I realised that I’ve been on quite a few trips since I last posted any fresh throughput timings, so let me provide some from my trip to France in June and my recent trips to some Merlin parks last week!
Parc Astérix
- Cétautomatix (Theoretical: Unknown on 9 cars) - 690pph (unknown number of cars, average of 1, 29th June 2026)
- Goudurix (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 797pph (2 trains, average of 3, 29th June 2026)
- OzIris (Theoretical: 1,600pph on 3 trains) - 1,124pph (2 trains, average of 9, 29th June 2026)
- Pégase Express (Theoretical: Unknown on 4 trains) - 1,000pph (4 trains, average of 4, 29th June 2026)
- Tonnerre 2 Zeus (Theoretical: Unknown on 2 trains) - 762pph (2 trains, average of 7, 29th June 2026)
- Toutatis (Theoretical: 1,260pph on 3 trains) - 1,156pph (2 trains, average of 1, 29th June 2026), 954pph (2 trains, average of 9, 29th June 2026)
- Trace du Hourra (Theoretical: Unknown on unknown number of trains) - 1,090pph (unknown number of trains, average of 6, 29th June 2026)
- Vol D’Icare (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 5 trains) - 425pph (unknown number of trains, average of 1, 29th June 2026) (this figure assumes 8 riders per train, which I’m not certain is actually correct)
In terms of some general operational insights:
- A number of the rides here had a rather peculiar loose article storage situation, wherein riders would stack their bags in a big trolley. It certainly made the platform operations speedy, but there must be a less faffy way to store bags before and after the ride, as getting them out at the end was a right faff! Other rides, curiously including Goudurix, had riders take bags on with them; you certainly wouldn’t be taking bags on a 7-looping Vekoma in Britain!
- A number of lap bar rides did not do manual restraint checks, which made for very speedy operations. Trace du Hourra in particular was a standout, and I feel like my 1,090pph figure does not do the operations on there justice; it was quite routinely banging out 40-45s dispatches, with the odd one even being under 40s. That’s absolutely obscene, and I dare say puts even Schweizer Bobbahn at Europa Park to shame; on this ride, you would frequently have a train leave the station before the one in front had left the lift hill, and for the most part, the operations on there ran like clockwork!
- Cétautomatix ran like absolute clockwork; it had a conveyor belt loading system, and they seem to have nailed those consistent 20s or so dispatch intervals down to a fine art!
- Operations were generally very, very prompt on the larger coasters, with both Toutatis and OzIris seeming pretty well operated. Again, both figures I have, particularly the one for OzIris, seem too low relative to how prompt I seem to remember the ops being; they really were quite fast on there! I seem to remember OzIris most typically managing 90s or so dispatch intervals.
- The loading process on Pégase Express was quite disorganised, with nobody really knowing where to go and this causing delays on the platform. The platform staff were still very prompt and dispatches were still pretty good on the whole, but it did sometimes cause trains to stack on the brake run.
On the whole, I would say Astérix seemed like a pretty well operated park, with limited downtime and generally fast throughputs! Even though some of the queues were quite long, they mostly seemed to move pretty quickly (with Toutatis being an odd exception; is there a lot of Fastrack on there or something)?
Disneyland Paris
- Avengers Assemble: Flight Force (Theoretical: 1,800pph on 5 trains) - 1,613pph (unknown number of trains, average of 2, 2nd July 2026)
- Big Thunder Mountain (Theoretical: 2,424pph on 5 trains/2 stations) - 1,577pph (unknown number of trains/2 stations, average of 6, 2nd July 2026)
- Indiana Jones et le Temple du Peril (Theoretical: Unknown on unknown number of trains) - 1,073pph (unknown number of trains, average of 2, 2nd July 2026)
- It’s a Small World (Theoretical: Unknown on unknown number of boats) - 1,155pph (unknown number of boats, average of 1, 2nd July 2026) (I had this down as 1,732pph, but I for some reason put that it had 24 riders per boat while Wikipedia claims 16, so I’ve adjusted the figure downwards to compensate… is Wikipedia correct?)
- Space Mountain (Theoretical: Unknown on 5 trains/2 stations) - 1,642pph (unknown number of trains/2 stations, average of 6, 2nd July 2026)
In terms of some general operational insights:
- Things generally operated very, very promptly. Disney parks may not rank as my absolute favourite parks, but the operations are one aspect of them I cannot criticise and generally very much like; similarly to Universal Orlando, the platform staff operate with almost a military degree of precision and speed and queues generally move quickly!
- They had quite a good common sense policy on restraint checking here that I very much liked and made things move promptly. They had everyone pulling up on their restraint to check that it was locked instead of doing checks up and down the whole train, which made things go quickly; why can’t more parks do that?
- Like Astérix, Disney seems to have a surprising tolerance for loose articles on intense rides. Both Avengers and Space Mountain have you carrying all loose articles, including bags, on board, which surprised me; is H&S more lax in France or something? I guess I could also ask the same question about the point above, actually, as I feel like the UK wouldn’t let you get away with bags on a looping coaster or no physical restraint checks, as much as I felt no physical restraint checks made sense and made things move more quickly…
- One exception to the “queues moving quickly” rule was Spider-Man; this seemed like ever such a slow queue, for some reason…
So all in all, then, I was generally very pleased with the operations at DLP; the queues are long, but they move quickly and the park generally operates their rides very well!
Alton Towers
- Galactica (Theoretical: 1,500pph on 3 trains/2 stations) - 533pph (2 trains/1 station, average of 3, 21st September 2026), 622pph (unknown number of trains, average of 3, 22nd September 2026)
- Nemesis Reborn (Theoretical: 1,400pph on 2 trains) - 1,141pph (2 trains, average of 4, 21st September 2026) (take this one with a pinch of salt as they began sending every other train around empty, hence I stopped the timing), 566pph (1 train, average of 2, 22nd September 2026)
- Oblivion (Theoretical: 1,900pph on 7 shuttles/2 stations) - 468pph (3 shuttles/1 station, average of 6, 21st September 2026) (skewed upwards by one 167s dispatch; the other 5 dispatches ranged between 104s and 128s, averaging 114.4s and coming out at around 503pph), 610pph (3 shuttles/1 station, average of 2, 21st September 2026)
- Rita (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 392pph (1 train, average of 4, 21st September 2026)
- Spinball Whizzer (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 626pph (5 cars, average of 1, 21st September 2026)
- The Smiler (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 5 trains) - 734pph (3 trains, no baggage hold, average of 2, 21st September 2026), 706pph (3 trains, no baggage hold, average of 5, 22nd September 2026)
- Thirteen (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 3 trains) - Didn’t get a timing, but it was definitely only on 2 trains and had no baggage hold operating (22nd September 2026)
- Wicker Man (Theoretical: 952pph on 3 trains) - 897pph (2 trains, average of 3, 21st September 2026), 978pph (3 trains, average of 3, 22nd September 2026), 728pph (3 trains, average of 10, 22nd September 2026) (this one was skewed down by 3 anomalously long readings of 147s, 192s and 166s; the other 7 ranged between 78s and 114s, averaging 97.3s and coming out at around 888pph)
In terms of some insights, I would say the following:
- People aren’t going to like me for saying this, but I think that the operation of the pre-show 100% stifled Wicker Man’s throughput last week. The platform staff were as prompt as ever, but so, so often, the train was sitting empty in the station waiting ages for people to be batched into it because the ride was operating more quickly than the pre-show, meaning that quite a few seconds were wasted and the batchers were having to run around like lunatics to batch everyone into an empty train as quickly as possible. It didn’t matter too much, as the ride wasn’t too busy at all, but if this is what happens on a busier day, I think the process needs work. While I acknowledge that there were 3 anomalously long dispatch intervals and the other 7 averaged 97s, having 3/10 dispatch intervals being 2.5+ minutes when the ride is running 3 trains is not great; that’s definitely the worst throughput I’ve ever seen on Wicker Man running 3 trains. I would argue that putting 3 trains on it, while of course welcomed, was possibly not the park’s top priority on the Tuesday when other things were running 1 train and had longer queues; Monday proved that it still does fairly well on 2 and the pains with the pre-show meant that 3 frequently offered little to no benefit in practice on this visit.
- It was disappointing to see Rita on 1 train for the whole trip. The ride routinely had queues of 30+ minutes going up to 45 minutes, and the cause didn’t even appear to be mechanical; the ride was running a different train each day, with the blue train running on Monday and the purple train running on Tuesday.
- Oblivion appeared understaffed, with the ride being on 1 station and seemingly having a staff member having to both batch and dispatch simultaneously. This slowed the ride down to an average of under 500pph on one 6-interval reading, which isn’t great even on 1 station; even when I take the anomaly out of the equation, the other 5 readings only narrowly exceeded an average of 500pph.
- Nemesis was doing quite well on the Monday, but seeing it on 1 train on the Tuesday was disappointing given that the queue still hit 30 minutes. They also appeared to start the practice of only filling every other train on Monday, which seemed odd…
- Given that the ride wasn’t operating a baggage hold and only ran 3 trains, I thought Smiler’s operations remained impressively prompt, on the whole. They always do pretty well on that ride! I would say the same about Thirteen given it was also only running 2 trains and had no baggage hold; the staff were prompt, the ride pretty consistently didn’t stack and queues remained relatively low!
- Spinball always remains pretty strong operationally; while I could only time 1 dispatch, they seem to have nailed that consistent 20-25s dispatch interval down to a pretty fine art and have it running like clockwork, to the point where it actually outdid a fair few of the larger coasters on throughput this trip! It certainly runs much better and more consistently than Dragon’s Fury down at Chessington, anyway!
All in all, I wouldn’t say this was my finest trip to Alton operationally speaking. I had a very good visit, getting on lots of rides each day, and in the main, I can’t complain too much, but there were still queues in excess of 30 minutes where I would argue there didn’t need to be and lots of things were running on reduced throughputs. I’ve often said that Alton’s ride throughputs are pretty good and overly criticised, and on the whole, that’s a stance I stand by, but if this visit was my sole experience of Alton Towers operations, I could perhaps empathise with the criticism a little more.
Thorpe Park
- Colossus (Theoretical: 1,300pph on 2 trains) - 730pph (2 trains, average of 2, 24th September 2026)
- Hyperia (Theoretical: 1,050pph on 2 trains) - 679pph (2 trains, average of 6, 24th September 2026) (This figure was skewed downwards by 2 much slower dispatches of 118s and 134s, and the other 4 dispatches ranged between 93s and 98s, averaging 96s and resulting in around 750pph)
- Nemesis Inferno (Theoretical: 1,150pph on 2 trains) - 1,191pph (2 trains, average of 5, 24th September 2026) (this reading was skewed downwards by one anomalously slow dispatch of 100s; the other 4 dispatches ranged between 76s and 85s, averaging 80.8s and resulting in around 1,248pph), 1,090pph (2 trains, average of 4, 24th September 2026)
- Saw: The Ride (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 8 cars/2 stations) - 837pph (unknown number of cars/2 stations, average of 10, 24th September 2026)
- Stealth (Theoretical: 1,000pph on 2 trains) - 811pph (2 trains, average of 5, 24th September 2026), 893pph (2 trains, average of 5, 24th September 2026)
- The Swarm (Theoretical: 1,100pph on 2 trains) - 970pph (2 trains, average of 9, 24th September 2026) (This figure is skewed downwards by one anomalously slow dispatch interval of 122s; the other 8 ranged between 91s and 112s, averaging 101.6s and resulting in around 991pph)
In terms of some general insights, I’d say the following:
- Nemesis Inferno was operated like I have honestly never seen that ride operated before! The operations were incredible, and minimal to no stacking was par for the course for the entire day, from what I could see! With that morning reading of 1,191pph in particular, I have never seen the ride have dispatch intervals of ~80s or less that consistently before and didn’t even know it was possible, and when I got in the station and saw those ops at work, it was quite something! The staff were brilliantly fast, with them running up and down the train checking bars and the operator coming over the tannoy giving it the whole “this train is ready to leave with or without you”! I’m going out on a limb and saying that it was the best operated Nemesis I rode that week, having been to Alton earlier in the week, and possibly in the running for best operated B&M invert of the year (yes, even including OzIris). Phenomenal work!
- Swarm was pretty good. I do think the ride could perhaps be enhanced even further operationally if the baggage hold returned, but I thought they were generally doing quite a decent job on there.
- Stealth was also pretty good in general, even if the ride has never quite matched the “better part of 1,000pph” heights I logged it reaching last year. Oddly, it quite comfortably puts Rita to shame throughputs-wise (even when Rita runs 2 trains) despite supposedly having a lower theoretical! They also had a batcher on here for the first time in a while, which was interesting; it certainly made the platform more organised than usual.
- Every time I ride Hyperia, I think it’s slowed down so much by that gap in between trains and how slow the brake run is. There’s easily a good 20-30 second gap between trains being in the station when the ride runs well, and if they were able to speed up that brake run a tad, I think it could make the ride gain a fair whack of throughput, as the staff on there are generally very prompt!
Overall, I thought the park was generally quite well operated, and perhaps controversially, I would argue that Thorpe Park presently has the most consistently good ride operations and throughputs of the 4 UK Merlin parks. While I think Alton Towers at their best can still match or exceed Thorpe, I think they’ve proven more inconsistent recently and if I’m comparing like for like based on my visits this week, Thorpe Park had everything running on full capacity this week unlike Alton Towers and also seemed to have generally better staffing and levels of urgency on the platforms. I wouldn’t necessarily have said this a few years ago, but I do think Thorpe has improved quite considerably in terms of throughputs in the last 5 years or so!
Chessington World of Adventures
- Dragon’s Fury (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 443pph (unknown number of cars, average of 10, 25th September 2026) (This reading was skewed downwards by 3 slower readings of 43s, 42s and 40s; the other 7 readings ranged between 23s and 34s, averaging 28.6s and resulting in around 504pph. This reading also assumes full cars of 4, which was not always the case due to the policy of only allowing 3 adults in a car.)
- Mandrill Mayhem (Theoretical: 840pph on 1 train) - 605pph (1 train, average of 4, 25th September 2026) (This reading was skewed downwards by 1 slower reading of 207s; the other 3 readings ranged between 144s and 166s, averaging 153s and resulting in around 659pph)
- Vampire (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 512pph (2 trains, average of 5, 25th September 2026) (This reading was skewed downwards by 1 slower reading of 200s; the other 4 intervals ranged between 154s and 167s, averaging 161s and resulting in around 537pph)
In terms of some general insights:
- Dragon’s Fury, while they make an earnest effort on there, definitely doesn’t run as consistently well as Spinball at Alton Towers. While you occasionally had those 20-25s glimmers of excellence shining through, the ride is hobbled by the whole procedure of the scales and the weighting faff, and unlike Spinball, they struggle to have it consistently clearing the 500pph mark. This isn’t great when Dragon’s Fury is a headline attraction at Chessington while Spinball is a decidedly peripheral coaster at Alton Towers. And that’s before you consider that Fury frequently doesn’t fill the cars unlike Spinball, which would make the real world throughput even lower than my numbers imply.
- Mandrill Mayhem continues with the odd charade of not letting you stand in the airgates until the ride has come to a stop, which seems counterintuitive when the ride is already a headline coaster that intrinsically can only run 1 train. The actual platform staff seem quite prompt on there, to be fair, but there’s only so well they can do when the ride only runs 1 train to begin with and the Wing Coaster is intrinsically slightly more difficult to operate quickly.
- In fairness, Vampire seemed better staffed and operated than last time I came to Chessington, with a dedicated batcher and 2 platform staff, and as a result, the average dispatch interval was a good minute faster (2.5-3 minutes compared to nearly 4 minutes in 2023). The platform staff were prompt and the actual restraint checks were very good and quick! However, the batcher frequently didn’t batch the airgates until the train was in the station with people waiting to board for some reason, which seemed odd and like it was wasting unnecessary seconds. I also never noticed before how the ride has perhaps the slowest train parking known to man, with nearly 50s passing between trains being parked in the station; that certainly can’t help throughputs!
- While Chessington as a park lacks capacity compared to Towers or Thorpe and many of their rides, particularly more recent ones, have quite low inherent capacities, they have some rides that I feel could and should be relatively high capacity, but aren’t due to procedure, inherent design flaws or a mix of both. Vampire is one example, but the most egregious one is probably Tomb Blaster. A ride with multiple large trains and simple lap bar restraints should attain a pretty good throughput, right? And yet, it doesn’t! One poor man operates it entirely on his own, it takes what feels like forever and a day for one train to leave the station and another to park in it, and when all these things are added together, the ride ends up having a surprisingly slow throughput! ZUFARI is another one where I feel like it should theoretically have high capacity; big safari trucks feel like something you should fairly easily be able to bung people onto and send to get a good capacity, but it seems quite sluggish and has some odd design choices, such as having exiting guests cross directly in front of those who board unnecessarily… what is that about?
All in all, I would say Chessington generally has weaker throughputs than Alton or Thorpe. While the operations themselves aren’t overly terrible by any means and the staff mostly make an earnest effort, I do think the park inherently has a real lack of capacity and is hobbled by some rather odd procedural quirks. I do fear it could really struggle on peak days next season if Minecraft proves popular unless they invest a bit of money into improving throughputs, or at very least put some energy into improving throughputs as Thorpe seemingly did prior to Hyperia opening.
