Chiapas runs in the rain, and I can say from experience rain doesn't ruin/affect the ride! A thunderstorm I agree is a reason to close rides, but rain? Sounds like another excuse.

It's got to be REALLY heavy though, and for like, hours on a consistent level before it would cause any real flooding/danger...

 

Thunderstorms are obviously another matter, but 'heavy rain' is a poor excuse...

 

So basically the weather over Thorpe right now... ?

 

Chiapas runs in the rain, and I can say from experience rain doesn't ruin/affect the ride! A thunderstorm I agree is a reason to close rides, but rain? Sounds like another excuse.

 

 

Different rides are affected differently.. I'm not saying all water rides are affected, just certain ones at thorpe certainly automatically shutdown with the slightest change in water levels. 

I'm not offended, but I just tire of people's constant go-to reaction being to slate Thorpe whenever and however.

If the current weather over Thorpe is the same as in central London atm, then it's a daft decision...

 

Besides, not like Storm Surge isn't flooded on the nice days, makes zero difference in that case...

I agree that some people do jump to slate Thorpe at every opportunity, but 8+ rides closed isn't a rare occurrence at the park anymore. 

We have lots of thunder and lightning over us presently (East Surrey).

Let's not forget that lightning can travel up to 7 miles from it's point of origin before grounding, and Thorpe has two massive lightning conductors masquerading as roller coasters within the space of a few hundred meters, so it doesn't need to be thundering at Thorpe for them to close rides.

As for rain, I can understand it if the rain is heavy, even water can do damage to flesh if you hit it fast enough, but closing a slow water ride because it's raining, kind of ironic that one lol.

Isn't it more guest comfort on Storm Surge. You do spend a long time on Storm Surge going up the lift hill.

Surely if guests know it's raining and still waiting in the queue, they're prepared to get wet?

 

I can see what you mean though. 

Surely if guests know it's raining and still waiting in the queue, they're prepared to get wet?

 

I can see what you mean though. 

 

No. Guests are... odd creatures and will tolerate waiting but when they get to the seat 'oh the seats wet.'

 

Trust me on this, Storm Surge being closed is for the guests own good.. in fact.. no don't do the obvious joke Mark.

Storm Surge had some sensor troubles during its first season when it rained heavily; not sure if that issue was able to be resolved though.

I doubt the reason Storm Surge was closed earlier today was due to the rain as it was closed all day yesterday. It has however re opened this afternoon.

I don't have any time for the excuse of closing rides "for the comfort of guests" during rain - if it is safe and able to operate then it should be open, and people can make a decision on whether or not they want to go on it.

I don't have any time for the excuse of closing rides "for the comfort of guests" during rain - if it is safe and able to operate then it should be open, and people can make a decision on whether or not they want to go on it.

 

Potential problems arise here though.  If people do get discomforted from the ride, they could complain and blow things way out of proportion.  Remember that things like common sense can go out the window when people visit theme parks.  Also, for today in particular, there was some heavy rain with thunderstorms predicted, so there's also the precaution of closing rides so they're not operating during a thunderstorm.  That's quite common practice across many theme parks.

 

 

I don't check the queue times thing, but presumably in the afternoon when the weather improved, many of the closed rides reopened (bar a couple of water rides which were to remain closed due to the weather I think)?  That would indicate it was something purely down to the weather and just a simple precaution.  

Right. Storm Surge was testing all morning. Not to do with comfort, was just broken. Tidal seems really unreliable this year and that continued today with it just having engineers around it. Yes it's bad that it's gotten so unreliable but it wasn't because of the rain. Loggers is still down for the same reasons as the prelonged closure last week, just keeps going up and down. X closed for cleaning I think. Rumba again just broken in the morning, not rain. Saw was up and down a bit and Stealth went down for a while. Other than Colossus which has one train out of use due to maintenance, all the others were full capacity (yes even X) when the park was pretty dead due to the weather. Samurai still in a thousand pieces. 

I don't have any time for the excuse of closing rides "for the comfort of guests" during rain - if it is safe and able to operate then it should be open, and people can make a decision on whether or not they want to go on it.

 

Never go to a Cedar Fair park, they close rides when someone sneezes in the nearby vicinity...

 

At Cedar Point they closed Blue Streak in light drizzle... That is really pathetic...

Potential problems arise here though. If people do get discomforted from the ride, they could complain and blow things way out of proportion. Remember that things like common sense can go out the window when people visit theme parks. Also, for today in particular, there was some heavy rain with thunderstorms predicted, so there's also the precaution of closing rides so they're not operating during a thunderstorm. That's quite common practice across many theme parks.

I don't check the queue times thing, but presumably in the afternoon when the weather improved, many of the closed rides reopened (bar a couple of water rides which were to remain closed due to the weather I think)? That would indicate it was something purely down to the weather and just a simple precaution.

Closing rides because they have a problem/thunder is different, I can understand that but I think that closing them due to guest discomfort is ridiculous. Simple solution, put a sign up warning guests that they may experience discomfort during rain and keep the rides open whenever possible.

Closing rides because they have a problem/thunder is different, I can understand that but I think that closing them due to guest discomfort is ridiculous. Simple solution, put a sign up warning guests that they may experience discomfort during rain and keep the rides open whenever possible.

 

So say you're an operator on.. well we're say Colossus but what whatever and you see torrential rain outside and you decide, well we're keep it open because even though standing in the rain and travelling through the rain at speed on basically an open top car are completely different things, you're a stubborn operator and it looks nice on a queue time website to have everything running.

 

And then your ride breaks down. And it can't be resolved. And because you've taken a decision to keep it open in spite of seeing the rainy conditions, you've essentially sent 28 people out into the rain, stranded on the lift hill where it takes 40 minutes to an hour to be evacuated. There's no cover up there so it's just the train and the elements. So because of you, not only have you got 28 people soaked to the bone, you need to get all the managers over, the guest service team to distribute free tickets (maybe even annual passes), warm blankets, hot coffee and potentially hold the ride up further once the rain goes causing even more annoyance because you thought the running of a ride was more important then guest comfort. 

 

Lets face it, our parks are good at running their rides in the rain anyway so most of it is a moot point, but on rides like Storm Surge (which it turns out wasn't guest comfort anyway, just my suggestion) that lift hill is long and sitting on a boat that's filling more and more with rain water can't be much fun.

So say you're an operator on.. well we're say Colossus but what whatever and you see torrential rain outside and you decide, well we're keep it open because even though standing in the rain and travelling through the rain at speed on basically an open top car are completely different things, you're a stubborn operator and it looks nice on a queue time website to have everything running.

 

And then your ride breaks down. And it can't be resolved. And because you've taken a decision to keep it open in spite of seeing the rainy conditions, you've essentially sent 28 people out into the rain, stranded on the lift hill where it takes 40 minutes to an hour to be evacuated. There's no cover up there so it's just the train and the elements. So because of you, not only have you got 28 people soaked to the bone, you need to get all the managers over, the guest service team to distribute free tickets (maybe even annual passes), warm blankets, hot coffee and potentially hold the ride up further once the rain goes causing even more annoyance because you thought the running of a ride was more important then guest comfort. 

 

Lets face it, our parks are good at running their rides in the rain anyway so most of it is a moot point, but on rides like Storm Surge (which it turns out wasn't guest comfort anyway, just my suggestion) that lift hill is long and sitting on a boat that's filling more and more with rain water can't be much fun.

I have been stuck on rides in torrential rain before, it is a rare occasion but it happens and I don't see it worth keeping a ride closed just in case of a breakdown, which is an unlikely event.

Furthermore, it's not because it looks "nice" on a queue times website, it's because I think that if a ride can run in the rain them it should be open.

Do Thorpe offer free return tickets when people are on a ride breakdown then? As unless the rain caused the breakdown, I don't see why the fact that it was running in the rain makes a difference, the public take the risk of being on a breakdown when they get on a ride so the same applies in the rain IMO.

Many rides are much more likley to shutdown in the rain, Nemesis Inferno is a good example and is very prone to shuttng down in the rain and stopping on the lift - If the rain is bad it makes much more sense to stop running for a short time IMO. 

Cedar point and most American parks completely shut down in the rain. 120mph in the rain is deemed too painful. I don't blame Thorpe for shutting down in torrential rain. Sometimes it's needed.

I have been stuck on rides in torrential rain before, it is a rare occasion but it happens and I don't see it worth keeping a ride closed just in case of a breakdown, which is an unlikely event.

Furthermore, it's not because it looks "nice" on a queue times website, it's because I think that if a ride can run in the rain them it should be open.

Do Thorpe offer free return tickets when people are on a ride breakdown then? As unless the rain caused the breakdown, I don't see why the fact that it was running in the rain makes a difference, the public take the risk of being on a breakdown when they get on a ride so the same applies in the rain IMO.

 

Of course you don't and I thank my lucky stars you aren't an operator making the decision. And having operated many rides, I can tell you thats baloney. Rides do break down more in the rain. 

 

To answer the second question, a few years back I was stuck on Detonator for 15 minutes with Marc during thrill chill and we got free return tickets for the inconvenience to our day. Sometimes its express pass/exit passes, sometimes they give out free day return tickets.

Do Thorpe offer free return tickets when people are on a ride breakdown then?

 

I was stuck on Loggers for 40 minutes before an evac. All I was given was a water ride Fast Track, and they were all walk on that day anyway. 

 

Depends on the staff by the sounds of it.

It depends if you can be bothered to go Guest Services or not...

Most times one just gets given a "fast track for a lesser ride" but kick up about it and you would gain from that.

 

I think you'll find that the ticket is valid for several months.

 

 

To answer the second question, a few years back I was stuck on Detonator for 15 minutes with Marc during thrill chill and we got free return tickets for the inconvenience to our day. Sometimes its express pass/exit passes, sometimes they give out free day return tickets.

 

If I got stuck on Detonator (which is unlikely because, after a grand total of going on that thing 4 times I've decided my anxiety can't handle it) I genuinely think I would either

 

a) soil myself

have a panic attack

c) have a heart attack

 

I got evacuated from Rumba last year - we weren't stuck for long, but there was a mini pile up and we got nothing - not a sausage!

Earlier this year I queued around 40 mins for Colossus and as we got to the station they were having technicaly issues - we were given a priority pass which covered rides such as X, Vortex, Rush etc (which none of those really had much of a queue for anyway) - I'm not one to go to Guest Services at the drop of a hat but that day I did pop in there and asked if we could get a pass for one of the other coasters which they were fine with.  After spending 40 mins waiting for a coaster to break down, it seemed pointless to use a priority pass on something that had about a 5 min queue when all the other coasters were 40-60mins