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Duel: The Haunted House Actually Strikes Back - Refurb Incoming

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Curious to understand if the 'not in service' cars have anything wrong with the cars themselves, or if it's the blasters ?

Seems odd that they would run them around the track if the former was the case. Even if you don't have enough space to store them 'offline', they have the kit on side to remove them from the circuit all together.
 
During the Haunted house days a member of staff use to lift a flap up on the back of the seats and press a button and the car would speed up.
I know they can take them manually of the circuit as me and the misses were on it roughly 10 years ago and the ride stop and staff evaluated everyone off the ride. The car behind us something had broken off underneath the car so I guess maintenance took that car off the track and within the hour the ride was back up and running.
With the broken cars maybe it’s quicker to just keep them going round the circuit and remove them from the circuit at the end of the day so the ride ain’t closed for a while.
 
Rode Duel yesterday and used the new RAP ramp. Next season Towers MUST add a merge host at the front door, as given how long the main queue was (50 mins- it was coming out of the external queue line and stretching across the plaza), non-RAP guests could easily bypass it by using the ramp as there is no one to check RAP cards. The queue wasn't helped by groups being split across multiple cars. My group of 5 was split across three!
 
Skyscraper said:
Rode Duel yesterday and used the new RAP ramp. Next season Towers MUST add a merge host at the front door, as given how long the main queue was (50 mins- it was coming out of the external queue line and stretching across the plaza), non-RAP guests could easily bypass it by using the ramp as there is no one to check RAP cards. The queue wasn't helped by groups being split across multiple cars. My group of 5 was split across three!
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50 minutes... blimey. I'll make sure to do Duel first thing of the day tomorrow. Is it normally much quieter after 4?
 
Trooper Looper said:
50 minutes... blimey. I'll make sure to do Duel first thing of the day tomorrow. Is it normally much quieter after 4?
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Yeah it will get quieter in the early evening. Just checked the app and it's currently on 5 mins. :)
The official stated queue time (on the app) when I rode it yesterday was 25 mins, but an announcement warned guests at the very back of the queue that it was actually nearer 50. The sensor is probably somewhere along the indoor section on the queue line.
 
I’m calling it now. With the Adams Family getting a reboot and Merlin loving IPs I can see Duel getting a retheme with this attached.

Ride carts, track everything like that exactly the same just a physical overlay.

You heard it hear first! ;)
 
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Went on Duel for the first time in a while on Sunday and I now think it's unsalvageable. Whilst the indoor queue did need making accessible, they've done it in the most lazy, disappointing way, several sections of the ride are now empty where I'm sure there was effects before, many sound effects are out of sync with their props, no "are you scared of spiders?" which I'm sure isn't news to people but I wasn't aware of (plus didn't the spider use to move?), and lighting is absolutely awful and shows the mechanisms of so many of the props. Tear it down and start from scratch.
 
Heidi said:
Went on Duel for the first time in a while on Sunday and I now think it's unsalvageable. Whilst the indoor queue did need making accessible, they've done it in the most lazy, disappointing way, several sections of the ride are now empty where I'm sure there was effects before, many sound effects are out of sync with their props, no "are you scared of spiders?" which I'm sure isn't news to people but I wasn't aware of (plus didn't the spider use to move?), and lighting is absolutely awful and shows the mechanisms of so many of the props. Tear it down and start from scratch.
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Really? Because when I went yesterday I think it was in pretty good conditions. All of the props excluding 2 were working, even the screaming heads. I could hear the 'Are you scared of spiders quote' , the spider was moving for me, and my favorite thing about it this year is the addition of smoke machines in the garden scene and the zombie finale as it really gives it an atmosphere and you can finally see the laser beams from the zombies above. Also, I don't know if this is new but in the finale scene, 2 shutters open revealing a zombie, has that always been there?

The only downside is the Head statues light wasn't flickering and some of the blasters weren't working, along with the zombie right before the spider.
 
I don’t believe the large spider has ever moved, but it goes to show how bad the lighting is. Years ago that section would be pitch black with strobes lighting up the spider perfectly so that it appeared to be getting closer to your car.

Nowadays the appalling state of the lighting illuminates the entire spider, all the supports and even the warehouse itself. It’s an entirely different experience caused by a ham-fisted and amateurish implementation of the lighting. Not what one should expect from a supposedly world class theme park operator.
 
I took someone who was not an enthusiast a few weeks ago. His reaction was to laugh at how bad it is. The visible mechanisms where the main criticism, he found the fact that some of the effects such as the bats and screaming heads were clearly designed for darkness quite comical now that you can see the walls and the mechanisms. He also found the zombies swinging out on sticks so bad that they ended up being hilarious and questioned why the end scene was designed in such a way that it actually encourages guests to look up at the warehouse roof. Is Duel starting to become so bad it's good?
 
Trooper Looper said:
Really? Because when I went yesterday I think it was in pretty good conditions. All of the props excluding 2 were working, even the screaming heads.
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I had a similar experience too, where surprisingly -almost- everything at least moved a little. Even the disco balls on the trommel face (the actual tunnel is a write off). There was even heat being blasted off during the finale. Doesn't really add to much however, as @Matt.GC says, the way in which the lighting reveals the mechanisms, it's such a joke. It compliments certain scenes quite well, and completely ruins others, the skeleton corridor is begging to be put out of its' misery!
 
Having watched a few videos of the Haunted House, as well as of course ridden Duel in its current state, I think Duel is quite an interesting case study of how much difference lighting can make to a dark ride.

Here is the POV I could find that I feel is most reflective of Duel as it is now:

By comparison, take a look at this 90s POV of the Haunted House:


What’s interesting to note is that I actually don’t think the ride is that inherently different in the new video to how it is in the old video, but I think it looks very different in terms of the type of experience created, and that is almost entirely down to the lighting (admittedly the additional zombies might help). The Haunted House feels more ambient and eerie, with an element of suspense about it, while Duel feels like more of a fast-paced overload, with a much brighter feel and more rapid pace. Rightly or wrongly, I think the current lighting does remove an element of ambience from the ride, although I’m admittedly unsure if such an ambience would necessarily be what an interactive ride like Duel would be seeking.

Out of interest, when did the lighting get brighter? Even in 2014, I remember it being notably darker than it is now.
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, when did the lighting get brighter? Even in 2014, I remember it being notably darker than it is now.
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In the 2018 refurbishment they removed most of the 2003 lighting in favor of the UV lighting. Hopefully this lighting won't last much longer as I spoke to an operator on the ride, i asked if anything might happen next year for its 30th anniversary. He said couldn't say much as in, 'keeping it a secret'. He's been operating there ever since the 90s and even he agrees that the UV lights suck. Lovely guy to talk to though. Found another thing interesting, he knows Michael P Elay in person and says he's the Biggest HH fan out there and almost goes to the park every week. Now that's dedication for a fan.
 
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Matt N said:
Having watched a few videos of the Haunted House, as well as of course ridden Duel in its current state, I think Duel is quite an interesting case study of how much difference lighting can make to a dark ride.

Here is the POV I could find that I feel is most reflective of Duel as it is now:

By comparison, take a look at this 90s POV of the Haunted House:


What’s interesting to note is that I actually don’t think the ride is that inherently different in the new video to how it is in the old video, but I think it looks very different in terms of the type of experience created, and that is almost entirely down to the lighting (admittedly the additional zombies might help). The Haunted House feels more ambient and eerie, with an element of suspense about it, while Duel feels like more of a fast-paced overload, with a much brighter feel and more rapid pace. Rightly or wrongly, I think the current lighting does remove an element of ambience from the ride, although I’m admittedly unsure if such an ambience would necessarily be what an interactive ride like Duel would be seeking.

Out of interest, when did the lighting get brighter? Even in 2014, I remember it being notably darker than it is now.
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Duel didn’t really alter much of the themeing of the original Haunted House save for the zombie ending. That’ll be why it doesn’t look too much different save for the lighting.
 
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