Downtime 2015

[Alex Tyler]

Rita was down for almost the whole day today (opened then closed mid morning for the rest of the day)

[RCandrew]

I assumed Air just had a stop on the lift hill yesterday like roller coasters do all the time. Is that all that happened? Because it's in the media again "40 people stuck UPSIDES Down for hours".... When air stopped on the lift hill yesterday... It's all over twitter & trending just now. Such a shame that every little thing is being negatively publicised because of what happened.

[Morgan]

When I entered school this morning, the first thing I has said to me was "People got stuck on an Alton Towers ride again" ](*,)

[Kraken]

To be fair though this is actually quite serious compared to other news like common ride technical difficulties, being stuck for that period of time in not well ventilated trains in this heat with that amount of guests, towers walking a very tight rope at the minute.

I agree - to have been stuck on a Monorail train for close on an hour yesterday would not have been fun. I believe the trains carry just short of 100 passengers, so for 80 to be stuck, there were 4 or 5 in each "compartment" / 8 or 10 in each section of the train. As Andy Mc stated, the ventilation is not great. The train driver would not have been able to open the doors on the evacuation side of the train until enough staff were present outside the train. The last thing Alton Towers needs now is an "unsafe evacuation". Imagine what certain sections of the press would print out as headlines.

It could have been worse - imagine if Skyride had gone down yesterday & the diesel backups failed. Guests stuck in the gondolas (again, with limited ventilation) waiting for the rescue team to come down the cables to abseil them down to ground level.

Alton Towers are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place for the remainder of the season I think. Theme Parks are inherently incredibly safe places, as we know. Due to what happened on The Smiler, anything that appears "not right" to your average member of the public visitor stands a good chance of making it onto social media, where it will be picked up by the news outlets / papers.

Alton Towers staff are told never to be specific about the cause of any breakdown / ride stoppage, unless it is due to the weather (clearly as this is out of their control). Maybe they should allow some leeway when a ride is stopped, for instance, to clean up from a "guest illness" (someone throwing up is out of their control). Instead of playing the normal "temporary delay" message over the PA, make an announcement saying they are cleaning up after a guest illness. Should help stop some of the "Nemesis stopped for 5mins at lunchtime" type posts on social media. Most visitors would [you hope] think "do I want to sit in a vomit covered seat, or wait a few extra minutes while it is cleaned?"

[Aidan Lowe]

Sonic Spinball experienced downtime today, went across around 2pm and there were 2 trains halted on the brakes mid-course, saw it testing unmanned around 4pm don't think it re-opened.

[xylyx]

Yeah I saw some staff up on the gantry next to a halted car, they got everyone clear then it closed. Isn't it sad that the first thing I thought was 'how are the mirror going to spin this so they get to mention the smiler again.'

[Alex Tyler]

If someone has thrown up the do normally say, there is one op on the smiler/oblivion who says the ride has stopped while we clean up the remains of someones breakfast/lunch/dinner which to me is too much information.

[MakoMania]

Rita & Th13teen are currently down according to ridetimes.co.uk

[Dan]

Rita & Th13teen are currently down according to ridetimes.co.uk

Today hasn't been a good day for ride availability.

For a large portion of the day both Oblivion & Sonic Spinball were down. Then it was Oblivion & Rita. Now it's Rita & Thirteen.

I would imagine the temperatures may have something to do with this, the rides at Towers don't normally operate in temperatures as high as the ones we've experienced over the last few days.

I really do feel for Towers at the moment. By closing the rides to fix any technical issues they are doing the right thing, but with the media being so quick to jump on them for pretty much anything you have people believing they're not safe.

I really do hope that the park doesn't suffer in the long term as a result of what has happened in the past month.

[Benjsh85]

I was on park today (first visit of 2015) and it was very much bitter sweet.

Positives:

I got in at 9am, went straight over to nemesis and whored her for about 45 mins with barely a queue in sight. Loved it.

Negatives:

Pretty much every other coaster I got in the queue for suffered issues. Didn't even get on oblivion or sonic.

Also.....with Ripsaw n N-ST being shut it only made matters worse.


Cable car even had issues early on.

Not good.

[definedancing]

Staff can't be specific about rides being down because the information we give could be interpreted incorrectly or as much more serious than it really is and it could cause even more issues. In some cases we aren't even told what the issue is, although usually we are, or at least have a good idea what it might be. I know to people on here, Spinball having downtime due to an over speed on one of the cars causing the block brakes to shut down the ride makes perfect sense, but to a non-enthusiast, that could mean anything. Usually something ominous.
I don't think guests need to be informed about guest illness either really, saying its a short delay is sufficient. Usually the poor person who has thrown up or whatever is absolutely mortified, and deserves to be treated with dignity. Announcing over the PA that we are "clearing up their dinner" is not very professional nor fair.

[MakoMania]

Rita down AGAIN.

[Dan]

Rita down AGAIN.

According to RideTimes Rita is open.

[Adam.W]

Isn't ripsaw still down? Pretty sure that recently I read that it was still closed - perhaps it's something a tad more serious than emptying it of water.

[Ladyofthelake]

Ripsaw is awaiting a replacement part to enable it to operate again.

[Tom170499]

Ripsaw is awaiting a replacement part to enable it to operate again.

As is Enterprise

[Adam.W]

Ah thanks :P

[TheBeast]

Does anyone know when Ripsaw will be done? Going 17th of July... Will it be back?

[Tom170499]

Does anyone know when Ripsaw will be done? Going 17th of July... Will it be back?

Ripsaw is currently awaiting a replacement part from the manufacturer. It is unknown how long this will take.

[dantheman]

According to Ride Times right now, Nemesis sub terra is open with no queue!