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[2023] The Curse at Alton Manor

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QTXAdsy said:
Regarding Duel's excellent throughput, I do suspect that had Thirteen been built in GW in the first place or any major ride for that matter that was going to have large queues (not to say that Thirteen when working is a good queue eating in itself), then Duel or a returning HH would have shown its worth to help with those queues like no tomorrow and it would have been interesting to see it with say a half hour queue on a normal day and honestly we might see this next year with Nemesis out and the park needing all the capacity it can get and Duel/HH will greatly help with this in a way that hasn't been seen perhaps when it first opened.

All depends how well Towers will hype up for its reopening for next season as I would like to see the extended queue line permanently opened with perhaps a new entrance sign leading into the extended queue instead of the current Duel sign and crypt smack bang in the middle of the area which do ruin the views of the house IMO.
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Talking about the crypt, am I the only one here who's ever noticed that the gargoyle heads on the roof of the crypty were from the original tomb from when it was the Haunted House? Hope they keep them and reuse them on the new crypt.

I'd love to see the roof taken down and the columns. It worked so well when it was just a tombstone with a gravestone leaning on it. It'd be great for that to come back if the rides getting a new name.
 
The ride had a very good throughput, but that doesn't change the fact that most times I rode it in its last decade, I was the only bugger riding the thing off peak...
Zombies were very popular in the eighties, as well as more recently.
We often rode it alone, no queue, no other punters getting on or off, for a nice sit down and rest in the sheltered dark.
Merlin didn't change it because change doesn't come cheap, and the "It'll do for now, look the other way" method has been around for a while, so to see a good fettle up is great.
It was popular with pre/teens and geeks, but few others.
 
rob666 said:
The ride had a very good throughput, but that doesn't change the fact that most times I rode it in its last decade, I was the only bugger riding the thing off peak...
Zombies were very popular in the eighties, as well as more recently.
We often rode it alone, no queue, no other punters getting on or off, for a nice sit down and rest in the sheltered dark.
Merlin didn't change it because change doesn't come cheap, and the "It'll do for now, look the other way" method has been around for a while, so to see a good fettle up is great.
It was popular with pre/teens and geeks, but few others.
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I take your point but the nature of a continuous dispatch attraction with a decent ride time is that the only people who really know how many are currently on board is the ride op.

I recall those lads who disembarked from Horizons in the final running seasons to record as much of it as they could said sometimes they'd have to wait ages to get back on unseen because even though it was dead there was a constant stream of occasional riders, and they needed 10 clear cars or something like that. The riders never saw one another under those circumstances, but they were there.

If Duel was unpopular I doubt it would have survived the post-Smiler cuts; it's relatively staff intensive for a ride entertaining barely anybody if that were the case.
 
If you see nobody else on the way in, and nobody else on the way out, it tends to mean a ride is very quiet indeed, however you want to paint it.
 
rob666 said:
If you see nobody else on the way in, and nobody else on the way out, it tends to mean a ride is very quiet indeed, however you want to paint it.
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I've walked on Thirteenwhen it was an "off peak" day doesn't really mean anything.

Duel did still get a queue at weekends and busier days. You also have to factor in that it's the only ride in that area of the park so it's probably only done when walking to and from forbidden valley. Toy Land Tours had the same problem, only ride in that area.
 
RIPCorky said:
I've walked on Thirteenwhen it was an "off peak" day doesn't really mean anything.

Duel did still get a queue at weekends and busier days. You also have to factor in that it's the only ride in that area of the park so it's probably only done when walking to and from forbidden valley. Toy Land Tours had the same problem, only ride in that area.
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Toyland Tours' problem was that it felt rather cut off from the rest of the area the moment Coaster Corner was closed which ultimately led to its demise and that's not including the fact that the ride got dated overtime and left to rot by the park.

Had coaster corner been still in public use or had a Project Horizon type attraction already on that spot when TT came about then that ride may have had a bit more life about it but who knows. You can say the same if GW had seen a coaster in that area of the park and Duel might have gotten larger queues with it acting as a good sponge to soak up queues from whatever ride might be next to it.
 
QTXAdsy said:
Toyland Tours' problem was that it felt rather cut off from the rest of the area the moment Coaster Corner was closed which ultimately led to its demise and that's not including the fact that the ride got dated overtime and left to rot by the park.

Had coaster corner been still in public use or had a Project Horizon type attraction already on that spot when TT came about then that ride may have had a bit more life about it but who knows. You can say the same if GW had seen a coaster in that area of the park and Duel might have gotten larger queues with it acting as a good sponge to soak up queues from whatever ride might be next to it.
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I've always thought that GW could do with a flat ride to complement Duel.
 
RIPCorky said:
I've walked on Thirteenwhen it was an "off peak" day doesn't really mean anything.

Duel did still get a queue at weekends and busier days. You also have to factor in that it's the only ride in that area of the park so it's probably only done when walking to and from forbidden valley. Toy Land Tours had the same problem, only ride in that area.
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Yes that’s a good point. They also created (since Duel has been operating) other paths to bypass the ride essentially through haunted hollow. Must at least effect the amount of people walking past it and then hopping into the queue.

Would be nice to have a supporting ride in the area but I believe all the trees are somehow protected from being removed. They could leak into behind Duel, the storage facility, but then they have to think about theming a big warehouse no one was ever really supposed to see.
 
QTXAdsy said:
I'm saying if they did though, then things might have gone different for TT.
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I'm not at all convinced. It was a popular enough ride, but a bit of a capacity monster so you never waited more than a few minutes. For most of its life it was next door to (by some margin) the most popular restaurant on the park so it always got busiest in the early afternoon.

It went because it was a bit knackered and an obvious candidate host for the desired IP, which was chosen based on the film release around the same time. The fact it operated right up to its mid-season closure in an era when cost cutting was rife and attractions were SBNO left, right and centre tells its own tale. Indeed half of Cred Street was closed completely in 2004 as a cost cutting measure, but not Toyland Tours.
 
Matt N said:
if Duel was really not liked by the bulk of the public, surely the park would have done something with it earlier? They modified Sub-Terra because the early reviews were terrible, and they even modified Hex because the early reviews were terrible, but they never hugely modified Duel. That to me doesn’t suggest a ride that was doing badly popularity-wise.
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Duel is probably the most modified ride at Alton Towers and is well known for it. Also a revamp has been on the cards for at least 10 years going by the reliable rumours that went around pretty often in the past.
 
jon81uk said:
The gardens path is the better way to bypass it. Haunted Hollow brings you out directly in front of the Duel entrance, you can’t miss it.

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It does if you follow the full path, but there is now a little shortcut directly to Forbidden Valley off to the right past the row of gravestones which I don’t think was open previously.

I think this was quite a recent change (certainly later than that Google Street View, as the gate still looks very closed in that link), but the option certainly exists to reach Forbidden Valley directly from within Haunted Hollow rather than continuing onto Gloomy Wood.
 
Matt N said:
It does if you follow the full path, but there is now a little shortcut directly to Forbidden Valley off to the right past the row of gravestones which I don’t think was open previously.

I think this was quite a recent change (certainly later than that Google Street View, as the gate still looks very closed in that link), but the option certainly exists to reach Forbidden Valley directly from within Haunted Hollow rather than continuing onto Gloomy Wood.
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I’m fairly sure that path to FV was always there from Haunted Hollow?!
 
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