2013 Changes

[Marc]

I know this might be a bit optimistic but I feel these are what the hours at thorpe SHOULD be. I feel that on offpeak days the hours should be to about 7pm, peak days should be till about 9pm and fright nights and thorpe blasts till 11/12ish.

7PM on off-peak days? The park is simply not busy enough to warrant this, they will never extend the hours to ones like this unless the park gets seriously more popular to justify it. Thorpe Park already have quite good open times compared to say Towers (which is actually busier) so I think we should count our selves lucky

[Dodge2002]

After doing a full circuit of every ride in the park within 3 hours today, to me it just seems like the park is too small to warrant it. In most scenario's anyway.

Disneyland Paris is open late most nights, yes, but the park is absolutely HUGE. Its not just a case of how many rides, its about transport, fitting in the parades and shows, the general amount of time spent soaking in the atmosphere.

From a cost controlled perspective, its in Thorpe's best interest to invest money into getting ride queues down as short as possible, even on the busiest days. Not extend the amount of time customers get to spend in queulines. Secondly they desperately need to look in to reintroducing a range of season wide shows. To me this is the difference between "We've done everything, lets go home" or "Well we can go see that show at 3pm, meanwhile lets do a bit of shopping/eating/drinking". Going back to Disneyland, why do you think most people decide to stay around until closing rather then go home a few hours earlier if they manages to zoom round the park before close? The huge show they put on, of course. And what to the majority of spectators go and buy when they stood out in the cold waiting? Drinks! Snacks! Toys to shut their little kids up!

Eventually when the park has built up a large arsenal of different entertainment options, then they should look at the possibility of opening later and longer.

As for Fright Nights, I would say the cut to 9pm was completely unjustified. You can now ONLY visit during peak, if this weren't the case then yes I'd agree, but nowadays the park is still heaving at 9pm, and you've only actually gotten a whole 1 hour of pure ride time in the dark.

[Inferno]

Completely agree with this ^ Excellent points.

Thorpe is just not big enough (nor do they have a diverse enough range of stuff to do) to make it worth opening late at the moment. As awesome as it would be, it would be pointless. On a quiet to moderately busy day you can ride everything you want to within a few hours. It's not very often that you leave disappointed having not been on everything you wanted... Well, not within the last year or so anyway.

Fright Nights is the exception, which should stay open until at least 10:30 or even 11:00 in my opinion. It's Fright NIGHTs after all! And Fireworks of course.

When they have a hotel and become more of a resort (with shows etc) maybe they'll start opening later?

[TPJames]

I actually agree, some of my points were ones which would definately not happen.

I don't really get how they manage to get away with calling the halloween event 'fright nights'. To start off with, 9pm is barely night time. Also, even if the park was open to let's say: 11pm, I still don't see how they can call it fright nights. The event takes place through the day(mostly) NOT the night so how can they call it this? That's my opinion anyway

Don't have thorpe already hav a hotel, or is the crash pad just my imagination

[Benin]

I TRIED to buy a snack whilst waiting for Dreams, but as Disney Paris are crap they had shut all the popcorn stands AND the crepe shop...

And I'm sure the staff would love to deal with a 2 hour queue on Saw at 11pm... And I again mention transport links as a potential issue to late night openings...

As said, Thorpe does not have enough non-ride stuff or is big enough to warrant excessive opening times... Indeed, plan smart and you can get the park done in 3 hours, have lunch and go home... IF they brought in things to do OTHER than queue (which is another issue, after lunch activities are basically, queue or queue) up for things and space out the day more (like the old Farm, but that isn't great for the new audience) Thorpe would definitely see a rise in guest satisfaction...

[Inferno]

And I'm sure the staff would love to deal with a 2 hour queue on Saw at 11pm...

Oh my heart bleeds for them.

Other businesses manage it. Supermarkets employ staff to be in the store 24hrs a day, call centres / shops / petrol stations / restaurants / you name it, loads of places employ staff (including students) who work shifts. That's the staff's job at the end of the day! It would simply be written in to all the contracts when they are renewed every season.

If the business decides it's changing its hours then surely that's not up for debate among the staff?!

I get what you're saying about transport for guests though. Could be an issue.

[Benin]

Oh my heart bleeds for them.

Other businesses manage it. Supermarkets employ staff to be in the store 24hrs a day, call centres / shops / petrol stations / restaurants / you name it, loads of places employ staff (including students) who work shifts. That's the staff's job at the end of the day! It would simply be written in to all the contracts when they are renewed every season.

If the business decides it's changing its hours then surely that's not up for debate among the staff?!

Clearly you have never worked in a theme park environment...

I'm sure if you actually did a couple of shifts (let's say you start at 2 for the evening shift) for a typical 8 hour day at any park during busy season and had to stay behind until gone 1am you wouldn't say the same thing...

The staff's well-being would come into any decision based on work hours... That's pretty simple management right there...

And the theme park industry is a very different kettle of fish to the other job roles you listed... Indeed, how is sitting in a call centre comparable? And of course shops and petrol stations are always packed at 11pm in the evening with staff rushed off their feet... Restaurants are really the only similar place of work for having to speed around everywhere (and is more likely a more difficult job than theme park lackey), but it also still has quiet hours (dinner rush is what, 6-9 on average? So even for a late opening restaurant, not that many remain busy at 11pm)...

But as I said, it's quite clear you've not worked on rides, otherwise you would give a crap about the staff...

[Nicky]

Other businesses manage it because they are contracted to work those hours. They will leave at say 11pm because that's when they have to. There is no flexibility with how many customers are in, they are kicked out when it is closing time.

Also, theme parks work one shift of workers. Supermarkets and call centres have mixed hours and in my case the vast majority of those late staff you are talking about don't start till 2pm at the earliest but mostly start at 5pm.

[Fred]

Plus, what you forget is its temporary - a whole week or two of these closes.

How the hell is a park meant to staff, and find staff able and willing, to do these hours for this short amount of time? You won't.

Hence why the parks do full day shifts as it's "only" two weeks or so of long hours.

Thorpe used to have a lot of issues with 10pm ride closes, regarding staffing which led to a lot of agency workers, which leads own problems itself.

[Inferno]

I’m sorry if I have brought this off topic it is quite interesting though.

I’m not trying to stir things up (honest ), I’m just surprised how lenient the theme parks are towards their staff compared with the places I have worked.

Yes, you are correct, I have never worked at a theme park… I have however worked in a supermarket, restaurant and a (sort of) call centre, and in all of these jobs my hours were / are constantly changed to suit what was/is needed, and all of it is legit and above board because it’s in the contract.

Christmas for example, I worked for Morrisons part time when I was at college, but my contract stated I had to be available for up to 2 weeks prior to Christmas day to work full-time if required. I actually ended up doing full-time nights, plus extra daytime hours. This was considered 'normal', and everyone working at the store was cool with it because of the extra cash (and because it's hard to say no because you'd be royally screwing your colleagues over by leaving them extremely short-staffed).

They were obviously cool with being flexible, but generally (in all the jobs I've had anyway) you’re expected to pretty much do whatever is required to make the business more profitable. So in terms of theme park staff contracts, I would have thought it would be reasonable to ask the staff to be prepared to work unsociable hours for up to 3 weeks during October/November because that is what is required by the business.

Just a thought, sorry if this has rattled some cages

Please don't think I am holding some grudge against theme park staff - they (on the most part) work bloody hard in all weathers with all sorts of difficult customers. I'm just surprised that staffing is an issue with opening late for a couple of weeks, that's all.

[planenut]

I have never worked in a supermarket, restaurant and a (sort of) call centre, nor in fact a theme park, but I do know that Merlin will slap a deep clean of a ride on the staff with virtually no warning, and they are all expected to get home afterwards.

[Dodge2002]

Although this seems contradictory to my first point, Disney are capable of managing their shift patterns for late openings, why exactly can't Merlin do it?

You can't make out that theme park staff are hard done by compared to other industries. Try working in a late opening shopping center in the month of December. Oh but it doesn't stop there, of course there's the January sales too. That's 2 months flat out packed full of customers right up until closing. And in the case of restaurant that's a ridiculous amount of physical effort required too. I've done it, and its brutal, but I don't moan, because I knew that's what to expect when I started the job.

I'm not saying Ride hosts and Ops don't do their fair share of work, but I can't sit back and see someone say they're entitled to work less hours than most other jobs. Its this type of mentality that holds us back as a nation in the field of hospitality.

[Benin]

And theme parks don't have months of being packed solid between the hours of 9-6 (possibly longer at late notice)?

I think it's more a lot of people here are comparing the role of ride host to the wrong things... It's an unique role as it features so many different aspects (guest interaction, safety, throughput focus, etc) which when a park is at full capacity of guests angry as they keep having to queue for rides and what-not, it's not a role for the light-hearted...

What mentality? Some of us are stating that ride staff work excessively hard for long extended periods of time over the March-November season... Closing a park at 11pm would not be beneficial to those younger staff members (as mentioned, UK parks hire a LOAD of young seasonals) if they have to hang around in an area which isn't the easiest to travel to (I doubt many buses run after 11pm, or trains) car aside...

Having experienced Chessie at high numbers (18k odd a few times), it's near as damn akin to Christmas shopping busyness... And lasts for two months as well...

[Fred]

I'm not saying Ride hosts and Ops don't do their fair share of work, but I can't sit back and see someone say they're entitled to work less hours than most other jobs. Its this type of mentality that holds us back as a nation in the field of hospitality.

You realise all ride hosts work the most amount of hours out of any dept in a theme park? You won't see any work any less than 42hrs a week, that's before the extended ride closes.

You'll have to find extra staffing to do these events, as I've mentioned. You cannot expect to find enough to work shift work, and you cannot expect or find your staff doing 5 days a week if you demand 15hr days from them. You won't get the staff for the bare minimum amount of hours, trust me. They've tried it before, it fails.

EDIT: Just wanted to add, retail and supermarkets especially live on their staff doing 12hrs/week. Of course they'll be able to get staff doing evenings. Theme parks are full time jobs especially in operations side, so good luck finding those extra staffing hours.

[BigBobJones]

I have worked in a variety or business, for example my company expects people to do 24/7 and even work on Christmas day.

If the business decides there is a need for the hours, they will force the staff to work, if the staff don't want to work they will get staff in which will do the hours. I have seen it happen where people refuse to be flexible, then they are out of a job. Also using overtime and even double time can get lots of extra staff to do extra hours when required.

So basically if Thorpe want to open late they will, but it will upset the normal staff, but they will make it work. I doubt Saw will have a 2 hour queue at 11PM TBH

[Mark9]

Later openings just aren't viable for the majority of the time at our parks. The problem is that there is no reason to stay, it's not like you get a special closing show or a firework stay or a visual spectacular to be anticipating. The ride teams just close the gates and thats it, get out. Staffing is an issue that can be solved quite easily if the park wanted to do it. The only issue is ride operating but if they were prepared for this (ie year round opening for example) then that wouldn't be as much of an issue.

[pluk]

All the 'no can dos' on the possibility of longer openings given above are fairly comprehensively undermined by the fact that for fright nights they do exactly that. What's the difference doing the same thing for a couple of months in the summer? None.

It would be really quite simple in terms of resourcing; two shifts, early and late, with a crossover in the middle for when the park will be busiest and to cover break times. Simple. It's not about mistreating or 'not giving a crap about' the staff at all, it's just about planning. The park can easily plan for the predictable variables of demands and if people want a job they need to be available where these demands are and know that when they take the role. Not suggesting it should be sprung on them now for dates in a few weeks time.

[Pickles]

I have worked in a variety or business, for example my company expects people to do 24/7 and even work on Christmas day.

If the business decides there is a need for the hours, they will force the staff to work, if the staff don't want to work they will get staff in which will do the hours. I have seen it happen where people refuse to be flexible, then they are out of a job. Also using overtime and even double time can get lots of extra staff to do extra hours when required.

So basically if Thorpe want to open late they will, but it will upset the normal staff, but they will make it work. I doubt Saw will have a 2 hour queue at 11PM TBH

I once queued for Saw for an hour and a half after the gate closed on a 10pm Fright Night close.

[Coaster]

Surely the staff get paid overtime though?

[coastercameron98]

Surely the staff get paid overtime though?

No I don't think they do they get expected and warned about the late FN hours on the applying stage I think. Not 100% sure though.

[Ricky]

Staff are on a zero hour contract, when signing the contract there is a section (for those who read it) which states: on some occasions you will be required to work more than 48 hours a week to meet the needs of the company, by signing this contract you adhere to these requirements and subject yourself to long hours. (not word for word but it's similar to that. If you cannot adhere to the lengthier hours, before signing the contract you need to contact HR and discuss which may be refereed to your line manager

Staff aren't paid overtime either, they have the standard rate even when they are working unsociable hours such as Fright Nights. Hope this helps

[Coaster]

Ok thanks, I was just asking out of curiosity. That's a bit poor though tbh!

[pluk]

It is poor, but standard everywhere these days.

When I was a Saturday boy at Safeway (ask your Mum) we got double time Sunday, triple time bank holidays, time and a third between 7PM and 7AM if we didn'y go through 2AM or time and a half between those hours if we did.

Now my friends who are still in retail are pretty much all on a flat rate regardless of hours worked, except full nights which pay time and a third.

Life sucks while there's more people than jobs. But it is not a trick or a scam, it's in the contract and if you don't want work on those times you just have to find something else.

[sully1311]

It is poor, but standard everywhere these days.

When I was a Saturday boy at Safeway (ask your Mum) we got double time Sunday, triple time bank holidays, time and a third between 7PM and 7AM if we didn'y go through 2AM or time and a half between those hours if we did.

Now my friends who are still in retail are pretty much all on a flat rate regardless of hours worked, except full nights which pay time and a third.

Life sucks while there's more people than jobs. But it is not a trick or a scam, it's in the contract and if you don't want work on those times you just have to find something else.

Yep I work in a supermarket. Time and half on Bank holidays and £2 extra ph for working nights. Overtime/Weekends are exactly the same rate as Weekdays

[BigBobJones]

I remember getting double time for Sundays and tripple for bank holidays at Waitrose too all those years ago in the 90's