I don't like this, but just playing Devil's Advocate here.
Have Alton looked at their "off-peak" figures and seen that at these times, food/drink/merchandise sales are low after 4:00 p.m. so it's not worth them paying staff to keep them open? It's all well and good saying "they'll miss out on all that profit from people staying in the park longer", but we don't know they've ever made profit at those times.
We also need to consider is this park close or queue-line close? Queues for some rides can still be up to an hour at closing time. So the park keeps the food stuff open until later anyway. They also advertise things like Woodcutters as "avoid the traffic jams and stay for dinner here".
It IS just cost cutting and money saving and I don't agree with it, but they will have reasons that work monetarily. It does really annoy me as shown by Gazza:
Gazza said:
The hotel water park opening hours thing shat me too. It opens within the same hours as the park, but its not a full day attraction, so if a daytripper wants to visit it cuts into dry park time.
The water park should open in the evening IMO.
As Ollie says, it used to be open until about 8 p.m. (and open at about 8 a.m. too). So as a hotel guest, you could use the pool outside of park hours, extending your "fun time" beyond that of the park. However, they cut it back and this is a win/win for them. They don't need to pay the expensive costs of pool operation, staff, etc but they then force people to use the bars and arcades to entertain themselves. Money, money, money!
And this is what it all comes down to. Cut overheads and increase profits. That's fine if you're struggling as Blackpool did (note - did, I'm not having a knock here they've done well to turn around their fortunes). They're not though, Alton is a profitable park. They're just not as profitable as the investors want, and it's all about "pay back" when you're owned by a larger corporation.
So they reduce operating services to customers to increase profit margins. They're forgetting though that they're a customer service operation. Every person who enters your park expects to be entertained for their money. If they don't get their value for money, then they complain and they stop going. We used to go to Splash Landings regularly, but the shorter opening times and increased prices have made it impossible for us to consider any more. Now, they mustn't have been making enough money, but if somebody pays £250 to stay in a room, then if they're in the pool or not, part of that should be going towards keeping it available for them.
As you squeeze every last penny and bit of patience from your customers, you stop them from returning in the future. It's just a stupid move from a recreation company. They've almost decided that they should live up to the poor image of theme parks. "The Sun says we're bad value for money, well, let's make sure we are!"
As I say, if the park was running up massive debts each year and going under then fine. As it is, it's highly profitable and it's just pure greed from investors wanting more money back quicker.
