Coaster Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 And then we wonder why you visit so much...Actually, for your information I have visited far less so far this season than in previous years. It's not worth the effort with the mediocre experience they offer most of the time.I'm not "merlin bashing" most of the time, but as someone who lives in the UK I like to support the parks within it - I wouldn't complain about things if I didn't care. Project LC 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 I really don't understand the whole bash merlin at every opportunity on here. Has anyone considered that they actually do know what they are doing and are a hugely successful company for a reason? Just because there are better parks elsewhere across the world don't mean that they would be a sucsess in the UK's industry. Maybe people criticise Merlin because they AREN'T perfect and there are a lot of better experiences out there. If we all pretend they are perfect and don't offer any critiscms whatsoever, then there's no way the business would be able to advance in the future. One of my main problems with Merlin is that they lack the whole concept of a stable business plan. For a successful business to be able to truly thrive, they need to gain feedback from customers and react from that feedback. Merlin as a company are completely driven by facts, not opinions and this results in them only looking at figures to determine their next decision as a business. Merlin never turns to the customers to try and improve their service resulting in further profit however instead makes thoughtless decision such as budget cuts to try and make the facts and figures such as profit and gate numbers where they want them to be. The whole idea of not truly listening to your customers however instead making decisions purely based on figures is not going to go down well with your market. Yes, this business proposition may be working for them at the moment, but that is the reason behind why the complaints from both the GP and the enthusiasts exist. I'm not saying it's the individual departments which don't care about their customers; Alton Towers for example is a prime example of a park which has gone through a lot recently and is reaching out to every single customer and trying to make them as happy as possible. I'm sure the other services within Merlin strive to do this also. However, I believe that the reason poor customer satisfaction exists within these individual departments is due to budget cuts higher up from Merlin. Merlin reducing their funds simply means the parks are forced to shorten hours, reduce staff etc. in order to try and meet the targets set for these individual departments. I believe the fundamental reason parks like Thorpe Park have a low customer satisfaction is because they aren't able to reach out to their customers and rectify their disappointment due to lack of funds. I believe the reason the parks in the UK aren't as successful as they should be is because Merlin aren't allowing them to be. When I visited Europa Park, I was simply blown away. It's a park with such attention to detail who really show they care about their customers and the experience within the park as a whole. I am confident in saying Alton Towers or even Thorpe Park could match the quality of experience and customer satisfaction Europa has if Merlin allowed them to strive to be the best. Europa Park is simply not held back like the Merlin parks, they are out there to wow their customers, cater to their needs and make the best experience possible; profit may be a need however in Europa it feels like it comes to the company as a result of the amazing experience they have been providing. With Merlin, profit understandably comes first, however it is wrong that experience is massively compromised to cater for these profit needs and this experience being lowered so figures can stay in line is the reason Merlin receives the complaints it does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 8 times is still a fair amount mind, especially when each visit tends to have a mass of complaints follow... Whilst people keep visiting as it is things will never improve... We don't actually have to put up with poor practices of budget cuts, late opening, poor staffing, poor investments if people decided to not visit for a year... And that's not visiting at all or not buying a MAP, not cutting down to only 1 visit a month... It's always daft when people who complain a lot still end up visiting again and again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 We know shutdowns happen and always will do - generally Thorpes reliability is pretty good over recent years (apart from Samurai!) *cough* Slammer *cough* Actually, for your information I have visited far less so far this season than in previous years. It's not worth the effort with the mediocre experience they offer most of the time. I'm not "merlin bashing" most of the time, but as someone who lives in the UK I like to support the parks within it - I wouldn't complain about things if I didn't care. Just as a passing comment - anyone can tell that you must enjoy the parks to a certain extent, otherwise you wouldn't keep visiting. But for the most part, your posts just seem to be criticism after criticism, moan after moan, niggle after niggle. It becomes easy to see it as Merlin bashing - there's mostly negativity with little positivity, so of course people will question why you continue to go. Complaining out of caring is a good thing, fair criticisms of a park are a great thing, but you do have to ask yourself: if you're criticising the parks so much on here, do you visit them because you actually enjoy them, or because it's become habitual? Maybe people criticise Merlin because they AREN'T perfect and there are a lot of better experiences out there. If we all pretend they are perfect and don't offer any critiscms whatsoever, then there's no way the business would be able to advance in the future. I don't think anyone here is claiming Merlin are perfect, or even anything close? However, it seems like every time something goes wrong at any park, or any ride is closed for a brief amount of time - especially at Thorpe - people jump on the wagon and start bashing and hating. Doesn't always seem fair, does it? Merlin do have many flaws, from some of their investments, possible even to to their budgets and operations, and some may even their whole ideology of how to run theme parks is flawed. But they still do have a lot of positives - some of their investments are very good, some of their attractions are great, they do provide some fabulous - and unique - experiences, they do give good opening hours for the UK, etc. It's easy to forget the good things they do at times though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Posted July 25, 2015 Report Share Posted July 25, 2015 We know shutdowns happen and always will do - generally Thorpes reliability is pretty good over recent years (apart from Samurai!)I'm not sure how I missed this, but I disagree.The start of this season saw a huge number of rides closed, last season during Fright Nights there were lots of days with five (or more) rides shut, and in general there is usually at least one ride closed all day (usually Slammer) and various other breakdowns - which do happen, but they shouldn't happen as much as they do at Thorpe. With regards to Merlin having good opening hours, during October Halloween events they do, but the rest of the time I disagree with that, especially at Alton Towers where the opening hours are dismal. Of course I enjoy these parks, I enjoy the rides and various other things about them which is why it frustrates me so much to see them operating so poorly, and whilst as a MAP holder I can just go back if I have a poor experience, the GP cannot and I don't think I have had more than five days in total at Merlin parks which I would have considered good value for money had I been paying even half price for entry. As for people telling me not to visit this summer with the poor opening times, I'm not... ... I'm at BPB instead, 8pm close everyday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 Maybe people criticise Merlin because they AREN'T perfect and there are a lot of better experiences out there. If we all pretend they are perfect and don't offer any critiscms whatsoever, then there's no way the business would be able to advance in the future.I never stated merlin or our parks were perfect - they are not the best in the world either but for the size of the UKs industry / target audience they are in my opinion overall good.One of my main problems with Merlin is that they lack the whole concept of a stable business plan. For a successful business to be able to truly thrive, they need to gain feedback from customers and react from that feedback. Merlin as a company are completely driven by facts, not opinions and this results in them only looking at figures to determine their next decision as a business. Merlin never turns to the customers to try and improve their service resulting in further profit however instead makes thoughtless decision such as budget cuts to try and make the facts and figures such as profit and gate numbers where they want them to be. The whole idea of not truly listening to your customers however instead making decisions purely based on figures is not going to go down well with your market. Yes, this business proposition may be working for them at the moment, but that is the reason behind why the complaints from both the GP and the enthusiasts exist. Sorry I disagree there - the parks / merlin do listen to feedback and where needed act upon the feedback - just because they don't address every criticism on somewhere like here don't mean they don't listen to the feedback from the majority of their audience. Imo the budget cuts are a total separate issue here - as a business they have to look at ways of limiting damage so to speak in a way to affect guest experience the least - unfortunately if the parks are not hitting targets then money has to be recovered from somewhere. I'm not saying it's the individual departments which don't care about their customers; Alton Towers for example is a prime example of a park which has gone through a lot recently and is reaching out to every single customer and trying to make them as happy as possible. I'm sure the other services within Merlin strive to do this also. However, I believe that the reason poor customer satisfaction exists within these individual departments is due to budget cuts higher up from Merlin. Merlin reducing their funds simply means the parks are forced to shorten hours, reduce staff etc. in order to try and meet the targets set for these individual departments. I believe the fundamental reason parks like Thorpe Park have a low customer satisfaction is because they aren't able to reach out to their customers and rectify their disappointment due to lack of funds. I believe the reason the parks in the UK aren't as successful as they should be is because Merlin aren't allowing them to be. I don't think you can assume that overall the parks have low customer satisfaction - you can't base that from posts on here. A good example is reserve n ride - the majority on here hate / are against it - where as the majority of guests who fill out the surveys at the end of the day of using it praise the service - sure that's just one example but I think you would find that's the general picture across most things. When I visited Europa Park, I was simply blown away. It's a park with such attention to detail who really show they care about their customers and the experience within the park as a whole. I am confident in saying Alton Towers or even Thorpe Park could match the quality of experience and customer satisfaction Europa has if Merlin allowed them to strive to be the best. Europa Park is simply not held back like the Merlin parks, they are out there to wow their customers, cater to their needs and make the best experience possible; profit may be a need however in Europa it feels like it comes to the company as a result of the amazing experience they have been providing. With Merlin, profit understandably comes first, however it is wrong that experience is massively compromised to cater for these profit needs and this experience being lowered so figures can stay in line is the reason Merlin receives the complaints it does. Your right - I'm sure they could match anyone - ultimately it's down to the money spent - but I'm not convinced the UK industry is big enough or has enough interest in it for that level of investment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 Isn't one of the whole issue regarding RnR is that the people using it now are obviously going to like it because not everyone is using it? If they bother to trial it again (like they did first time) without the normal standby queue as they plan, THEN the responses will probably be a lot more aligned to what people might think of the actual scheme... Currently, it's not worth seeing the positive responses, because only a small percentage are actually using it... In regards to the interest in the UK industry, you create the interest... That's what Tussauds did with the early 90s additions at both Chessie and Towers, I would say they are both worldwide names as a result of that investment even today... It's something that our parks need to be careful of actually losing the custom to the foreign parks, especially with Europa and Efteling both pushing out English based adverts, something they've never done before... Then again, the London parks seemingly didn't think that using the Olympics to their advantage was worth their time, then wonder why they had a poor season... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 Dome is closed due to a fire alarm. Made a swift end to my lunch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 CUE EVERYONE PANICKING. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted Users Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 On the one hand, it is depressing the amount of people I know from here that are passionate about theme parks but can't be bothered with stuff in this country - myself included. On the other hand I've had good times at them and met some good pals. If you are still visiting just because they have good rides or whatever then the service isn't bad enough to stop you going. MachoMachine 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFarmerDean Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 I've been Thorpe 12 times this year so far, and by the end of the season will be a record for me... I wish I didn't enjoy and be interested in theme parks so much, as there are so many things that bother me, and not just Thorpe, or even Merlin, most UK parks I've been to. I wish I could go back to not knowing in detail about theme parks, so I could go (albeit a lot more than a normal general public guest) and not be annoyed and frustrated about how they run the parks or have not bothered to do something which seems so simple! I've never had a bad visit to a theme park, of course things bother me and I have complaints from time to time or at least left some sort of feedback like on Twitter, but I just enjoy theme parks that much I don't know if I could have a bad day! I do need to get out and try some new theme parks though outside of England as the quality and care for guest satisfaction does look a lot better... Although I don't want it to show up Merlin too much and it spoiling it for me going to Thorpe etc. every time thinking how much even better it could be! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Project LC Posted July 26, 2015 Report Share Posted July 26, 2015 Apart from samurai closed and tidal wave for a few hours everything was going good once it opened. Stealth,vortex and nemesis inferno opened late but apart from that it was all good. 2 trains on everything even though it probably was not needed. Time to replace samurai I think would be my only negative/suggestion to improve the day. Otherwise jolly good show. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Posted July 29, 2015 Report Share Posted July 29, 2015 So Slammer has been closed for the last 2 days now. It was testing pretty much all day today, staff said they weren't sure if it was going to open but didn't end up opening. Samurai is still sat there with no visible work going on. Today was the most amount of breakdowns I've seen in a long long time, and the amount of rides that opened at 11 today was ridiculous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattgwise Posted July 29, 2015 Report Share Posted July 29, 2015 Slammer was testing most of the day on Tuesday as well. A worker said the engineer told him it was a planned closure, and needed to have a few days to have a full check done and many test runs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kane1234 Posted July 30, 2015 Report Share Posted July 30, 2015 So. Does anybody know why I'm a celeb was closed all day today? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted July 30, 2015 Report Share Posted July 30, 2015 So. Does anybody know why I'm a celeb was closed all day today? Thorpe's Twitter said it was down to "technical difficulties", and it wasn't planned to be closed today. So I guess it was some fault with some of the effects or something which prevented it from being open! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerfuffle Posted July 30, 2015 Report Share Posted July 30, 2015 Oh dear. Thorpe seem to be having a rumble in the jungle! I'll stop now. Honest! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BenC Posted August 1, 2015 Report Share Posted August 1, 2015 Just because there are better parks elsewhere across the world don't mean that they would be a sucsess in the UK's industry. Interested to hear which better Parks you think wouldn't be a success in the UK's industry... Disney? Universal? Europa? Efteling? I think they all would. UK citizens have one of the highest average monthly disposable incomes in the world, and there is certainly a higher-than-average demand for Theme Parks here given the number of Parks we have - the UK has the 4th highest number of roller coasters in the world behind China, USA, and Japan (in that order!). The Merlin model works from a business point of view - "efficient" investment, greater margins - but that's not to say that a higher investment, higher quality, higher return model wouldn't also work (and possibly with better results...). Bring on the world-class Entertainment Resort! pluk and Mark9 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraX Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Looking over Twitter, Storm Surge, Vortex, Loggers Leap and Samurai are all closed. What's up with that during peak season? Don't start with the whole 'their rides are very technical..' Excuse you don't hear thrown around in other parks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshC. Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Vortex was down all day yesterday too. It seemed very cornered off and secluded sure to the stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Shame as Vortex has been running really well whenever I've been on it this season! Thorpe's twitter has said the only planned closure tomorrow is Samurai, so hopefully all others will open again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraX Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Great for everyone visiting tomorrow. Shame about those who paid for today. MattyMoo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFarmerDean Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Got into the park about 10:10, and majority of the park was still closed/testing. Got evacuated out of the queue for loggers leap and Colossus today, everyone was given a priority pass... both rides remained closed for the rest of the afternoon. Vortex closed all day. Storm surge had a lengthy closed period in the day, but got on it in the afternoon, and then I spotted it broke down and must have been evacuated nearer to the park close time. although I usually use queue-times.com, I found it to be extremely unreliable today, in comparison to the boards around the parks and on the ride entrances (and yes I checked when it had last updated). After Colossus and Loggers had broke, and closed, the site was still showing open with a queue time. Also seen tidal wave on 14 minute queue, and stealth on a really odd queue time which couldn't have been right. So was a bit disappointed with the site today. And as for Thorpe I swear they try their best to make me hate the park, with celebrity cyclone on I'm a celeb completely boarded up and closed off with a fire exit being used as the finish, and other rides closed... I still keep going back to my favourite park, why!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TraX Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 Not sure, but as long as people visit and don't complain, Merlin will think this standard is acceptable. It isn't. OldFarmerDean 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFarmerDean Posted August 9, 2015 Report Share Posted August 9, 2015 they just chuck priority passes at people rather than actually fixing the underlying problems to the failings of the park. Someone needs to photoshop a gif of Leonardo Di Caprio with the money, and replace it with priority passes... Hi, welcome to Thorpe Park Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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