September 23, 201311 yr comment_169039 By making customers do their job for them? Moan queue times are wrong Moan when they actually try and do something about it. Thorpe are hardly the only park with the issue, would you rather they just ignore the problem like the others?
September 23, 201311 yr comment_169043 Good on Thorpe for having some staff on the look out for queue times. Also good that guests can contact if a queue is way different from what was stated. Visited the park yesterday and actually the queue times were all accurate. Thorpe does need to alter the amount of time the second page of queue times is displayed for on the main LED boards though - currently it is shown for about 1 second and then you have to wait a long time to see it again! On a negative note I don't think I heard a please or thank you from any of the staff yesterday. This is a basic element of customer service and on an even more simple level, it's common courtesy. Incredibly rude. I also don't appreciate when members of staff drop a height stick on you when you're sat down on Inferno, and then get no apology...
September 23, 201311 yr comment_169059 Problem is someone joins the queue at 11am and queue displayed is 30 minutes. They queue an hour. They ring the helpline have a moan after their ride. By the time they've queued and got on, the queue may have gone down to 20 minutes. Thorpe recieve the call and change the queue to 60 minutes based on someones experience. The queue can change quickly so I'd like to know how Thorpe are going to base queue time changes based on how quickly or how slowly a queue fluctuates.
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169095 Excuse me for finding it weird that they have a 'queueline checker' staffing role then ask guests to do that role for them... Or is this a PR style role in the same way that Chessie recently had a "animal sex advisor"? Why should I as a figurative guest on my day off work do someone else's job for them is my main question towards this... I do like the assumption that the other parks are completely ignoring incorrect queuetimes though because they don't have something like this... I just reckon it'll be used as much as the old anti-social behaviour hotline was quite simply... And as Mark said, the fickle nature of queues is such that flucuations need to be taken into account... If only they had a staff role suited for such a situation...
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169096 I'm sure there will be some people will get great joy in texting thorpe park with updated queue times throughout their day to be fair
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169108 Just thought of a flaw with this, what if you get a bunch of idiots who think its funny to call them up and report the queue time as being something ridiculous. For example they queue 40 mins and they call them up as a joke and say to them that its 90 mins or 5 mins. Then what? We'd be back to the original problem of inaccuracy, I love the idea of guests being able to help with the park and it could work but just saying you will get the odd few groups of people I should imagine...
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169112 Fastrack is a problem, which the park may identify as a problem. It just needs to do something about it. Towers, last year, had a problem with fastrack, people mentioning that it had consistently big slow queues, devaluing fastrack, and particularly over scarefest creating stupidly huge main queues. As a result, they listened. Upped fastrack prices, reduced allocation, or more noticably removed free fastrack for hotel guests which'll help the issue incredibly. Guest Services used to issue priority passes, nowadays they issue complimentary fastrack, which comes out of a quota system. This would mean in theory that they'll run out of fastrack to issue - or at worst highlight the issue with giving complimentary fastrack as they're now all accounted for having come out of the fastrack system rather than paper as before. Perhaps, based on how the change works at towers, and seeing if it affects the revenue streams, thorpe may well adapt this approach in future to reduce those complaints, increase value for money for fastrack as there's less people using it, and reduce main queue times as they're moving far more smoothly.
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169142 Why can there not be signs that the staff can deploy when there is a breakdown, so that it can be seen prior to meeting the staff member who has the task of informing everybody individually at the entrance. This would not only reduce the number actually getting to that point but would also reduce that need to verbally inform them. I've seen staff having to act like sheep dogs as would be riders try to move past them from various locations. I am not affiliated to any company, but this is the idea..... http://www.displaysense.co.uk/Wall-Mounted-Barrier-Systems/?action=filter&barrier_type=wall_barrierss&barrier_type=wall_mounted This would reduce the number of people walking to the closed entrance.
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169153 All they need to do is use those BIG and VISABLE queue boards stating obviously "Ride is UNAVAILABLE, try other rides and return later" and that would be sufficient enough.
September 24, 201311 yr comment_169181 Excuse me for finding it weird that they have a 'queueline checker' staffing role then ask guests to do that role for them... Or is this a PR style role in the same way that Chessie recently had a "animal sex advisor"? Why should I as a figurative guest on my day off work do someone else's job for them is my main question towards this... Well said. What do we as a guest get from advising them that a ride time is wrong? They could do a raffle for a prize / free Fast Track, free return tickets if your text was helpful and the queue times were indeed wrong. It doesn't have to be to all guests as this would get out of hand. But offer your guests something as at the end of the day they are giving you information, Thorpe should at least offer something back or the chance that they could get something. At the end of the day a Fast Track, free parking or free return tickets doesn't cost them anything, but to a guest this can make a big difference.
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169186 I could also tell them that my favourite ride has the longest queue, in the hope that loads of people then keep clear of it.
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169187 Well said. What do we as a guest get from advising them that a ride time is wrong? They could do a raffle for a prize / free Fast Track, free return tickets if your text was helpful and the queue times were indeed wrong. It doesn't have to be to all guests as this would get out of hand. But offer your guests something as at the end of the day they are giving you information, Thorpe should at least offer something back or the chance that they could get something. At the end of the day a Fast Track, free parking or free return tickets doesn't cost them anything, but to a guest this can make a big difference. The amount of effort people put in moaning on here is much more than a quick text would be.. I don't think Thorpe are asking anyone to do their jobs for them, it's quite simply another method of communication between the guest and the park that somthing is wrong and then a member of staff can head over and check the board / queue and make sure they are correct.
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169217 Excuse me for finding it weird that they have a 'queueline checker' staffing role then ask guests to do that role for them... Or is this a PR style role in the same way that Chessie recently had a "animal sex advisor"? Why should I as a figurative guest on my day off work do someone else's job for them is my main question towards this... Hi Benin, We are not asking guests to do our job for us and I'm sorry you have interpreted our post this way. The 'Queue Champion' role is a real position - every day on the Park we have a dedicated person whose responsibility it is to spend the day checking and updating Queue times to keep them as accurate as possible. But queue times are not an exact science and can fluctuate more quickly than we can always keep up with. The text service is absolutely not something we will be using to replace this role - it is an additional form of communication for guests to get in touch and let us know if they believe any of the times to be inaccurate. We will not take a given time as fact, but rather we will then ensure we check exactly what the queue time is and update it accurately. It is also an optional service - there is no obligation to use it at all!
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169222 I could also tell them that my favourite ride has the longest queue, in the hope that loads of people then keep clear of it. Stealth?
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169223 Stealth? Shhh! Thorpe Park thank you for a reasonable explanation, but you can trust me, if I say the queue is a couple of hours long, it is, no need to check, just publish, cheers.
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169226 Stealth did actually have a 120 min queue on Saturday - just around the time I had to conga with 20 people after pushing the big red button #embarrassing!
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169227 Stealth did actually have a 120 min queue on Saturday - just around the time I had to conga with 20 people after pushing the big red button #embarrassing! Do you win anything for clicking the big red button? Thought you won a ipad?
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169249 Do you win anything for clicking the big red button? Thought you won a ipad? She won a PS Vita
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169251 Stealth did actually have a 120 min queue on Saturday - just around the time I had to conga with 20 people after pushing the big red button #embarrassing! Whaaaaat?
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169259 She won a PS Vita Lucky ****! How many of these prizes did they give away a day?
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169261 Sorry if I'm being really thick- but what's this big red button?
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169269 Look on there Facebook, They had a red button in certain areas in the park that you press, and for some people when they pressed it, they gave them a challenge and if they did it they won a prize. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, this is what I understood of watching there Facebook video.
September 25, 201311 yr comment_169271 ^ Yup that is correct, although the weekend before, I attempted to press the button and nothing happened, then I got a bit over-excited and sort of broke a bit off the button On Saturday I found the button and just casually walked up to it expecting nothing but nearly poo'd myself when confetti blasted everywhere and this woman with a megaphone came up to me and asked if I would do a challenge - so yeah I had to find 20 people to conga behind me outside of Stealth and I just about managed it. Won a PS Vita (which I had never even heard of before), a medal, dr pepper t-shirt and a card thingy
October 10, 201311 yr comment_170265 Just looked on Thorpe's website at the gate price (out of interest, I have a MAP). £49.99!!
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