Downtime 2015

[Stan.H]

Have AT stated that the flume is closed for cost cutting or could it be for other reasons?

They've said it's closed due to 'lack of demand'. They would never come out and give the reason as 'cost cutting' though.

I swear before it was shut, it was still hitting 70 mins waits, rather than Battle Galleons gets 30 mins max on a hot summer's day? What are AT doing???

[Themeparksandy1981]

Like been Autumn now I thought the only water ride that should be open is the rapids. Who really wants to go on Splash Galleons and get soaked.

[Tom170499]

Like been Autumn now I thought the only water ride that should be open is the rapids. Who really wants to go on Splash Galleons and get soaked.

You mean Battle Galleons

[ROYJESS]

I've only ever been on the Splash (sorry I mean Battle) Galleons the once and that was when it was first open.

However on the other hand, I always ride the Flume several times during the Scarefest and fireworks. I done a full set of waterproofs and I don't get wet or cold :lol

What are AT doing???

Personally I think the management team this year have made quiet a few bad decisions. They seem to think more about their money than guest satisfaction.

Surely when you have a theme park, then all the ride should be open for the guest to have a choice on what they would like to ride. The only exception is when a ride has broken down and needs repairing.

I booked my hotel stays for both Scarefest and fireworks before this years season open. Looks like a small number of rides will be closed. OK not the end of the world, but that's not the point.

These cuts started from day one of this season and who knows what cuts will be thrown at us next season?

[definedancing]

Can we stop calling Battle Galleons "Splash Galleons"? As someone who ops that ride it offends me. :P

[Liam.W]

Can we stop calling Battle Galleons "Splash Galleons"? As someone who ops that ride it offends me. :P

Your job must be boring having no guests! Every time I go it has a walk on queue. Or no queue

[definedancing]

Just because it's not massively popular doesn't mean that it isn't enjoyed by families. It's a ride with a lot of laughter

[Ryan.B]

Not fun when it breaks down :lol they send staff out in the water to the boats, there's a video on YouTube and the mean riders squirt him when he's helping them :lol

[Aidan Lowe]

I wasn't on park but read early this morning before work and tonight Hex had major down time today, not sure if it re-opened but seemed to have problems most of the day if not all.

[DontKnow]

I wasn't on park but read early this morning before work and tonight Hex had major down time today, not sure if it re-opened but seemed to have problems most of the day if not all.

Didn't reopen today at all.

[MakoMania]

I've been watching ridetimes all day and from what I saw Hex went down around 4:30pm and did not reopen for the remainder of the evening. We'll see if it opens tomorrow.

[SkuM001]

Since it was added to ridetimes, Hex has had very good reliability until just this week.

The first downtime shown on the website was 2:30pm until 4pm on the 22nd of October. It went down at 4pm today (25th) and did not reopen.

[Liam.W]

When i went on Thursday hex was shut some time after dinner but opened up again in afternoon

[Ryan.B]

According to ride times Oblivion and Rita are both down at the moment.

[MakoMania]

Oblivion has now reopened.

[Adam.W]

Last night on th13teen from about 6 there was a 60 minute queue, but it was more of a 90 minute queue in reality, and when I joined the queue it advertised a 45 minute queue. Not only that, but the ride kept continuously breaking down, and they didn't have the decency to announce it, so we got stuck in the queue for 60 minutes, and gave up after the queue stopped moving. At that point we kind of guessed it would be at least another 30 mins It was also down around 4 so we went on charlie, but yeah :P

[RIDECRAZY]

Was on park yesterday and they were struggling to keep everything up and running, just one of those days I guess!

Sonic Spinball closed around 10:30am reopening before 11am.

Rita was having problems all day, it shut on numerous occasions, they emptied the queue on at least 2 of these occasions as well. We managed to get on it around 3pm although it had technical problems whilst we were in the queue.

Oblivion closed briefly in the afternoon but nothing major.

Air closed around 4:30pm, they had to evacuate people off the break run I believe after reading several tweets on twitter, they emptied the queue and had staff stood stopping you even entering the open area near the entrance to the queue. This resulted in everyone going on Nemesis which hit a 30, more like 45 minute queue, with the upper section of the queue line being opened.

AT handled them all very well and had them down for as little time as possible, whilst obviously making sure they were safe to run. This was with the exception of Air, when they reopened the staff really weren't prepared as the queue grew quickly, they had it operating on 1 station for a good 30 minutes and didn't extend the queue line, leaving a massive queue to form outside the entrance into Forbidden Valley, looked messy and no one sorted it out for a good 30 minutes, but just one of those things!

Had a great day though, Sub Species was excellent!

[Aidan Lowe]

Anyone on park know why they would shut the area? Visibility bad down there still?

Queue for the enterprise, shut the ride and that whole area!

Source.

[SkuM001]

There hasn't been any downtime prolonged enough that it was posted to ridetimes today. Alton Towers have replied to the post stating all the attractions are back open, and the queues are 0 minutes. I'm pretty sure this unfortunate lady likely had a run of bad luck, and as she mentions, it can be a long way to walk back to the attractions later on with a small child. I can imagine X Sector feels "entirely shut" to people with any additional rides in shutdown. I would take the way this type of situation is described by the general public with a pinch of salt, but I can understand it would have been a frustrating experience.

I created a downtime league for the 16 days of Scarefest, to show, according to data Alton Towers post to ridetimes, which attractions were offline for the longest:

Scarefest Downtime League
Rita: 7hr 30m (4 instance)
Hex: 6hr 30m (2 instance)
Th13teen: 6hr (4 instance)
Sonic Spinball: 4hr (4 instance)
Duel: 3hr 30m (1 instance)
Air: 3hr (4 instance)
River Rapids: 2hr (2 instance)
All other rides and attractions 1 hour or less.

I intend to post a further Downtime League at the end of the season, covering everyday since approximately mid July.