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2020: General Discussion

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£15 bring a friend tickets are back! Yay. Would have been silly not to have them again this year.

https://www.altontowers.com/tickets-passes/season-annual-passes/season-pass/

It doesn't look like they offer any family ticket any longer so the bring a friend tickets are a great deal.

So a season pass and three £15 tickets works out cheaper than two pre-booked adults and two kids. (£103 for season pass and 2x friends, vs £125 for two and two child)
Using a Kelloggs adults go free might be cheaper (I can't clearly see the child gate price) as that looks like it would be £96 for the two gate price child tickets.
 
Popped up to Towers for a spot of lunch yesterday, and when having a wander to the park entrance and back we noticed a sound very similar to that of a waterfall in an area where you would be able to hear the waterfalls on the rapids. So my best guess is that they were running the waterfalls yesterday, but why would that be? Who knows!
 
They just simply HAVE to bring back the waterfalls as that's where you get really wet and without it it's just a lazy river, making it boring and pointless
 
They just simply HAVE to bring back the waterfalls as that's where you get really wet and without it it's just a lazy river, making it boring and pointless
However the Drayton Manor coroner said that water effects should not be placed where they could cause guests to stand up or move seats. If you are unlucky and you get the spray from the waterfall, you might want to move regardless of whether that is safe.
 
I think the ferocity of the waterfalls at Alton could be toned down in a way that didn't make riders stand up in the same way.

If the water 'fell' into the sides of the trough & structure (like the ones on Valhalla, for example), that would mean that riders would react in a very different way.

(I'd take that over removed altogether...)
 
If they can't bring back the waterfalls and other effects in some capacity, then I'd personally support the removal of Congo River Rapids in favour of a more modern water ride. The rapids are still good fun, but they seem to have been missing something ever since the waterfalls and other effects were turned off; they used to provide quite a nice medium in terms of wetness, but I was pretty dry after my last ride on them. I completely understand why the waterfalls were turned off, and I'm not sure whether there's any way they could feasibly be bought back in the current UK scene, but they did definitely add a certain something to the ride when they were on, in my opinion.

Something like a water coaster would be good, or maybe a newer-style rapids with seatbelts like Infinity Falls at SeaWorld Orlando (although I'd maybe suggest less wet than Infinity Falls, as the UK is far colder than Florida on average!)?
 
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Popped up to Towers for a spot of lunch yesterday, and when having a wander to the park entrance and back we noticed a sound very similar to that of a waterfall in an area where you would be able to hear the waterfalls on the rapids. So my best guess is that they were running the waterfalls yesterday, but why would that be? Who knows!

I would guess whatever you heard was not the waterfalls running for two reasons;

1. Yesterday was a Sunday - at this stage of the closed season, any staff other than those in the hotels are normally on a 5 day week, Mon-Fri only. This includes all Technical Services, the permanent park staff (who typically flip from rides in season, to assisting with winter maintenance in closed season) & support functions such as HR. Given Towers focus on cost-cutting in recent years, it will be much closer to the start of season before 7 day operations resume on-park for staff training / refresher training for the new season.
2. In closed season, the rapids are normally totally drained of water to allow inspection of all the bits at the end, i.e. the lift & the deep hole beneath it that feeds to / houses the pumps.

NB: I guess with the new season still being a shade under 7 weeks away, there may be some recruitment activity taking place at weekends at the park, but I certainly can't see the maintenance teams stepping up to 7 day working this early, unless things are seriously behind schedule. And let's not forget, Towers have suggested making the Rapids a seasonal ride in the past, so schedule slippage probably would not bother them too much on this ride.
 
I wonder if they fire up the pumps every day just for 5-10 minutes to keep them working. You know what it's like if you don't use something for months on end, especially if it's exposed to the elements.
 


More Blade discussion, everyone's favourite! I'm still optimistic about its' future, the fact that it hasn't left the park yet with only 7 weeks left is what encourages me. They also seem to be cautious of the support placement, with there being wood propping them up. At the very least I don't think it's being scrapped.
 
I think Blade will return; if it was going, Alton would have announced that at the end of last season. They're only "re-sharpening" it apparently, so I'm hopeful it'll be back swinging when the 2020 season starts!
 
Given that Blade closed unceremoniously mid-way through last season, I wouldn't take the fact that it's not been removed as a sign that it will reopen. Twirling Toadstool was left rotting away for years (whilst supposedly undergoing TLC) before finally they admitted it wasn't coming back.

As for the rapids, back in the days of Feb half term openings the entire channel would usually still be drained during the event, with the water stored in the central lake only. There's some pics on the TLC page of the rapids page on TS: https://towersstreet.com/theme-park/ride/congo-river-rapids/ Note the pipe carrying water over the trough on photo six.

I wouldn't expect them to run the pumps dry, or to keep pumping water between the lake and trough, so with that in mind I'd be surprised if they run the main pumps or the waterfall pumps at all during closed season.
 
At the moment the signs seem to point towards it staying. Those supports are being looked after (Ripsaw certainly wasn’t stored like that when it was dumped on the same part of the car park 5 years ago).

But until it’s actually back up and running I wouldn’t put any money on it.
 
I would guess whatever you heard was not the waterfalls running for two reasons;

1. Yesterday was a Sunday - at this stage of the closed season, any staff other than those in the hotels are normally on a 5 day week, Mon-Fri only. This includes all Technical Services, the permanent park staff (who typically flip from rides in season, to assisting with winter maintenance in closed season) & support functions such as HR. Given Towers focus on cost-cutting in recent years, it will be much closer to the start of season before 7 day operations resume on-park for staff training / refresher training for the new season.
2. In closed season, the rapids are normally totally drained of water to allow inspection of all the bits at the end, i.e. the lift & the deep hole beneath it that feeds to / houses the pumps.

NB: I guess with the new season still being a shade under 7 weeks away, there may be some recruitment activity taking place at weekends at the park, but I certainly can't see the maintenance teams stepping up to 7 day working this early, unless things are seriously behind schedule. And let's not forget, Towers have suggested making the Rapids a seasonal ride in the past, so schedule slippage probably would not bother them too much on this ride.

You're right, you would not expect too much work to be taking place on a Sunday. But I can assure you that there was some work taking place. We also heard the sound of some cutting/sawing machinery coming from the Katanga area. Surprising, I know, but our ears were not deceiving us!
 
But until it’s actually back up and running I wouldn’t put any money on it.

Was having a browse through the Alton Towers app, noticed that The Blade is actually listed in the queue times! Obviously this can't confirm anything, but I'm unsure as to how The Blade could accidentally appear as a listing, if it were to be gone.

8SQ44Ju.jpg
 
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