2017 Season General Discussion

[Stuntman707]

Could be staff, engineering, maintenance, budget, unexpected visitor numbers, etc. Don't really want to get into every reason why every ride doesn't run perfectly every day of the week. 

[ThemeParkCrafter]

I just want to say I don't think my restraint was checked on Colossus last week and this was my first time riding...

[Theme Park Joseph]

Looks like it's gonna be more of the same today 

[TPMSam]

On park doesn't seem too bad- Stealth hasn't even got a car on the track so that looks unlikely! DBGT Opens soon but apart from that everything seems open

[Marc]

All coasters (Apart from Stealth) are open.. I'm a Celeb opens at 11. Just rocky express..

 

Significant improvement on the past few days.

[TPMSam]

Now saying Stealth is a planned ride closure!

[Marhelorpe]

Are all the open coasters except for Colossus on their maximum capacity just out of curiosity? With queues exceeding an hour already, they're gonna need it!


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[TPMSam]

6 minutes ago, Martin.C said:

Are all the open coasters except for Colossus on their maximum capacity just out of curiosity? With queues exceeding an hour already, they're gonna need it!


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Nope nemesis is on one!

[MattyMoo]

@Mitchada04 and I have no part to play in Stealth's downtime this time around.

[Mitchada04]

12 minutes ago, MattyMoo said:

@Mitchada04 and I have no part to play in Stealth's downtime this time around.

It misses us, that's why! It's awaiting our return  

[Matt10]

Anyone saying Stealth is closed, as of yesterday it looks like it will be a lengthy period of downtime. There is a crane in place in the loading platform, over the cable, so looks likely that there is a large amount of work needing to be done to the ride.

[pluk]

On 4/10/2017 at 7:01 PM, Marc said:

but saying they "don't care" is wrong.

 

Exercises in damage limitation do not show they care. Showing they care would be not putting themselves and their guests in the same situation repeatedly. Seriously, it's like groundhog day at the start of every season. You can go back through the forum and find the same posts year after year. The actual reasons might differ, but the disaster the guests face remain the same.

 

This always comes down to who is this 'they' who are supposed to care or not. The staff on the ground don't want this, the park management don't want this, HQ won't want this, and I'm sure in their own way each level does actually care. But yet it happens again and again. There is something rotten within the structure of Merlin which allows this to happen. I don't know who it is, but an important person somewhere who has the ability to fix this at a high level, clearly does not care, and that ends up reflecting on everyone in the uniform.

 

Good to see they seem to have turned a corner now.

[JDann]

3 hours ago, pluk said:

 

Exercises in damage limitation do not show they care. Showing they care would be not putting themselves and their guests in the same situation repeatedly. Seriously, it's like groundhog day at the start of every season. You can go back through the forum and find the same posts year after year. The actual reasons might differ, but the disaster the guests face remain the same.

 

This always comes down to who is this 'they' who are supposed to care or not. The staff on the ground don't want this, the park management don't want this, HQ won't want this, and I'm sure in their own way each level does actually care. But yet it happens again and again. There is something rotten within the structure of Merlin which allows this to happen. I don't know who it is, but an important person somewhere who has the ability to fix this at a high level, clearly does not care, and that ends up reflecting on everyone in the uniform.

 

Good to see they seem to have turned a corner now.

 

For me, it comes down to responsibility and accountability. You can work your way up the hierarchy at the park, but do they even know themselves who to hold to account for these sorts of issues? In such a large park, with so many dependencies to get right before the beginning of a season it is a huge task with so many managers / team leaders involved to ensure everything goes to plan.

 

I've seen it first hand before and when things don't go to plan like this, from the ground up, you cannot really see anything that changes. The only hope is that senior management are held accountable for these mistakes, regardless of why they happened as they are responsible and look to improve their process's to ensure that it does not happen again, but from the outside looking in (and from the inside when I worked there) this seems to be a very rare occurrence. 

[Marc]

Running alot better over past couple days - Only rides not open for 10 this morning was Rocky Express and Samurai. (And Slammer of course!)

 

 

[Stuntman707]

I've heard Stealth is fixed and operational again today. 

[Mattgwise]

Yep It was running one train with a two hour queue. Still at least they opened it. 

[Coaster]

Stealth, Ghost Train, Slammer, Rumba all closed, and terrible operations on Nemesis Inferno - stacking on every train and Fastrack oversold.

 

Also, what happened to the two "new" rides in Old Town opening at Easter?!  They're both sat there shut!

 

Awful...

[Marc]

Looks like they have all opened now apart from Rumba... hopefully you can get back to enjoying your day

[JoshC.]

I get your point about Slammer, but listing in the same manner as the other rides a bit unfair given it's been dead all year and removed from the website..

 

Timber Tug Boat did have a sign put in front of it saying it would open in Easter, bit that was changed to 'Coming Soon' after 2 days.  It seems word got out quick about Easter opening but not the change in time scale.  The other ride isn't listed on the map and has never been said to be opening at Easter  (or indeed given any opening date).

[Coaster]

Not a great day in honesty, ended up leaving at 2pm.  A few late openings is sometimes unavoidable, I get that, but it seems that Thorpe were very unprepared with several rides down in the morning, then when they opened others went down, it appeared to be unadvertised rotation however may have been coincidence.

 

It feels like a half-open park at the moment with the SBNO's, late openings and "new" rides for this year still not open.  Genuinely had a great day at Thorpe back in March but today just wasn't enjoyable.

 

Nemesis Inferno's operations were slack, what happened to the days of seeing a train on the lift as the other entered the brake run?

[Benin]

"Unadvertised rotation"? Even for you Jamie that's delving into ridiculous conspiracy theory ground...

[Coaster]

10 hours ago, Benin said:

"Unadvertised rotation"? Even for you Jamie that's delving into ridiculous conspiracy theory ground...

Rotation happens at several parks however it's usually signposted, I don't think it's that ridiculous of a suggestion.

[SteveJ]

I wouldnt put it past them to end up doing something like that, considering how understaffed/underbudgeted the parks are all the time, but probably not out of direct choice, just general disorganisation really in my & other people's expeirences? But if it was between all the major rides, then likely just coincidence or stretched technical assistance.

[ben199]

Today was one of those frustrating days where the flats were one cycle waits but all the coasters were about twenty minutes due to one train operations. I have no issue with one train on dead days where the trains barely fill up but when you're standing in a queue that barely moves waiting for 4-6 trains it saps a bit of enjoyment out the day. For a park that charges similar prices to Europa Park and Phantasialand I feel the operation standards should be higher.

[Mattgwise]

I just don't get why the management of this park and Alton Towers is so different. Alton Towers runs its coasters on more than one train, even when dead. This picture taken today by Pleasure Beach Experience shows that!

 

This one train business during the week actually makes waiting for the coasters painful and sometimes longer than overall busier weekends when two trains are running. Madness.