Park Operations

[Benin]

Yay capitalism!

 

Merlin don't seem to ever learn from the past. Presumably because the parks go through management types like I do a box of Lindor.

 

This season has seen a lot of the flaws from previous seasons come to the forefront. Maintenance has been a big issue for years and they wonder why rides break down left, right and centre. Hyperia's closures haven't helped Thorpe (especially when opening it late into the season stopped many visiting prior). Towers hasn't even seen Hex or Skyride. And then the weather has been extremely off-putting to many across the board.

 

The problem is that the parks have become major problems because of years of mismanagement. And now the response to that is to make more cuts via closed rides and reduced staffing, therefore lessening the overall product, resulting in more issues. 

 

Short-termism appears to be back. Again.

[Parm Pap]

life begins at five to eight no time to waste, it will not wait a lay-in that was yesterday up and at 'em into the fray there'll be no time to catch your breath the enemy of life is death so sweep the hallway, mop the wall your destiny's about to call the legislation's in the bag justice, a toothless old hag it's every man now on his own it's all for one, you'd better run and stand up tall against the wall and one by one you all shall fall and though you'll try to get back home your cupboards bare, without a bone je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va êtremje ne le fais pas, c'est la viemc'est comme ça que ça va être stand up tall against the wall one by one you all shall fall and though you'll try to get back home the cupboards bare, without a bone some call it armageddon I'm sure you've heard them say it's a tyrannical heaven and we're only a moment away je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va être je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va être

[JoshC.]

2 hours ago, Parm Pap said:

life begins at five to eight no time to waste, it will not wait a lay-in that was yesterday up and at 'em into the fray there'll be no time to catch your breath the enemy of life is death so sweep the hallway, mop the wall your destiny's about to call the legislation's in the bag justice, a toothless old hag it's every man now on his own it's all for one, you'd better run and stand up tall against the wall and one by one you all shall fall and though you'll try to get back home your cupboards bare, without a bone je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va êtremje ne le fais pas, c'est la viemc'est comme ça que ça va être stand up tall against the wall one by one you all shall fall and though you'll try to get back home the cupboards bare, without a bone some call it armageddon I'm sure you've heard them say it's a tyrannical heaven and we're only a moment away je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va être je ne le fais pas, c'est la vie c'est comme ça que ça va être

 

A stupid post in a quiet topic is passable, but if you're not going to meaningfully contribute to a topic with genuine discussion occurring we'll just throw the banhammer your way.

[Matt 236]

Merlin always seem to this vicious cycle thing of going through investments followed by cuts, the latter seems to be coming into effect once again.

 

I think it’s really disappointing that the parks right now are increasing less able to offer a full product offering, whether it’s been closed/mothballed rides or just not running them on low peak days. Thorpes cuts may be less noticeable, but they are certainly there.

 

At Towers I wouldn’t be surprised if both Skyride and Hex are still closed in 2025.

[MattyMoo]

13 minutes ago, Matt 236 said:

Merlin always seem to this vicious cycle thing of going through investments followed by cuts, the latter seems to be coming into effect once again.

 

I think it’s really disappointing that the parks right now are increasing less able to offer a full product offering, whether it’s been closed/mothballed rides or just not running them on low peak days. Thorpes cuts may be less noticeable, but they are certainly there.

 

At Towers I wouldn’t be surprised if both Skyride and Hex are still closed in 2025.

 

 

Yes quite. I think the biggest tell of their state of affairs/management is to what extent the Sparkle Project continues over closed season.

 

It does feel like all of a sudden the pitch has shifted from closed season 2023/start of season 2024 to where we are now and it's quite concerning as to why and how quickly.

 

Hopefully this won't affect the taste and enjoyment of my currywurst pizza next week.

[MattL28]

I think a good indication of cuts is if slammer doesn’t get removed this year and sparkle project doesn’t happen again.

 

Both require investment and both were said to happen this coming closed season. So if it’s changed, it will be a good indicator 

 

 

[MattyMoo]

Yes agreed. And dare we speak of the Tidal Wave fire effect, or.....?

 

Looking at the app today, everything is open with the exception of Ghost Train that is current closed, and not marked as "Opening Soon", "Opening Later", "Planned Delayed Opening" or similar. So assume it's just playing up - for a change.

[Benin]

I'd presume Sparkle was designed to be over a number of years like Towers' equivalent.

 

So everything that's done first will look tired by the time the project is "complete".

 

I reckon this year hasn't been profit heavy so far (for a number of reasons) and panic is setting in.

[Inferno]

8 minutes ago, Benin said:

I reckon this year hasn't been profit heavy so far (for a number of reasons) and panic is setting in.

I think you’re probably right…

 

I find it a bit alarming that there are so many cuts like this though… it doesn’t feel like something a company would be doing if they weren’t panicking, literally closing rides and reducing hours like this etc at the end of the season.

 

It’s a good point made above about the inherited problems though - vast amounts of money needs spending on things that won’t give them a direct return - sky ride and Hex for example. It must be bleeding them dry playing catch up on the things that should have been done years ago.

 

I don’t mind cuts like no longer needing staff stood at ride entrances (without redundancies I would hope), as that really is a “nice to have”, but closing rides for multiple years, mid season closures, staggered and late openings, and part-seasonal rides feels like a bit of a panicky move.

 

It all feels a bit like when you’re playing RCT and you’ve buggered up by spending all your money too soon and can’t earn it back fast enough without demolishing everything!

[JoshC.]

10 hours ago, Benin said:

Merlin don't seem to ever learn from the past. Presumably because the parks go through management types like I do a box of Lindor.

 

It's interesting, as Thorpe have been through a huge period of stability with their management / leadership team. This isn't like the late 2010s when the management positions started to look like revolving doors. 

I do also think that that stability has become apparent too. The park's direction feels clearer and less flip-flop-y. It certainly seems like they have an all round good leadership team in place now.

 

But still, we're in this position where they're making the same mistakes as before. I wonder if that comes from the very top, with a newer exec who haven't learnt the problems of the past.

 

I remain somewhat cautious about the quote that O'Neil "implied that he may not have made those decisions.". Implications are a dangerous thing to make, and without seeing his exact words (I cba to set up a Bloomberg account to see it), we're just looking at Ride Rater's interpretation. All I'm saying here is: it's a dangerous game to pin a claim based on someone's interpretation of an implication. That could be what he meant. That could be what he said, but didn't mean. That could just not be what he meant at all.

 

Even at the end of the closed season, there was no guarantee from the park that Sparkle would continue. There were certainly "intentions", "plans", "hopes" and all those other non-committal words. It seems like the park learnt from past guarantees (Tidal Wave fire), but it's clearly been the plan, given Colossus' paint job for example. But yeah, if it doesn't return / we don't see further glow ups across the park, it's certainly an indication of money going away from the park.

 

I just hope we're not put into a "Swarm situation", where the big shots go "Well, Hyperia wasn't an instant success for the park so we're not investing big in you for the next decade, have fun bye" 

[tactic]

Not quite sure this is the correct thread, but a bit of a thought related to some of the discussions above.

 

Do we think that the closing of the Passholders group earlier this year was a kind of pre-empting of these budget cuts were starting to see now. Closing the group probably did very little in the money aspect, but would maybe still mean they have to employ one or two less staff members to moderate the group, In addition, maybe the park knew that these cuts were coming and closed the group in advance so they didn't have to respond to the backlash from these changes as much. Closing it longish before the cuts also makes it seem that the closing of the group wasn't to avoid people voicing their probably negatice opinnions.

 

I'm 99% sure I'm reading into this too much, but oh well might as well see what you guys think.

[Cal]

Was at the park today and didn't notice any reduction in staffing levels which is positive.

 

3 hosts on both Vortex and Samurai

4 staff checking restraints + staff batching on both Colossus and Inferno.

 

Thought some of these would be the first to be cut, never used to see this on off peak days in previous years.

 

Only thing I did notice was SRQ closed on Saw which probably means there was no one batching, can't confirm as I didn't ride it.

 

 

 

[MattL28]

8 hours ago, tactic said:

Do we think that the closing of the Passholders group earlier this year was a kind of pre-empting of these budget cuts were starting to see now.

 

I thought this too, I don’t necessarily think that the closing of the group was a budget cut itself. I think the closing of the group was the first sign of things not going the way it was meant to go this year. 
 

There was no real reason to close it and the group was a very Thorpe thing and it was good to have the openness. To me, it closing was a sign of things going back to their old ways

[Benin]

I'd say the first ride staff to go are those at front gate.

 

Would've been useful on my visit as seemed that none of the staff really understood parent swap. Especially when GS didn't have any passes to give out.

[JoshC.]

1 hour ago, Benin said:

I'd say the first ride staff to go are those at front gate.

 

Would've been useful on my visit as seemed that none of the staff really understood parent swap. Especially when GS didn't have any passes to give out.

 

Aside from Hyperia and Ghost Train, none of the Thorpe rides have had an entrance staff for years. Even then, their entrance staff disappeared once the initial cluster hype disappeared. 

[MattyMoo]

Today's status, at 10:15 - Detty, Samurai, Vortex, Quantum, Tidal Wave opening later.

Hyperia - opening soon.

 

11.15 - No change

[Cal]

1 hour ago, MattyMoo said:

Today's status, at 10:15 - Detty, Samurai, Vortex, Quantum, Tidal Wave opening later.

Hyperia - opening soon.

 

11.15 - No change

 

Hyperia is open now, they had to remove a train on Hyperia around 5:15 yesterday due to an issue, and it was also running late last night for FN promo filming so I imagine the late opening will be to do with that. 

 

All the ones that say 'opening later' have a scheduled opening time between 12:30 - 13:30, if you click on the individual ride it'll tell you what time.

[Benin]

1 hour ago, JoshC. said:

 

Aside from Hyperia and Ghost Train, none of the Thorpe rides have had an entrance staff for years. Even then, their entrance staff disappeared once the initial cluster hype disappeared. 

 

Sad times, I'm a great believer of that since it can sort a lot of potential bother out.

 

Towers sounds like they're ditching them with the cuts though. 

[MattyMoo]

8 minutes ago, Cal said:

 

Hyperia is open now, they had to remove a train on Hyperia around 5:15 yesterday due to an issue, and it was also running late last night for FN promo filming so I imagine the late opening will be to do with that. 

 

All the ones that say 'opening later' have a scheduled opening time between 12:30 - 13:30, if you click on the individual ride it'll tell you what time.

 

Ahhh OK - didn't realise they'd changed the info to show opening times.

Wonder if there's any reasoning to rides chosen for late opening? Obviously they are all flats, but Samurai in particular surprises me as it's very close to Saw & Hyperia so does get queues...

[Inferno]

It does seem odd doesn’t it - I’d guess it’s down to choosing the rides that would have the least impact.

Nobody goes to Thorpe to ride Vortex or Samurai realistically, but they do go to Thorpe to ride the likes of Inferno and Stealth - I suppose it’s less disappointing if at least the coasters are running 🤷‍♂️ While people might go home with a poor impression overall, at least they’ll have done the big rides? (Because bare minimum has always been and apparently always will be Merlin’s goal)

 

That list Matty posted there is not good though is it.  Scheduled openings in the afternoon? Embarrassing.

 

It will be interesting to see what happens at Fright Nights when things pick up. I imagine all of a sudden they’ll be fully staffed and open again from dawn til dusk - I assume many of those staff are on reduced hours throughout September?

[Benin]

To be fair most theme park staff go back to school/uni in September. 

 

Until theme park work is seen as far more long term it'll be the only thing people end up doing (like I did).

[JoshC.]

After asking around a little bit, I'm under the impression now that the scheduled late ride openings is not budget cut related.

 

The park aren't cutting staff hours / having less staff on park. Instead, the park are using the off peak days to further train staff - particularly engineers - allowing them be able to work on more rides. Usually this can only be done during closed season, or slowly, with only 1 or 2 people at a time. This allows more people to be trained at once.

 

The park are simply seeing if this becomes a more effective way of training people, without damaging guest experience. A couple of rides opening a couple of hours later isn't ideal, but I guess if it doesn't have a notable negative impact on guest experience/feedback, and it allows staff to be multi-skilled and the park to run better on busier days / in the long run, I guess it's a good payoff.

 

It's not a set in stone thing. But the key takeaway is this isn't a budget cut.

[Inferno]

That’s good really.

 

To be fair, they don’t seem to be doing this on weekends and it does seem to be limited to only the quietest days of the season.

 

Hopefully that’ll be it after these next couple of weeks, because actually operations seem to have been great this year 

[Glitch]

Oktoberfest looks tacky this year. I really don’t understand why they don’t change the format of the event. Get a big tent, get people to dress up, sell beer at £8 a stein and have sessions on Friday / Saturday afternoon / evening with some ERT on say hyperia (night rides) or some other rollercoasters. It seems to sell elsewhere (Richmond , Camden etc) so why not do a real experience and make a load off the drink money….

[Cal]

Good to hear the closures aren't budget cut related. Thorpe seems to have avoided any noticeable cuts so far then which is good! 

 

I noticed the below has been added to the ride availability page too; 

 

'Please note, some rides may open later than 10am due to planned maintenance. Please check the app and queue time boards on the day of your visit for the most up to date information.' 

 

Saw has also been updated to be closed on Mon 23rd. This is the day the Hyperia work starts so probably access related.