Power Cut(s)

[Zylos]

This happened during the Scarefest of 09' I was in the Rita Queue when the power went off. It was such a weird sensation, quite eerie to be honest. (a new element to the scarefest :P ) The park was pretty much full, and the atmosphere, noise and lights just vanished. One good point was that when the power resumed, and the rides had been safety tested most of the parks visitors has actually gone home. Me and my brother got 6 rides on Rita, and 5 on Oblivion in about 30 minutes

Alton handled it well, I was pleased with the staff. I even had a chat with the girl in the Oblivion shop about Corkscrew and Th13teen (which at the time was SW6) and got an Oblivion mug and pencil

Great handling from the Staff, it was good to see them keep their cool in a potentially stressful situation.

[Vik]

It is good to see that Alton Towers did what they are normally best at, and excell at offering great customer services, even in what was a poor situation to be in. I doubt there would be many places that would offer an extended ride close, validate tickets for another visit and wave the parking charge.

There does need to be some investigations in to the frequency of these power cuts. They seem to be coming more and more common. Or maybe it is just reported more often

[neontrix]

On my first trip to Alton in 2 years... just my luck.

We were queuing for half an hour to exchange our Tessco vouchers for tickets... then queuing to get to the Turnstiles! Then we first ride EVER on Nemesis... WOO queued 20 mins for air to break down, "air is expiriancing a delay not currently possible to solve" the we queue 40 mins and then... 13 BREAKS DOWN #-o I was astounded by the poor quality customer services at 13. they told us that they ride had broken down not the power about 3 times at the start wich could, lucky for us, could only be herd from 50 feet from the station. 1 hour, (i am not joking!) they sent very friendly staff down to just apologize and say that it was the power was out everywhere. then 2 hours later, they fixed the power and we could hear rita thundering. but they took forever to ge the car stuck at the top of the lift hill.we got on the ride in about 15 minutes.

A-MAZ-ING I would not say worth 3 hours, but amazing.

I rode rita for the first time... woooooooooooooooooooooo! Air broke down, but was fixed and i rode that for the first time ever so cool 8) Because the ride open was extended to 6:30, i got a chance to ride oblivion wich had to be reset, but that was very minor. The tickets for the 13th can be reused at any other day excluding the concert days... but oh well.

[jomo1993]

A power cut on the first 13th the park was open this year. Wooooooooo spooky


Sorry - im just sad

[elmerfudd]

[quote=""AaronSmith""]Duel has lights that run on batteries in case of an emergency. The Batteries are charged by the mains power during normal operation and are activated in a fire or power cut.[/quote]


So does this mean I would still be able to score lots and lots of points?

[[Archive]]

No, those are just the emergency lights, as in the fire exits and safety lights. The LEDs would certainly lose power, along with the effects, announcments and cars. You would be stuck in the dark. :nervious:

[AaronSmith]

No you wouldnt be stuck in the dark though, thats my reason for pointing out the emergency lights. Alot of people have said about being stuck in the dark during a powercut, but the emergency lights would kick in, making it less dark

[Islander]

[quote=""AaronSmith""]No you wouldnt be stuck in the dark though, thats my reason for pointing out the emergency lights. Alot of people have said about being stuck in the dark during a powercut, but the emergency lights would kick in, making it less dark [/quote]
You ever seen emergency lights in action? They're pretty weedy, really they're only any good for helping you see your way out of the building, which is what they're designed for. Plus they generally don't last that long.

[Kittykat1987]

I remember when I went to Scarefest last year and there was a powercut. It was around 8pm and was really dark and me and my other half were walking over to Spinball to make that our last ride before we went home and just as we walked past it, the power over that whole side of the park went out and all we saw was one of the carts stuck on the top platform spining around in the same spot where it had stopped!

[davep]

I was at Alton Towers too at this day... Was pretty annoyed about it... Qued up for about 30mins for Nemsis, would say we only had 5 more mins to get to go on... But has they left the park open later this was ok in the end... We only qued up for Air for about 30min, was would have taken us an hour if they power didnt go on (We was right close by the air que, when the power went back on we ran!, like everyone else did)

Ride we managed to get on in the end

2x Rita (One Front Row)
2x 13 (Both Front Row)
1x Air (Front Row)
1x Nemsis (Front Row)
1x Obvilion

So we didnt really get to go on that much (Half term time of course doesnt help)

Didnt even managed to work into certain areas of the park


Defo need two days Alton Towers I would say

[Adam]

Heard a few more power issues have happened today around the Resort. Few times the power has been going on and off.

[AaronSmith]

[quote=""Islander""][quote=""AaronSmith""]No you wouldnt be stuck in the dark though, thats my reason for pointing out the emergency lights. Alot of people have said about being stuck in the dark during a powercut, but the emergency lights would kick in, making it less dark [/quote]
You ever seen emergency lights in action? They're pretty weedy, really they're only any good for helping you see your way out of the building, which is what they're designed for. Plus they generally don't last that long.[/quote]

Of course I have, I work on Duel An evac on Duel doesn't take all that long, so the lights would easily outlast an evac.

[jomo1993]

Theres been another power cut today

[Stu]

Yep been another powercut and there's another big long Q all the way back to Munity Bay because of the power cut. Powers been off for 30 minutes so far... Dear dear... sort it out power stations!

[Dylan]

I don't really understand what Guest Services are expected to do to be fair?

[Keira]

Some rides are working again now apparently.

[bradpeet]

[quote=""Stu""]Yep been another powercut and there's another big long Q all the way back to Munity Bay because of the power cut. Powers been off for 30 minutes so far... Dear dear... sort it out power stations![/quote]

Quite a coincidence that this seems to be happening more since Th13teen was introduced. It does make me wonder if the extra power required due to Th13teen is causing something to overload (even without the tesla coil).

Incidentally, it won't be the power stations that are having / causing the problem.

[Keira]

No way it's Thirteen, it's not as if it's just the park that's affected, it's the wider area too.

[Rob L]

[quote=""bradpeet""][quote=""Stu""]Yep been another powercut and there's another big long Q all the way back to Munity Bay because of the power cut. Powers been off for 30 minutes so far... Dear dear... sort it out power stations![/quote]

Quite a coincidence that this seems to be happening more since Th13teen was introduced. It does make me wonder if the extra power required due to Th13teen is causing something to overload (even without the tesla coil).

Incidentally, it won't be the power stations that are having / causing the problem.[/quote]
The power cuts will have nothing to do with Thirteen. Yesterdays power cut was the whole of the Alton area, I don't know about todays, but I'm guessing it's the same. You can't blame Towers for this at all, it's just pure bad luck.

[[Archive]]

No, it happened last year at Scarefest and many times in the past, as well. Alton Towers have always been a bit dodgy every now and then when it comes to power cuts, but that is similar to Thorpe Park and recently Chessington, too.