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Sonic Spinball - 2014 and Beyond

J

Jake...

TS Member
Hey everyone,

created this topic to see everyone's thoughts on the future of Sonic Spinball. The SEGA campaign will soon run out so what will happen?
I do recall in the past hearing rumors that a new area will be located in Adventure Land and Storybook Land. However if relocated on park where? If re themed what to? Or maybe relocated to another Merlin park or another park..
 
Re: The Future Of Sonic Spinball

As I keep on saying, for 2014 Spinball may be given a new theme if one of the new products is a Adventure and Storybook Land merge. But knowing Towers, we'll just see Spinball Whizzer return. I don't see the SEGA contract being renewed due to SEGA having their own theme park I think the 3 year ploy has worked and it doesn't need to be there for financial benefit for too long.

And I agree, the future topics shouldn't be back! If we do need to have them, why not sort them out in groups like all of Adventure Land in one topic?
 
I see the anti-"The Future of" brigade are back out in action. ;)

I've changed the topic title to fit in a bit more with the future of Sonic, as at the end of 2013 the contract with SEGA is believed to end that year.
 
I think the contract will be extended or the ride will be re-themed and given a bit of TLC. Im pretty sure they wont get rid of it for some time yet as it still works fine and it still has one of the biggest queue's on the park. I find that it normally has a bigger queue than the likes of Nemesis and Oblivion.
 
My personal thoughts on spinball is that when sega's contract ends in 2013, Alton Towers will move it to a different area of the part.

I hope that they move it to the Dark Forest, repaint it, add some trees. ;)
 
CoasterCrazyChris said:
It won't ever be moved. It's as simple as that.
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If Alton Towers removed Corkscrew then I'm certain that they will remove Sonic Spinball at some point as well. At the moment, a retheme (once the Sega sponsorship runs out) would be enough, just as long as the paint scheme makes it blend in a little more and there actually is more theming.

I wouldn't mind seeing it get replaced with a Vekoma Junior or Mack YoungSTAR, but Alton actually have the space for the two coasters in that area anyway, so I'll ask for both. :p
 
CoasterCrazyChris said:
It won't ever be moved. It's as simple as that.
Click to expand...

Im pretty sure i read on the future development plan that they have possible location to relocate spinball in the future! Personally i dont think it will happen but im pretty sure it has or is being considered for the future.
 
In order to get the ride to fit in better then surely a retheme into something based around trees is the only thing to work?
 
Spark said:
In order to get the ride to fit in better then surely a retheme into something based around trees is the only thing to work?
Click to expand...
I can't see why not. They could expand Storybook Land if they added Adventure Land to it. The area would then have Squirrel Nutty, Sonic Spinball (or whatever it could be after the sponsorship), a small play area, a food outlet (that's soon to close anyway :( ) and the Beastie site and the ice show site for future development. Storybook Land has a lot of potential and I think it's a really great little area for kids. I used to love it when I was little and I see no reason why it can't continue to be loved by kids today.

:)
 
I think they should rename the woodcutters restaurant to something else and use the these for spinball, would make great sense theme wise that the cars are blades cutting trees etc
 
Late (and probably pointless) response to the post above: Could they even afford it? :p


Right, on to why I'm bringing this topic back up after it hasn't been posted in for a year and a day! :p I've just spotted something quite interesting on Screamscape's Lagoon page:

2014 - Spider 2.0 - Rumor - (2/25/13) An interesting rumor has come by way regarding the fate of Spider, the park’s Maurer Spinning Coaster. According to a source the park may be looking at replacing Spider with a newer, slightly bigger spinning coaster model from Maurer sometime between 2014 - 2016.
I know Spider is a Maurer Xtended SC2000 model and Maurer also offers an Xtended SC2200 and Xtended SC3000 model. The later of which is a lot longer and taller than Spider while the SC2200 model just 5 feet taller and slightly longer. The really interesting thing about the SC2200 model however is that according to RCDB, only ONE version was ever built, Sonic Spinball, which currently stands at Alton Towers in the UK. Strangely enough, it was reported just about 3 months ago that Alton Towers was planning on removing Sonic Spinball sometime in the next five years. I’ve got to wonder if these two rumors are linked, and could also be the reason why the rumors about the timeline of Lagoon’s next custom “Mega Coaster” project are not locked down yet. Speaking of which, scroll down to get an update on that project.
Click to expand...

Sounds unlikely but I thought I'd share it on here to see what everyone else thinks.

:)
 
To be honest I don't know why there is so much negativity surrounding Sonic Spinball. I think it is a really good ride and seems to be really popular with guests, unless that's just it's horrendous throughout making it appear popular.

It would be nice for it to be enclosed, even if only partially enclosed. It could do with a retheme, I'm not a fan of its garish colour scheme.
 
I think people complain for numerous reasons:

  • It's ugly and sticks out like a sore thumb (especially unappreciated as it detracts from the view of the Towers from Towers Street)
  • Nine out of ten rides are boring as hell (a rubbish layout doesn't really help)
  • It's themeless (and in a theme park, you kind of expect theming with larger attractions at the very least)
  • The ride quality isn't too good and there's a good few sections of track which are really bumpy now (the most notable kink being the one on the big drop which leads into the horseshoe turn)
  • The poor throughput creates huge queues and the frequent breakdowns don't help much either
  • Something much better could fit in its place (and it wouldn't be difficult to beat it either)


Have I missed anything? :p
 
I'll give Spinball some love then shall I. :p

The theme is dire and the constantly packed queue line offputting, but I actually still really enjoy the ride and find it quite pleasing on the eyes!
 
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