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2024: General Discussion

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John said:
I think it's pretty telling how far trust in the park has been eroded that as a result of them not listing every coaster people just assumed that the rest must now be closing hours before the park does.
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I mean in fairness it’s a bit of a jump to conclusion to assume some coasters not being listed means they won’t be open at night. Nobodys going to get excited by Alton towers promoting Galactica and Rita at night
 
First visit today in a year and a half.

Quickly, bagged two walk-on back row rides of NR. Forgot just how good it was, my last Nemesis ride was roughly 4-5 years ago. Station looks great, it’s an incredibly impressive set piece.

Also (not to drag it up again buuut) I was a silent armchair-rattle-denier before today, but it’s there. However I think the word rattle is misleading, always read it to mean it jolted you somewhat. It’s a mild vibration. You can feel it in the bottom of your seat but it has no effect on the smoothness of the ride. I’ve definitely had rides like that on OG Nemesis.

Anyway, a few (somewhat random) thoughts I had through the day…

  • The number of new benches seemingly everywhere is good. I don’t know if they just directly replace old ones or whether there is actually more seating. Good to see either way.
  • As I spent most the day in CBeebies/CCL, the number of building exteriors/interiors/facades that so ball-achingly-obviously used to serve another purpose is too much. Thick white landlord paint smothered over a now impossible-to-open cupboard feels like a good analogy.
  • ~80% ride hosts today were miserable. I’m not expecting Disney cast-members here, but it was a nice quiet day and decent weather. I was making an effort to be friendly to be met with “mmm” for a grunt if I was lucky. The Lady on Octonauts was friendly though and Adam on the flatulent frog hopper was a delight. (If anyone knows who I’m talking about… he’s been working there for years right?)
  • Blimey they’re getting decent mileage from that frog hopper
  • There really is a ton of vinyl here…
  • Seeing generic photo folders for ORPs felt a bit crap. I don’t know when they did away with ride-specific ones.
  • I really appreciate the effort of hiding speakers throughout the park that play these epic IMAscore compositions, wonderful idea, however what I’m physically surrounded by is not epic, it’s tired. The result feels more jarring than I ever thought it could.
  • This one’s on me (ish) but I’ve always hated walking into CCL through the small archway to the left of HEX, turning left before realising “damn they blocked it off didn’t they?” followed by an about-turn to head over the bridge. Today was doubly annoying since we had a pram as I realised we had to walk all the way around. I know it’s my stupid Cred Street brain but I just can’t shake that habit.
  • Good grief this is a lot of vinyl!
A final note, the first thing my partner mentioned on the journey home was how dirty the place was. Considering we spent 90% of the day in kiddy areas, that’s even less acceptable imo and I’d guess we’re not the only ones to feel that way.

Our daughter had a great time though, I have to take off my TS specs for that.
 
Mi-Nigle said:
This one’s on me (ish) but I’ve always hated walking into CCL through the small archway to the left of HEX, turning left before realising “damn they blocked it off didn’t they?” followed by an about-turn to head over the bridge. Today was doubly annoying since we had a pram as I realised we had to walk all the way around. I know it’s my stupid Cred Street brain but I just can’t shake that habit.
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Don’t think you’ve been able to walk through that arch and not use the bridge since driving school opened and that was 18 years ago.
 
rob666 said:
Again my friend...citation required.
I have had rare enjoyable night rides on both, both were excellent, both deserve promoting.
All opinions are sacred, but don't think your opinions are the only ones.
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I mean Alton towers didn’t include them. Shows how much they value those rides
 
Ethan said:
I mean Alton towers didn’t include them. Shows how much they value those rides
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I don’t think it’s quite that deep. That list was likely just written by someone quickly to highlight the fact that you can ride in the dark, with a couple of examples given.

If they listed every ride you could ride in the dark exhaustively, we’d be reading the list all day!
 
Matt N said:
I don’t think it’s quite that deep. That list was likely just written by someone quickly to highlight the fact that you can ride in the dark, with a couple of examples given.

If they listed every ride you could ride in the dark exhaustively, we’d be reading the list all day!
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But that’s the point that they picked out certain rides. They named 4/7 big rides and chose not to bother listing the other 3
 
Ethan said:
But that’s the point that they picked out certain rides. They named 4/7 big rides and chose not to bother listing the other 3
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I don’t think it was necessarily a conscious decision not to include them. I’d wager that someone just reeled off a few of the big rides that they could think of as examples.

Also, it probably isn’t even “they” representing Alton Towers as an entire corporate entity. It’s most likely whichever employee was put in charge of updating the website. If someone different had done it, the list might be totally different.

I personally don’t think it’s that deep or anything to be overly analysed. It was likely just a few examples reeled off by one employee.

I think it’s similar to how I didn’t personally think them only listing the 4 rides to begin with didn’t mean that it was only those 4 rides open at night. My view is that it was simply a list reeling off a couple of examples.

Anyway, I’m surprised at the backlash toward some of the night closures. Haven’t the likes of the Rapids and CBeebies always closed at night? With the Rapids, I imagine it has something to do with poor visibility for the watching staff, and with CBeebies, most of its core demographic will be off the park long before 9pm.
 
Noticed that Thorpe have their scare mazes on the queue times on the app. Is there a reason why towers don’t do the same thing with their mazes? I don’t remember seeing queue times for the towers scare attractions
 
AT86 said:
The Rapids operated in the dark for many years. The Dreamworld and Drayton incidents seemed to put a stop to that a few years back.
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That’s interesting. I’d imagine the need for lots of staff watching around the ride following the Drayton incident may have put an end to dark rides on the Rapids, as I imagine that nighttime visibility is quite poor in parts of the circuit.

Back when it operated, I seem to remember hearing about them shutting The Flume at night for some reason, as well. Maybe it was for similar reasons?
 
Matt N said:
That’s interesting. I’d imagine the need for lots of staff watching around the ride following the Drayton incident may have put an end to dark rides on the Rapids, as I imagine that nighttime visibility is quite poor in parts of the circuit.

Back when it operated, I seem to remember hearing about them shutting The Flume at night for some reason, as well. Maybe it was for similar reasons?
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I believe the Flume operated before the Drayton Manor incident although that area where the Flume operated seemed very isolated so may be related to that.

I don't remember Loggers Leap or Tiger Rock closing at dusk?
 
It might be true that the Flume may have closed at dusk, in its later years maybe? But I have ridden it in the dark many times, and many more times with the Rapids. As night rides, these sometimes enhanced the experience more than coaster night rides. Coaster experiences are shorter and you spend less time looking at your environment whilst riding. Rapids and Flume night rides were great.

PhalanaxOperativeA1127 said:
One of Scarefests most iconic images (for me) is seeing the skeletons going round in the dark in some of the Rapids boats.

A little touch, but always added a little bit to the event.
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Particularly this. There used to be loads of nice little things like this that didn't make Scarefest feel like the Towers Street, lawns, and Scare Maze centric event that it is now. Before that ugly back stage looking footpath by the old AquaLand station was open regularly, you used to walk up into Katanga Canyon and see skeletons wearing hats and explorer gear riding around on the Rapids in their own boat. Queueing for Nemesis, the cage by the turnaround had a skeleton in it. Follow the smoke by Ug Land and you find yourself in an included scarezone with zombies crawling out of busses. Skeletons used to crawl up the fencing surrounding the Oblivion hole. Actors would jump out in Duel. Interesting roaming characters would go around the park, like a bloke dressed as Uncle Fester riding around on a mobile keyboard. The waterpark had back to back Halloween centred tracks playing. The hotels would have scare rooms, and mazes running until gone 11pm.

Now you pay an inflated entrance price just to look at Towers Street and catch a show on the lawns. Maybe a scarezone chucked in some years if you're lucky. Want more Scarefest atmosphere? Well let's see the colour of your money or that's your lot sunshine! Want night rides before the clocks go back? Well we're shutting the park at 8pm tonight just as it's getting dark, so clear off, you should have come later in the event so you can buy more of our fastracks to skip our 2 hour queues.
 
Not a full review but a few thoughts from my trip yesterday - a good, if unspectacular day on park. A couple of rides late opening but after that nothing went down all day. The staff cutbacks were noticeable, both in terms of baggage holds being closed and less station staff, making dispatches slower but as it was a quiet day this wasn’t hugely detrimental. Felt sorry for some of the staff, such as the man in the Nemesis station that had to both batch and check restraints, literally doing the job of two. There was also no roaming actors anywhere in the park.

If it makes these quiet days viable for the park then I don’t have a huge issue with it. Probably an element of encouraging permanent staff to take their leave so they’re fully available for the Scarefest season, and keeping everyone else at their bare minimum contract hours.

All coasters were on full ops though, with the exception of Galactica (I assume), didn’t go near it as it was consistently between half an hour to 45 minutes all day long.

Walliams World really does look a mess now though, ventured over that part of the park just for a sit down and a nose and there’s so much wasted potential up there - Burger Kitchen dead, Skyride closed, Dungeons closed and Walliams half-baked. Needs an extensive renovation over a number of years.
 
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