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WTF Merlin?

Yep… Bad day, free return activated…

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Good to see them this busy, but it’s highlighting the lack of capacity when rides are down. The fact they lack fillers is not helping at all. They need new filler rides and they need them fast, or they’ll lose the momentum they have right now.
 
Yeah, thankfully all the coasters have opened now as most were down for wind earlier. They definitely need more filler rides like the retro squad that can operate in wind.
 
Has Inferno had a support fracture?
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Today was a bit of an operations disaster. Aside from some hail that (naturally) closed all of the rides for 40 mins, I'm not sure there was a single point where all 6 coasters were open at once, at one point we were down to having just 2 open with constant flat-ride downtime. Hyperia & it's new area is looking fantastic though!
 
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I'm not getting into the RAP ****storm - I've witnessed it from all sides and have no idea how to fix it.

As for availability... it was pretty shocking yesterday; I think every major coaster bar Nemesis went down for at least an hour during the day, leading to a dead day still feeling rather busy. I don't want to be negative when they've just done such a good job with Nemesis - but the remainder of the park is in a sorry state. I don't want to say this either - but it's almost like the Retro Squad served a useful purpose.

I'd blame ride availability and weather for my no-show today, but the truth is I feel like **** :D
 
Tonkso said:
I have grasped it, and totally understand that there are people with additional needs that aren't visible or immediately obvious. My post wasn't intended to come across as nasty or misunderstanding of those with needs, it's the numbers that I am questioning.

I also understand it's more analogous to a virtual queue than a fastpass, the implementation is good I think, no issue there. no complaints.

What I am asking is why do there seem to be so many more people using it than in previous years? Long covid is a thing that affects many people in many different ways (it gave me Hayfever, wtf?) so that could be an explanation. I'm also not complaining about it extending my queues per say, but how it affects those who need it. Perhaps I am wrong and nobody is a taking advantage when they shouldn't, but it is noticeably a larger number of people than it was before.
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I think it all comes down to the AP holders to be honest. The vast majority seem to have RAP. So when you get a ride opening day or a special event, the rides just get overwhelmed. The parks could counteract that with say, better reliability or rides on full capacity but all three of the Merlin parks seem hamstrung at the moment.
 
Changa said:
Has Inferno had a support fracture?
View attachment 30444
Today was a bit of an operations disaster. Aside from some hail that (naturally) closed all of the rides for 40 mins, I'm not sure there was a single point where all 6 coasters were open at once, at one point we were down to having just 2 open with constant flat-ride downtime. Hyperia & it's new area is looking fantastic though!
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Is that the first turn out of the station into the volcano?
Seems a strange place to get a support fracture the track shouldn’t be under too much stress at that point?

With the ride availability problems AT currently experiencing and the Easter school holidays now coming up, these queue times could be horrendous for a while.

Think I will postpone any trips until they seem to have got hold of these reliability issues.
 
I was lucky at Towers... Had a great opening day, and an incredible 'walk on Monday' return visit... Haven't been back since... Back today and hoping I've missed all the mayhem that was the second half of last week. 🤞
 
The owner of theme parks including Alton Towers and Legoland is to make it more costly to visit on a sunny bank holiday than a rainy day midweek.
Merlin Entertainments, which also runs the London Eye and Madam Tussauds, is introducing "dynamic pricing" so prices can respond faster to weather and demand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68659045

Any guesses to how this will play out?
 
oopnorth said:
The owner of theme parks including Alton Towers and Legoland is to make it more costly to visit on a sunny bank holiday than a rainy day midweek.
Merlin Entertainments, which also runs the London Eye and Madam Tussauds, is introducing "dynamic pricing" so prices can respond faster to weather and demand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68659045

Any guesses to how this will play out?
Click to expand...
Honestly, I thought it was already a thing, dynamic pricing has been around for decades at this point, and I'm fairly certain their online prices rise for key events, and have done for years.

This to me, looks like they're actually going to discount quieter midweek and crappy days. Just like Plopsa and other European parks do.

Makes sense... Today was incredible, started off wet and busy, with poor availability due to rain, but that weather cleared right up around 11:30, and obviously availability improved. By this time, they'd already announced an extended opening to 5:30pm. But by 3pm, everything was pretty much walk on (except Wicker Man which was last to reopen, so had the late afternoon queue.) From 4pm they were sending half empty trains on Nemesis due to lack of riders.

Great day for high ride counts... On a roll with Mondays at the moment. :)
 
FogZog said:
Been looking at queue times everyday because got a Towers trip coming up and….. I would be crying if I was on park today…
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We were there on Saturday and it wasn’t great.

We arrived in the park at 2pm and most of the top rides were closed or had 100+ minutes of queues.
We queued exactly 2 hours for Pinball Wizzer : 2:15pm to 4:15pm. After that the Smiler opened, we were near the front of the queue and the ride closed due to wind. We awaited another 45mins hoping it would re-open but it didn’t:mad:

So 4 hours in (6pm) and we had done one ride.

Then the park started to get less busy and in the next 2 hours we got on Nemesis Reborn, Oblivion and Smiler

We were at Thorpe Park yesterday (Monday) and it was much better. Max queue time about 30mins , and after 3pm this reduced to about 15 minutes.
 
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oopnorth said:
The owner of theme parks including Alton Towers and Legoland is to make it more costly to visit on a sunny bank holiday than a rainy day midweek.
Merlin Entertainments, which also runs the London Eye and Madam Tussauds, is introducing "dynamic pricing" so prices can respond faster to weather and demand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68659045

Any guesses to how this will play out?
Click to expand...
But the introduction of machine learning will make flexible ticket pricing faster and more detailed.

For example, if a sunny Saturday during the summer holiday turns out to be less busy than expected, the firm could lower ticket prices on the day.

Similarly, if a winter's day unexpectedly turns out to be busy, prices could rise higher than current off-peak prices, even during what is normally considered a cheaper time to visit.
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So not only is it pricing that fluctuates on the day, it’s pricing that’s influenced by A.I. Can’t see this going awry.
 
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This dynamic pricing creates a situation where those getting the worst experience (Long queues, over crowded park) pay the most whereas those getting the best experience (No/Short queues, quiet park) pay the least.
 
oopnorth said:
This dynamic pricing creates a situation where those getting the worst experience (Long queues, over crowded park) pay the most whereas those getting the best experience (No/Short queues, quiet park) pay the least.
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Many of those visiting mid weeks, and getting the best experience, already pay the least, as they're mostly the AP holders. It won't affect us at all. And off peak days are already cheaper than peak days. This AI thing looks to be allowing them to set prices based on criteria other than "Is it a weekend, is it a school holiday?" The weather element will be particularly interesting. We saw last week how much difference a bit of sun can make midweek, even in March. Park was empty some days, and very busy on others. That tiny bit of rain yesterday morning gave us a walk on afternoon.

To bring it back to annual passholders for a moment. Somebody who visited at the weekend might have paid up to £40 for their ticket and got on next to nothing, then they'd have to pay for their parking to boot. I've had multiple visits in the last week, two of which have been walk on days. I've paid £20 for the month... So far I've paid £5 per visit and parked for free. And I could well rack up 10 to 15 visits across the next 30 days. That could make it £1.33 per visit with free parking.

It makes you wonder why they do the annual passes. But consider this, we ate on park, bought merch, and more importantly, whilst nothing was happening in winter, boosted their cash flow with continued monthly payments.

They've just recorded record revenues across their entire portfolio for last year, up 8% to £2.1 Billion. With visitor numbers up 13%. It is entirely possible that this demand based pricing is a genuine attempt to spread the increased visitors out a little more, and improve the experience for all guests, rather than another cash grab. They're not blind to the fact that guest satisfaction is a key factor to their success and growth. What they really need if they wish for visitor numbers to keep improving, is more capacity and better reliability! But that will take time.
 
oopnorth said:
This dynamic pricing creates a situation where those getting the worst experience (Long queues, over crowded park) pay the most whereas those getting the best experience (No/Short queues, quiet park) pay the least.
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So to counteract this imbalance of enjoyment, let's make the less busy weekdays the most expensive days and already overcrowded weekends the cheapest. By doing so, everyone gets the least value for their buck. Great idea, comrade!
 
I can't wait for a Silverstone situation on a fireworks night!

(For the Silverstone round of F1, they implemented surge/demand-based pricing, which got itself all muddled up to the point that prices were going up as people were waiting to finalise their tickets so you could have a £200 ticket in your basket than went up to £400 before you could pay :D)
Nicky Borrill said:
With visitor numbers up 13%. It is entirely possible that this demand based pricing is a genuine attempt to spread the increased visitors out a little more, and improve the experience for all guests, rather than another cash grab.
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How far in advance are they going to be surging prices? And how elastic is the demand for a day out? If you've done no planning and turn up to Towers when they've put the prices up, are you going to just drive home or are you going to grumble and pay up? So I think there's more 'cash grab' going on than trying to spread demand.

Nicky Borrill said:
They're not blind to the fact that guest satisfaction is a key factor to their success and growth. What they really need if they wish for visitor numbers to keep improving, is more capacity and better reliability!
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I agree that they're not blind, but maybe they are a bit deaf. They're measuring KPIs all over the shop, but are they really measuring the right KPIs? I think the overall package is what's letting them down. Capacity and reliability are just one area they need to improve, but they also need to improve outside the rides. TLC and Thorpe sparkle magic are great in principle, but other parks achieve the same in half a closed season as Merlin are in 3 years. Why are they still partnered with a catering company that let an outlet get a 0 food hygiene score?
 
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