Suggestions

[Fred]

Might end up going soon though, you never know. Towers has almost confirmed that this is the last season of BK and KFC.

[Welsh Boy]

Turn on the bluetooth. Ive tried in the Stealth queue and Nemesis queue, but it never works...

[StevenVig]

It went ages ago

[Mattgwise]

I'm not overally fussed about it being Pizza Hut (bar the expensiveness of it) but they really need to re-arrange the serving areas... Especially when we're spoilt by the good layouts at Alton and Chessie...

I quite like it being Pizza Hut and you say expensive!!!! Personally I find it great value and probably the cheapest place to eat at Thorpe Park for what you get, in fact it is bizarrely cheaper than normal Pizza Hut buffet as it is £7.99 for Pizza, Pasta, salad and drinks. Normal Pizza Hut is something like £6.99 without the drink. However I do agree with you about he serving areas being quite poor, I always worry that my plate is going to be sent flying when around the buffet area.

[AdamY]

I love Pizza Hut as it happens, and I hope it stays. However, it doesn't beat Calypso BBQ for me

[JoshC.]

Can't start a topic about it, so I'll point it out here. Celebs getting cut queues! Very annoying. Was on park today, and Stacey Solomon (X Factor) was able to go through the exits of all the rides like a disabled guest! What's worse, is she had 2 staff with her (1 at some times) as if she was the queen of blooming England! IS there any need for 2 staff to escort round the park. She was on a talent contest, not the queen's flipping daughter!

[Aliice.]

Can't start a topic about it, so I'll point it out here. Celebs getting cut queues! Very annoying. Was on park today, and Stacey Solomon (X Factor) was able to go through the exits of all the rides like a disabled guest! What's worse, is she had 2 staff with her (1 at some times) as if she was the queen of blooming England! IS there any need for 2 staff to escort round the park. She was on a talent contest, not the queen's flipping daughter!

Omg I can't believe she was there and I missed her :L

[James6]

It is rather annoying I agree. I wouldn't actually mind so much for someone like Stacey Solomon, but for people that need to be slapped to another galaxy such as Katie Price, that is especially annoying. It is strange how they could afford fast track but they still get exit access. Only thing I can think of is if they are mobbed in the confined queue area, could cause problems, but yes it is irritating.

[Benin]

Sounds like one of those people "Don't you know who I am?"...God I'd be terrible in Guest Services

[Mer]

Agree with Ian.It's up to the celebs and I don't blame them if they wanted to be considered a "normal" guest. But I also don't blame them for not wanting to queue with loads of people, as they risk being harassed, or they may not want to get much attention, etc.

[gerstlaue]

^Agreed. But then you also get plebs like Jonathan Ross who casually walk past a huge crowd of long-waiting, pushing, desperate people at Thi3teen opening day, with a smug grin on your face! (Not saying I wouldn't do the same if I could, but still)

[Mark9]

I remember the kerfuffle I went through trying to get Katy Price onto Fury last year. And trying to be as polite as possible, she was the most ungreatful cow ever..

[Fred]

And trying to be as polite as possible, she was the most ungreatful cow ever..

She's the worst one I've had. We've had NDubz in all week, at the start they were very very much whoring up the celeb status, by the end they were just using the back rows covering their faces. Taught them.

[weeby-vuit]

I think Thorpe Park should re-pave there paths with brick paths rather than the tarmac paths that have been dig up and patched..!

[JBdaWonderLlama]

Can't start a topic about it, so I'll point it out here. Celebs getting cut queues! Very annoying. Was on park today, and Stacey Solomon (X Factor) was able to go through the exits of all the rides like a disabled guest! What's worse, is she had 2 staff with her (1 at some times) as if she was the queen of blooming England! IS there any need for 2 staff to escort round the park. She was on a talent contest, not the queen's flipping daughter!

I saw her there too, didn't know she got cut queue times though :\

[weeby-vuit]

I saw her there too, didn't know she got cut queue times though :\

I hate this, they do it at all the parks. They should have their own body guard and queue like the rest of us...

[th13teen]

Thorpe park could be improved by giving the staff a pep talk so that they are friendly to the guests much like alton towers, themeing needs to work again I cant believe how demoralised I feel after seeing something that should be going for my pleasure, queue should always be fitted with long benches for the really long queues e.g 2 hours+, the staff need to work quicker because many times I have seen them just talking to there co worker rather than letting you get on the ride! thorpe park need to add a permentant all audince show and you only need it on once a day why not hire the stunt show throughout the season (except halloween obviously)the great thing about thorpe is they keep to there word about smoking in the queues lines which I applaud fantastic rule works aswell as the queue jumping well done!

[Pickles]

1. The money comes from where? 2. The benches would not work on most rides. 3. The permanent audience wouldn't work because it would once again be too costly and most of the shows they get have other things to do during the year plus it creates better publicity for the park IE special appearences. As for the smoking, it doesnt actually work because most the time the operators and platformers are too busy with guest safety then to bother with smoking. Queue jumpings another thing that does work.

[Mark9]

How often does Thorpe actually have two hour plus queues?To be honest I see your point about staff talking to each other but the thing is we are human beings, we by our very nature are social and sometimes we do talk to each other. For them it makes their day go faster. I find more often then not that Thorpe and Alton work very hard constantly to get people on the rides. Rarely do I see them just talking.

[MikeyT]

Thorpe park could be improved by giving the staff a pep talk so that they are friendly to the guests much like alton towers

All Merlin parks have daily morning briefings and evening de-briefings. This is where staff are given feedback from the previous day and usually games designed to help motivate the team. On top of this all staff have to attend an intensive induction which they have to complete before they start work. This gives them park information and training in customer service. Though there is more that can be done.Not having worked at Thorpe, I can't really speak on behalf of the staff there. At Chessington though, last year I think they had the balance just right for the rides department; teams weren't too big, which meant you would get really close with your team mates, my area in particular also had some great team leaders who worked their butts off to make sure we were having a good day. We would do morning games and if we weren't too tired in the evening we'd do evening games as well. Hide and seek! We had great area socials, and a lot of the time our Team Leaders would do things for us out of their own pockets.Sorry, going off on a tangent- I think Thorpe have the problem of the clientèle. The amount of times I've seen the staff there being spoken to like a piece of dirt; they spoil it for the rest of the general public who treat the staff with respect and aren't receiving the best customer service.There are ways the park could help (though I must admit I've rarely experienced bad customer service since 2008), having a more thorough incentive scheme being at the heart of it. Taking a page out of Holiday World's book, guests should be given tokens (just as an example- could be anything) which can be handed over to staff who have provided excellent customer service. I think the parks do something similar but this should be everyday.However, what I've found is that guests will either give it to the staff members at their first ride, or realize they still have it at the end of the day and just give it to anyone to get rid of it. The way to get round this would be to have these tokens in shops, at till points, in guest services, ride photo points. Of course this would involve trusting the staff not to just take them. Each department could be given a budget each month. The more tokens, the better the prize.Just a suggestion anyway. As you can see I'm really passionate about this sort of thing. Of course this is a more elaborate way, there are many small ways which could help improve staff motivation and morale and therefore customer service.

[th13teen]

All Merlin parks have daily morning briefings and evening de-briefings. This is where staff are given feedback from the previous day and usually games designed to help motivate the team. On top of this all staff have to attend an intensive induction which they have to complete before they start work. This gives them park information and training in customer service. Though there is more that can be done.Not having worked at Thorpe, I can't really speak on behalf of the staff there. At Chessington though, last year I think they had the balance just right for the rides department; teams weren't too big, which meant you would get really close with your team mates, my area in particular also had some great team leaders who worked their butts off to make sure we were having a good day. We would do morning games and if we weren't too tired in the evening we'd do evening games as well. Hide and seek! We had great area socials, and a lot of the time our Team Leaders would do things for us out of their own pockets.Sorry, going off on a tangent- I think Thorpe have the problem of the clientèle. The amount of times I've seen the staff there being spoken to like a piece of dirt; they spoil it for the rest of the general public who treat the staff with respect and aren't receiving the best customer service.There are ways the park could help (though I must admit I've rarely experienced bad customer service since 2008), having a more thorough incentive scheme being at the heart of it. Taking a page out of Holiday World's book, guests should be given tokens (just as an example- could be anything) which can be handed over to staff who have provided excellent customer service. I think the parks do something similar but this should be everyday.However, what I've found is that guests will either give it to the staff members at their first ride, or realize they still have it at the end of the day and just give it to anyone to get rid of it. The way to get round this would be to have these tokens in shops, at till points, in guest services, ride photo points. Of course this would involve trusting the staff not to just take them. Each department could be given a budget each month. The more tokens, the better the prize.Just a suggestion anyway. As you can see I'm really passionate about this sort of thing. Of course this is a more elaborate way, there are many small ways which could help improve staff motivation and morale and therefore customer service.

there just a completely diferent sort of staff to Alton towers where they always ask you how your day is etc. Plus it looks like your a staff member or were at chessington if so how hard was it to get a Job there and if your looking for a higher place should you start at the bottom and work your way up the ranks???

1. The money comes from where? 2. The benches would not work on most rides. 3. The permanent audience wouldn't work because it would once again be too costly and most of the shows they get have other things to do during the year plus it creates better publicity for the park IE special appearences. As for the smoking, it doesnt actually work because most the time the operators and platformers are too busy with guest safety then to bother with smoking. Queue jumpings another thing that does work.

what I'm getting at is Disney have shows and parades everyday and thorpe need that especially throughout main school holidays plus they always moan at guests sitting on the queue line fences I say the next new ride they half the usual height of the queue line fences and turn the other half horoizontal just saying.and thats what I mean they do stop smokers and queue jumpers especially in the clever design of the stealth queue!

[Marc]

there just a completely diferent sort of staff to Alton towers where they always ask you how your day is etc. Plus it looks like your a staff member or were at chessington if so how hard was it to get a Job there and if your looking for a higher place should you start at the bottom and work your way up the ranks???

I disagree, both sets of staff are great, ive had thorpe staff talking to me, asking how my day has been just as much, if not more than at Alton Towers.

what I'm getting at is Disney have shows and parades everyday and thorpe need that especially throughout main school holidays plus they always moan at guests sitting on the queue line fences I say the next new ride they half the usual height of the queue line fences and turn the other half horoizontal just saying.and thats what I mean they do stop smokers and queue jumpers especially in the clever design of the stealth queue!

Disney, that says it all, there parade probably has a bigger budget than the entire park does in a year. That and how many guests do you think would really be interested within Thorpes target audience.

[MikeyT]

there just a completely diferent sort of staff to Alton towers where they always ask you how your day is etc. Plus it looks like your a staff member or were at chessington if so how hard was it to get a Job there and if your looking for a higher place should you start at the bottom and work your way up the ranks???

I have to say I've actually had both excellent experiences and terrible experiences of customer service at all three ex- Tussauds Parks. It can be very difficult within the rides team- especially where there are high throughputs and you're going like the clappers to keep queue times acceptable, to properly interact with guests, though you can be pleasant and diplomatic and respect guests. Obviously rides where you're in contact with people for an extended amount of time, you can interact a lot more.Also with retail, they really are awesome, I've never had a bad experience with any retail outlet at any of the parks. You're more than welcome to PM me if you want any info about jobs there, but let's keep it off the forums!

I disagree, both sets of staff are great, ive had thorpe staff talking to me, asking how my day has been just as much, if not more than at Alton Towers.

Yeah, again, on the whole I've had a positive experience with the staff, though if someone is looking a bit down then I tend to start conversation with them, asking how their day has been, with the hope at the back of my mind that they will be encouraged to do it back to other guests.

[MiniShinny]

Maybee a queue time board around canada creek for the visitors

[A-Kid]

I got one suggestion. Put a cover/building over Samurai's queue. It is horrible in direct sunlight. Even low temperatures, the sunlight reflecting off the concrete makes it unbearable.