expensive, and frankly far too disgusting, to buy food from Merlin parks. It’s at the point where it’s actually cheaper to buy food at Disney in many cases than it is to buy it at a local Merlin park. I think one of the other big problems really was that it was on the stock market, meaning everything they did for years had to be done purely to make money for the share holder, no matter what. This (in my humble and inexperienced opinion at least) has really set the company up poorly for the future, as the money that needed to be invested on the future of the company was instead funnelled off, and decisions were made to improve results in the immediate short term - for example, Aramark 🙄 The other thing for me is the bizarre decisions to build Legoland parks around the world in places that there is no audience for them…. I just can’t, and never have been able to, see the sense behind that at all. This is such a shame. I feel terrible for the staff who have been or will be affected by the poor decisions of the execs who have brought the company to this state - many of whom have since retired of course.. I do hope that there aren’t too many redundancies, and that anyone who is going to be out of work will be snapped up very quickly by another large operator who will hopefully be needing experienced and talented people in the UK very soon. Speaking of which - Universal are very much a company on the climb, while Merlin appear to be in a well established decline… these are interesting times for the industry, especially in the UK. I’d be interested to hear everyone’s thoughts on what you think went wrong, and what you think the future might hold for Merlin?

Agreed, this looks like a great use of the space! The Beach has always been a very odd area, and only used for part of the year anyway - this new area will be used every day and solve the event space problem.

It feels a bit like Merlin isn’t awash with money at the moment judging by all the cuts recently, but Thorpe seem to be doing well and appears to have avoided a lot of it… fingers crossed. I’d at least expect to see Hyperia’s area and queue finished - it was never finished before it opened, I assume because they just ran out of time. I think really it would be very surprising if this wasn’t done given the amount of money spent on the ride - they just need to finish up! I’d also like to think Colossus will be finished as it’s sort of mid way through isn’t it. They also said they weren’t happy with its yellow entrance sign so perhaps that’s still on the cards? I really want poor Inferno to get some love. But realistically I doubt very much there will be much of a sparkle project at all this year - I do hope I am wrong though because it was a really positive thing this year. I can’t see Slammer going any time soon either…… as much as it sucks to see it SBNO, if the company is struggling financially I can’t see why they would spend money removing it for no gain other than a tidy up. Could be very wrong though of course! my money is on - Beach thing - Hyperia being finished off - Colossus repaint being finished - Maybe some small bits here and there like some more shade in queues etc. - Fin’s Infinite Vibe & Grill Kitchen getting a new name

Dear oh dear that’s not good at all. Although it seems that the last couple of days have been a lot better at AT thankfully. I can’t help but wonder if Alton suffer a little bit from over-cautious checks and more elaborate restart procedures after the Smiler crash. I’d be willing to bet that other parks sometimes take little liberties here and there to cut the time it takes to get a ride up and running again, but of course Alton simply can’t do that - and nor should they. I don’t know anything about these procedures of course - but I seem to remember, for example, a phone and advance button was added to the Smiler’s boundary fence for an engineer to be posted at during a restart so they can check for stalled trains or whatever. All of this stuff takes time and extra staff - preventing them from being able to go and deal with another ride should it be down. Things like that must really slow down the tech team’s ability to multitask. (For good reason, but still) I have to say I do feel for the maintenance staff. It can’t be an easy job, and when there’s a list of rides down, each one being almost literally a mile away from each other, it’s a no-win situation.

I’m useless with this sort of stuff so unfortunately I’m no help - all looks very exciting though! I’ll tell you the truth Tactic, I’ve always been a bit like this - cramming loads in! And my wife is the one to remind me to take it easy! She’s usually right to be honest; we’ve traveled places before where I’ve been very glad of a break that she’s forced in to the plans 😂 As much as I absolutely love this plan - what a trip - I agree with the above. Less can often be more with this sort of thing in my opinion. Allow yourselves to rest if you can. Traveling gets tedious after a while doesn’t it! Ryanair is still cheap, so if you do end up removing some of these parks this time around, you can fly to them cheaply in the near future and make a few weekend breaks to a couple of places in turn! Even better! However, when I was your age, this sort of agenda would be very similar to what I’d be up for doing! Good for you getting out there and doing some traveling Wherever you end up going I’m sure you’ll have a blast! Good luck with the planning and please do keep us up to date!

Looks like a great place! I was a little sad driving past this on the way to Disneyland, should have done a day here on that trip! Maybe next time. Glad you had a good time!

Love this. So glad ride to happiness redeemed itself in the end, as it would have been a long trip for it if it hadn’t!

It is an interesting one - because all the investment amounts to nothing genuinely “new”. It’s all just maintenance of what’s been there for years - or decades. Nemesis isn’t new. Skyride isn’t new (if it ever gets here) Hex isn’t new Alton Manor isn’t really new And Ripsaw-on-a-plinth isn’t new. Really despite all the money being spent, nothing is really happening in terms of driving it forward is it? And yet even so, it’s on its knees.

Does anyone have any thoughts on why this constant poor availability might be happening at Towers? To an extent I feel sorry for them as they have had a run of bad luck with Rita’s downtime, and the brand new Nemesis being on one train must be purely rotten luck as they’ve spent millions on trying to bring that up to date - however the relentless downtime of everything else all at once just seems too consistent to be down to “some really bad luck”. Could it be that the rides themselves have just had it, similar to what happened to Hex and Skyride - they became so bad that there was no choice but to completely overhaul them. This seems like a likely reason because cutbacks and money saving have been rife for years. Or could this perhaps be an issue with the engineering department somehow? Short staffed, or overwhelmed with too high a workload? Again down to cuts and short term thinking I would assume. I’d be really interested to know what the wider issue actually is, because this situation is unprecedented really, even internationally, especially as it’s seemingly peaking at the most critical time of the season.

I find this all quite sad to be honest. I know it’s only a theme park, but Alton Towers genuinely is such a special place to so many people, and even for those who aren’t so sentimental, there’s no denying that it’s a wonderful and truly unique place. … But it’s been utterly run in to the ground thanks to corporate greed. I don’t even take issue with the current management - there has been a lot of money spent to overhaul clapped-out attractions lately - but it feels like too little too late. It feels like EVERYTHING needs replacing at this point. I know I’m like a broken record saying this, but I am so hopeful that Universal’s announcement about the Bedford Park finally happens in the coming weeks. The UK so badly needs a shake up. I don’t want Alton Towers to die, but I also don’t want it to keep going on like this either. I really do think Merlin might be in some serious trouble if Universal opens, and actually I’ve come to be ok with that. Things need to change if they want to compete. That can only be a good thing for customers.

Yes it’s not looking good at towers is it… Between all the staffing issues, reliability, cuts to hours, price increases and rides closed all season, it’s been another tough year. To be honest I don’t think Towers has ever quite been the same since the Smiler crash. I know cutbacks were rife before then, but since the low attendance following that it’s been worse than ever. I wonder if it’s all down to the absolute absence of any form of long to medium term planning when it comes to maintenance and longevity of everything. It feels like for over a decade the place has run on quick fixes to get them through the foreseeable future… now it’s all coming to a head, with loads of money needing to me spent, and low attendance meaning that isn’t easily achieved at the moment. Towers has had quite the fall from grace over the last decade or so.

I know it sucks, but really is it that bad? It’s just a bit of the facade over the door that’s been bent and come off. 🤷‍♂️ Hopefully it’s a quick fix to that wire that been broken and that’ll be it done.

Oh that’s great news! It’s always been weird that the spinning always lined up so that the same seats got the top of the swing throughout the entire cycle. Glad that’s been changed!