April 9, 20178 yr comment_249055 If it's on one train and is struggling to launch then I suspect the 2nd train is ready but adding it would make no difference as the launch is not ready to send the train.
April 9, 20178 yr comment_249056 Indeed, so by sorting out the launch the second train can be added. The launch itself seems to be having issues with launch timings but only by a second or two (both being slightly fast and slightly slow off the countdown), so it could be to do with something else. I've personally heard something about the catch car being the issue but this obviously can't be taken as gospel.
April 9, 20178 yr Author comment_249057 Stealth was on 2 trains all day yesterday - but was having fair few issues throughout the day, closed all day today.
April 9, 20178 yr comment_249059 This is a well established park that has many years of experience. It is not acceptable that admissions were taken today for such a poor operation. In my opinion, the blame lies squarely on the management as they are the ones overseeing the operations of the park and making the decisions. If multiple rides were not signed off, it's down to management to find out why and sort it out. If staff didn't turn up, management should have been chasing them up and have part time / reserve staff at the ready. Also it's their job to find out why people didn't turn up and prevent it from happening again. Management are fully responsible for having such a weak contingency plan and opening a park full of closed rollercoasters and attractions. Even if this has happened before, it doesn't make it any more acceptable. If management are not responsible for park operations, I have serious concerns about the way Thorpe is being run.
April 9, 20178 yr comment_249060 Management will know the blame is on them and will be working on fixing it. I'm quite sure someone very high up will have arranged some kind of meeting about the shambles of today. Probably not Nick or the COO but I suspect they would have been told. Unlike other problems that cost the park in the long run this would have cost them a lot of money and generated a fair amount of negative reviews instantly. On top of that this problem is 100% completely their fault. So management must report why it happened and what they are doing to prevent it from happening again.
April 9, 20178 yr Author comment_249063 I'm pretty certain management will be looking into what happened today, why it happened and how to prevent it in the future. In the end we had an ok day - ghost train and a few coasters were open till 7, all other rides what did open till 6:30, everyone was compensated on exit.
April 9, 20178 yr comment_249065 The problem with Thorpe is days like this happen far too regularly. Okay rarely to this level of bad and calling capacity when the park is on less the 10k people, but the underlying issues never go away. Towers may have bad operating hours and ride closures, but they can operate their park near flawlessly. If you look back at Towers when it was busy, they never had fastrack issues, reliability issues or anything major. Thorpe has it regularly. Fastrack is always an issue and never resolved, engineering is stretched often meaning minimal capacity or late openings in the morning. All parks have the odd bad day, but at Thorpe it is a major recurring issue that needs to be sorted. Why does it run so differently and poorly to other Merlin parks? That's what they need to be asking. As for Stealth, its catch car related issues. 2 trains offers more issues and nearly the same throughput as one atm due to these issues so it makes more sense to run just the one as it's less likely to break it.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249067 Obviously the questions of why yesterday was so bad, how the park seemed so underprepared and the incredibly poor start to the day need to be asked. And there really is no excuse. However, I think it's worth highlighting that at least Thorpe acted appropriately. Not selling Fastrack for the coasters, giving anyone who wanted a refund a refund, handing out free return tickets, etc. Of course, this action should never need to be taken by a theme park, but it's at least good to see that when things do go bad, the park accept it and compensate as best as they can. Now let's hope nothing like today ever happens again...
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249068 Probably because the park(s) know that if there's such a day going on they NEED to provide compensation, otherwise they'll be ripped to shreds on social media... It's embarrassing... How could they be understaffed so early in the season during the holidays? (though that's probably because the staff turnover is so awful, maybe a review of careers is needed?) Two biggest parks in the UK and one is deliberately half closed whilst the other just has days like this where half the rides are broken... And the question is will this actually change anything? Because if it did, then things would've changed a long time ago...
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249075 Let's give them a chance, they have only been open an hour after all and I imagine they are trying their best to get the attractions open...
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249076 I'm actually pleasantly surprised that they stopped selling fast track for the coasters - has that even happened before?! I feel so sorry for the staff having to deal with complaints - yes the operations yesterday (and today?) no where near good enough but as said before this is down to management and not the ride attendants who will no doubt get the brunt of guests anger. On Saturday there was one guy sorting out the batching for DBGTROTD- because it had been shut for a few hours there was a backlog of fast track and RAP users - the poor bloke was getting abuse left right and centre - eventually another member of staff appeared to help him. Another time I witnessed a really rude woman (I use that term loosely) having a massive go at a ride attendant because Stealth was shut - like it was all her fault. I totally understand people complaining but to be verbally aggressive to ride hosts is harsh - but then they are the staff dealing with the public and I don't think they get paid enough to be spoken to like poop -
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249077 They should have all been open by 10. There chance was to have yesterday as a one off but clearly that isn't going to be the case. The GP will always want to blame someone and that unfortunately is the first person they see. They have every right to be angry when they are paying £30-£50 to get in and half of the park is shut. It's just a shame that anger is directed towards the hosts rather than the managers.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249079 16 minutes ago, Project LC said: They should have all been open by 10. There chance was to have yesterday as a one off but clearly that isn't going to be the case. The GP will always want to blame someone and that unfortunately is the first person they see. They have every right to be angry when they are paying £30-£50 to get in and half of the park is shut. It's just a shame that anger is directed towards the hosts rather than the managers. Oh I completely agree with you - it was fairly busy on Saturday and Stealth and DBGT were down for large portions of the day with relatively hefty queues on other rides (even Rumba was on a 35 min queue) and I felt frustrated - however I have a MAP so can visit again. Some people will have paid good money and travelled far to experience a shoddy line up yesterday (and today) and it isn't good enough - also the queues for guest services were massive which probably left people feeling more frustrated standing in the heat for god knows how long to try and speak to someone about it. While its good that they stopped selling fast tracks for the coasters and gave people free return tickets, it shouldn't have to get to that stage - one or two rides out of action you can forgive but when the majority of the rides are shut that's just nowhere near good enough
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249080 The park are clearly massively understaffed, especially in terms of maintenance/engineering as virtually everyday they have been unable to have all rides available at opening. It seemed as if they were making this seem normal procedure on weekdays as the screen would display what was open at park opening and what would open later.
April 10, 20178 yr Author comment_249081 It's far from "normal" procedure. I believe on off-peak days Rumba, Samurai, Storm Surge and AB4D open at 11. Obviously something's going on the past few days for it to be like this - they will obviously be looking into the causes and remedys - not in their interest for this to be a regular occurrence!
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249082 All I can think of is that there has been various people not coming into work for one reason or another paired with the majority of remaining maintenance working on getting Ghost Train open at a reasonable time. This leading to there being a lack of staff ready to get THE SWARM, Saw and Colossus ready. That being said Saw hardly opened at all yesterday so it may be broken... Hopefully they sort it out and organise teams more efficiently asap, before the summer rolls over.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249084 Looks like currently the only rides down are Saw and Stealth (with Stealth a planned closure for today)
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249087 Colossus has been opened. Waited forty minutes in the disabled queue and the ride was on one train, which is rather appalling. As well as this, my brother, who cannot queue, thus had to technically queue for this time and behaved badly. Oh, and as I type, Samurai has closed. Great job, Thorpe.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249090 3 minutes ago, Josh3103 said: Colossus now has a queue time of 130mins. How long??!!!! 21 minutes ago, Whatever said: Colossus has been opened. Waited forty minutes in the disabled queue and the ride was on one train, which is rather appalling. As well as this, my brother, who cannot queue, thus had to technically queue for this time and behaved badly. Oh, and as I type, Samurai has closed. Great job, Thorpe. Blimey - not good - hope the rest of your day goes better
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249091 30 minutes ago, Josh3103 said: Colossus now has a queue time of 130mins. Is DBGTROTD walk on? Lolz.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249092 1 hour ago, Whatever said: Colossus has been opened. Waited forty minutes in the disabled queue and the ride was on one train, which is rather appalling. As well as this, my brother, who cannot queue, thus had to technically queue for this time and behaved badly. 40 minutes in a disabled queue is disgusting - even with a 130 minute queue on 1 train. Whole point of the disabled system is that you don't have to stand in queues for long periods of time.
April 10, 20178 yr comment_249093 Colossus is terrible for the disabled queue - it's very truly the Vampire of Thorpe's disabled queues. I personally utilise this myself due to having a minor mobility issue and I tend to miss out Colossus entirely if the queue is any more than 2 groups long. I must admit most of Thorpe's disabled queues are fairly good (especially Ghost Train and THE SWARM) however they seriously need to reconsider the Nemesis Inferno and Colossus disabled access. Thankfully none of Thorpe's are as awful as Vampire but that's a whole other issue
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