March 22, 201411 yr comment_178993 Running the ride efficiently or not would not affect the safety of the riders. It'd affect the experience, but not the safety. They are not allowed to keep a train on lift two for more than ten seconds, this relies on quick dispatches.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_178995 They are not allowed to keep a train on lift two for more than ten seconds, this relies on quick dispatches. What a ridiculous rule. Who came up with that one? I suppose it's one of those rules made up completely on the fly like 15 people to run Rameses or loading Fury with two or three adults depending on how they are feeling that week.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_178998 I can't help but feel that these rules are made by people that have no freakin' clue or has based on some basic "logic" and then just taken it way too far. Most of them, all appeared to be geared to some extent towards reducing unnecessary wear and tear to prolong the life of parts. With Vampire? I don't know, maybe something to with prolonging the life of anti-rollbacks, lift hill motor etc. It's probably quite wearing to run a motor on a reduced speed, stop and then start up again as opposed to letting it do a complete run to get the train up the hill.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179001 Two trains is fine, as three does ruin the experience partially with the stop in the middle and then waiting again in the brakes before the station... They just seriously need more, or more experienced staff and / or instructions to make the whole process quicker!
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179002 They used to be fine on three trains most of the time, as long as the platformers were efficient! Actually I spent more time on the brake run last year with only 2 trains than I ever did when they had 3 trains!
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179004 They used to be fine on three trains most of the time, as long as the platformers were efficient!Actually I spent more time on the brake run last year with only 2 trains than I ever did when they had 3 trains!Agreed. I counted dispatch time of around 4mins 30 secs lasts year several times. At one point on 3 train opetatiob they used to dispatch every 45 seconds!
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179007 ^ I remember that! I also remember the platformers running around like mad checking restraints. The ride op would announce, "We have 30 seconds to dispatch the next train so please help us by boarding quickly and pulling down your restraint." Then counted down to dispatch. They actually seemed to take pride in a quick dispatch and throughput.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179010 They are not allowed to keep a train on lift two for more than ten seconds, this relies on quick dispatches. I think you'll find this is more of a target than a rule. It is simply going to happen sometimes, you can't rule it out. But it is obviously undesirable and I think that is the point, it should not in itself dictate that three trains can not happen.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179011 Well, I'm seriously looking forward to seeing three trains in operation again, as sometimes the trains DUEL!
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179012 They will never run 3 trains again, they have been told that they have to have 2 trains available at all times, so the 3rd train needs to available if one of the other trains has a problem with it.
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179014 They will never run 3 trains again, they have been told that they have to have 2 trains available at all times, so the 3rd train needs to available if one of the other trains has a problem with it. How exactly do you know this?
March 22, 201411 yr comment_179021 Now that sounds quite plausible from Chessington. Either way, at least they have three trains to allow consistent 2 train use throughout the year.
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179061 Absolutely shocking operations today on the Vampire. Queue reached 75 minutes by 10.30am! I did a throughput calculation and they were averaging a dispatch time of 3min 45secs. That's a throughput of 545pph! Absolutely shocking!! To top it off they had technical issues too, lots of angry people around.
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179062 Absolutely shocking operations today on the Vampire. Queue reached 75 minutes by 10.30am! I did a throughput calculation and they were averaging a dispatch time of 3min 45secs. That's a throughput of 545pph! Absolutely shocking!! To top it off they had technical issues too, lots of angry people around. And they used to have to dispatch in 45secs? What they actually doing in the station for an extra 3 mins? The que has gone down to 20 mins btw
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179064 30 second dispatch times on 3 trains back in the day... Wouldn't be surprised if some of it was down to the newbies coming in... It seemed a bit tempermental yesterday in the station... Doesn't help though that they never fill the bloody station anyway, so half the time you end up waiting for more people to turn up from the 70 minute queue...
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179065 I still remember how surprised I was to see how quickly TH13TEEN loads and dispatches! THAT'S because it has 3 trains, so why can't Vampire be that way?
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179068 Yeah, the days of 30-45sec dispatch seem long gone. I used to think they took pride in quick dispatch! No more is the case. I sat on the brake run for a good 30 seconds today, got a nice look at train 1 though
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179069 I still remember how surprised I was to see how quickly TH13TEEN loads and dispatches! THAT'S because it has 3 trains, so why can't Vampire be that way? Different ride system, different set of restraints, better designed station... There are a lot of factors that affect a ride's throughput...
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179079 They might still have the absolutely ridiculous rules in place from last year which prevented them from having any sort of throughput ever. Let's hope they don't though, as the moron who put those in place has left.
March 23, 201411 yr comment_179097 They might still have the absolutely ridiculous rules in place from last year which prevented them from having any sort of throughput ever. Let's hope they don't though, as the moron who put those in place has left. What rules?
March 30, 201411 yr comment_179576 Today is a great example of how badly they are running the ride. Got there at 09:50, but they didn't open it until 10:10, so by the time they opened the queue was all the way past the Bubble Works to Market Square. Instantly on opening they had a 90 min queue. On a positive note the ride was fantastic and the staff were getting the train out of the station just as the other train was hitting the brakes. It is delays like this which cause mega long queues. Why can't these parks get the rides ready for opening as this just annoys so many guests when you have a mile long queue for a ride.
March 30, 201411 yr comment_179579 Why can't these parks get the rides ready for opening as this just annoys so many guests when you have a mile long queue for a ride. Explorer Fastrack ZUFARI: Ride into Africa, Vampire, Bubbleworks, KOBRA, Dragon Falls, Dragons Fury, Tomb Blaster, Flying Jumbos, Tiny Truckers, Toadie's Crazy Cars, Sea Storm and Monkey Swinger!£30Ultimate Fastrack Unlimited Fastrack access to all Fastrack rides all day£60
March 30, 201411 yr comment_179585 Rides do open late sometimes... Scorpion Express opened 5 minutes late last week, and Vampire has always been a bit iffy at times...
March 30, 201411 yr comment_179699 Today, Vampire was just ridiculous in my opinion. I've never had the satisfaction of seeing a three-train service and I'm fully aware that I never will, although it is nice to see a third train back together since it was left last year without any seating on it in the transfer... Today the queue was consistently 45 minutes whenever I looked; and I only did it because me and Rich got a priority / fastrack pass for Dragon's Fury breaking down on us (might I add, when we got to Vampire that too broke down). But, and I said it to Rich today, I do not understand why Vampire is so slow moving. We saw about six trains go and every time the train before had returned and hit the brakes at the end. Now, Vampire is roughly a two minute ride, roughly, based off the length of YouTube POVs. So I do not understand why it takes them two minutes to load a train. Rich argued it's because of small kids with it being a 1.1m ride - but that aside, the staff should be helping to get kids into the ride wherever possible to help speed up operation. But today they just didn't seem to care in my opinion. I mean, even with kids - most of which are in a one adult to one child ratio; still shouldn't take them that long to load. If parks like Thorpe and Towers can load and send Nemesis trains within a minute (despite having more seats to check, more people with bags etc.) I don't understand why Vampire can't run to a similar standard. People moan when rides stack at Thorpe, but I think that the difference in ride length between a Thorpe coaster and Vampire is enough for them to sort Vampire's operation out - and in my opinion I don't see why they can't have the trains dispatching roughly when the other train goes through the photo-point tunnel like it did back in 2012. Was an incredibly poor team on Vampire today.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.