Ride Downtime

[MakoMania]

Lol heard it all now, website broken :lol

[HalfwayCorrected]

Snow seems to be having an effect. Only Enterprise open for thrill rides at ridetimes.co.uk

I believe RideTimes is currently broken as it was listing the same ride availability yesterday when the theme park was fully closed.

RideTimes seems to have problems when the park is shut mid-week but it's fixed now!

[Justin]

Make of it what you will, but... http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/02/riders-st ... r-5854629/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; :lol :lol

Of course, The Smiler is mentioned within the article.

[Sr88]

Galactica was apparently stuck with people upside down for half an hour today

[Sawboss]

Upside down! Upside doooooown! I just saw that, the papers always confuse upside down with tilted forwards a bit...

Did it reopen afterwards?

[lewis97]

Yes, it was just your average stop on the lift hill.

Towers issued the following statement;

On the afternoon of May 2, heavy rain obscured a sensor on Galactica which meant that the ride was automatically stopped.

This is a standard safety feature on this ride and the ride was working exactly as it is designed to do. The health and safety of our guests is our number one priority and our team followed standard procedures to get the guests off as quickly and as safely as possible.

The ride has re-opened.

[Liam.W]

Make of it what you will, but... http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/02/riders-st ... r-5854629/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; :lol :lol

Of course, The Smiler is mentioned within the article.

"Air Galactica came to a halt" :lol

"The passengers were heard screaming and shouting for help" - I suspect this is HIGHLY exaggerated!

I wonder what happened to the VR during the breakdown?

[Liam.W]

Apparently the ride was 'flooded'

[Justin]

Such a joke. It is really annoying when newspapers incorrectly report things!
At least if you are going to write about it, get the facts straight!

[archie.mm]

Im sorry but "Air Galactica"

[Ryan.B]

I may have suggested that name as a joke before :lol I swear all the "Facts" are from speculation :lol

[ThirdBrad]

I definitely think the media are making out to seem worse than it was. When I went to AT for the first time this year, we queued for Galactica as the last ride of the day but it started raining. Whilst we were in the queue, they closed the ride. As we walked out of the queue, we noticed that it was stuck on the lift (as it was today) seems like the same thing has happened again. When it happened before, they had three rid ops go up the lift to let everyone know what was going on, then they crept the car forward over the lift so it could complete the circuit.
Seems Galactica doesn't work well in the rain. In fact, the Daily Mail even reported of the 'Horrifying moment riders were stuck upside down for half an hour'. I'm not a physics expert but I don't think hanging from the track is the same as being upside down.

[NemesisRider]

It's amazing how much of an influence these awful pieces of journalism are... It's shocking to see the General Public reaction. Some actually believe it word for word, most others now understand it is exaggerated scaremongering. Very sad the media feel the need to pick on theme parks that are just running as usual.

[Dom]

Lets not starting bashing the media. The best thing people can do is not rise to the drama. We know AT is safe and that the ride stopped for safety reasons. Plus I can't think of a better ride to stop on considering you could have a nap on it.

[Ryan.B]

Space naps :lol

But seriously, even though the majority have figured out it is safe, there is still a large amount of the GP not understanding. "Again?" "It's Happened again" "Shut it down" "They refurbished it and it's gone and got stuck" "The Park should be stuck down" "These new rides seem to get less safe by every minute" are just a few I've seen from these articles, I'm sorry but surely this is misleading people purposely, and Merlin got in trouble for false advertising before, surely the papers should get in trouble for essentially the opposite as the media has a massive, gigantic influence on people.

[ThemeParkEwan]

I was in the queue for galactica when it stopped. I heard from someone else in the queue that the station had flooded so they might have stopped it on the lift so that the train did not enter the flooded area.

[ponder]

Lets not starting bashing the media.

Why not? They consistently lie, push their own agendas and in general make the world a worse place. Bash away. (Ooh err...)

[ponder]

Space naps :lol

But seriously, even though the majority have figured out it is safe, there is still a large amount of the GP not understanding. "Again?" "It's Happened again" "Shut it down" "They refurbished it and it's gone and got stuck" "The Park should be stuck down" "These new rides seem to get less safe by every minute" are just a few I've seen from these articles, I'm sorry but surely this is misleading people purposely, and Merlin got in trouble for false advertising before, surely the papers should get in trouble for essentially the opposite as the media has a massive, gigantic influence on people.

I've seen far worse to be honest. Here are a few GP comments pulled from a few minutes on Facebook:

" This park should be called " faulty towers" not alton towers"

"It is a significant and dangerous system failure and not part of the thrill."

"I dont get it, life is scary enough. We all try and dodge cancer, road traffic accidents, plane crashes and terrorist organisations on a daily basis. Why the f..k would you want to risk your life on one of these things and pay for the experience?..."

"All theme parks should be shut down they're all bloody dangerous"

"Dangerous place Alton Towers. Better stay at home kids"

"Alton towers just needs closing down - it's 2016 now, not 1986"

"Shut the place down before someone else gets hurt obviously no safety there will never go again!!!!! Ever!!"

"Why are people even going to alton towers after the smiler catastrophe?"


There is a lot of support, too. But the reporting clearly does influence how the public think and react.

[ASturge21]

The GP have no understanding of downtime and how common it is and with the medias reaction to every incident at AT the GP believe that downtime should not happen and when it does see it as dangerous due to 1 incident all be it a BIG incident.

Sent from my GT-S7275R using Tapatalk

[Smiffy107]

This can't be good http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-st ... e-36190323" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; 'Alton Towers Galactica ride leaves 28 stranded in heavy rain'