Alton Towers General Discussion

[Glitch]

Find it fascinating how the GP are going oh it’s just ripsaw and the enthusiasts are trying to fight back saying it’s a newer model!

[Inferno]

It’s an odd and unfortunate situation at towers, because they’re pouring a lot of money in to things, but to “the GP” really they’re treading water and there’s nothing truly new happening…

Realistically, despite the bits of investment over the last 5 years, you’d struggle to argue with these statements:

- Ripsaw has re-opened 

- The same Nemesis is still there but is now black and red

- The same Skyride is still sat there but is broken

- Same old Hex has been sat there for years but is broken 

- The haunted house ride is still there, but has had a refurb.

 

Don’t get me wrong, this is all money well spent in my opinion and was badly needed and overdue, but really I think AT needs something truly new.

There is little that they’ve done since Wicker Man that truly offers something new.

 

As much as I think Toxicator is a fantastic addition, it’s arguably yet another “re-opening of something that closed” if you know what I mean.

[MattyMoo]

9 hours ago, Inferno said:

- Ripsaw has re-opened 

- The same Nemesis is still there but is now black and red

- The same Skyride is still sat there but is broken

- Same old Hex has been sat there for years but is broken 

- The haunted house ride is still there, but has had a refurb.

 

100%. You have to take a step back from being an enthusiast and see what the public see. Nemesis is still Nemesis, as good as it is.

[Benin]

Ignores also the amount of stuff that's vanished over the years.

 

Even this year we're down 2 rides what with Blade and Clem Fandango leaving. Plus Dungeons being mothballed. 

 

Genuinely not enough to do at the park. And without things like Blade there's nothing to do with little one whilst rest of group does Nemesis or whatever else. 

[JoshC.]

The park have spent the last 3 years replacing Haunted House, Sub Terra, Nemesis and Ripsaw with...Haunted House, Sub Terra, Nemesis and Ripsaw.

 

They've removed other flats and experiences and other attractions haven't been around for a long time (Hex, Skyride).

 

The refreshing / replacing / reopening of old attractions wouldn't be as bad if they did it across the whole park rather than one area. But focusing on one area for 3 years, plus removing (even temp rides) from other parts of the park compounds the issue. It feels like bad strategic planning.

 

Next year we know is a CBeebies coaster. After that is rumoured to be Project Horizon. Unless they add in more, it's a rough time for your mid line up, with little for your 1.1-1.4m crowd.

[MattyMoo]

Also have to wonder if/when the Galactica retheme is going to happen, as it was seemingly planned for this year... it sticks out just a tad now...

[Glitch]

3 hours ago, MattyMoo said:

Also have to wonder if/when the Galactica retheme is going to happen, as it was seemingly planned for this year... it sticks out just a tad now...

Guess it depends on if MMM are available to do something costing 250k and then compromise and cut the budget.

[Matt 236]

Imagine someone revisiting Alton Towers this year after previously going in 2015 who’s not an enthusiast?
 

Essentially they are witnessing an upgraded Ripsaw, plushed up Nemesis and a modified Haunted House. Essentially in their eyes Wickerman is the only new ride they notice since last time besides maybe some bits and bobs in Beeb land.

 

No Blade, no Flume and couple of other missing attractions, amongst some yet to open attractions and some of the most ludicrous park food. In both price and substance. Certainly makes for a rather negative return visit so far. 
 

We shall see how this season goes, but can’t hold too much optimism so far.

[a guy]

Honestly I think Merlin have a few glaring issues at Towers, and item one is that 11 years ago the park was arguably better. The loss of all the flats, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, and the Skyride that never opens makes the lineup feel hollow.

 

For a long period of time you had to trek 20-25 minutes to get from Smiler-Nemesis, a massive walk when the park only Is operating 10-4 (which it does most days.) the park are bringing back Skyride, have revamped Nemesis, added Sub Terra back and now the Ripsaw replacement, but we still lost Blade. The park as other have said needs something really new- a fresh ground up ride with a new theme. Maybe something less disturbing than all the doom and gloom themes.

 

The main reason to why I struggle to visit Alton though is the opening hours and Aramark's 'food'. They have destroyed every food option in this park. Aramark are awful in all Merlin parks but Alton Towers has the hardest offenders in my opinion. The Burger Kitchen feels like it would be a great episode of Kitchen Nightmares. I have worked for Merlin and eaten the crap they make at the canteens and it is food for for a low budget prison. Charge £18 for that £3 burger they put together with probably the lowest quality of ingredients, utterly nasty. McDonald's is fine dining in comparison 

 

Woodcutters was the only decent option left in my opinion and they've replaced it with an expensive seemingly confused restaurant. The donut burgers have seemed to evoke disgust more than excitement. Pizza Pasta maybe still there but the Pizza is honestly questionable, and to my partner the coeliac offering is a half cooked soggy mess in a box for £20.. Blackpool's Pizza Buffet was miles better and their food isn't the best either. 

 

Merlin is ruining their parks by letting Aramark rob their customers for £18 burgers that could barely please a death row inmate. Thorpe at least has KFC and Burger King, I swear to God they do not change it..

 

 

[Inferno]

It’s a worrying time isn’t it.

 

They seem to be really pushing the engineering apprenticeship, which is associated with JCB.

 

I assume that a lot of the reliability issues recently have come partly from a lack of engineers? It would make sense given the remote location especially.

Apprenticeships like this might be something they’re looking at to try to improve the situation in the long term I suppose.

 

I do feel for the people who show up for work every day and work hard to try to improve things.

Hopefully whatever he issues are they’ll get to grips with it all very soon.

 

I still think there’s a good chance things will be better once the staff have settled in, and Skyride and Hex are open again. As for the food…. Well I’m not so sure - hopefully people will just stop buying it and they’ll have to make changes 

[Benin]

On the engineering side it's probably a mixture of factors of having lower staff numbers, poor retention of said staff, high turnover of staff over the last few years (losing the knowledge), ageing ride population and the newer rides are far more complex in their nuances.

 

Engineering as an industry is struggling to fill in the next wave of people. Having a job offering below average wage and out in the sticks isn't particularly enticing for a number of them.

[Matt 236]

Visited Towers this weekend for the first time this season. 

 

First impressions weren’t great, from the misleading car park layout, various delapited areas and the monorail running just two trains. Rather embarrassing to what could be argued to be the UK’s flagship park. 

 

Operations seemed noticeably inferior to previous standards, with Rita on just 1 train and Galactica on just 2 trains and 1 station, disappointing every 5 minutes. Having 3 rides closed ( albeit expected) is also a shame for a park that’s had 4.5 months to sort things out. On the p,us note, the Thirteen team were doing great!

 

Although not rammed, queues often reached/exceeded 90 minutes. Spinball,oblivion, Wickerman, Galactica and Rita at the very least experienced lengthily shutdowns. This excludes the heavy rain closure that evening where most rides understandably closed for a short while. However closing Spinball in the rain (as opposed to reducing capacity) now is just disappointing.

 

Despite running the Alton After Dark and being the start of season, there wasn’t any real buzz or atmosphere at the park which I’ve felt previously, even post Covid. The vibe improved noticeably after dusk, but there was just something missing and I can only put it down to further quality retraction from the Merlin machine. I had a Toby carvery breakfast, so therefore didn’t need to eat the overpriced and underwhelming food selection.

 

I don’t want to be constantly negative about the resort, so I do have some positives. Toxicator is a great addition to the park, it looks the part more than I was expecting and looks great off ride. The setting was the right level of intensity and adds more to the area. Curse is still an exceptional dark ride and epitomises what the creatives can do with the right resources. Although a little rattly, Nemesis Reborn is still fantastic and looks stunning at night. 

 

I really want to be more appraising and positive towards the park, because they have so many great rides. But I can’t sugarcoat the place solely on this. Towers has a lots of operational issues at the moment and with current trends I see things getting worse rather than better. The park ideally needs millions spent on infrastructure upgrades, however this will probably never happen.

[Benin]

Visited yesterday. Was fine overall since didn't set foot in X-Sector or Dark Forest (a recurring thing).

 

Probably should've had some alarms when parking in what is usually the coach park rather than the disabled/express area, but there was a queue so directed elsewhere.

 

Didn't bother with Toxicator as queue was consistently long. As per most of the thrill attractions on park. Wickerman batcher wasn't doing a great job as wasn't actually batching the main queue just RAP/Fastrack. Which meant baggage dump was a mess of people.

 

Ended up waiting over 30 minutes in a fairly quiet Rollercoaster Restaurant for food. Think it went missing on system as food we did initially receive wasn't ours nor table next to ours. Who ordered after us but got food first. Burger was actually decent but seemingly toasted within an inch of its life?

 

Skyride was testing and staff were training on Rapids at least. No Hex wasn't too problematic for us since not taking lil one on it.

 

Spending most of our day in CBeebies Land really does mean we miss out on most of the problematic issues currently at the park. The sheer lack of support attractions is so telling though. No Blade meant faffing about doing nothing whilst others went on Nemesis, and also why we don't bother with 2 major areas of the park. It's daft and needs sorting not just from my selfish side but also to ease the pressure on the coasters in those areas.

 

Justin's House is absolute chaos though.