2017 Season General Discussion

[Marhelorpe]

Regardless of whether certain rides open later in the day at 11am as opposed to 10am, shouldn't the park at the very least give their visitors some advance notice on their website or on social media what will and won't be available upon opening when the gates open? Granted, the display at the entrance does list which rides are available when waiting, but from all the visits I have done so far this year and last year, this is only shown before the gates open. What about visitors that enter the park between 10-11am? How are they supposed to know what's available or not when they enter and cross the bridge?

The problem is that this has become the norm for a few years now. Never before the year 2015 did you ever have to think or consider which area is open or closed if you arrive before 10am. Years ago, everything (or nearly everything) was open at the hour, as advertised and at full capacity, ready for the day ahead. Now however, we have gradually seen more and more rides over time open at 11am instead of 10am. First it was just Slammer, then it was Samurai, then it was Colossus and now it's even Saw a couple of times I have visited (the entrance board said it opened at 11am). And to make matters worse, if you visit on a day the park consider to be a 'non-peak day', which is usually a weekday, you are subjected to reduced capacity on almost all coasters and the occasional flat ride, such as one swing on Rush at opening weekend or one train on Stealth and Colossus.

 

Now I understand that every morning, each and every ride requires checks, testing and confirmation from the ride teams before the entrances open. But given the fact we are now seeing the park deliberately open a fair chunk of their lineup later than everything else, this is absolutely inexcusable unless it's a moderately less-busy ride. Alton Towers and Chessington minus their water rides have pretty much all of their attractions at the ready for a 10am opening unless their is a fault, most of the time at full capacity with all of the trains running in the circuit, so why the heck can't Thorpe follow their lead anymore? Do they have a shortage of engineers or something similar?

As for the enormous queues we have seen these past couple of days, it's good to know that the park's management thankfully refused to sell Fastrack for their coasters and tried to deal with it the best they could. But considering the place has had arguably decades of previous experience and practice to deal with situations like this, who's clever idea was it to under staff the park during the flippin' middle of the Easter holidays without having a backup plan?

[Stuntman707]

I got the impression on my first visit that they had a shortage of engineers considering how poor ride availability was on the preview weekend after having a full closed season for maintenence. There are still adverts on Facebook for jobs which you think would have been filled by the start of the season. I think that staff retention must be very poor this year. If this is going to start becomming 'normal' operations, then I'm concerned about Thorpe this season.

 

I'd be happy if they just got rid of fastrack, it just causes more problems than it's worth. If the park is going to run dysfunctionally then the people who have paid a premium to stand in long Fastrack queues on the few rides that are working are going to be the first to complain and demand refunds. But if you give fastrack priority, people who have queued 180mins are going to kick off because they're not being let on the ride.

 

If there is poor retention of staff, then management need to start treating employees better or be replaced with people who do know how to run a theme park.

[Mer]

I think it's normal for them to advertise for jobs throughout the season, and other parks do it too. They'll mainly be recruiting for the summer holidays I imagine, then again for Fright Nights etc  

[Coaster]

The fact they "extended" opening hours and handed out free returns is good but ultimately they shouldn't have to be in such a situation, especially not as regularly as it happens at Thorpe.

Fright Nights last year was so terribly managed they actually removed the review section from their Facebook page, have they not learnt from that?!

 

I remember when I first started visiting Thorpe, it was possible to get on all the major coasters within the first hour, this has become impossible now due to so many opening late on a regular basis, and when they do open they're often on one train until 11-12ish.  It seems to have become "the norm" for several of the major rides to open late, I can't remember a visit in the last two/three years where the major rides have all opened on time.

 

As for the staffing issues, words fail me, how can such a well established park let themselves get into such a terrible state?

 

Ultimately it shows they don't give a jot about guest experience, operations have declined to the point where they are farcical and the park is only enjoyable when it's quiet.

[Marc]

Explain to me if they didn't "give a jot" about guest experience why would they have:

 

1. Stopped letting people in

2. Stop fastrack sales on coasters 

3. Open all rides an additional 30 minutes, others for an hour after advertise close

4. Offer refunds / comp tickets to every guest in the park

5. Have staff working late replying to all guests online 

 

Im all for criticism when necessary (and rightly so after a bad couple of days they are receiving this) but the park obviously do care about guest experience or none of them things would have happened.

[Benin]

If there was more care into the park then they wouldn't have to resort to such measures though Marc...

 

Shutting a park gates because of most of the park being shut should not be spun positively, because it's out of necessity that they had to because of their failings on the operational side...

 

Those things happened because they know that the PR fallout would've been much harder to deal with if they didn't do those things... Not to improve guest experience...

 

Merlin might actually take notice if they drop to 3 stars on TripAdvisor, or their KPIs drop...

[Marc]

It was not a necessity- I'm sure those in the know will have known exactly what was going on and when things would open - and when things did open the park was pretty quiet - probably a fair bit quieter than it would have been.

 

As I said - not defending what went on - but saying they "don't care" is wrong.

[andrea]

Hi, I'm a newcomer lol and probably know a lot less than most on here but I was just wondering how many staff would they require to be missing in order to be 'understaffed'?

[Marc]

None of us really know the answer to that - nor do we know that's the reason behind the closures - certianly yesterday rides opened as they were tested, so they clearly had staff available!

[andrea]

1 minute ago, Marc said:

None of us really know the answer to that - nor do we know that's the reason behind the closures - certianly yesterday rides opened as they were tested, so they clearly had staff available!

 

so I have no idea if this is related in any way but I was at the park on Friday and there was an emergency incident on inferno. I have no idea if these are common and we didn't really get told what happened but from what I interpreted, a train was sent off without being checked properly and possibly some guy's restraint wasn't on properly. Like I said, we weren't told but we were next to go on when the ride operator seemed to start to panic and then swore. The panicking gradually progressed to her crying and visibly shaking and as we were waiting we asked an attendant if the ride would be functioning again soon and after doing so we asked what had happened to which she asked if we 'had seen'. We mentioned we saw a guy being moved into the rows with adjusted seating to which the attendant asked if we had seen if his seat had been checked after he had moved - however, we hadn't been paying particular attention and therefore could not give an answer. Tbh I have no idea if this is of any relevance to anything but I can't find any actual information on what happened, all I know is later that day the ride operator and the attendant that was supposed to have checked that row were both in tears and we later saw them walking somewhere together, still obviously distressed. Even if it's not relevant, it would be interesting to see if there's any more information out there.

[RobF]

If you think the minimum staff required for each ride is at least 2-3 on flat rides and coasters require a minimum of 3-5 staff depending on the coaster however u then need to take into account break cover and additional roles on coasters for 2 train operation as the minimum number of staff increases on all coasters (unsure on saw Colossus can run with 2 platform staff on 2 trains)

Then you have fast track queue line staff which is part of the rides teams.

 

Its possible that staff from other departments where trained on some attractions eg bag rooms to enable more rides to operate with trained staff if they were understaffed

[JoshC.]

6 hours 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.

 

This sort of thing is always difficult to deal with for the park.  Obviously the point of the disabled queues is to ensure that those who can't queue are queueing for as little time as possible.  But when 40 minutes worth of disabled people are waiting to go on it, there's not much the park can do to stop it.  Even if Colossus was running 2 trains, that's still a 20 minute wait which is still too long.  I'm certainly not excusing the situation, but just saying it leaves the park in a difficult situation really - if people decide to join a long queue of people for something, that's their choice.

 

Personally, if I was using the disabled and saw that the Colossus disabled queue was from the station to the shop (as I saw it today!), I would go 'I'll try again later', rather than grin and bare it.

 

4 hours ago, Martin.C said:

The problem is that this has become the norm for a few years now. Never before the year 2015 did you ever have to think or consider which area is open or closed if you arrive before 10am. Years ago, everything (or nearly everything) was open at the hour, as advertised and at full capacity, ready for the day ahead. Now however, we have gradually seen more and more rides over time open at 11am instead of 10am. First it was just Slammer, then it was Samurai, then it was Colossus and now it's even Saw a couple of times I have visited (the entrance board said it opened at 11am). And to make matters worse, if you visit on a day the park consider to be a 'non-peak day', which is usually a weekday, you are subjected to reduced capacity on almost all coasters and the occasional flat ride, such as one swing on Rush at opening weekend or one train on Stealth and Colossus.

 

As far as I'm aware, Samurai, Storm Surge and Rumba Rapids are the only rides that are scheduled to open late.  All other rides are meant to open on time.  However, if those rides are ready and the staff are in early, the park open them up early.  

 

Rush was only on one swing due to technical issues I believe and not due to the park deliberately reducing capacity.  Unlike with the coasters, they cannot save staff costs by reducing the capacity, and the impact it makes to engineers for getting 1 or 2 swings ready is negligible.  And as it stands, I believe the second train on Colossus still isn't ready due to problems with Intamin and not the park, and Stealth similar was due to timings caused by external groups.

 

[Coaster]

2 hours ago, Marc said:

Explain to me if they didn't "give a jot" about guest experience why would they have:

 

1. Stopped letting people in

2. Stop fastrack sales on coasters 

3. Open all rides an additional 30 minutes, others for an hour after advertise close

4. Offer refunds / comp tickets to every guest in the park

5. Have staff working late replying to all guests online 

 

I'm all for criticism when necessary (and rightly so after a bad couple of days they are receiving this) but the park obviously do care about guest experience or none of them things would have happened.

None of those are "good" though and I don't see an extension to 6:30pm as a positive either.

 

These ridiculous situations occur too often at Thorpe, and any positive out of the past few days was "reactive" rather than "proactive" which is not how it should be.  Proper planning would avoid this.

 

The fact they removed their reviews section at Fright Nights speaks volumes about how little they value guest experience or feedback.

[Marc]

3 minutes ago, Coaster said:

None of those are "good" though and I don't see an extension to 6:30pm as a positive either.

 

These ridiculous situations occur too often at Thorpe, and any positive out of the past few days was "reactive" rather than "proactive" which is not how it should be.  Proper planning would avoid this.

 

The fact they removed their reviews section at Fright Nights speaks volumes about how little they value guest experience or feedback.

 

I agree it was reactive - but they reacted in the best way they could given the situation they were in - and most big rides actually remained open till 7 - got out of ghost train about 7:30.

 

As for the reviews section I don't think towers has this on either - up to them how they utilise social media - they are generally quite good at responding to comments on there negative or positive.

[Coaster]

16 minutes ago, Marc said:

 

I agree it was reactive - but they reacted in the best way they could given the situation they were in - and most big rides actually remained open till 7 - got out of ghost train about 7:30.

 

As for the reviews section I don't think towers has this on either - up to them how they utilise social media - they are generally quite good at responding to comments on there negative or positive.

The best way to react would be to learn from it, terrible days such as this happen at Thorpe far too often and the fact that they "handed out free returns" isn't good enough when the same problem keeps arising.

 

Of course the way they use social media is up to them, but IMO it looks poor that the reviews section was removed following the Fright Nights 1 star reviews.

[Marhelorpe]

 
As far as I'm aware, Samurai, Storm Surge and Rumba Rapids are the only rides that are scheduled to open late.  All other rides are meant to open on time.  However, if those rides are ready and the staff are in early, the park open them up early.  
 
Rush was only on one swing due to technical issues I believe and not due to the park deliberately reducing capacity.  Unlike with the coasters, they cannot save staff costs by reducing the capacity, and the impact it makes to engineers for getting 1 or 2 swings ready is negligible.  And as it stands, I believe the second train on Colossus still isn't ready due to problems with Intamin and not the park, and Stealth similar was due to timings caused by external groups.

If that's the case and it is only just those 3 rides that are scheduled to open later, where can the average guest know about this before trekking half the park to find it closed at the ride entrance? Whilst opening Storm Surge later is not something to fuss about, it would be helpful if guests knew this as they entered the park after the gates open between 10-11am so they know what's open and closed for the first hour. I didn't even know this until now, so how the heck the normal guest would I have no idea.

The only reason I am questioning which rides are scheduled to open at 11am is because a few days ago, Saw and Colossus's entrance boards stated the ride opens at 11am, not 10am. In addition, the park advertised it was opening the gates at 10am. It's inconsistent and unpredictable right now.

As I said in my previous post, I accept and acknowledge that in some instances there are exceptions to opening rides at half capacity or later in the day due to work still taking place on them. But the problem I'm saying is that on quiet days, the park operate virtually all of their coasters except for Saw and X on just 1 train all day, creating unnecessary long and slow queues for guests potentially paying up to £58.50 for admission. So how am I supposed to know now when I see a ride running at half capacity if it is deliberate or not?

An example of this is when the last meet was at Thorpe on the 25th March a couple of weeks ago, I distinctly remember seeing and hearing an announcement through Inferno's 60 minute queue announcing that the ride temporarily ceased operation whilst they were adding the 2nd train onto the track... on a Saturday.... at midday...... Well done lads.

What logic is there in this approach and why is this the normal way of operating rides at the park now? It's absolutely inexcusable that a park this large and popular can get away with such shoddy operations like this.

[Marc]

12 minutes ago, Martin.C said:

If that's the case and it is only just those 3 rides that are scheduled to open later, where can the average guest know about this before trekking half the park to find it closed at the ride entrance? Whilst opening Storm Surge later is not something to fuss about, it would be helpful if guests knew this as they entered the park after the gates open between 10-11am so they know what's open and closed for the first hour. I didn't even know this until now, so how the heck the normal guest would I have no idea.

The only reason I am questioning which rides are scheduled to open at 11am is because a few days ago, Saw and Colossus's entrance boards stated the ride opens at 11am, not 10am. In addition, the park advertised it was opening the gates at 10am. It's inconsistent and unpredictable right now.

As I said in my previous post, I accept and acknowledge that in some instances there are exceptions to opening rides at half capacity or later in the day due to work still taking place on them. But the problem I'm saying is that on quiet days, the park operate virtually all of their coasters except for Saw and X on just 1 train all day, creating unnecessary long and slow queues for guests potentially paying up to £58.50 for admission. So how am I supposed to know now when I see a ride running at half capacity if it is deliberate or not?

An example of this is when the last meet was at Thorpe on the 25th March a couple of weeks ago, I distinctly remember seeing and hearing an announcement through Inferno's 60 minute queue announcing that the ride temporarily ceased operation whilst they were adding the 2nd train onto the track... on a Saturday.... at midday...... Well done lads.

What logic is there in this approach and why is this the normal way of operating rides at the park now? It's absolutely inexcusable that a park this large and popular can get away with such shoddy operations like this.

 

The big screen in the dome, the 2 big queue boards and the ride boards  at the rides in question all state the rides which are opening at 11 - how can they make it any clearer?

 

As a guest your not expected to know the reasons behind ride capacity- why would you?

 

As for inferno and it's 2nd train - see above - we don't know why it was having the 2nd train added at 12, maybe there was a fault, maybe it opened on 2 but needed to be reduced - its upto the park to manage that and when things are not working up to them to remedy it and or take the flack - I can assure you rides closed will bother management at the park much more than it does you or I.

[Marhelorpe]

47 minutes ago, Marc said:

The big screen in the dome, the 2 big queue boards and the ride boards  at the rides in question all state the rides which are opening at 11 - how can they make it any clearer?

 

As a guest your not expected to know the reasons behind ride capacity- why would you?

 

As for inferno and it's 2nd train - see above - we don't know why it was having the 2nd train added at 12, maybe there was a fault, maybe it opened on 2 but needed to be reduced - its upto the park to manage that and when things are not working up to them to remedy it.

Not every guest will see those boards upon entering the park and the one at the entrance doesn't show any of this information as soon as the gates open. I don't remember Saw or Colossus being on those screens but I do remember their entrance boards saying they open at 11am the other day. That's the inconsistency and unreliable information I am talking about.

I'm not saying that all guests should know the full details as to why a ride is run at a limited capacity, I never stated that. What I said was if a ride is being run at a reduced capacity creating unnecessarily long queues, why does this only happen on what is considered as quiet days and the occasional weekend (like Saturday 25th March)? Why not do the sensible thing and run everything at full capacity if you can, you know, like all the other theme parks do if the queue isn't walk on? Too many times I've seen queues of around 60 minutes for Inferno or Colossus on weekdays in the middle of March/May/September because of this bizarre decision the park has been making for a few years now. That's what I'm criticising here.

 

All I can say to Inferno running just one train in the morning and then adding the second one on later when the queue reaches an hour is this is not the first time I've seen this. This is probably the 4th time in the last two years I've seen it happen in-person, which is why I am criticising and pointing out this activity - it is not a recent thing, it's been typical operations on this ride for some time now. This is not how to run an £8M ride that still pulls thousands of people a day on it. I'm sorry, but I just don't think it's acceptable for a park this scale to do that for guests paying up to £58.50 for admission alone.

[Stuntman707]

As Marc said, it's up to the park to manage ride capacity. It can be frustrating but it doesn't concern me as much as rides closing / not opening. Thats when I'd criticise them. When multiple main attractions remain closed, I'd consider that an operational failure.

I don't really care to know the reasons why Thorpe add trains on during the day. Could be a number of things we can speculate about. If they decide to increase capacity, I'm not going to complain about it.

[JDann]

1 hour ago, andrea said:

so I have no idea if this is related in any way but I was at the park on Friday and there was an emergency incident on inferno. I have no idea if these are common and we didn't really get told what happened but from what I interpreted, a train was sent off without being checked properly and possibly some guy's restraint wasn't on properly. Like I said, we weren't told but we were next to go on when the ride operator seemed to start to panic and then swore. The panicking gradually progressed to her crying and visibly shaking and as we were waiting we asked an attendant if the ride would be functioning again soon and after doing so we asked what had happened to which she asked if we 'had seen'. We mentioned we saw a guy being moved into the rows with adjusted seating to which the attendant asked if we had seen if his seat had been checked after he had moved - however, we hadn't been paying particular attention and therefore could not give an answer. Tbh I have no idea if this is of any relevance to anything but I can't find any actual information on what happened, all I know is later that day the ride operator and the attendant that was supposed to have checked that row were both in tears and we later saw them walking somewhere together, still obviously distressed. Even if it's not relevant, it would be interesting to see if there's any more information out there.

 

It sounds like new members of staff failed to check a restraint and got worried and panicked, even though actually, it doesn't really matter a great deal. If your new to the job and you fail to check a restraint I can imagine that you would be upset, the reality is that the 'Check' actually does very little at all and some parks won't even bother. The ride system would not allow the ride to be dispatched with an unlocked restraint, but I can imagine that if you are new to the job, you may not know this. 

 

Impossible to really know what exactly happened, it's a guess, I've seen guests do mental things like try and sit on top of closed restraints before, so wouldn't even want to rule that out. Ultimately it is the platformers duty to ensure the platform is cleared and everybody is secured into the ride, but sometimes things can be out of your control, the public can be a mental bunch. 

 

It sounds like this was the first busy day of the season and for a number of staff it will be their first big challenge, maybe even their first ever job, some people may be daunted by this and not be able to cope, as you explained. It all gets easier with experience. 

[Stuntman707]

I'm a little surprised actually that new ride hosts don't fully understand how ride dispatch systems work.

Even during a behind the scenes last year, the engineers explained to us how it is impossible for the train restraints to release by themselves until the cars make contact with the power rails in the station again. 

Rides have so many censors in a safety circuit that the computer will not allow the operator to dispatch a ride if any single one is not triggered. All the restraints have to light up as being energised and every ride host has to be holding the momentary push buttons on each corner of the station before the computer even lets the train move. (Unless an engineer has the ride in full manual mode)

[Marc]

31 minutes ago, Martin.C said:

Not every guest will see those boards upon entering the park and the one at the entrance doesn't show any of this information as soon as the gates open. I don't remember Saw or Colossus being on those screens but I do remember their entrance boards saying they open at 11am the other day. That's the inconsistency and unreliable information I am talking about.

I'm not saying that all guests should know the full details as to why a ride is run at a limited capacity, I never stated that. What I said was if a ride is being run at a reduced capacity creating unnecessarily long queues, why does this only happen on what is considered as quiet days? Why not do the sensible thing and run everything at full capacity, you know, like all the other parks do if the queue isn't walk on? Too many times I've seen queues of up to 60 minutes for Inferno or Colossus on weekdays in the middle of March/May/September because of this stupid decision the park has been making for a few years now. That's what I'm criticising here.

 

All I can say to Inferno running just one train in the morning and then adding the second one on later when the queue reaches an hour is this is not the first time I've seen this. This is probably the 4th time in the last two years I've seen it happen. Again, you hardly ever see other parks like Alton or Chessington add another train to the track half-way through the day do you? Why is it specifically Thorpe doing this?

Are you telling me you are happy to see the park run this way and see everything run at half capacity for pretty much half of the year?

 

No not all guests will see - but they are making it as clear as they possibly can using the equipment they have available- I can't think of any ways the park could communicate that to guests any better.

 

As for the 1/2 train debate it's one what's been on-going for years - of course I wish the rides were all on maximum capacity all of the the time - but sometimes that's not positive for reasons way beyond any of our knowledge - Thorpe being as compact as it is it's always been more noticeable - last year I went to towers queued for an hour for galatica running one station before they opened the 2nd and added the additional train.

[Stuntman707]

 

3 minutes ago, Marc said:

As for the 1/2 train debate it's one what's been on-going for years - of course I wish the rides were all on maximum capacity all of the the time - but sometimes that's not positive for reasons way beyond any of our knowledge - Thorpe being as compact as it is it's always been more noticeable - last year I went to towers queued for an hour for galatica running one station before they opened the 2nd and added the additional train.

 

Actually this reminded me that Towers do change the capacity during the day too. Galactica (/ Air) is unusual in that they would open the ride with both trains in the station but one side would be shut. As the switch over tracks are part of the ride, all they had to do to increase capacity later in the day was to just open the other platform.

[RobF]

39 minutes ago, Martin.C said:

Not every guest will see those boards upon entering the park and the one at the entrance doesn't show any of this information as soon as the gates open. I don't remember Saw or Colossus being on those screens but I do remember their entrance boards saying they open at 11am the other day. That's the inconsistency and unreliable information I am talking about.

I'm not saying that all guests should know the full details as to why a ride is run at a limited capacity, I never stated that. What I said was if a ride is being run at a reduced capacity creating unnecessarily long queues, why does this only happen on what is considered as quiet days? Why not do the sensible thing and run everything at full capacity, you know, like all the other parks do if the queue isn't walk on? Too many times I've seen queues of up to 60 minutes for Inferno or Colossus on weekdays in the middle of March/May/September because of this stupid decision the park has been making for a few years now. That's what I'm criticising here.

 

All I can say to Inferno running just one train in the morning and then adding the second one on later when the queue reaches an hour is this is not the first time I've seen this. This is probably the 4th time in the last two years I've seen it happen. Again, you hardly ever see other parks like Alton or Chessington add another train to the track half-way through the day do you? Why is it specifically Thorpe doing this?

Are you telling me you are happy to see the park run this way and see everything run at half capacity for pretty much half of the year?

Coaster capacity on quiet days could be todo with staffing levels, as more staff are needed to run extra train on most costers , either so that in the event of a breakdown there is a member of staff with each train and to man entrance ect or because the ride setup needs more staff eg stealth

 

Extra staff used to start later in day for break cover ect.

 

it doesn't excuse poor operations or capacity but merlin ultimately give thorpe staff hour budgets to work to.

[Marhelorpe]

Just as long as the park delivers the information about later openings as clearly and as accurately as they can to every guest that enters, whether it's through social media, on-park displays or on their website, that's all that matters. Delivering accurate and clear messages is key.

 

Sorry for ranting on a bit about this 1/2 train issue which I know has been an issue for a few years now, it just frustrates me greatly when I see a park that has the potential to offer guests a superb day out hinder themselves like this which ultimately leads to lower guest satisfaction, more complaints and weaker incentives to visit again. If the park can run better and more efficiently for guests, they should always strive for the best and not let anything get in the way of that goal. Right now, I just don't see that sadly.

Also, I too have seen Galactica run that way in the morning a couple of times too, which I also find inexcusable and pointless. So not every Merlin park is run perfectly, you just see these issues more prominently with Thorpe for some reason.