Minor Issues: A Rant

[BSwiss]

[quote=""Vik""]Also, one other thing. Again, there appears to be little effort to play the audio on the monorail. Seems to be hit and miss as to wether it is played or not. Surely the audio can't still be broken on some of the trains?[/quote]

When I went last summer, we got to a full monorail and the girl who was putting everyone on said we could go sit up front with the driver. My mate asked him why there was no audio on and he said that he turned it off because listening to it endlessly for hours at a time drove him nuts. I don't think he would have any reason to lie about this (although he did tell us that a ride was being built for the start of the '09 season that would be the biggest AND fastest in the park, but then I guess he was just entertaining himself).

[rightbackgranty]

It probably does get a little wearing for the monorail drivers. A simple solution would be to have a "mute button" for the drivers cabin. Im sure that it'd be doable.

[Chris W]

There is a very easy issue to sort of the monorail audio.
Disconnect the speaker in the driver's cabin.The audio can be left on constantly for the rest of the train then.

The monorail problem may have been due to the staff member at the entrance not realising that the main cattle pens were close.

Jlton, can I ask why you are complaining about Hotel entertainment?

[Vik]

[quote=""BSwiss""][quote=""Vik""]Also, one other thing. Again, there appears to be little effort to play the audio on the monorail. Seems to be hit and miss as to wether it is played or not. Surely the audio can't still be broken on some of the trains?[/quote]

When I went last summer, we got to a full monorail and the girl who was putting everyone on said we could go sit up front with the driver. My mate asked him why there was no audio on and he said that he turned it off because listening to it endlessly for hours at a time drove him nuts. I don't think he would have any reason to lie about this (although he did tell us that a ride was being built for the start of the '09 season that would be the biggest AND fastest in the park, but then I guess he was just entertaining himself).[/quote]

Some drivers were indeed leaving the audio off for that reason. They were told though that they had to play it, which happened for a bit, but now seems to have reverted back to driver discretion. A couple of the trains also had problems with the audio not working properly. Not a big thing, but given that it is part of the overall guest experience on the day, it small things like that which make a big difference.

[rightbackgranty]

It is a pity that the audio doesnt play on all of the trains. The number of people I see smiling or laughing, particularly on the Splash Landings (ahem... waterpark) train, is nice to see.

[James]

[quote=""Disco Ball""]Jlton, can I ask why you are complaining about Hotel entertainment?[/quote]

Sure, this year has been my family's 12th year going to the Alton Towers Hotel, we think that the entertainment has gone downhill over the years. Before you used to have Tayna, Dickie, 5 Singers and the Magic Makers entertaining the guests all night and compared to the 1 singer and Pirate Bill now we can see a difference. There used to be loads going on at the evenings before with something going on all night, once Pirate Bill had done his magic show the Magic Makers would come out and keep the children entertained and also making money by offering face painting and ballons etc. Since Pirate Bill was introduced into the evening entertainment 10 years ago his routine has never seemed to change, there have been little 'tweaks' but nothing major.

There used to be a whole group of people that used to sing at the night and now there's just one person.

I'm not saying that the singers are bad as Liz and Stacey are both great singers and I'm not saying that Pirate Bill isn't as good as he was. The entertainment as a whole has just gone downhill. I just feel that they need to introduce new characters like Tayna & Dickie for the laughter, bring back the Magic Makers as they were great for the kids and bring more singers in each night.

It's more of a rant rather than a complaint.

[FallingStar]

On the topic of queue times being over exaggerated, I have had the opposite issue on several occasions. It was basically that, we decided to hve a quick whizz on Hex, as the queue boards all around the park had advertised 5 minutes. 45 minutes. When we left the ride the boards were still advertising 5 minutes, yet the queue was out of the door. These boards need to be sorted.

[Vik]

[quote=""RC3_Taz""]On the topic of queue times being over exaggerated, I have had the opposite issue on several occasions. It was basically that, we decided to hve a quick whizz on Hex, as the queue boards all around the park had advertised 5 minutes. 45 minutes. When we left the ride the boards were still advertising 5 minutes, yet the queue was out of the door. These boards need to be sorted.[/quote]


Was the queue for Hex in the extensions? When queueing from just out of door, the queue is about 25 minutes at most, unless theres some kind of stoppages.

[Kaycee]

A lot of people have to work around repetitive music/audio on loop - it's just a case of learning to sound it out - Monorail drivers getting bored of it is not really an excuse for switching it off. They're great additions to the new trains and any families I happen to share a Monorail ride with seem to enjoy listening to it. It's little touches like that at the park that are really impressive as they require a bit of effort to be made and don't bring back any noticeable return, so it's a shame if it's staff who are stopping it from being heard. Sound it out! I'm sure ride announcements and music on a loop gets boring and repetitive for ride staff, but it's part of the job to just get on with it.

[Big Dave]

Alot of rides like Kaycee said have audio on repeat. They just have to get use to it. If they can say Im getting annoyed of the audio on a monorail train and switch it off. They could just say lets have no audio on park because its too annoying.

[McFlurry]

I suppose like people have mentioned they could disconnect the speakers in the drivers cabs, however at the end of the day if they are unable to put up with the 'magical' musicm you really need to question their ability to whether or not they should be in the job.

The other day when after spending the day on the park, I went to buy an annual pass before I left the park. The queue for the annual pass office was huge and I was standing there for around 30-40 minutes. For the first 10 minutes I noticed the TowersStreet music getting repetative, but after that I became acustomed to it.

Like a few other people have touched upon, there is loads of other staff accross the resot who have to put up with music looping all day long!

Infact, where I work 'HBOS' Xtra FM is acutally a CD which loops all day, but after so long you naturally get used to it!

Like I say, shame on these ASBO drivers!

[Russell]

I was on park today and have a few minor niggles with the park today. Rita was closed all day and Nemesis was open in its place for ERT but no notice of this was made so unfortunately we trecked all the way to ugland first Also Spinball was down for alot of the day - I only saw it open after lunch time and as you can imagen these being down had an effect on the other ques.

A couple of other minor niggles were that the monorail audio on the way into the park was very badly timed ie only speaking about Katanga Canyon as we approached Towers Street! Also the fact people were abusing the disabled queing policy when they didn't appear disabled at all. Still managed to have a good day though. Im sure there is something in the air at Alton as even when things irritate me like this and both AIr and Nemesis breaking down while Im in the que I still have a good time!

[Big Dave]

The park is still in its early stages for this year and problems will get ironed out soon. However there are a few things that the park need to realise are just not up to standard. I hope the new management team will look at these sites and take note of what their most frequent visitors are saying about the park.

[Russell]

^^
I hope they do too - The place has too much magic to let it go to pot! Does anyone no whats wrong with Rita though? Alo when I was on park last saturday it was great to see a heck of a lot of the effects in Duel working but sadly when we were on this morning alot of them werent and parts of the ride were just darkness with the LEDs. I understand that it searly in the season but if they were working fine last week then they should be now imo especially as its one of the busiest days so far!
Ok I think I must be tired as I dont usually rant this much!

On a lighter note I saw a lot of effects in Hex that I hadn't seen before

[PETER MOWBRAY]

[quote=""Russell""]I was on park today and have a few minor niggles with the park today. Rita was closed all day and Nemesis was open in its place for ERT but no notice of this was made so unfortunately we trecked all the way to ugland first Also Spinball was down for alot of the day - I only saw it open after lunch time and as you can imagen these being down had an effect on the other ques.

![/quote]

Here are some pictures of rita being worked on..
It seemed to be quite a big job..

[AstroDan]

Pretty poor for a major coaster to be closed all day during peak season. It's pretty unusual at Alton Towers to be honest. However, at least they were working on it... hopefully it'll be open tomorrow. I would hope if it has ongoing problems that they would update the website.

Ug Land without Rita.... oh dear. Not much else to do, is there!?

[CoasterCrazyChris]

[quote=""AstroDan""]Pretty poor for a major coaster to be closed all day during peak season. It's pretty unusual at Alton Towers to be honest. However, at least they were working on it... hopefully it'll be open tomorrow. I would hope if it has ongoing problems that they would update the website.

Ug Land without Rita.... oh dear. Not much else to do, is there!?[/quote]

There's always the Soakasaurus though I suppose!...lol :P

[PETER MOWBRAY]

Oh I forgot about Spinball being down too...

[BSwiss]

I was a little sore at my friends bailing on my alton plans this week, but with the spate of ride faults and general 'chavery' i'm almost glad we're leaving it for two weeks.

[monkeywool]

I know that Rita's cables needed changing, and they were going to do them in the season, just wondering if they couldn't wait any longer?