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2023: The Curse at Alton Manor

I feel like every thread has descended into debating the popularity of rides.

I think it's only natural that reviews have been less positive weeks after opening, not because initial opinions were wrong, but because we've had more time to examine, critique and discuss as a community.
 
People are intrinsically resistant to change. I’d imagine that to some extent, Curse being new and unfamiliar might play into some people liking it less than Duel. Duel did have 20 years to work its way into our hearts, after all, so some were bound to be sceptical of its replacement at first.

With that being said, I can see an argument for someone liking Duel more. If you enjoyed interactivity and an element of competition in a ride, Curse doesn’t have that, whereas Duel naturally offered that by virtue of the blasters.

Personally, I definitely like The Curse at Alton Manor more than I liked Duel based on the ride I had on it two weeks ago, and I think they’ve done an excellent job with it overall. However, opinions are opinions, and I can see why some might have had fonder feelings towards the earlier iterations of the ride.
 
Trooper Looper said:
I think one of the main reasons why many people were expecting a return of the original ride but with Emily was mostly because of John Wardleys involvement, and were expecting a lot of the original ride to be restored just because he was involved with The Curse at Alton Manors construction.
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You mean you were expecting /hoping that, because Ive never heard anyone else say that anywhere online or in person. It seemed quite clear it was going to be a new experience

I also havent seen anyone else compare the new ride to the original, or even bring the original ride into it, which was for all purposes a different ride experience.

Just a minority of comments that "it's the same ride without guns"
 
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ChristmasPud said:
You mean you were expecting /hoping that, because Ive never heard anyone else say that anywhere online or in person. It seemed quite clear it was going to be a new experience
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From what I've seen online there are, like for example a couple of people on this forum, some in YouTube comments, SM, but obviously nowhere as numerous as the people really liking the new attraction or the complaints about the pitch blsck scenes. There are other people who don't like it, but not for the same reasons as stated above. Some people don't like it because of the projections, and some aren't fans of it because it's too familiar looking to Duel before the ride segment and wish more was done to it. The opinions of John Wardleys involvment is just another type of complaint/criticism to go along with these reviews. Perhaps I shouldn't have used 'many' in my former post as it clearly isn't a common opinion upon enthusiasts.
 
It seems to me the reaction to the new ride has been overall pretty fair. Almost nobody seems to have been reluctant to change from Duel. Almost nobody has been blindly expecting a return to the Haunted House.

Of course a month later there is going to be the odd counter reaction to the initial hype but it will even out. Also remember this is a broad family ride not necessarily going to be 'scary' or a dark ride for adults.

And with every dark ride revamp there are the handful of loud geniuses who've worked out "it's just the same ride with xyz" but I think it's pretty clear to anyone else it's very different, and this isn't just a rehash
 
Trooper Looper said:
From what I've seen online there are, like for example a couple of people on this forum, some in YouTube comments, SM, but obviously nowhere as numerous as the people really liking the new attraction or the complaints about the pitch blsck scenes. There are other people who don't like it, but not for the same reasons as stated above. Some people don't like it because of the projections, and some aren't fans of it because it's too familiar looking to Duel before the ride segment and wish more was done to it. The opinions of John Wardleys involvment is just another type of complaint/criticism to go along with these reviews. Perhaps I shouldn't have used 'many' in my former post as it clearly isn't a common opinion upon enthusiasts.
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Yep way too much criticism on here against people who in their opinion don't like the new ride.
One thing I don't understand is that they said they don't like modern effects and that they'll use traditional ones and not projection mapping. Then just sort of went back on their word and used it all anyway. Perhaps if they were honest or transparent from the start it would have lowered peoples expectations a tad. Also if you put your name on a sign outside the ride then you have to expect some critique to come in your direction,
 
Matt N said:
The way I see it is that riding the Haunted House in 2023 would be like rewatching a film from the 80s or 90s that you’d remembered as being brilliant at the time. At the time of its release, you loved it, but in 2023, certain flaws become more apparent (think of all the films and TV shows from that time that are now being called out for racism, sexism, homophobia and the like, not to mention that special effects have come a long way in that timeframe too). It’s not a perfect analogy, as a film or TV show is different to a spooky dark ride, but overall, I feel like the same sort of sentiment rings true for both.
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I think you have overthought it.

Anyway almost nobody seems to be judging the new ride based on their perception of the old one.

I can see the original was overall better when it was new, but it doesnt affect my enjoyment of the new ride, or my appreciation for the old one. The ride I grew up with (Duel) I realised was pretty bad when I was a kid, no nostalgia there!

And if people don't happen to enjoy the Curse, fair enough, it may not be everyones thing!
 
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Rode The Curse for the first time today, got to say I really enjoyed it!
I was ready to be disappointed- I’d seen the initial hype online, but expected for it to be a bit of a miss judging on some the previous dark ride projects/ refurbishments Merlin has done over the past couple of years.

However I was so pleasantly surprised! I thought the effects were clever, quirky and fun. Was genuinely blown away with the trommel - hadn’t seen it running that quick in at least 10 years!! I was impressed with how they’d turned round a rather sad looking ride into something quirky and interesting within a reasonable budget.

Yes there are some darker sections that do need some work- but as I was reminded when watching the haunted house documentary recently- rides do alter in their first year. I’m hoping the budget is there for some tweaks.

There does seem to be an availability issue though with it- at least twice today it had some down time. Hoping that this is ironed out and doesn’t become an excuse for certain effects or components to be switched off or left.
Does anyone know if the actual ride system was updated?
 
RIPCorky said:
Yep way too much criticism on here against people who in their opinion don't like the new ride.
One thing I don't understand is that they said they don't like modern effects and that they'll use traditional ones and not projection mapping. Then just sort of went back on their word and used it all anyway. Perhaps if they were honest or transparent from the start it would have lowered peoples expectations a tad. Also if you put your name on a sign outside the ride then you have to expect some critique to come in your direction,
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No one is criticising the fact people don’t like the ride, it’s the fact the people who dislike the ride just keep suggesting those that do are caught up in some sort of hype fog.

I expect that people won’t like it. If your idea of a good ride was shooting at LED’s then this refresh is going to be a bit gutting. And there is no reason people should not enjoy shooting LED’s if that’s what they like.

RIPCorky said:
Not at all, it's clear that the reviews have been less positive since the opening weekend
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Go on then, prove that fact. You can pull all the reviews together, quantify it then give me a statistical z-value on your hypothesis being correct.
 
Dave said:
No one is criticising the fact people don’t like the ride, it’s the fact the people who dislike the ride just keep suggesting those that do are caught up in some sort of hype fog.

I expect that people won’t like it. If your idea of a good ride was shooting at LED’s then this refresh is going to be a bit gutting. And there is no reason people should not enjoy shooting LED’s if that’s what they like.
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Likewise people keep suggesting that those who don't like it are caught up in some sort of nostalgia fog
 
RIPCorky said:
Likewise people keep suggesting that those who don't like it are caught up in some sort of nostalgia fog
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I don’t think they have, there have been two main responses to the nostalgia thing:

1) Some people bemoaning the fact it wasn’t a refresh to HH it turned out they had never ridden HH (this being @Trooper Looper).

2) Some people made an assumption that with Wardley consulting this would be a hark back. People have just pointed out those people have made an assumption.
 
Funnily enough overall I dont think people have been too caught in hype OR nostalgia with the Curse, I expected it to be the worst case of both but pleasantly surprised. I think because the ride is actually good and pretty different for a Merlin revamp.
 
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RIPCorky said:
One thing I don't understand is that they said they don't like modern effects and that they'll use traditional ones and not projection mapping. Then just sort of went back on their word and used it all anyway. Perhaps if they were honest or transparent from the start it would have lowered peoples expectations a tad. Also if you put your name on a sign outside the ride then you have to expect some critique to come in your direction,
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I could be wrong, and I apologise if I am, but didn’t the park explicitly reference projection mapping in the press releases? With that being the case, from my memory, surely they would have been fairly transparent about the use of projections from the get go?

If screens and projections aren’t your thing, though, then I can see why the new ride might not be your thing. A fair proportion of the new stuff they’ve added in uses projection mapping or screens in some capacity.

Personally, screens and projection mapping don’t bother me at all. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I really like them when used well, and I think that they can really enhance a ride! As such, I quite like what they’ve done with The Curse at Alton Manor. However, I can see why someone not so keen on screens and multimedia might not be that keen on what they’ve done.
 
Matt N said:
I could be wrong, and I apologise if I am, but didn’t the park expressly reference projection mapping in the press releases? With that being the case, from my memory, surely they would have been fairly transparent about the use of projections from the get go?

If screens and projections aren’t your thing, though, then I can see why the new ride might not be your thing. A fair proportion of the new stuff they’ve added in uses projection mapping or screens in some capacity.

Personally, screens and projection mapping don’t bother me at all. In fact, I would go as far as to say that I really like them when used well, and I think that they can really enhance a ride! As such, I quite like what they’ve done with The Curse at Alton Manor. However, I can see why someone not so keen on screens and multimedia might not be that keen on what they’ve done.
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I believe only one news article actually mentioned it properly, while all the other reports were the ride using a lot of old school effects. Perhaps the park should've been more vocal on projections and screens being utilised WITH some old fashioned effects, rather than it being an full on old school dark ride.
 
As a general observation, the general public who do not like this ride either:
1: Bemoan the loss of the blasters.
2: Complain about it not being scary enough in some form or another.
To rectify this, I think that the following could happen.
1: Add blasters into an all-new attraction for the people who liked the competitive edge to Duel.
2: Add an experience which is purely focused for the 13+ market. This could perhaps be Sub-Terra.
With that rectified, I think that most of the public would appreciate Alton Manor more for what it is.
 
Matt N said:
I’m not sure you could realistically make Curse an awful lot scarier without straying into “adult scare attraction” territory.

For the family audience they’re aiming for, I think they’ve probably got the level of scare about right.
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Thank you. I think a lot of the general public got taken into the marketing and thought that it would be an extreme horror attraction.
 
The purpose of the guns was always so the ride didn't have to try anymore and it was just about getting a score.

They were added after the Haunted House had already been changed many times and got into an underwhelming state. The state of the ride didnt' really improve with Duel, but peoples enjoyment didnt rely on it being a good dark ride anymore. I think this is why it was in limbo for so staggeringly long.

With the lasers removal, the ride depends on being entertaining again, and I think this is a great thing. Duel was such a waste of potential! The park was missing a big dark ride and I still think Alton Manor hits the mark for being fun.
 
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