Rudeness To Staff

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
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Doddy
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I was just curious as in the main monorail station I kept seeing signs about abusing staff and wondered if this was a common thing. Has anyone witnessed any abuse and if so how was it handled at the time?
Last edited by Doddy on Sun Nov 03, 2013 10:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Gizmo
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I've seen a staff member ask someone to remove a bag while on a coaster, to then be told by the guest that he better watch the bag or else he'll "smash your face in". The guest was removed from the ride and security were called.
Some people are so charming!
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Last time I was at the towers on the smiler there was a bloke who wanted to go on the front row and told the member of staff "he was sick of getting on the back all the time", he was told there is no front row queue and he then preceded the be very threatening to the member of staff and ignored him and walked over to row one.
Good on the member of staff who simply stopped anyone from joining a row and held up the whole ride until the man moved back to row three where he had been told to go.

I spoke to the member of staff straight after and said how sorry I felt for him and that he didn't deserve to be spoken to in that way and his answer sums it up.
"if people ask nicely then if i can I will, When they are just plain rude im not going to help them in any way".

Good on him and good on the Towers for standing up to morons who simply think that by threatening behavior they can get what they want.
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Jack
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I do respect the staff all the time at AT for how they get on with things and just try their best to be a help to the public
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Crafty
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In today's world any abuse towards staff isn't tolerated - I for one encourage any abusive guests to be removed from the park.

I'd say a big driver would be closed rides (broken down) or prices - I still don't get why people turn up on the day and pay full price, that's crazy in my opinion!
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Tom170499
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Last month I was on Ripsaw and the entire ride was held up because a man refused to pull his OTSR down! :/ He was simply removed from the ride. The way he spoke to the poor ride attendant was appalling. I later found out that the same guy had been sat next to me on The Smiler haha
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Zach
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Tom170499 wrote: Last month I was on Ripsaw and the entire ride was held up because a man refused to pull his OTSR down! :/ He was simply removed from the ride. The way he spoke to the poor ride attendant was appalling. I later found out that the same guy had been sat next to me on The Smiler haha
You don't pull the restraints down on ripsaw there mechanically operated ? :/ so either wrong ride or there's some white lies there
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Luce
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Personally, I've not seen any guests being rude to staff members and to be honest, it's awful to think that there are people who want to take their anger out on them for whatever reason.  In all the time I've been visiting AT, I've only encountered nice staff and the ones in the shops usually ask if you're having a good day etc :)
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In response to Jayson's above experience, whilst queuing for The Smiler; on my trip to Towers a few weekends ago, I witnessed two young girls who queued up in the SRQ get very annoyed with the ride host who was batching guests, after they were told they wouldn't get to sit together.

Of course, he stayed calm and explained to them that as they queued in the SRQ then they wouldn't necessarily be able to sit with each other, but they continued to argue for whatever reason.

I couldn't help but sympathise with the guy, who continually pointed out the simple and obvious concept of the SRQ, and refused to let them on together as much as they nagged him. As I was in the normal queue I was then batched, as the SRQ was held up by the two girls, and so I don't know what happened after that.

That's really the only 'rudeness' that I have witnessed at Towers, but when it comes to things like SRQs it really annoys me when people try to exploit them, and then take issue when they are unsurprisingly asked to sit in a single seat!
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LoopyDan
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lewis97 wrote: In response to Jayson's above experience, whilst queuing for The Smiler; on my trip to Towers a few weekends ago, I witnessed two young girls who queued up in the SRQ get very annoyed with the ride host who was batching guests, after they were told they wouldn't get to sit together.

Of course, he stayed calm and explained to them that as they queued in the SRQ then they wouldn't necessarily be able to sit with each other, but they continued to argue for whatever reason.

I couldn't help but sympathise with the guy, who continually pointed out the simple and obvious concept of the SRQ, and refused to let them on together as much as they nagged him. As I was in the normal queue I was then batched, as the SRQ was held up by the two girls, and so I don't know what happened after that.

That's really the only 'rudeness' that I have witnessed at Towers, but when it comes to things like SRQs it really annoys me when people try to exploit them, and then take issue when they are unsurprisingly asked to sit in a single seat!
I think that was really bad. It is called the SINGLE rider queue!
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NickiFan
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lewis97 wrote: In response to Jayson's above experience, whilst queuing for The Smiler; on my trip to Towers a few weekends ago, I witnessed two young girls who queued up in the SRQ get very annoyed with the ride host who was batching guests, after they were told they wouldn't get to sit together.

Of course, he stayed calm and explained to them that as they queued in the SRQ then they wouldn't necessarily be able to sit with each other, but they continued to argue for whatever reason.

I couldn't help but sympathise with the guy, who continually pointed out the simple and obvious concept of the SRQ, and refused to let them on together as much as they nagged him. As I was in the normal queue I was then batched, as the SRQ was held up by the two girls, and so I don't know what happened after that.

That's really the only 'rudeness' that I have witnessed at Towers, but when it comes to things like SRQs it really annoys me when people try to exploit them, and then take issue when they are unsurprisingly asked to sit in a single seat!
I've witnessed this,
I was in SRQ and this man and his two kids where at the front and she told him to go to the bay, he went and his kids attempted to follow. The member of staff stopped him and then he was being rude and telling her that he MUST sit with them, when she pointed out the rules of SRQ, he told her to .... off and walked away. I think this member of staff handled the situation well as he was becoming violent.
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lewis97
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I think they're probably very used to having to deal with the people who fail to grasp the concept of the SRQs, and therefore I don't think it is really a massive and unusual problem for them.
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Jammydodger
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Wasn't at Alton Towers, but at Thorpe while I was queuing for my annual pass renewal the other day, this woman who had come with a school was kicking off and demanding to see a manager because she had to wait while all the school kids were still in the coach. I'm not entirely sure why she was even in the annual pass building in the first place.

While I don't necessarily agree with the member of staff's attitude, I couldn't help but laugh that she just stared at the woman for a bit and then just carried on with what she was doing and ignored her. I came so close to turning round and telling her to shut up though.
Last edited by Jammydodger on Tue Oct 15, 2013 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jamie
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Gizmo wrote: The guest was removed from the ride and security were called.
That's what should happen with every instance like that.
A shame that not all staff are this good, I witnessed appalling behaviour by lots of guests at Fright Nights at Thorpe Park over the past few weeks, and staff there are not strict enough.
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Danny
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Yes I was at fright nights last Saturday and we had to visit guest services 3 times with complaints. I think some of the staff are incredibly rude sometimes. It works both ways!
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Jamie
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danny.g97 wrote: Yes I was at fright nights last Saturday and we had to visit guest services 3 times with complaints. I think some of the staff are incredibly rude sometimes. It works both ways!
I did notice how bored some of them looked later in the evening and a few annoyances, but nothing major.  Would you care to elaborate on what happened?
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Doddy
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For some reason Halloween can bring out the worst in people its about the one thing I dislike about the holiday.  That being said people can be unreasonable any time of year.
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We had complained previously and we're issued with about 25 fast tracks but they were on those priority passes. They were done in groups of five so one priority pass had 5 fast tracks on. Throughout the day as there was only 3 of us we would hand over the ticket, they change the number and sign the back. However colossus workers refused to do this. We had queued in the fast track queue for 20 minutes which was longer than the normal queue as the fast track queue was used for cabin in the woods. The she said to use the priority pass you need to use all 5 fast tracks. Now as there were only 3 of us we couldn't. They refused and we asked to see the manager, he also refused and told us to go to guest services to get them changed. Guest services told us they were talking a load of rubbish and of course they should just change it. We went back and told the and they still denied us acess. Baring in mind the workers on nemesis, stealth and saw had changed the numbers that day but they were so rude and had a stinking attitude.
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Jack
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danny.g97 wrote: nemesis
IT...ISN'T...NEMESIS

but really, that sounds really stupid, and I fail to see why they can't just go with what guest services said :roll:
Last edited by Jack on Tue Oct 15, 2013 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Tom170499
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ATfanatic wrote:
Tom170499 wrote: Last month I was on Ripsaw and the entire ride was held up because a man refused to pull his OTSR down! :/ He was simply removed from the ride. The way he spoke to the poor ride attendant was appalling. I later found out that the same guy had been sat next to me on The Smiler haha
You don't pull the restraints down on ripsaw there mechanically operated ? :/ so either wrong ride or there's some white lies there
On Ripsaw, the OTSR are locked when they're up then the opperator unlocks them and they fall a bit then you pull them down then the other lap bars come down mechanically
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