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Galactica: General Discussion

AT86 said:
It’s throughput is often half that of Nemesis. Queue length doesn’t necessarily equate to popularity.
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When Rita gets upto an hour queue quite often and nemesis only gets 10, I assure u that shows regardless to throughputs that rita is more popular
 
Ethan said:
When Rita gets upto an hour queue quite often and nemesis only gets 10, I assure u that shows regardless to throughputs that rita is more popular
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No it doesn't :p

Nemesis smashes Rita out of the park in terms of throughputs. When the Nemesis queue is full it's about 20 mins if they're running it well. The same length of queue for Rita would take 45 mins if you're lucky. Rita's reliability also doesn't help its queue.
 
MakoMania said:
No it doesn't :p

Nemesis smashes Rita out of the park in terms of throughputs. When the Nemesis queue is full it's about 20 mins if they're running it well. The same length of queue for Rita would take 45 mins if you're lucky. Rita's reliability also doesn't help its queue.
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And, in general, even if it did have a better throughput, that wouldn't automatically make it a better ride. It could just mean the park does a good job of marketing it to people, especially with the amount of fastpasses that include Rita.
 
To be fair to @Ethan, popularity for Nemesis certainly seems to be wavering among non-enthusiasts nowadays. I think I am the only person in my family who still has Nemesis as their favourite Alton Towers ride. Some of my family find it to either be too intense (my mum) or overhyped and somewhat rough (my sister). My dad still likes it, but I think he also ranks The Smiler higher. Rides like The Smiler and Wicker Man seem to capture my family's attention far more; my sister and my dad's favourite Alton ride is The Smiler, whereas my mum's is Wicker Man.

Anyway, on the topic of Galactica; while it is sad that the VR lasted such a short space of time, I definitely think that it was the right decision to remove it. Even though I initially liked it, I never personally thought that it was better than riding without, and my opinion of it was less positive when I rerode it with the VR. My VR-less ride in September 2018 was far more enjoyable for me than my rides with VR in July 2017 and April 2016. I've always liked the theming and aesthetics side of Galactica (the portal and the soundtrack in particular are stunning, in my opinion!), but the VR... not so much. Going away from my personal opinions on the VR, I don't think it was particularly reliable nor particularly popular (it says something when the resounding reaction of my family to the VR removal was "Thank god for that..."), so it probably wasn't worth Alton's trouble keeping on maintaining it. I don't think too many will miss Galactica's VR based on the majority opinion, and dare I say it; I think the VR was a bit of a flop for Alton.

On the positive side, at least the installation of VR gave us a nice refurbishment of Air and the addition of some theming! Merlin certainly didn't have to go to the effort of building the portal and changing the soundtrack!
 
Matt N said:
To be fair to @Ethan, popularity for Nemesis certainly seems to be wavering among non-enthusiasts nowadays. I think I am the only person in my family who still has Nemesis as their favourite Alton Towers ride. Some of my family find it to either be too intense (my mum) or overhyped and somewhat rough (my sister). My dad still likes it, but I think he also ranks The Smiler higher. Rides like The Smiler and Wicker Man seem to capture my family's attention far more; my sister and my dad's favourite Alton ride is The Smiler, whereas my mum's is Wicker Man.
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I totally agree that Nemesis isn't as popular among non-enthusiasts. I was discussing more that Rita is dwindling in popularity at this point, and that Nemesis is far more popular than Rita is.
 
ozcool24 said:
I totally agree that Nemesis isn't as popular among non-enthusiasts. I was discussing more that Rita is dwindling in popularity at this point, and that Nemesis is far more popular than Rita is.
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Oh yes, definitely. Rita seems even less popular among my family than Nemesis is...
 
Matt N said:
Oh yes, definitely. Rita seems even less popular among my family than Nemesis is...
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It's kinda a shame, it's one of the parks most unique rides in that it's a launched coaster and not a more standard chainlift. But it's just not particularly exciting and the first half is far too rough for me personally. Couple that with the pretty non-existent theming and it usually ends up ranking pretty low on most people's favourite lists. At this point i'd rather ride Th13teen than Rita.
 
Not sure but alAlt towers haven't officially announced the removal therefore the general public could be dissapointed to find no VR.
 
I don't think there's any problem with Nemesis popularity?
It doesn't get 3 hour queues anymore because there are now some 6 big coasters in the park as opposed to 2 or 3 in years past.
You could say it's not as popular among the public as it is with enthusiasts but that's only because enthusiasts put it on such a pedestal.

The one that has dropped in popularity the most seems to be Oblivion. Couple years back it would still get an hour queue, during the same time in the season now, even with less cars on the track, it gets like 15 mins! The Smiler has absorbed so much of the draw in that area.

Shows again that in the long term, a good all-round coaster always beats a gimmick. Although with Oblivion, it's a very good gimmick thanks to the tunnel.
 
TakeYourMedicine said:
The one that has dropped in popularity the most seems to be Oblivion. Couple years back it would still get an hour queue, during the same time in the season now, even with less cars on the track, it gets like 15 mins! The Smiler has absorbed so much of the draw in that area.

Shows again that in the long term, a good all-round coaster always beats a gimmick. Although with Oblivion, it's a very good gimmick thanks to the tunnel.
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I can vouch for this, actually. When I visited on Wicker Man's official opening day (24th March 2018), the only two rides I rode that evening were Oblivion and The Smiler. The Smiler we queued 70 minutes for, whereas Oblivion was practically walk-on the whole time we were in X-Sector. And that's not just down to throughput differences; there were noticeably more people in The Smiler's queue.
 
Rita has its place. It's not the worst ride in the world, I still quite enjoy it. Throughput is what it is and as for reliability, well the launch system is more complicated and prone to wear than LSM systems and the like.

Anyway, back to Galactica.
 
Matt N said:
I can vouch for this, actually. When I visited on Wicker Man's official opening day (24th March 2018), the only two rides I rode that evening were Oblivion and The Smiler. The Smiler we queued 70 minutes for, whereas Oblivion was practically walk-on the whole time we were in X-Sector. And that's not just down to throughput differences; there were noticeably more people in The Smiler's queue.
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Yeah, across my 30-40 visits to the park last year, I never saw Oblivion's queue drop any higher than 15 minutes. It's a shame, Oblivion is one of my personal favourites, I mean I'm wearing an Oblivion hoodie while typing this. But hey, shorter queues isn't something I'm gonna complain about, it's just a shame it doesn't make the future look all that bright for it.
 
MakoMania said:
I think Oblivion is safe for now, it''ll probably be an absolute nightmare to remove whenever it does happen :p
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Remove the coaster above ground, cut the rails and fill the tunnel with concrete? Shouldn't be too hard to remove unless for whatever reason they require the land to be dug down even further, in which case the tunnel can be excavated as part of the works and then the track removed.
 
^Doesn't the above ground track help support at least part of the track below ground? Talking specifically about the start of the pull out from the vertical drop. It just seems to me like it would be a very complicated and expensive undertaking. Not to mean that it couldn't be done though :)
 
I don't think Oblivion is going anywhere any time soon. The only major coaster I could see being removed in the near future is Rita.
 
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