Alton Towers Resort Quick Questions

General discussion regarding the UK's No.1 Theme Park. Talk about anything and everything Alton Towers here.
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Morgan
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The only SRQ left is Spinball! Would be great to see these return.
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Robert.W
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Are you sure? Towers said only a few days into the season via Twitter that that had also been removed. 
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Justin
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Yes, it has been removed :|
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Morgan
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Huh, thats a shame. It didn't require an extra staff member to run which I find really confusing.
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Robert.W
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Keeping SRQ on the one ride which didn't need the extra staff member just highlighted the fact that it was a cost cutting move rather than their excuse that the system was being abused – which to be fair, it was actually being abused, just Merlin don't care enough to put money into the system to force it to work when they don't see any immediate financial reward for doing so. 
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Bert
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If the SRQ didn't cost any extra to operate on Spinball then there must have been some problem with guests abusing it in some capacity.
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Swarm Chris

Guest abuse is what I've seen them claim site-wide, but in reality if there was an operational issue that caused it to close then it would be a management issue, not guest issue.

Many parks have dedicated single rider lines. Disney even gives an estimated queue time for theirs. Eftelling built a fancy single rider queue for Symbolica. They don't care that groups use it and their staff don't put up with any guest nonsense. I've seen them be fairly blunt when getting the next single rider at both Eftelling and DLP.
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Justin
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Single Riders were ok, but the queue can sometimes be just as long as the main queue. Th13teen and Oblivion were particularly bad at managing these queues, mainly due to the rows. The Smiler worked well as often there would be groups of 3. Spinball was hit and miss, sometimes there would be a massive queue or they loaded with 2s or 2 lots of 3, eliminating the need for Single Rider.

I haven't used them for years to be honest, so don't miss them!
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Marcus
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Thanks for answering my question, how could the single rider queues be abused?

The way I see it it's okay if a group of people join the line together because there's no guarantee they'll get on together, plus they would fill empty seats.
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Robert.W
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I don't think staff felt in a position to properly enforce the single rider rule, resulting in entire groups being allowed to ride just to save any altercations from happening. If more money was put into the system, it could have worked. The real reason for it's complete removal is that it actually needed extra staff which Merlin don't want to pay for.
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Marcus
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It didn't require extra staff, but I agree that staff weren't in a position to enforce it.
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Robert.W
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Maybe not so much extra staff, but it's Merlin wanting to further cut the number of staff on each ride, so staff at merge points and baggage holds where Fastrack and SRQs would sometimes meet etc. have been completely removed, so the only way to make the queues work properly was removing the SRQ. 
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Nickolai
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It is a questionable debate because there was batching down at the old baggage area during my visit in school season on The Smiler. So it seems they would have enough staff to operate a single rider queue but not enough still for baggage.
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KatangaZebra
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Would a turnstiles system have worked?
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Robert.W
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Yeah probably. A possible system for it would be a ticketed system, with turnstiles at the SRQ entrances. Single riders could claim SR tickets (free of charge) via machines located throughout the park which they would have to scan (use once only) to gain entry to the SRQ. That might mean less people would be willing to abuse the system and the staff feel in a better position to enforce it.
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Collossalsaw
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I am going to Alton towers in three weeks from London, and only for one day. What rides should be at the top of my list?
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Justin
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I would strongly recommend Wicker Man! Being the newest ride, it will demand some of the longest queue times but using the ridetimes.co.uk will help you.plan your day. Sometimes the queue will drop to 40 minutes or so. If you see it at this, or below, then get in line!

I'd recommend going to Forbidden Valley first as it is usually dead at 10am and usually the hour after. Work your way to Dark Forest and then X Sector. This way you are going against the crowds!

Have a great day :)
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AltonOperator
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I agree with Justin on most of this. If you’re not rushing to get off I’d recommend you get in the queue for Wicker Man just before park close to maximise your time in the rest of the day. I’d be wary of the queue times posted to ridetimes.co.uk as I find them inaccurate most of the time as they are mainly guessed by staff and changed manually on an iPad. The times for Wicker Man though have been accurate.
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Thanks Jack
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Justin
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While the queue times can be off sometimes, it does act as a good guide. It also works both ways, sometimes it will be under and other times it will be over :)
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JC13
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Justin wrote:While the queue times can be off sometimes, it does act as a good guide. It also works both ways, sometimes it will be under and other times it will be over :)
This definitely is the case, as I’ve been in queues that are way longer than what ridetimes says, and other times been in queues way under what ridetimes says. Once Galactica said 60 minutes, but the queue took less than 5!
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