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Closed Rides


Ash

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It would also take a fair bit for SAW's chain to snap, considering its pretty robustly enclosed, it's not like a Mauher spinner where it has a loose end...

 

How anyone can actually say it's acceptable to have as much closed as they do is beyond me. I think I am quite lenient with the parks, but today just took the biscuit. X closed until the afternoon, then opening on one train loading. Rush closed most of the day with no engineers actually present just ride staff seeming unprepared (I can only presume it's fallen until this morning to refresh staff but still). Samurai advertised as closed until Easter, meaning its been closed since pre-Fright Nights. Slammer, being Slammer, not acceptable frankly but it's the one everyone seems to let slip.

 

The bottom line is advertised or not, today five rides (Rumba, Tidal, Slammer, Samurai, and SAW) failed to open, and a further two opened notably late (Rush, X) and others opened later than planned (although before I really arrived). For people who are paying their £25 minimum (which it is now, £49.99 on the gate full whack, £25 on 2-4-1 or online) it was abysmal to see so much closed. At the end of the day, yeah, the park was quiet - 5 min waits on one train operations - but these people pay money to come in, and they will pay money to come to the park again if they see it worthwhile. But frankly, if I'd paid even £25 today, it'd leave a bitter taste in my mouth. To a degree I feel a bit sour that I wasted a day there today, when (in defence) on the day Alton Towers opens it will most likely have a damn sight better ride line up available.

 

Sorry just to add as an edit: SAW was not advertised closed outside, nor have any of these attractions been listed on Facebook or their website. As far as guests are concerned, Tidal, Rumba, Slammer, Samurai are open until the moment they go to the ticket kiosk.

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This sort of lacking availability has become pretty much the norm at Thorpe Park at the extreme ends of the season.

Once the park closed, one would anticipate the target date for rides to be ready would be 2 or 3 weeks prior to opening in order to allow for training.

This consistently fails at TP and has done for a decade.

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It's the beginning of the season! You guys expect to much from this park. It's not disney nor universal so we should all except that. Yeah some rides were down or not running but park is going to be quiet it's midweek, people at work children at school means very little people are going to go. If the park can save money on quiet days such as these by only running one car let them do that, the money saved can go to some sort of investment. But again thorpe ain't disney. So I think you should lower your expectations.

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I wasn't complaining, just curious.

I hope they get saw up and running by the end of the month as it's the only one I've not ridden yet, but I won't cry if they don't, I'll just go back next month lol.

Unfortunately we've scheduled our next visit for the same day the celeb thing opens, dam schools and their inset days.

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I get the whole 'it's quiet' thing but if they advertise 97% (or whatever they said on Twitter) and that doesn't happen, people are gonna be upset. Just because Thorpe aren't Disney doesn't mean that it's fine for them to do things like that. Hopefully with patience everything will be up and running soon, but they have expectations they have to achieve.

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This sort of lacking availability has become pretty much the norm at Thorpe Park at the extreme ends of the season.

Once the park closed, one would anticipate the target date for rides to be ready would be 2 or 3 weeks prior to opening in order to allow for training.

This consistently fails at TP and has done for a decade.

 

Hit the nail on the head, yet there are so many excuses and expecting this to happen. Why some enthusiasts think it's any sort of OK operation to open a theme park with a chunk of rides down is beyond me. It pains me to see them shouting 'we're open' over social media, when they should be saying 'we're open with limited rides'. Poor show once again.

 

If they can't handle the winter months work, they need to ask REAL theme park operators how they do it staying open longer hours, and longer seasons. Stinks of Merlin's vision of what they think is acceptable. Paramount can't come soon enough.

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It's the beginning of the season! You guys expect to much from this park. It's not disney nor universal so we should all except that. Yeah some rides were down or not running but park is going to be quiet it's midweek, people at work children at school means very little people are going to go. If the park can save money on quiet days such as these by only running one car let them do that, the money saved can go to some sort of investment. But again thorpe ain't disney. So I think you should lower your expectations.

 

We KNOW it isn't Disney. No one is pretending that it is Disney. The problem is, they price themselves in a way that people expect Disney. What they actually get is less then Six Flags provide. 

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It's the beginning of the season! You guys expect to much from this park. It's not disney nor universal so we should all except that. Yeah some rides were down or not running but park is going to be quiet it's midweek, people at work children at school means very little people are going to go. If the park can save money on quiet days such as these by only running one car let them do that, the money saved can go to some sort of investment. But again thorpe ain't disney. So I think you should lower your expectations.

 

No one was complaining about one train op? There were no queues so there was no need. 

 

Yes they aren't disney, but they're charging people 25 quid without telling people that 5 things are closed. If I was paying and find that amount closed, including a main coaster I'd not be happy. They at least need to post it on there website, facebook and at the entrance.

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They are only required to provide facilities in which patrons can check if attractions are unavailable prior to arriving, typically this is a phone number because, believe it or not, there are still quiet a lot of people who don't have internet access at home (yes I know that's a hard concept to comprehend) and I'm pretty sure they have to provide information at the point of entry too.

It wouldn't take a lot to offer up a page on their site about ride status though, if the guy can create the website we use to check queue times, I'm pretty sure their webmaster could knock something up (mind you back in January they didn't know their site calendar was broke till I told them, so then again, maybe not...).

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All rides should be available at the start of a park's operating season...

 

If this is not possible, then perhaps they should open later in the year...

 

That is, quite frankly, a pitiful excuse, given that every park in the world is able to do this... There is a minimum expectation parks should reach, and once agian Thorpe are unable to reach that goal...

 

Just because a park isn't busy should also not be an excuse, it's probably just as important, as people will visit when it's quieter in order to get on all the rides in a minimal amount of time...

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Any ride closure at any point in the season is not good. It should be as simple as that. It send that the for rides that are 'meant' to be closed at the moment have had extra maintenance - Tidal Wave to its lift hill, Rumba Rapids had had general work, Slammer is showing why it should be gotten rid of and Samurai is trying its best to become Slammer II. It's not good that the maintenance had spilled into main season, but Thorpe maintenance budget just doesn't seem to stretch very far at the moment... Saw seems to have died recently too for whatever reason; these things do unfortunately happen, but to suggest it is down to poor maintenance - as some have - is ridiculous.

I've noticed Thorpe are telling guests on social media what rides are closed if people ask, but there's no easy reference point on the main website saying this (to my knowledge). Simply put though, there should be.

tl;dr - It's not good what's happening, but I can see why it's happened. They should be informing people clearly of what is not open. Hopefully that can sort out out soon.

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All rides should be available at the start of a park's operating season...

 

If this is not possible, then perhaps they should open later in the year...

 

That is, quite frankly, a pitiful excuse, given that every park in the world is able to do this... There is a minimum expectation parks should reach, and once agian Thorpe are unable to reach that goal...

 

Just because a park isn't busy should also not be an excuse, it's probably just as important, as people will visit when it's quieter in order to get on all the rides in a minimal amount of time...

 

So your saying there is no valid excuse for a ride / rides to be down at the start of the season? 

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So your saying there is no valid excuse for a ride / rides to be down at the start of the season? 

 

Of course there are valid excuses, but like Mark said, to have 5 rides closed? Quite simply not good enough... Samurai was closed prior to Fright Nights to get it ready, Slammer is Slammer, the water rides seem to be closed because of poor organisational structure in the maintenance... No-one seems to know what's wrong with Saw...

 

Though, there shouldn't be excuses, valid reasoning instead is a lot better... But given that the park has several months shut over Christmas, there's clearly something wrong internally with the maintenance, as there has been for many, many years now...

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I think the problem with Thorpe is, a lot of their rides are just unreliable.

Slammer has been a maintenance & reliability nightmare since the beginning (although when it works, it works very well).

Samurai dare I say has been even more unreliable than slammer lately and I'll be staged if it still exists in over three years times considering its died the last few fright nights at least.

Tidal Wave seems to get a problem every blue moon and when it does it takes it down for a while,

Rumba- judging how long it's been closed compared to usual does make it look like something major has happened preventing it from operating.

Saw is just being Saw. I just doesn't seem to be as reliable as the other coasters (which even have their own issues) or even its cousins Speed & Rage etc.

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I think Matt is partly right, Samurai and Slammer are un-reliable rides, theres no getting away from that. Samurai closed before Fright Nights due to technical problems, clearly to keep it closed for over a month during the parks busiest time is a serious fault, nothing to do with getting it ready for this year.

 

Slammer as you say, is Slammer, it looks like its getting major works again and if its able to run through the season from the extra work its getting than its a small sacrifice which will be worth it. 

 

As for the water rides who knows Tidal Wave has had most of its metal work on the lift replaced, Rumbas had most of its lift replaced too, certainly not normal work. Tidal was filling up yesterday so I guess will be ready any day now. 

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Samurai is buggered, because Chessie ran it into the ground (or at least, ran it at what were decent settings, but as Top Scans were designed for temporary fair environments, the constant high use was not agreeable in the end)...

 

Everything else has question marks...

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It a because they are old. Samurai isn't meant to work the hours it does, it's old and as a result it's dying. Saw is just a pile of junk, slammer is a poor design. Rumba is really old and tidal wave needed some work done.

 

Very old is Big Dipper or the Coney Island Cyclone. Poorly scheduled maintenance on Tidal Wave and Rumba Rapids is really down to Thorpe. Slammer could almost be excused and Samurai shouldn't be in the park any more. 

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