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2023: The Curse at Alton Manor

Trooper Looper said:
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.
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I think you have over extrapolated the “old school effects” comments.

Here are the old school effects that are new:

1) Peppers ghost in the coffin and the hand
2) disappearing mirror trick for the swing.
3) mirror corridor.

They also refurbished the trommel.

They never said they wouldn’t also have modern effects
 
Come to think about it, with perhaps the hype being there, many thinking that this meant a return for the HH, Duel's fans lamenting the loss of the blasters and perhaps JW's name being attached to it...was Alton Manor doomed to fail in comparison with HH which honestly might be this ride's downfall if nostalgia blinds you constantly?

Let's be honest, if there was a totally newbuild ride from scratch that had no connections to HH or Duel then I'm certain it would have gotten a better reception in the long term as it wouldn't have that history weighing down on it which sadly is going to hang over Alton Manor unless the next generation will appreciate it for what it is.
 
QTXAdsy said:
many thinking that this meant a return for the HH, Duel's fans lamenting the loss of the blasters and perhaps JW's name being attached to it...was Alton Manor doomed to fail in comparison with HH which honestly might be this ride's downfall if nostalgia blinds you constantly?
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The answer is probably no because theres no "many", just 1 person online seemingly, and nobody making any connections to the original Haunted House with the new ride. I dont see any real indication the ride hasnt been a success


Let's be honest, if there was a totally newbuild ride from scratch that had no connections to HH or Duel then I'm certain it would have gotten a better reception in the long term as it wouldn't have that history weighing down on it
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How is the history weighing down on it? For all extents and purposes it's a new ride experience standing on its own feet.
 
ChristmasPud said:
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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Out of interest, when would you say that the Haunted House started to decline?

I was initially under the impression that the ride was in its prime from 1992 to 2002, with a drastic decline in quality directly coinciding with the Duel revamp in 2003, but I ascertain that it could possibly be a bit more nuanced than that based on some previous comments…

Ultimately, I think Duel and Curse are two very different types of dark ride. Duel was quite a jovial dark ride centred around competition and interactivity, whereas Curse is a slightly darker, more serious ride that’s centred around suspense and a more “traditional” spooky dark ride approach with traditional effects (that might not be the best description, but my point is that Curse has a very different overarching aim to Duel). I think Curse’s standout attributes are a bit more subtle than Duel’s were; compared to Duel’s blasters, Curse lacks an obvious standout feature, so with the blasters having gone, I can see why some might be a bit disillusioned if they liked Duel.

However, I think the overall experience of Curse is very well executed, and while its hook may be less obvious, I see no reason why it can’t be just as popular/appealing as Duel overall, if not more so.
 
I'd say HH started to look shabby by the late 90s though had Tussauds followed JW's idea of keeping it fresh each season then the ride would have always looked like new but alas, HH was an early example of Tussauds and later Merlin's rather poor upkeep in which HH was left to remain unchange from 1993 onwards until Duel came about. Even then, upkeep never changed as Duel wouldn't change until the 2017/18 botched refurb which you could make an argument made the ride worse than it was.
 
Looking back fondly on The Haunted House is fair enough, kind of, but I honestly don't think I ever came across a fan of Duel until The Curse opened.
 
Thing is the feeling on Duel between enthusiasts and the GP is a classic example of living inside a bubble in which while enthusiasts had no real love for it, quite a number of the GP did and some were quite saddened to hear Duel closing which was actually the first time I ever heard of Duel having fans.

When I joined during the TTF days, I was first greeted with how Duel was crap and HH always better and it somewhat brainwashed me into thinking that for better or for worse. It does show you though have varied opinions are for every attraction there is.
 
Good god this thread is like groundhog day.

Is there such thing as an award for the 'Most Tedious Thread', on here or some forum equivalent of the BAFTAS? This would win hands down.

Why has this community descendid into 'my opinion is better than yours' or 'your opinion is wrong' garbage. The sense of fun and humour really had disappeared.

A lot of members out there, you really need to take a good long look at yourselves and the way you approach community.

Good lord.
 
I preferred the old Duel closure topic, it had more depth of character and feeling.
The circles it turned were faster, the repetition really had my head spinning with nausea, far far more quickly.
The ennui kicked in harder, within the first few pages.
This new topic is a sham compared to the old topic, it just isn't the same.
...and it read far far better and quicker with the spoilers.
 
Can we please try and keep discussion to The Curse at Alton Manor and not continued discussion of whether the Haunted House, Duel or Alton Manor were better, how the Haunted House declined or why you're not happy that they've not done what you wanted them to do. As said above, this is getting somewhat tedious and it just results in discussion going around in circles which is not what anyone wants.

Thank you.
 
It'd be a shame if the actors in the area were removed down the line in this year. They bring a lot of character to the area personally and a really good at interacting with Guests. Hopefully Alton Towers will make them a yearly thing like the beefeaters in TWODW.
 
Out of interest, have the park made some changes to the ride?

I’ve just watched this POV, which is the most recent one I could find on YouTube, and I did notice a few differences compared to when I rode:


Some things I picked up on:
  • It looks like they’ve tweaked the lighting in the Grand Hall. I could be wrong, but it looks a bit darker and bluer in hue than before. It also really accentuates the skeletons sat at the tables, which I never even noticed when I actually rode it!
  • Has the Trommel Tunnel always had a strobe light illuminating it? I swear it was just a regular light when I rode it…
  • The animated Emily in the mirror scene is now an actual animation rather than a simple picture that pops up.
  • There are more Screaming Heads than before, and I also feel like they look a bit different; I could be wrong, but weren’t they initially lit in red?
  • They’ve added a projection of Emily popping out of the coffin in the garden scene.
  • It looks like they’ve added a few more details into the final room before you get off.
Unfortunately, I did also notice that some of the effects weren’t working in that POV, most notably in the finale. Are they having issues with getting the timings right or something? It sounded like the audio for the final jumpscare triggered a bit late.
 
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I’ll be riding this for the first time three weeks tomorrow, hopefully all the effects will be working as I’m not sure how many times I’ll ride this with it only being a 10-4, but I’d like to do it at least twice. Visiting again just over 3 weeks after that so I’m sure I’ll be able to get a good few rides on it
 
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Is there a way on quieter days they can close the door with a timer to the pre show? Just makes a lot more sense so you don’t miss it, builds up the hype and will get to use and appreciate the extended que line?

I feel it’s an important part of the ride, a really solid quality and unique pre-show just quickly skimmed by or not seen at all. I’d rather the Que built up a little big as builds the hype. Maybe once Nemises opens they adjust the pre show to batching operation perhaps.

I think it’s a really missed opportunity myself!


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TroySmith1 said:
Is there a way on quieter days they can close the door with a timer to the pre show? Just makes a lot more sense so you don’t miss it, builds up the hype and will get to use and appreciate the extended que line?

I feel it’s an important part of the ride, a really solid quality and unique pre-show just quickly skimmed by or not seen at all. I’d rather the Que built up a little big as builds the hype. Maybe once Nemises opens they adjust the pre show to batching operation perhaps.

I think it’s a really missed opportunity myself!


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The problem you’d encounter if you did that is that the pre-show would be a considerable bottleneck to the overall ride throughput.

The pre-show itself is about 1:50 long including the little pre-amble where the lights flash a bit before the pre-show starts (timed from the Theme Park Worldwide video). You’d probably need at least a minute to move people out of the pre-show room and move the next group in (possibly longer if Wicker Man is anything to go by), which would effectively have you running the pre-show every 3 minutes or so in a best case scenario. I don’t know exactly how many people the pre-show room on Curse would hold, but I’d take a stab at it being no more than about 30 or so; I certainly reckon its capacity is lower than that of Wicker Man’s pre-show room, anyway, which was touted at 48.

Assuming that 30 people went through the room every 3 minutes (a probable best case scenario), that would give us a throughput of 20 cycles per hour, or about 600 riders per hour.

The theoretical throughput of The Curse at Alton Manor’s actual ride system is up for debate, with online figures ranging from 1,500pph right through to 1,920pph. With this discrepancy in mind, I decided to watch three POVs of Curse and average the intervals between cars passing various given points in the ride. Of my 6 intervals, the average time elapsed was about 12 seconds, which would equate to 300 cars per hour, or 1,800 riders per hour assuming every car was filled (to its full capacity of 6 riders). Now on a ride like Curse, it’s extremely unlikely that every car will be filled, so it probably gets less than that in reality, but even still, implementing a forced pre-show would reduce the throughput of the ride considerably and result in quite considerable throughput wastage on the ride itself.

I don’t deny that the pre-show is cool, and it would be cool if more people saw it, but from a practicality standpoint, I understand why the park have done it free flow rather than in a “stop and watch” style. It would make queues a lot longer and the throughput a lot lower.
 
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Looks like some good additions and tweaks have been made to the ride. Hope they continue as I think apart from the few effects not working towards the end it’s looking really good. Especially like the additional effects on Emily’s face at the end.
 
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