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WTF Merlin?

Wild conspiracy-theory: do Alton and Thorpe have intentionally bad operations to give the illusion that ride quality and attendance are much higher than they actually are, matching the GP's expectation that high wait times means high quality? In a sense of "man, if people are willing to queue for that long, it must be good"? I mean, even people who usually don't go to theme parks can make this connection - thanks to Disneyland Paris - and the British Merlin Parks already have established a bunch of strategies to create an impression of superiority that doesn't hold up for anybody who is well travelled.
 
I'm sorry because I'm not a native speaker, I meant "operations" in a sense of "overall way of operation the attractions as instructed by the management". The could have the greatest staff on earth, that still doesn't make up for removals of single rider lines and baggage service. Or for example, making a coaster with 16-seat-trains one of their greatest investments of all time.

And even if they had actually bad staff, I couldn't blame them all that much. Every employer gets what he is willing to give.
 
Wickerman broke down twice when I was there, Nemesis has been on one train pretty much all season, don't even get me started on the state of Galactica, they've been using one station on Oblivion basically forever, they've taken all the bag storage and single rider queues out...

Yh, operations are wonderful.
 
^ Gotta be honest, that’s not the experience I have had on my visits this season. Yeah, I’ll give you Wickerman, but Nemesis has been back on two trains pretty much constantly since the end of April and I’ve not once seen Oblivion run one train.
 
Nemesis has been on one pretty much all season, and I said one station on Oblivion, not one train.

Like really, anyone that thinks Alton's operations are not terrible at the moment needs to be taking off their rose-tinted glasses.
 
Oblivion one train was a typo. I meant one station. Like I said, I’ve not experienced a day at towers this year other than right at the beginning of the season that hasn’t seen Nemesis on two trains and oblivion on two platforms. That’s just my experience, I’m not saying your lying or anything obnoxious. Just my observations, no need to be so aggressive, and just to point out, I’m far from a huge towers fan...
 
I've only been one time this season and the only coaster running with good operations was Thirteen, everything else was minimal trains/slow ops.
It's been getting progressively worse over the last few seasons.
 
It seems they've designed wickerman to be piss-poor

1 - Allocated sodding seating
2 - No front row queue (WTF)
3 - the gap between the pre show room and the loading station, doesn't seem to be quite big enough to accommodate everyone from the pre-show, meaning they can't process the next lot until it empties. Also - the "load" from the pre-show is about enough for 2 full cars, but the pre show takes slightly longer than the time taken to despatch those cars, so 1 car ends up about 1/3 full until the pre-show empties, and your stacked on the brake run for a good minute or two - They actually have 3 car operation but can't make maximum use of it!

1 and 2 could be fixed by a management decisiion, but looks like we're stuck with 3!
 
i have to say, maybe it's a UK thing, but the merlin park i visited here in the US (legoland ca) was great!! clean, friendly staff, faster than disney ops, nice new additions, good food, i didn't have a single complaint about it!!
 
kenny cook said:
i didn't have a single complaint about it!!
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This is interesting to hear because I've heard mainly negative things about Legoland. I looked up the ticket price, and it's $95 which is nearly the same as Disneyland. It just seems that what is there just isn't worth that price especially when Disneyland has so much more to offer not too far away.
 
Edward M said:
This is interesting to hear because I've heard mainly negative things about Legoland. I looked up the ticket price, and it's $95 which is nearly the same as Disneyland. It just seems that what is there just isn't worth that price especially when Disneyland has so much more to offer not too far away.
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This is a bit of an odd one. It seems that the management there are aware that they need to be "top tier" in terms of operations, etc. due to the local competition. However, they don't understand that their brand doesn't carry the premium that Disney do. So they're halfway there.

I think it does kind of say it all about the UK's lack of competition in the market place where Merlin dominate. Here they can get away with crap ops AND charge a premium.
 
I've long assumed Merlin's poor operations were designed to make you go back. But I think the line has crossed from "that was a great day but I didn't do Wicker Man, let's go back next month" to "that was a **** day, I didn't get on Wicker Man, I'm never going back again"
 
Robbie said:
I've long assumed Merlin's poor operations were designed to make you go back. But I think the line has crossed from "that was a great day but I didn't do Wicker Man, let's go back next month" to "that was a :emoji_poop: day, I didn't get on Wicker Man, I'm never going back again"
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Your first suggestion of a resumé guests would make is one that can only be made about crowded parks, but not badly operated parks. I've been to Efetling's long summer nights plenty of times, and yeah, all rides have 30-45 minute waits on these days. But it's fine, because the park is operated very well, in a sense of lines moving decently quick. Compare that to Alton Towers, which has one third of Efteling's attendance, twice as many coasters, is just as expansive in terms of area and has barely open at all (most of the time 7 hours tops). And I see long-ass queues everywhere. The GP might be not, well... let's say "educated" in terms of the amusement industry, but they cleary know when they are being shatted.

My girlfriend basically visits parks with me and is otherwise not really interested in coaster stuff, but she can take a 60-minute-queue that is constantly moving just fine, and on the other hand gets super mad when standing in a 20-minute-queue that only consists of 3 people because the ride ops cleary don't give a damn about anything. You see the same phenomenon everytime. People become way more satisfied with their overall travelling-experience if they take a train that takes a few minutes longer to reach the desired destination, but has way less stops compared to let's say taking the tram, that stops at every single house. The sensation of progress is more important than progress itself (which btw is the reason why parks like Europa, Efteling and others are doing very well without Fastpass, because they understood this principle. Most people don't want to skip lines for a hundred bucks, they just don't want business to waste their time).
 
Fluorineer said:
Your first suggestion of a resumé guests would make is one that can only be made about crowded parks, but not badly operated parks. I've been to Efetling's long summer nights plenty of times, and yeah, all rides have 30-45 minute waits on these days. But it's fine, because the park is operated very well, in a sense of lines moving decently quick. Compare that to Alton Towers, which has one third of Efteling's attendance, twice as many coasters, is just as expansive in terms of area and has barely open at all (most of the time 7 hours tops). And I see long-ass queues everywhere. The GP might be not, well... let's say "educated" in terms of the amusement industry, but they cleary know when they are being shatted.
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This was what I was trying to say - once upon a time, people didn't mind queuing because the ride was worth it and it was a sign the ride was popular. Alton somehow kept the queues moving even when the rides weren't. It gave the illusion of a really popular park, and everyone wants to be part of something popular, right? But now the line has been crossed where people just get frustrated at waiting - they can see certain rides opening shorter times, and others breaking down far too regularly. It's clearly a cost-cutting move but I don't think it's going to work long-term when the place is only just recovering from the bad publicity of the Smiler crash. The public ain't that thick.
 
Robbie said:
The public ain't that thick.
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