Rita Ride Repaired & Reopened Recently
After the recent reported incident involving a cable break on the launched roller coaster Rita, there was much speculation about how long the ride would be down for a replacement launch cable. The resort team worked hard to reopen the ride as soon as possible with minimal disruption and the ride was only closed for 4 days.
Thankfully no one was hurt in the original incident, and it has been reported that the resort has been operating extra safety ‘measures’, including halting the queue before passing beneath the launch track to ensure that guests are not waiting underneath the track during a launch.
It is not know if there are any further permanent plans to adjust the queue lines or improve the cable trough beneath the ride at this time
New digital ride photos service launched
Alton Towers has launched a new service to guests purchasing ride photos on resort, offering a digital copy of ride photos purchased that are available to download upon entering the photo code from the corner of the ride photo.
Many of our visitors will of course remember the previous incarnation of this system – ridephoto.com, which offered a similar service (but was unadvertised and unofficial) until recent years when the service stopped working.
The new system appears to work with photos purchased after the launch of the new service, and can be accessed at the Picsolve website at http://www.picsolve.com/welcome.
Mysterious new fences appear around park gardens paths
Recent visitors to the park have noticed strange new fences appearing around the paths of the magnificent gardens of the park.
The fences appear to have been added for an additional layer of safety to stop guests from wondering off paths, presumed as another Health & Safety addition to please officials.
Many resort fans were upset to see the addition of the fences as it is felt by some to detract from the natural beauty of the gardens.
Fastrack Sales
With the school trips ‘season’ passing and the main summer holiday visiting period underway, many of our forum members on recent visits have noticed that the park have been pushing Fastrack ticket sales hard to guests
It has been reported that members of staff have been selling Fastrack tickets directly outside the main entrances of rides, often quoting queue times to guests in order to generate ‘one shot’ fasttack ticket sales, a potentially hefty revenue stream for the resort.
However, the downside to this fastback activity was seen recently on our Facebook page, when a photo was posted of Nemesis’ fastrack queue with a hefty crowd of people waiting in a line that snaked back up towards the main entrance
A recent poll on our Facebook page showed that 68% of you were still in favour of the park selling fastback, but ensuring that a strict measure where sold and limited to prevent the recent problems seen on park
Fantastical Express competition continues
We recently reported that the resort had launched a new promotion along the theme of its recent ‘Summer of Escapes’, this time with a competition to win a trip from the ‘Fantastical Express’ bus to visit 5 lucky towns over 5 weekends.
So far 2 towns have been selected in the ongoing competition, with Wolverhampton last week and Ashby-de-la-Zouch being selected as the lucky winner this week
Both towns are reasonably local to the resort and it remains to be seen if those working hard to campaign to bring the Fantastical Express to their towns (such as Glasgow) will be in with a chance to win!
New entertainment brought on park for last weekend
Some eagle eyed visitors to the resort over the weekend spotted a new entertainment feature added to the parks Fountain Square and Towers Street areas, in the form of a band called ‘The Kazimier Krunk Band’.
The band played in the square and entrance for the warm summer day, and seemed well received by most guests
A video and photo is available on our Facebook page
And lastly… new images spotted in X-Sector for SW7
Some new promotional images and posters were spotted in the Oblivion queue recently promoting the new upcoming ride for 2013, codenamed SW7.
The new posters were posted to our Facebook page earlier this week and feature the new SW7 ride, a QR code link and details of The Cloud wifi on park.
That’s it for this rather lengthy news roundup for now!
