Project LC

Teething problems is an understatement. They need to ditch it once and for all. Ive had enough of reserve and ride, ive been suffering it all day all of Friday and 2 last year. It is the worst thing to meet any park in all of history. I would actually prefer q-bots.

I didn't mean the proper enthusiasts I more meant the people that will visit about 4 times a year which call themselves enthusiasts. The people which visit 15+ times a year will never buy a fastrack but they will end up spending a lot on drinks and food.

Maybe thorpe would be better off if they listened to the enthusiasts. I'm sure a fair few of them will know how the general public actually feel and will be able to identify problems which maybe thorpe have not. yes the enthusiasts will over exaggerate but there the ones which will keep coming back and most likely end up spending the most in their shops and on fastracks per head per year.

how come rita's is so low, is it operation or are the accumulator's not as good as they once were.

well I gave up on respecting Thorpe's media when they said they got good feedback on reserve and ride. Funny they say SRQ was abused when they have just created a system which is the easiest thing to abuse in all of history.

Ive always visited during scarefest so it may be that ive only seen oblivion when the teams are trying to be efficient. Rita is a pile of scrap so the fact it gets any throughput is amazing and yes I meant dispatching in 45 seconds from arriving in the station.

it needs a bit of a re-theme its looking very worn down now. Doubt they will re-theme it though as there supposed to be getting a new flat next year.

Yeah that would make sense if it was April, as we were there in April half term. When they were doing it was amazingly efficient. Odd that they didn't manage the all time record because I was there in the full hour they were doing it (it was quick moving and relatively short wait) and it didn't seem to have any train with a delay. I quess it shows how a 5 second wait every now and then builds up.

Stealths record was set a few weeks ago and they did that by sending a train every 45 seconds for an hour. There was not a single train which had a delay that exceeded 10 seconds and it worked like a military operation. It must have been hitting about 1100-1200 people per hour. The staff did announce that they had beaten the theoretical throughput and the Thorpe record so they were a very good team. In fact if you ever see the ride operator called adam he is amazing efficient and good at organising his team. Ive seen him beat the throughput record on multiple rides. Oblivions throughput is 1900 but it wont be achieving that so it will be around 1500 on a bad day so to claim no ride in the UK gets near is a bit of an odd statement. Also Rita is the worst throughput of any coaster at Alton (not including the RMT and sonic as I don't count them as coasters more hyped up park bench's) so claiming it can achieve 1100 is also very odd. It barley scrapes 900pph.

They would have stopped it for more than one reason. However the saw queue jumping was a constant one.

Saws fastrack has a gate which merges it with the main queue, however for single riders the gate switched to force people up the single rider queue, but the second they made it up the first flight of stairs they just ducked under the railing. Back when the single rider queues were in use Thorpe wasn't so busy and didn't always have enough staff to have someone allocate people to bays and then add single riders. So they removed them to save money.

The way it was abused was mainly on saw where groups of people would use the single rider queue and jump under the fence and join the main queue. So they were just cutting a 2 hour queue. The real reason was that on off peak days they had to employ an extra person which they don't really need.

They were playing the main theme on my last few visits. The monkey sound effect has always been there, its just in the background. Its probably that the forgot to turn on the music.

They will both become RCM. Six flags have gone RCM mad.

I'm not sure about summer nights but on previous experience I haven't seen the buses running that late.

True but the station becoming empty is very rare. I go to Thorpe very often and I have not seen the station on X become empty despite a queue. Also my statement I said more as a general thing rather than X specific, a wait to put a bag away will not have a massive effect on the peoples opinion if the trains are still full.

I more meant the common thing to happen in the swarms baggage area where the 2 people in there will for no reason just stop and chat despite people waiting to collect bags. Its happened many a time whilst ive been there, so dont go saying its a stupid reason.

Many people will be willing to pay that. You only need 1 person in a group to say I can do that easy and Thorpe instantly have £100. Its a money spinner which I can see doing very well.

I dont think there is much of a problem with the baggage area when there is 2 people. Its if they stop to have a chat every now and then which causes delays. if there is only 1 person then maybe they need to reallocate some staff.

In thorpes mind it is cheaper to hire less staff and have the bags suffer. Yes its annoying but to the general public they care more about the ride and will be excited to get on the ride so they wont care if it takes a minute or 2 to put the bags away. Just becuase it took slightly longer than usual to get a bag will not prevent them from coming back. So it works out to be more efficient and cost effective.

They don't understaff, they just try and use the minimum. They don't want to employ excess people as they would have to pay them. If you ran a park you would try and save costs everywhere to ensure maximum efficiency and maximum profit to keep those share holders happy.

Having the baggage at the front was causing massive problems in the morning causing massive queues to form at the entrance. Also it required 2 people to operate otherwise the people leaving would start forming a queue.

Cant have been too much of a fault. It has been very temperamental the last few days having the odd 20 minutes down every now and then. I'm assuming they were fixing what ever was causing that.

Give it time, it will get watered down and slowly become less and less VIP but for a higher price.

I am almost certain they will find 1000 people willing to part with £500 for unlimited fastracks. In fact I'm willing to bet in a few months time a reveal that the number of passes has gone up to 5000.