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2023: The Curse at Alton Manor

I've just been on and there are a number of changes since my last ride, unfortunately my recollection is absolutely useless, but the most notable was that the mirror corridor was no more. The animation at the start had changed, and it was then plunged into darkness before you have chance to see yourself in the mirror with some sort of bright flash jump scare to the left instead, although I didn't quite catch what.
There was also a projection right near the start of a window smashing that I didn't recognise, and the projection mapping down the corridor before the giant Emily was massively improved (if it existed at all before). Overall, I found it quite unnerving which I haven't done before, but that may have been exacerbated by riding completely alone with no one in the cars in front or behind.
 
Earthwürm said:
I've just been on and there are a number of changes since my last ride, unfortunately my recollection is absolutely useless, but the most notable was that the mirror corridor was no more. The animation at the start had changed, and it was then plunged into darkness before you have chance to see yourself in the mirror with some sort of bright flash jump scare to the left instead, although I didn't quite catch what.
There was also a projection right near the start of a window smashing that I didn't recognise, and the projection mapping down the corridor before the giant Emily was massively improved (if it existed at all before). Overall, I found it quite unnerving which I haven't done before, but that may have been exacerbated by riding completely alone with no one in the cars in front or behind.
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That makes more sense. There have been lots of changes in the first two weeks of this ride's operation.
 
One would hope that there is an alternative sequence they can switch to when the mirror effect isn't playing ball, so you could potentially get either. I'd be happier if that were the case than regularly running a broke effect, but I really do hope the mirror doesn't go entirely, it was truly a little piece of magic when it worked and my personal highlight of the ride.
 
I really really hope the mirror effect and Emily Alton in the ride vehicle doesn't go anywhere I really think it would be worth the money to get it working to perfection as to me and many others it's one of the biggest highlights of the ride.

Even on the second weekend it was out of sync on a couple of my rides though.
 
I've been on twice and have only seen Emily in the ride vehicle once. I seem to have missed this mirror effect both times, as it sounds like something I would remember if I saw it. Maybe next time...
 
REVIEW:
Entering Gloomy Wood, you feel a sense of immersion that you don't usually find at a UK park. The actors really seem to add to the atmosphere.
The queue line is very good, and I love the music in that area. The gravestones are mostly humorous, however the downside is that you can see the warehouse through the trees.
The indoor queue is very good, and the smell pods add to the experience. If I am correct, these are the same scents used in Creepy Caves: Elimination at Chessington. The pre-show was solid, but didn't have the 'wow factor' I was expecting.
Scene 1 of the attraction was fairly similar to Duel's, and did its job setting up the attraction.
The Grand Hall was wonderfully themed. The Emily Alton screen at the back of the scene was done better than I thought, and I have to say that the monster that reuses the old 'cup and saucer demon' mechanism seemed to be the best executed jump scare, although it was only very slightly startling.
It's brilliant to see the trommel working again, and in my opinion, it was the best part of the ride. My parents and my 5 year old brother agreed on this too.
The 'hide and seek' room was executed better than expected with the audio, and gave some anticipation. The giant's hand above was a decent attempt at a jump scare.
I liked the attic, although the 3 mini spiders and all the dolls in this area had their mechanisms visible. The giant spider seemed a little too close to the two dolls on either side to make it effective.
On my 6 rides, I got two variants of the corridor. The first one was an Emily jump scare to the right, and then nothing else involving the mirror, with a doll jump scare on the left. The second one was Emily looking malicious, but not providing a jump scare, the same doll on the left, and after that doll, the mirror on the right shattered.
The screaming heads were good, especially as you couldn't see their mechanisms. The wind effect as they passed were great. I loved the appearance of them as well. The third one breathed out smoke.
The sinister garden seemed more lit up than in Duel, and the Pepper's Ghost Emily hearse scare was good. I loved the effect with the swing, involving mirrors, and was a highlight of the ride.
The finale was good, and it was great to view all the Easter Eggs and see the Flume Duck. A couple of jump scares seemed to incorporate old Duel zombie mechanisms. The screens and projection mapping were decent. The final Emily climax was a tiny bit underwhelming, but far better than what was there when Duel was around. I have to ask, aren't you meant to stay in the doll's house forever? If so, why does Emily give you the key to leave?
The shop was really well-done, and showed that great effort had gone into the experience.
Overall, I absolutely loved it. By far the best dark ride in the UK (however haven't been on Hex since I started loving dark rides) in my opinion. I can say that no old HH props were missed, despite my worries to the contrary! This ride is a creative triumph for Alton Towers, although, judging from POV's alone, it doesn't hit the lofty heights of the original HH.
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GaryH said:
I think the ride cars need to slow down a bit. They move too fast and it’s no wonder some of the effects are getting out of sync
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I’m pretty sure the ride cars move as they did for HH/ Duel, my guess is reprogramming the ride speed is probably a bigger and more expensive job than they had budget for.
 
We gave the ride a good few goes on Friday, and something fairly odd happened to us twice which has never happened before.

Our vehicle ended up extremely close to the one in front around the spider scene, and continued on like this throughout the remainder of the ride. We were so close it was almost like the vehicles were travelling in pairs. Really quite surprising to me as I would have thought the ride had block sections?

Perhaps they have been having issues with the transit system which is subsequently messing up the sync of the effects.


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jmc said:
We gave the ride a good few goes on Friday, and something fairly odd happened to us twice which has never happened before.

Our vehicle ended up extremely close to the one in front around the spider scene, and continued on like this throughout the remainder of the ride. We were so close it was almost like the vehicles were travelling in pairs. Really quite surprising to me as I would have thought the ride had block sections?

Perhaps they have been having issues with the transit system which is subsequently messing up the sync of the effects.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
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That's really odd... the PLC computer assigns block zones to keep the cars apart a safe distance. If any car breaches that, it auto-e-stops, so I'm surprised that didn't happen.
 
Finally got on this three times today.

I found it OK, it didn’t really blow me away in any regard. There are a fair few problems I have noticed:

1) The effects are unreliable (I think) I haven’t read much into this but there are far too many static props and I am not sure if they are supposed to be moving or not? There is a long corridor of mirrors where nothing happens for example.

2) Ride system is too quick, can’t take it all in, is it still sent to HH/Duel program? Can it be changed?

3) The best effect is the 30 year old Trommel tunnel which is now working (hooray!)

4) Way too many dark scenes (hide and seek)

5) feels like an amalgamation of Duel and new ride. I get the feeling of a fairground ghost train rather than a world class dark ride.

6) The projections just look out of place in the ride.

7) the photo, there is no jump scare so everyone looks bored or looking away from the camera.

8) A lot of the jump scares you can really see the mechanisms and arms swinging. I feel it needs loud noise with it to really add the required scare.

9) the lighting is either too dark in places or too light as point 8 shows.

I like the Easter eggs but the ride system is too quick to see them. I also like some of the props they have kept in there which were original to the HH. A lot more remains than I had anticipated.

I am not sure this is a massive upgrade on Duel (if Duel was working). They were asking peoples opinions when they got off the ride and it appears mixed. Amongst our group we had two that liked it and two that didn’t.

It’s no where near what the 1992 haunted house was. Not even within a yard of it.
 
First rides for me too today and it seems (well I hope) that it's very much still work in progress. That being said it certainly is not an upgrade on a Duel that wasn't falling to bits. The projection mapping on the walls etc is mostly fine but the one of Emily in the grand hall just looks a bit naff to me, similar with the screen/graphic in the window. The ghost in the coffin also looks odd, not to scale just looks bad to me. Also there's some sort of hand on a white sheet that looks washed out and a bit out of place?
Trommel is now the best part of this ride even though the car in front blocks your view of the clock. Mirror corridor had something in the first mirror then absolutely nothing. The ride just seems a bit too random for me. parts of the ride inexplicably pitch black, Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on it but I think people will tire of this ride quicker than it's predecessors.
 
Blackhole_Sun said:
Finally got on this three times today.

I found it OK, it didn’t really blow me away in any regard. There are a fair few problems I have noticed:

1) The effects are unreliable (I think) I haven’t read much into this but there are far too many static props and I am not sure if they are supposed to be moving or not? There is a long corridor of mirrors where nothing happens for example.

2) Ride system is too quick, can’t take it all in, is it still sent to HH/Duel program? Can it be changed?

3) The best effect is the 30 year old Trommel tunnel which is now working (hooray!)

4) Way too many dark scenes (hide and seek)

5) feels like an amalgamation of Duel and new ride. I get the feeling of a fairground ghost train rather than a world class dark ride.

6) The projections just look out of place in the ride.

7) the photo, there is no jump scare so everyone looks bored or looking away from the camera.

8) A lot of the jump scares you can really see the mechanisms and arms swinging. I feel it needs loud noise with it to really add the required scare.

9) the lighting is either too dark in places or too light as point 8 shows.

I like the Easter eggs but the ride system is too quick to see them. I also like some of the props they have kept in there which were original to the HH. A lot more remains than I had anticipated.

I am not sure this is a massive upgrade on Duel (if Duel was working). They were asking peoples opinions when they got off the ride and it appears mixed. Amongst our group we had two that liked it and two that didn’t.

It’s no where near what the 1992 haunted house was. Not even within a yard of it.
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Thanks for the review @Blackhole_Sun!

In terms of the long corridor of mirrors, there is supposed to be an effect there where instead of your ride car, the mirror shows an empty ride car with Emily Alton riding in it. It worked for me when I rode it, and I thought it was a very clever effect, but it does unfortunately seem to be rather unreliable.

As for the on-ride photo; I could have my bearings completely wrong, but isn't it where the giant Emily head reaches down and shouts "YOU'RE MINE!"? I would have classed that as quite a big jumpscare with all the noise and flashing lights myself; our on-ride photo shows all of us leering away from some kind of scare, anyway.
 
Matt N said:
Thanks for the review @Blackhole_Sun!

In terms of the long corridor of mirrors, there is supposed to be an effect there where instead of your ride car, the mirror shows an empty ride car with Emily Alton riding in it. It worked for me when I rode it, and I thought it was a very clever effect, but it does unfortunately seem to be rather unreliable.

As for the on-ride photo; I could have my bearings completely wrong, but isn't it where the giant Emily head reaches down and shouts "YOU'RE MINE!"? I would have classed that as quite a big jumpscare with all the noise and flashing lights myself; our on-ride photo shows all of us leering away from some kind of scare, anyway.
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Perhaps I may have missed the effect with the photo? Or maybe it wasn’t working for me.

Very much seems work in progress so far. Will be interesting to see what else comes as the mirror corridor sounds great in principle but a shame it’s not reliable.
 
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