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Bank holiday rush - parks hit capacity

Hmmmmm, perhaps. But Thorpe is markedly busier at close for 7 this year. Another point of note is even on Fright Nights, people leave (generally) at 6, despite the park closing at 10. I do see what you're saying, but I do think here people just want to go home. And public transport (whilst an issue factoring towards earlier departure times at Alton, isn't a problem at Thorpe, or even Chessington).

That's the impression I got working there last year at least.
 
I think it all depends on how much people want to do and get done tbh.

Even in Orlando and California we got all the rides done by 4 and could have left but stayed on for the fireworks and parades etc.

If your done at Thorpe or another park by 4 what's the point staying?
 
but there's already a mass exodus effect that happens between 3 and 4 when parks close at 5.
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I've never noticed this at a UK park. Ever. (Except school trip season.) With Chessington, Vampire's queue might loose 25% after 5 for a 6pm close. And that's ONLY because people don't understand the closing rules. Trust me. Most people think closing at 6 means they will be kicked out the queue when it hits 6. So I think Hixee may be right, and that is precisely the reason why.

Culture difference is a valid point though, but It's one of authority, I think. It's like the whole shop closing hours crap. Shops in the UK generally close at 6, compared to more like 9 in the USA. Yet the US shops are DEAD whilst they are bustling in the UK. It makes absolutely no sense.

Tesco is allowed to open 24hours during the Olympics, yes... Even over the weekend. But guess what? At 4pm on Sunday, you still get the closing rush. Because people don't know it's opening later.

The problem is that we are conditioned as a nation to expect **** opening times. If it was advertised that Chessington was open till say, 8? During summer times, which is what it should be, people would stay because it's still light and warm! Many people would simply come late. Mornings would remain the quietest time of the day.

Valid point about public transport, mind you. That probably does have a huge effect.

Regardless, it's common sense to keep the attractions open at least long enough to serve up dinner. :/ Loads of people, after last rides, try to go get food to find outlets shut. It's just idiocy. Think of all the money they are missing out on.

OH! And, on really busy days, Chessington open an hour later. They did on Sunday. But they don't tell any guests. It's to keep the complainers happy I guess? And it's a great idea.

I think fundamentally they don't make a big enough deal out of their opening hours.
 
Not everyone likes re rides, if your there as a family and not everyone rides then people like to go.

If the queues are 2 hours and you have been on the ride in the day already would you queue again?

Suppose I'm a bit strange and won't re ride just to kill time. If I'm done I'm done so leave.
 
Joey said:
OH! And, on really busy days, Chessington open an hour later. They did on Sunday. But they don't tell any guests. It's to keep the complainers happy I guess? And it's a great idea.
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Oh I loved this, everyone leaving the park whilst the rides were gonna be running for another hour... None of the guests had a clue since no one pays attention to the boards... Brill...

owenrita121 said:
marc said:
If your done at Thorpe or another park by 4 what's the point staying?
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Re-rides? :--D
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Only you have to now queue 90 minutes for everything... Ew...
 
On the topic of Late opening hours, I've booked some Wristbands for Brean for Thursday. My Original plan was leave Maidenhead at around 5 to get there around 7:30 to stay till closing at 10. While I still might do this plan, it will mean getting to the hotel near Oakwood at around half midnight., way past the last check-in time.

What i am essantialy saying here is some people will leave parks earlier to get to their hotel for a sensible time.
 
Call me crazy but I actually prefer to see parks busy. I would rather have to queue a bit and have an atmosphere in the park than have walk ons in a completely dead park that just feels so meh. My own best example of it is with Port Aventura. I've been once in summer and once in winter. When I went in the summer there were around 60 minute queues for the majority of the bigger attractions but the place was buzzing, vibrant and exciting. When I went in the winter the place was ridiculously empty. I don't think we queued for anything. Everything felt so soulless and miserable and quite a lot was closed too. It was just really miserable.

Granted, I wouldn't really want to queue 3hours plus for things but I can quite happily queue upto around 90mins and still enjoy it far more than a day of walkons.
 
I'd disagree entirely, I far more enjoyed getting off of Swarm, running back round and getting straight back on than I did having to queue for it for 35 minutes in the heat surrounded by people who really needed to use some anti-persperant.

Can see where you're coming from with regards to atmosphere but I'd happily sacrifice that for more rides and less queues.
 
^Indeed, I think Thorpe is a good example, especially that year at GhosterForce when it was ridiculous. That wasn't fun.

I think a good balance is what I most like to see.
 
nealbie said:
We shouldn't ignore the culture difference though, Joey. Obviously it would be lovely for the parks to be open later and for more of the year, but there's already a mass exodus effect that happens between 3 and 4 when parks close at 5. So it's not insane that they close at those times and don't open in the winter, it's in fact somewhat the opposite. They're not going to spend money where there's no market to give back.

Eg - last year Thorpe opened until 8pm during the summer for the first time; this year they've cut back to 7. It shows that they're testing the waters, but there's nothing there for them.
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8pm wasn't late enough to benefit from night-riding though. You can't argue that Thorpe's Fright Nights aren't popular when it's dark later in the year, despite even the foul weather. Oakwood's late Afterdark openings till 10pm seemed to work pretty well this year too. I wish more UK parks gave us the opportunity to night-ride as it would add a whole new flavour to rides we know and love.
 
I do see what Neal is saying about cultural differences though. At about 4-5pm, the restaurant I work in is dead, people coming in at about 6-7pm for dinner but then after that it's literally ALL foreigners. English families just don't do late nights out, arguably because of what Joey says and that it's because we're used to crappy closing times and we've adjusted to it. However, every other place in the world I've been to at 9-10pm restaurants are full of families eating because their 'day' finishes after 8pm, whereas I would say a British 'day' finished at 5pm.

I also agree with you, Sue, but then I think the Halloween season has a different 'feel' about it, as a holiday a lot of it is spent doing things in the dark so it makes sense for parks to be open late to take advantage of that.

Like Marc said, if parks offered some kind of evening entertainments (shows, fireworks, etc) then people would be compelled to stay later and parks would benefit from being open later.
 
gavin said:
If anyone goes to a park on a bank holiday weekend and has the audacity to moan about crowds, they deserve to be shot in the face.
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I agree. Parks cannot control the crowds. They can however, control how well they deal with those crowds. And Drayton dealt with the crowds appallingly.

I had a crap day at Drayton on Saturday (obviously it was good due to my fwends, but still <3). I really have to speak my mind about this.

Yes, the park was at capacity. They can do nothing about that. It's great to see a UK park so busy. But in handling that huge guest figure, the park failed miserably in almost all key areas.

  • Apocalypse, which I've never seen with a queue before, only had three out of the five towers open. With a half hour queue, it was insulting having the ride running at just over half capacity, while the park was at full capacity.
  • Ben 10's throughputs seem to have dropped significantly since last year for some reason, leading to what looked like a half hour queue taking an hour.
  • Even opening Pirate Adventure is insulting to the paying guest. It was in an absolute state. Even if they're going to demolish it, it should not be open at all in such a diabolical condition. Again, a very low number of boats led to a half hour queue, where normally there would be none.
  • Golden Nuggets was a similar story, with about half the targets not working at all. I'm not saying a ride should only be open when everything is 100% working, but come on, this is a joke.
  • Shockwave's throughput seemed to be poor, though the ride didn't seem to have much of a queue all day. Probably because of how awful it is.
  • The Haunting - another half hour wait. Why? Because of the way they always seem to operate it: allowing a batch of guests through the entire pre-show and ride before letting the next set of guests into the pre-show. Thus missing half the point of having a pre-show.
  • G-Farce in general. To the staff's credit, they were working flat out with the poor ride they have. I know this isn't specific to Saturday, but it's astonishing that they've never bought a second train for it. We waited over an hour for one of the crappiest rides ever built, in a queue that resembles an abandoned warehouse, with broken queue line effects. Even on a quiet day, this thing gets unbearable queues.
  • Closure of Buffalo all day and the removal of Excalibur put more of a strain on the other rides, especially with no new additions this year.

The highlight was the incredibly friendly and chatty member of staff in the Stormforce shop, Scarlett. Well done to her, she was the only highlight of an abysmal visit.

Unfortunately, despite park close being extended to 7:30, I didn't have time to ride Pandemonium, Stormforce, the rapids, the Bounty or even venture into Thomas Land or the zoo. Towers may only have been open until 5 that day, but I'd much rather have 7 hours with rides being run properly than 9 hours of agonising queues. Especially as both of Drayton's thrill coasters are hopeless.

I generally felt like the park had a sense of contempt for the paying guest. I will be writing a letter of complaint, and will not be returning until the park make a significant investment in a quality new attraction, or improve in any of the areas I mentioned above.
 
OUTRAGE!!!

I think a lot of Drayton's problems are the way the queues are built. A half hour queue for Apocalypse really isn't bad and an hour for G-Force (which you already knew was pants) is nothing compared to say, 1.5 hours for Air. The difference is that the Air queue is open and under the ride, so you've constantly got the visual element which does help make the queue move faster. When you're trapped in a tin shed, it's horrid.
 
furie said:
A half hour queue for Apocalypse really isn't bad and an hour for G-Force (which you already knew was pants) is nothing compared to say, 1.5 hours for Air. The difference is that the Air queue is open and under the ride, so you've constantly got the visual element which does help make the queue move faster. When you're trapped in a tin shed, it's horrid.
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I don't think it's that, though it can't be denied that the Air queue is a lot more pleasant than G-Force's. I'd much rather wait an hour and a half for Air than an hour for G-Force, even though I prefer G-Force as a ride.

Because in that Air queue, you at least know that the staff and park are working flat-out with a throughput of 1200, pushing 1300pph. G-Force must rarely get over 250pph, if that. Not because of the staff, who are usually quite quick, but because of the shoddy ride design and the miserable single train. I'd much rather be in a longer Air queue that's constantly moving than an agonisingly stationary G-Force queue.
 
Logically it doesn't make any sense to me. An hour queue IS better than an hour and a half queue when the ride at the end of the hour queue is better than the ride at the end of the latter.

That's why I'm trying to work it out, because you're right. I'll stand in a queue for over an hour for Air, but at Drayton avoid anything with more than a 30 minute wait. However, I don't think of it in terms of throughput, it just doesn't bother me. An hour is always better than more than an hour :lol:

I don't know if it's the poor queues (I don't think they help) or more the fact that there's enough else at Drayton to distract me. I'm happy to skip rides with long queues because I have loads of other stuff to do. Though I find Drayton is a very "pure" family park in that sense. You can still have a very full "family day" without ever hitting more than a 15 minute queue.

I do find it makes a very poor "friends" day out though, especially when it's busy as you still don't want to wait in the queues. I dunno, I find Drayton a very odd place, but I don't think 30 minute or 1 hour queues on a very busy day are really anything unusual or disgusting. Now, the state of repair.... That's a different kettle of fish...
 
gavin said:
If anyone goes to a park on a bank holiday weekend and has the audacity to moan about crowds, they deserve to be shot in the face.
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I went to Camelot on Bank Holiday Monday and, believe me, I'm not moaning about the crowds!
 
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