To think some people are entitled arseholes?

[YoureAllABunchOfBastards]

Just been reading the Alton Towers FB page (it came up on my newsfeed). Loads of people asking whether the park is open tomorrow/ Friday - fine. Lots asking about exchanging tickets - also fine (although the answer was there all along).

But there are some people getting really pissy about 'needing to know' now about Saturday because they have booked hotels or have long drives. Others asking why they can't go to random places like Drayton Manor on their tickets (because it isn't Merlin?). Some wanting to know whether their school trip can go on Monday next week or some such...

fFS - the poor buggers in customer service must be snowed under and are responding really quickly. Surely it is obvious that they can't give a definite decision on Friday til it is made by someone else? Bollocks to your Travelodge booking...

To be fair, they are entitled to the information- they've paid for tickets and made plans. I think you're being a bit harsh.

Tbh it's not a cheap weekend. People will have saved for ages and booked in advance often with non refundable bookings. It's not being entitled, they could lose hundreds of pounds due to the park closure.

Yabu

Yabu

People have no consideration. There are people seriously injured ffs. The decision is likely entirely out of the parks hands anyway. As far as I am aware they won't be able to open at all until a FULL and THOROUGH safety check of ALL rides is completed and an inspector has passed them all?

If you have hotel bookings, call the hotels. I'm pretty sure the local hotels will be understanding about cancelling/rescheduling any bookings in the event the park isn't open.

But there has been a huge accident and no-one actually knows about Friday/Saturday yet - they have been offered refunds in park tickets and the park hotel, or alternative dates, or alternative venues. What else can AT do?

Someone at Alton Towers should be giving clear information. It is not unreasonable for people to know whether it will be open.

Sounds like Alton Towers are dithering over a decision. Someone needs to make one!

I think you are being a bit harsh too

I feel sorry for the Customer Service people, sorrier though for the people who got injured. None of that is negated by those people wondering where that leaves there pals and their money.

No axe to grind here - you'd have to pay me to go to one of those places

Their plans not 'there pals'

Yabu - it is terrible what happened, but people can't just accept possibly losing a few hundred quid because the AT customer services haven't got their act together with an official line

I know people make plans but there's no need to go off on one with customer service staff who can do NOTHING about that. The information is all on Alton Towers website re rescheduling, refunds etc.

It's in the best interests of the local hotels to be flexible with rescheduling bookings as most of them make a HUGE amount from Alton Towers guests so will likely want to make sure they are considerate in these unusual circumstances.

Anyone in an Alton Towers hotel should have no issues with refunds/reschedules.

Yes it's irritating but what about the people in the park and more importantly on these coasters when this happened? Surely making sure this DOESN'T happen again is priority?

The park will offer refunds or offer alternative dates when they reopen. No one will be left out of pocket by this, so yes it does seems bit selfish to me given circumstances.

A quick look at the website tells you all there is to know. The info is short but all encompassing.

There is no more to know. They aren't 'dithering' they are investigating and being investigated, ffs.

The information is there and it is very clear - shut today and tomorrow. No info yet for Friday (as it will depends on tomorrow's outcome). How is that dithering?

Just checked their website. It says nothing about Friday or the weekend. Unacceptable IMHO. It says 'we'll post further updates' but that's it

This should be in their emergency plan

Someone at Alton Towers should be giving clear information. It is not unreasonable for people to know whether it will be open.

An incident of this scale WILL be being investigated by police/health & safety bods. These kind of things can totally vary in length. It is very very likely that they genuinely DON'T KNOW this information just yet. They are probably shitting bricks right now about if they will even be ALLOWED to open. They CAN'T just open the doors after something like this. It doesn't work like that.

Yanbu..... Why would anyone want to go?!

I'm sure their emergency plan says something like 'we'll open when it is safe'!

YABU. They don't have to respond to each one, they could just pop a sticky at the top of the page. If people are going on Saturday then they might have booked leave tomorrow and will need to know whether to cancel or not.

Yes what's happened is tragic, but that doesn't really excuse AT from basic customer service to stop customers losing out financially with unnecessary hotel bookings or travel.

Actually, just let the buggers in. Sod it. Let hem be the testers on the rides.

The website I'm viewing starts with 'Smiler at Alton Towers theme park...'

I presume that's not actually the start of the sentence? So their mobile website doesn't work well either

No mention of investigation.

It could say 'we will have a decision about whether we are open Friday by xpm on Thursday'

If they DONT KNOW, they should say they DONT KNOW.
It's not difficuly.

Baby. If they don't know when they will reopen it would be reasonable to say 'We do not know if we will be able to open on Saturday so we will refund any tickets for that day if customers are unable to travel without confirmation we are opening'.

What they're doing is leaving it as late as possible to avoid refunding as few people as possible.