May 5, 201312 yr comment_158431 The car park (including the grass ones) only has capacity for 5000 cars. Obviously you usually get way less. On 5 trains, even on the busiest of days at the end of the day, the queue is never more than 20mins, usually a fair bit less. 1800pph is on 3 trains which'll be the minimum during the morning/evening peak. Yes, but the average number of people in a car at a place like Alton Towers is probably 4, so that equates to 20,000 people. 1800pph minimum does not meet these needs considering that the majority of guests are trying to enter the park at a similar time (or if they aren't then they end up doing so because of the queue). On a different note (and rant ), I think that the opening times for Towers are appauling, especially for a bank holiday weekend! Thorpe and Chessie are open until 6:00pm, Blackpool Pleasure Beach until 8:00pm and then 6:00pm on Monday yet Towers still shut at 5? (Doesn't look like it will improve later in the year either judging by the website bar scarefest - 6pm in summer holidays is awful). This is not on for a theme park who consider themselves to be the UK's greatest. I don't think so! If Blackpool Pleasure Beach (which imo is a far, far better park but doesn't have the vast amount of money as Merlin parks) can open until 8pm then why the hell does towers shut at 5?! And they wonder why they aren't getting people through the gates!
May 5, 201312 yr comment_158445 It really is silly. Opening times are an important factor for most and I think that extra hour would make more people who think twice about going actually go!
May 5, 201312 yr comment_158447 Cos it costs them an absolute fortune to staff each and every hour. I imagine they kept today at 5 to try and claw back the losses they must've been making the past few weeks. Though, they should really have closed at 530 (even though the rides closed with a maximum 10min queue excluding the usual spinball).
May 11, 201312 yr comment_158829 Is there a back entrance to Alton Towers? aka, one other than the main park entrance? I swear there was once a way to get in through the woods or something (that sounds reeeally dodgy doesn't it lol) I'm asking because I'm going in a months time and the BnB is at the back of the park (in Alton), around where Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is? Basically, we will have to walk around the side of the entire park somehow in the morning, but I wonder if there is another way to access it (I don't even know if there is a pathway to walk on that leads to Alton Towers!)
May 11, 201312 yr comment_158830 Woodland Walk is Towers Hotels only, and is pointless since it opens at 10am these days... Gonna have to go to main entrance like everyone else...
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159718 BBC One, 8pm tonight, Alton Towers are on Watchdog. Should be interesting!
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159723 BBC One, 8pm tonight, Alton Towers are on Watchdog. Should be interesting! Shades of Thorpe in 2001 then...
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159726 Oh dear... I guess this can only be about the Smiler. Shades of Thorpe in 2001 then... I imagine it will be exactly the same story again, about selling customers a product even though they knew it was impossible to deliver. Maybe they should have been a bit more pro-active on telling everyone about the second delay, rather than leaving it until the day before opening!
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159729 Oh dear... I guess this can only be about the Smiler. I imagine it will be exactly the same story again, about selling customers a product even though they knew it was impossible to deliver. Maybe they should have been a bit more pro-active on telling everyone about the second delay, rather than leaving it until the day before opening! To be fair to them, if an issue wasn't discovered until the day before opening, then it's impossible for them to be pro-active...
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159732 I get what you're saying, but from all the evidence I've seen the Smiler was still a building site on Thursday morning when it was supposed to open. I know the rides are "subject to availability", but It doesn't matter how you look at it, they were selling tickets, selling hotel stays and advertising for an attraction that realistically had no chance of opening on time. Not trying to have a rant, I'm just looking at it from Watchdog's POV (assuming that's even what their article will be about It will probably end up being about prices or something now!)
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160014 Now the thing is... At this point only Oblivion and The Smiler are closed. Considering that over the last four days, Oblivion has been largely ignored by the public (We queued five minutes yesterday at 3pm whilst the Smiler was advertised at 3 hours), the only reason these people can be complaining is because of The Smiler. Does it not seem ludicrous to anyone that people are willing to wait in that long a queue outside guest services to have a moan. To have a moan when everything else is going, when there is beautiful sunshine all around them. The queues are displaced of course because of the Smiler valleying but even so it just seems beyond me that people travel across the country for the sole purpose of wanting to ride one attraction.
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160016 Yes but it always happens with new attractions (except for The Swarm - but I don't know what happened there). Of course people are going to come to ride it!
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160018 Oh god! I didn't think Scaffold The Ride was that bad, but then I have never been to see it so I don't know if that is normal, judging by the smiley I guess not.
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160024 when The Smiler reopens boom The Beast The Drop and the Queen of The forest will more than likely be walk on
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160026 when The Smiler reopens boom The Beast The Drop and the Queen of The forest will more than likely be walk on IF it reopens... Though why a Kings Island coaster would be affected by Smiler I have no idea...
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160030 Thanks to towers times. Well......... Either that is badly wrong, or some people are very desperate queueing in an 8hr 40min queue line! Or TT did some fakery there lol
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160034 I knew lol, every one facebook thought it was real lol. probably felt that long though for some
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160036 I don't blame them if it had been advertised as open but you get there to find out that it's closed. That would be the first thing I would do and hope to get some compensation like premium fastrack or something.
June 4, 201312 yr comment_160040 I don't blame them if it had been advertised as open but you get there to find out that it's closed. That would be the first thing I would do and hope to get some compensation like premium fastrack or something. But this can apply to any park in the world that has a ride closed on you... Parks do cover themselves for this in the majority in their T&Cs but Smiler is certainly the exception with it being brand new... Lots complaining about X-Sector being shut as a result... Clearly no-one realising it was purely due to access reasons for the crane rather than a 'media blackout'...
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