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2022: General Discussion
- Thread starter Danny
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AT86
TS Member
For anyone looking to be super organised, looks like there is an opening date for 2023. Saturday 18th March.
2023 Short Breaks are now bookable - (until June at the moment). No sign of any midweek closures so far, which is always a positive.
www.altontowers.com
2023 Short Breaks are now bookable - (until June at the moment). No sign of any midweek closures so far, which is always a positive.
2023 Hotel Bookings | Alton Towers Resort
Book your short break today! Take advantage and book now for best availability for your overnight stay at Alton Towers Resort.
www.altontowers.com
Exactly the same date as Blackpool, who have given up on opening at full price in the dodgy weather.For anyone looking to be super organised, looks like there is an opening date for 2023. Saturday 18th March.
2023 Short Breaks are now bookable - (until June at the moment). No sign of any midweek closures so far, which is always a positive.
2023 Hotel Bookings | Alton Towers Resort
Book your short break today! Take advantage and book now for best availability for your overnight stay at Alton Towers Resort.
InvertedForce
TS Member
(Shoved these random thoughts here as it doesn't feel like a trip report, but feel free to move!)
After reigniting the theme park bug, I visited the park last Tuesday (20th), my first for 6 or 7 years. I visited with a first-timer. The park was quiet, the longest queue being about 30 minutes for Oblivion, most were walk-on/5 mins.
Some thoughts below; certainly a different perspective to when I visited often and focused on the minutiae.
After reigniting the theme park bug, I visited the park last Tuesday (20th), my first for 6 or 7 years. I visited with a first-timer. The park was quiet, the longest queue being about 30 minutes for Oblivion, most were walk-on/5 mins.
Some thoughts below; certainly a different perspective to when I visited often and focused on the minutiae.
- The rollercoaster line-up is so solid now! Each offers something a bit different and none are too rough, uncomfortable or pointless that I wouldn’t want to re-ride if I were to visit again in the near future. There aren’t many parks I’ve visited where I could genuinely say this – I’m a fussy enthusiast.
- I do need to discuss The Smiler as I don’t think I got this experience back in 2013. The ride has not aged particularly well, there were a few elements that felt rough and whippy in a painful way. Maybe I’m just getting old but this was the only ride I felt that ‘1 and done’ was quite enough – perhaps 14 inversions is too many. I can see the appeal in the ride however, it’s just not one for me. Besides the ride hardware though, the theme is awful and most of it looks old/broken already. The soundtrack is so irritating it actively put us off going into X-Sector at all later in the day. Plus that’s accompanied by random strobe lighting that has zero explanation/’story’ purposes in the inside queue portion - just irritating. On the pre first lift hill stack, there was an obnoxiously loud laughing track, I saw multiple people put their fingers in their ears to block it out, it really was that loud and uncomfortable! If their aim was to create a theme that people can actively hate, they succeeded.
- First-timer comment; “Why are there so many sideshow/carnival games, it really cheapens the place.”
- What a fantastic addition Wicker Man is! It’s nice to have a solid, fully-themed ride experience with no gimmicks at Towers. Sure, it could be a tad longer and there’s a couple of dead spots but honestly, it’s the ride I’ve thought about most since visiting. Just plain fun.
- Operations seemed solid, except for Oblivion. No effort to fill up bays properly and stacking forever on the brake run. A quiet day in September with other rides offering walk-on and it was the longest queue of the day. Should be an absolute queue destroyer, surely? Shame, because I used to love multiple re-rides on Oblivion, especially when single rider was a thing.
- First-time comment in Rita queue: “What is going on here, what’s the theme? Why are we riding hot-rod style cars with flames on the side?”
- So much marketing space is used to push upcharge items/attractions. I felt some of this space could have been better used to promote the ongoing event that was in the park (Oktoberfest). Also, I know this isn’t strictly a Towers issue and more of an industry issue but holy crap the price of Fastrack is insane.
- This is a trite remark, but it cannot be overstated, Nemesis is an absolutely stellar rollercoaster. I surprised myself by how excited I was to ride again after such a long absence. Look forward to experiencing post-retrack.
jon81uk
TS Member
If Fasttrack is cheap then everyone buys it and there is no benefit anymore. Far better for it to be stupidly expensive so few people buy it and the main queue moves faster. I actually think it is still too cheap. I'd rather have a crazy high price and a fast moving main queue.
NuttySquirrel
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Batman: Gotham City Escape
I'm inclined to agree with you there. I thought it was pretty cool when it was new but over the past couple of years it's really fallen out of favour with me. It has become rough in places - there's one particular inversion about 3/4 of the way through that it just unpleasants and slams my head against the restraint so hard it's just painful. The queueline is miserable - very claustrophobic in that pit, you really do feel like caged cattle, and the indoor section of the queue is a sensory hellhole. It always seems to have queues of 70+ minutes whenever I'm in the park and I can rarely be bothered with it anymore; in recent times I've opted for a reride on Wicker Man instead.
Honestly I'm not sure what's going on with Oblivion these days, it used to eat through queues. For some reason they're purposefully not loading eight seats these days, last weekend when I was there the restraints in the leftmost seats were permanently locked, I can only speculate as to why. Batching seems to have got a lot worse at Merlin parks, a lot of the time you're just left to batch yourselves and there's no effort to direct different group sizes to fill as many seats as possible. I suspect it may be a staffing issue.
It's a mess isn't it? It did sort of make sense as an 80s dragster-racing theme but now I don't think anyone knows what it's trying to be. Spooky-forest dragster racing? Err, OK... Tbh the whole Dark Forest area just doesn't work for me, the theme chosen for Thirteen was so different from Rita that it was a mistake in my view to shoehorn them both into a themed area. And then they added a waltzer for some reason... Not great.
Glad you enjoyed Nemmie after such a long hiatus, it's almost a shame they have to retrack it as it's still running really well in my view, but I'm obviously glad that the park has chosen to preserve the ride for the sake of posterity. It will leave a huge hole in the ride line-up next year though
InvertedForce
TS Member
Practically you are absolutely right, price everyone out and it becomes a non-issue. We are where we are now and free fast track is long gone, so realistically your solution is the only one that might actually happen!
But from an optics / impressions perspective, it’s an embarrassing sum of money to proudly stick up on posters everywhere when your audience has spent quite enough for entry already.
Shaggy_Dog_
TS Member
I know exactly what you mean about caged cattle, for me the horrid queue line and white brick station building have always reminded me of an abattoir or a prison, I find them absolutely awful and depressing. As for the music and the “ha ha” jingle that blasts you when sat waiting to engage the lift hill I can’t stand them either, I like the idea behind theming and the concept of it but I just find the execution of it nasty and very unpleasant. And then that dark disorientating walkthrough at the end, can’t stand it.
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Jb85
TS Member
I don't think there was any idea behind the theme or concept. It all seems very last minute / over budget to me. As does the queue
NuttySquirrel
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Batman: Gotham City Escape
Can't help but feel that it's contributed to the RAP fiasco as well, if you make your queuelines that unpleasant it's small wonder that anyone with even mild sensory issues can't bear to wait in them!
Danscott22
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
Does anyone know the strength of wind gusts which close rides? Nearly everything shut on my May visit, but I'm not sure how strong the wind was. I'm visiting on Friday and it looks like wind gusts of 32mph are currently forecast at the worst points. Anyone know if this would close anything?
Danscott22
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
I’ll try and do them first this time against the order I usually would just in case
Steve74
TS Member
At the point of monitoring, not necessarily what you feel on the ground. I was there in June and Oblivion shut due to high winds. On the ground it felt like a perfect spring day with a light wind, but at the top of Oblivion, it was a howling gale in comparison
For me, Smiler was a mistake for Alton. It’s not a re rideable ride for many people. I’m not bothered if I get on it during a visit whereas Nemesis is an absolute must. I think it would have been better putting a good dark ride back in place of the black hole rather than the smiler.
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Danscott22
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
I don't think it was a mistake, even if you don't like it. All different opinions though, for me Nemesis is the one I'm not bothered about whereas I'd be disappointed if I didn't get on The Smiler. I think Forbidden Valley has my two least favourite coasters on park actually (that are part of the Big 7 anyway). I understand pretty much the whole community will miss Nemesis next year, but I can't include myself in that. I am hoping I enjoy it more after the re track, as it just doesn't do it for me currently.
djtruefitt
TS Team
Changing the topic, but going back to the coke issues on park. I was recently at Nandos and they only had coke as a soft drink option, we spoke to the manager who said there’s big supply issues with coke at the moment and they can’t get the usual size bags of syrups, which is why it’s out of stock.
So I assume towers is having the same issue which is why you can’t get soft drinks at the majority of the kiosks around the park. Only at the restaurants, which I guess use the bigger syrup pouches.
Don’t think that’s linked to coke freestyle as I believe that’s a different issue.
So I assume towers is having the same issue which is why you can’t get soft drinks at the majority of the kiosks around the park. Only at the restaurants, which I guess use the bigger syrup pouches.
Don’t think that’s linked to coke freestyle as I believe that’s a different issue.
Steve74
TS Member
Yeah McDonalds in Uttoxeter was out of Fanta on Sunday. My daughter who works part time at McDonalds near me said they are having supply issues too with drinks from the Coca Cola company (Coke, Fanta, Sprite etc - basically the drinks in the Freestyle machines)
jon81uk
TS Member
The Freestyle machines use different syrups to the regular post mix machines. Freestyle is much more concentrated which is why they can offer more flavours from the small footprint machines.
Steve74
TS Member
Yeah fair enough but my point was that its the Coca Cola company supplying them hence the supply issues
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