So happy to have gotten back on The Smiler at last. It really is an amazing ride. Shame it was built by idiots.
Does anyone know how the staffing is arranged this year? I noticed a female Smile Assistant from 2013 working on Rita today and it made me question whether management would have actively moved staff away from The Smiler to give them distance from the incident, or if there was any sort of consultation of whether they'd want to work on The Smiler again, given how it may have impacted emotionally on them? Or am I giving it all too much thought and there's simply a rota to follow?
The one thing I know about the team swap is Spinball is now on the Smiler team, the 2nd lift audio has had the person saying "half way corrected removed but other that that from what I could hear it's the same, but it was looping non-stop. The bloke with the false legs was on the rapids pill up and he took one off and was waving it around.
It gets funnier (well to me anyway), as I was leaving the Smiler after my first ride a man was heading down the steps into the pit with a false leg on, I had to leave fast to stop myself laughing my head off. Were you on the ride when it happened?
Maybe with Spinball to Smiler, Smiler to Rita and Valley to RMT, it's just one big anti-clockwise rotation around the park. Whatever happened, it was a very focused lady pushing the buttons on The Smiler, with a guy in regular Towers gear taking over. Quite a lot of focus and pressure on them in these first few weeks back - good luck to them!
The park was very quiet today and all the rides including the Smiler was walk on's, no waiting what so ever on any of the rides. The Audio at the halfway point was working fine, just one of the TV monitors at the halfway point wasn't working in the morning and by the afternoon, both TV monitors wasn't working. The only disappointment today was the ERT line up. All we had was the choice between Enterprise and CBeebies land. Also Rita and Th13teen was also down first thing in the morning just after 10am
The audio at the bottom of the vertical lift definitely didn't include the old "half way corrected" vocal on any of the 6 spins i had on the smiler today ... the rest seemed to be working ok
I did post it has been removed lol, also "time to get corrected" has been removed as the air gate close.
I had the same thoughts. I was driving to work in glorious westcountry sunshine when I asked that. I was at Thorpe yesterday and spent ages in queues talking about how great the Smiler was. Was so tempting just to take the day off and head up north......
They've taken 'corrected' off the signs on the wall at the vertical lift too - it just says 'halfway' now. Of course, you can still see the outline of the letters and the screws holes in the concrete!
Very quiet these last 2 days, not had to queue at all. 2 trains with logos, one without (also equipped with square wheels.) Hopefully they regain 5 trains, operate 5 and restore the screens (several including the main ones are broken.) The projection room music was on at some stage today.
I didn't spot that although I did think that ssomething looked wrong! I'm always dizzy when I get to the bottom of the vertical lift hill must say it was good to get back on but they've not fixed those hexagonal wheels on one of the trains ... as soon as it leaves the station it vibrates like crazy if you're sat on the back row! Still go back on and on and on though
Well, yesterday I rode around 1pm and the area audio was on, the projection room audio was off, the station audio was on (along with the dispatch sequence and announcements), the second lift announcement was on with the screens but no music and then the exit corridor music was on.
