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2018: General Discussion

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Um... it might interest you to know that while I was queueing for Smiler today, I noticed that the block of doors with the disabled entrance and what was the SRQ entrance now has what looks like fake ivy around the top of it. I'm not sure if it was fake or not, but it looked similar to the fake ivy that they've used to cover up Thirteen's baggage hold. I couldn't take a picture, but it looks very weird and doesn't really fit with The Smiler's aesthetic.
 
Matt N said:
Um... it might interest you to know that while I was queueing for Smiler today, I noticed that the block of doors with the disabled entrance and what was the SRQ entrance now has what looks like fake ivy around the top of it. I'm not sure if it was fake or not, but it looked similar to the fake ivy that they've used to cover up Thirteen's baggage hold. I couldn't take a picture, but it looks very weird and doesn't really fit with The Smiler's aesthetic.
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I saw this too and it doesn’t look great at all. It’s bad that a ride that opened a few years ago already needs so much work doing to it. I had a very jolty ride today too, worst I’ve ever had.


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TheAverageNerd said:
I saw this too and it doesn’t look great at all. It’s bad that a ride that opened a few years ago already needs so much work doing to it. I had a very jolty ride today too, worst I’ve ever had.


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Strange. I didn't think Smiler rode too badly today. I sat in row 3 and while it did rattle a bit and the cobra roll jolt was noticeable, it certainly isn't what I'd call really rough, and I've definitely had worse rides on The Smiler in the past. What row were you sat in, out of interest?
 
I was on row 4 which is generally a bit jolty to be fair. Had a particularly bad case of gerst-ache after the ride today though. Ah well, I’m sure it was just a bad ride!


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Smiler varies between trains, rows and individual seats (inside seats are more comfortable).

Today was an utter mess operationally - the entrance plaza was a shambles, with no clear distinction between ERT and non-ERT guests, WM spent most of the day loading a total of 1 1/3 of it's 3 trains even when it wasn't broken down entirely, Nemesis on 1, Galactica on 1 station, Smiler on 3. Very long queues for all of the above, plus Thirteen apparently which I didn't even go near so I can't comment on.

I had expected to get on WM within an hour or so, giving time to do Smiler before Rita and Thirteen opened. In the event I was still in the WM queue when it was cleared at around 12.30, then waited 75 min after it reopened later on despite joining the queue half way between the shop and merge, which really isn't far. Finally a 120 minute wait at the end of the day, I think it must have taken them an hour or more to run off the fastpass and RAP queues, though the queue was still slow even after that due to it only running 16 rows across all 3 trains.
 
yoursilentface said:
As we came off the rapids i noticed WM effects and soundtrack were back on so got in the overflow queue

waited about 45 minutes watching the empty trains and staff happily riding it then decided to cut our losses and go home
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I wonder what it actually is that is causing these breakdowns. Hasn’t it been testing for a couple of months now? Enough time to have ironed out problems wouldn’t you think? I’m not sure why so many empty trains have to go through after each breakdown, and then the staff on front and back rows before they let people on
 
Didn't EP reprogram Wodan's computer themselves to make it run more efficiently on three trains? Maybe Varney needs to bung a brown envelope to Roland and start voiding Wickerman's warrenty.
 
Older GCIs stop just before the normal parking position, then roll forward slowly. Presumably they've made the change to try to boost capacity slightly, in which case it has backfired spectacularly. Theoretical appears to be around 950 based on the earliest dispatch point, they were achieving around 380 by mid-afternoon due to all the empty seats.
 
By the sound of it all they'd have to do would be to have the train trim as it enters the station, rather than on the first drop.

A further comment on how the park failed to cope with crowds today - the main car park wasn't even full. The park was not even REMOTELY busy.
 
John said:
By the sound of it all they'd have to do would be to have the train trim as it enters the station, rather than on the first drop.

A further comment on how the park failed to cope with crowds today - the main car park wasn't even full. The park was not even REMOTELY busy.
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The Smiler was on 120 minutes earlier yet the queue wasn't remotely full. The queue is painfully slow now.
 
I think we can all agree that operations were pretty dire today. Wicker Man’s excessive downtime was easily preventable from the sound of it and other rides across the park suffered from long queues due to lack of trains operating or poor dispatches.


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TheAverageNerd said:
I think we can all agree that operations were pretty dire today. Wicker Man’s excessive downtime was easily preventable from the sound of it and other rides across the park suffered from long queues due to lack of trains operating or poor dispatches.


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The Smiler's low queue movement seemed to be the baggage system. Barely moving.
 
If Wicker Man runs like it's described above on Easter Sunday (one of the "family friendly days") there will be carnage in the queue-line. It will be graffiti'd to hell & the theming will get trashed.

I bet Towers are half hoping that the "Beast from the East 3" arrives so they have a valid reason beyond their control not to open the ride if they can't iron out the faults that are clearly affecting it.
 
WickerManiac said:
The Smiler's low queue movement seemed to be the baggage system. Barely moving.
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Strange. It didn't seem to affect dispatches that much when I rode it. Another person in my family even said that they reckoned the queue moved faster without the baggage hold, which is good.
 
Matt N said:
Strange. It didn't seem to affect dispatches that much when I rode it. Another person in my family even said that they reckoned the queue moved faster without the baggage hold, which is good.
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That's impossible. The baggage hold didn't hold up despatches of trains at all. Even if you argue the cage system effect is negligible, it's impossible for it to actually improve throughput.
 
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